Monday, July 24, 2023

Today's Bee Letter: Responding to Sacramento County DA's approach to homelessness

7/24/23 "Sacramento's DA on why he's pressing the city on homelessness."

After reciting a litany of offenses committed by Sacramento’s homeless, County District Attorney Thien Ho writes "Past approaches have failed." That's why he's promising a "new, improved" approach of doing exactly the same thing to the homeless -- hassling them with police and prosecuting them.

Meanwhile, Finland has effectively ended homeless. How? By providing them with homes.

Studies validate Finland's approach as both cheaper and more humane than prosecution and incarceration. Recent studies of the unhoused in the U.S. point to rising rents, not mental illness, as the primary driver of people sleeping rough.

Meanwhile, San Francisco has five times more empty houses than its homeless population, and the U.S. as a whole has more empty homes than homeless.

Ho is pandering to an angry, vengeful public, but does nothing to end the problem.
 

See: https://youtu.be/kbEavDqA8iE for the Finnish solution.

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