Supervisor Rodriguez Promises a New...er, make that the Same Old Chapter

(c) by Mark Dempsey

Sacramento's newest Supervisor, Rosario Rodriguez has sent her inaugural newsletter, which promises a "new chapter" for the County. Yet she proposes more of the same to handle the County's problems. Does she expect a different outcome?

Her number one priority: Homelessness.

"The current situation is unacceptable. We need a comprehensive approach that not only addresses the immediate effects on our community but also provides meaningful services to help individuals break free from the cycle of homelessness."

Ms. Rodriguez adds she wants to address "substance abuse and mental health issues" but recent surveys of homelessness disclose that those are not its primary causes. It exists because rents have been rising faster than incomes. Forty percent of homeless people are employed, they just can't afford rent. Ms. Rodriguez is silent, incidentally, about the decades-ago closures of federal and state asylums, tossing the mentally ill out on the street.

Mental illness and addiction often occur after losing shelter, too. One homeless advocate describes homelessness as a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder. Countries who solve homelessness--Finland gave its homeless places to live--report improved health when people have dependable housing.

In fairness to the County, Richard Nixon stopped the federal government from building affordable housing in the '70s, and Ronald Reagan cut HUD's affordable housing budget by 75%, as his administration was cutting taxes on the wealthy roughly in half. The crisis in homelessness has been brewing for decades.

Ms. Rodriguez does not mention economic issues like rent control, increasing funding for safety nets, or even building new housing. She wants "partnering with nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and local governments to create innovative solutions." But what's "innovative" about more of the same?

Incidentally, building more houses is not necessary. There are more vacant homes than homeless throughout the nation. The US is not short of resources to address this problem.

Ms. Rodriguez' second priority ("Fighting Crime and Keeping Our Communities Safe") proposes an equally dismal more-of-the-same solution: "I will support our District Attorney and Sheriff in cracking down on crime and holding offenders accountable..." 

While US population increased 42% (1982 - 2017) spending on "cracking down" (policing) increased 187%. The US is the world champion at putting people in cages, too. With five percent of the world's population, it has twenty-five percent of its prisoners.

Hollywood may tell us that police or courts always solve the crimes, but the reality is something different: Says governing.com: "The [California] statewide clearance rate for crimes was just 13.2 percent in 2022, according to a new report. The rate for poverty crimes was only 7.2 percent. Despite receiving billions of dollars in funding — including more than $25 billion in 2022 — California police are solving few crimes."

So, despite generous funding, police are terrible at solving crimes, no matter what Hollywood myths tell us. That means putting people in cages--holding them "accountable"--at five times the world's per-capita average doesn't prevent crime. 

 

The US per-capita incarceration rate is seven times the Canadian and French incarceration rates, and they have lower crime rates. What they don't have is the more than half a million medical bankruptcies that occur in the US. Could making people financially desperate create more criminals? Gosh, I wonder! Either way, incarceration is both expensive--70% of the County's budget is for "justice-related" matters--and ineffective.

There are plenty of studies (like this one) that demonstrate better social safety nets are cheaper and more effective at preventing crime. We’ll see whether Ms. Rodriguez "shows us the money," or continues to demonize homelessness, poverty and the crime it generates, but her initial statements are anything but hopeful that we'll have anything like a "new chapter."

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The author has worked on a  County Community Planning Advisory Council, and is a student of politics generally.