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Newsom Threatens to Defund California Counties That Don't Clear Homeless Encampments
"Gavin Newsom using a Republican Supreme Court's cruel decision in order to pivot to anti-homeless demagogue is shameful and sleazy," said one critic.
Aug 09, 2024
After personally participating in the forced displacement of homeless people in a Los Angeles encampment, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday threatened to withhold funding from counties that don't sufficiently crack down on the unhoused.
Buoyed by the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court's recent City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson ruling—which was welcomed by Newsom and other Democratic leaders like San Francisco Mayor London Breed who filed amicus briefs in the case—the governor issued an executive order last month directing officials to clear out homeless encampments, which have proliferated amid rampant economic inequality and stratospheric housing prices in the nation's most populous state.
After taking part in a Thursday sweep of an encampment in Mission Hills in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, Newsom declared: "I want to see results... If we don't see demonstrable results, I'll start to redirect money."
Newsom praised leaders like Breed and Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for reducing the number of people sleeping on their cities' streets and directed his ire mostly toward county governments.
"This is a sincerely held belief that we need local government to step up," the governor added. "This is a crisis. Act like it."
Newsom has made—and followed through on—similar promises in the past. Last month, his office redirected a $10 million grant for San Diego County to buy so-called "tiny homes" for the unhoused because officials there "could not move with the urgency the housing and homelessness crisis demands."
University of California, Los Angeles sociology professor and homelessness expert Chris Herring toldThe Guardian following Newsom's executive order that the directive is "giving a green light to a harsher approach" to tackling California's unhoused crisis, which critics say criminalizes people for being poor.
"It sends a clear message to municipalities that even if you do not have shelter available, you can go through with this," Herring said. "The law now allows cities and counties to cite and incarcerate individuals for sleeping outside."
In San Francisco—where Breed, a moderate Democrat, is up for reelection in November—police have begun aggressively sweeping homeless encampments. Unhoused residents are given a choice between capacity-challenged shelters, where they're often separated from family and pets and subjected to dangerous conditions, or jail.
This, in a city that's
short several thousand shelter beds.
Some San Franciscans who initially supported police sweeps have recoiled when faced with what one small business owner called the "inhumane" reality of the policy.
As The San Francisco Standard's Christin Evans reported this week:
One woman described to me having her wallet—containing her ID, debit, and EBT cards—pulled from her hand as a police officer proceeded to "taunt" her with possible arrest. Why? Because she declined to accept a bed at a crowded shelter where she would be separated from her husband. A day later, police officers arrived at the site where the couple had relocated a few blocks away and issued a citation for illegal lodging. Now, the couple have a court date to address a "crime" that is punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail.
Experts from across the political spectrum have asserted that homeless sweeps don't work. A study of Los Angeles' homeless population published in July by the Rand Corporation, a Santa Monica-based think tank, found that cleared encampments generally return after a month or two.
"We found continuing evidence that local encampment cleanup activities don't appear to lead to a persistent reduction in the number of unsheltered residents in the area," study co-author Jason Ward said during a video conference, according to an article published last week by The American Prospect. "They just tend to move them around and the numbers tend to return in our relatively small area to previous trends pretty quickly."
"Homelessness is dangerous, humiliating, and traumatic. Nobody needs to be reminded of these truths," article author Nicholas Slayton wrote. "If Gavin Newson wants to fix the problem, he could work to get more housing built, especially affordable units—by, for instance, signing rather than vetoing a social housing bill."
"But if he wants to sweep the problem under the rug so as to pretend like he's doing something useful while actually making the problem worse, he could continue on his present course," he added.
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Landlord Greed and the Cruel Barbarism of a Housing Lottery for Children
The housing affordability crisis is a moral outrage of the highest order. So why does Los Angeles leave kids and adults to suffer?
Jun 14, 2024
For California’s homeless population, it is a multi-generational affair. After decades of inaction and utter indifference, there are now hundreds of homeless children on the streets of Los Angeles.
Dozens of children on Skid Row make the trek to school, making their way past tents, tarp shelters, discarded needles, and human waste. Some are lucky, finding a school bus to avoid the chaos. Others, not so much.
Once again, I ask, when is enough, enough? In a city with a school district that has 1,300 buses, there are homeless kids trekking past needles and feces to reach their classroom. In one of the world’s richest cities, there is poverty unseen anywhere else.
One of America's most famous short stories is “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. It is the story of a fictional small town in which the whole community prepares for the annual harvest ritual by holding a random lottery to choose a special person. That one "lucky" person—it later is revealed—is to be stoned to death. When this story was first published in The New Yorker, it was met with outrage.
What is the point of such a barbaric story? It forces us to contemplate why we follow meaningless traditions.
Instead of stoning a single person, we subject tens of thousands of people—children included—to the savagery of homelessness.
California has adopted such a barbaric tradition. Instead of stoning a single person, we subject tens of thousands of people—children included—to the savagery of homelessness, knowing full well it will lead them to addiction, mental illness, and death. We may not literally be throwing the stones, but we nevertheless are exacting the punishment. We tolerate the status quo which perpetuates the tragedy.
The idea of a life-and-death lottery is more than a metaphor. Federal housing vouchers actually are distributed through a lottery system that amounts to a game of musical chairs. Not only are few eligible for these vouchers, but very often, they cannot find a landlord who will take them. The music stops, and they are homeless.
Bad things happen to good people, and good people allow bad things to happen to others. We didn't invent the lottery. Therefore, it isn't our responsibility to fix it—because it isn't happening to us, until it is. When we look back in history and wonder how people could have tolerated terrible things that were done in their name, remember we are witnesses in real time to the mass tragedy of a crippling affordable housing crisis. Mostly, we throw up our hands and think that we are powerless to change it. We are not.
Collectively, we are that quaint town that allows the tradition of stoning to continue.
The housing affordability crisis is a moral outrage of the highest order. None of our leaders who preside over it without fundamentally addressing it deserve to be re-elected. Collectively, we are that quaint town that allows the tradition of stoning to continue.
But there is a difference here. We are not equally culpable. There is a tiny group of multi-billionaires who actually profit spectacularly off the lottery. Stephen Schwarzman—the king of the real estate oligarchs—is worth nearly $40 billion, made from milking tenants. The California Apartment Association amounts to a corporate real estate cartel dedicated to squeezing the last drop of blood from the stone that is the tenant community. Then there are their handmaidens in Sacramento who enable them.
We need an entirely new vision for California that not only restores the California dream, but transforms it for future generations. It is easy to get spoiled when you live in such a land of milk and honey. LA’s physical splendor and gorgeous weather can lull us into a false sense of privilege.
We need an entirely new vision for California that not only restores the California dream, but transforms it for future generations.
A state that boasts 179 billionaires, California is the cultural capital of the world and the birthplace of many of the largest technology companies on the planet. We have no excuse for being so dysfunctional. However, when you have so much, you feel like you can afford to waste—or you just don’t pay attention.
People are fleeing California in droves because they can’t afford to live here. Even if they can afford their rent, the prospect of never owning a home or saving meaningfully is so discouraging that it is easier to flee.
That’s how the doom loop begins to accelerate out of control. Californians are crying for help, and some are barely toddlers.
We don't have to cede our state to a greedy landlord cartel. The time for rent control, tenant protections, and dignified public housing is now—if the people answer the cries for a new California.
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Palestine Allies Stage Global 'Economic Blockade' of Gaza Genocide
Organizer A15Action said the worldwide demonstrations targeted "the global economy for its complicity in Israel's ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people."
Apr 15, 2024
Pro-Palestine activists around the world on Monday executed a day of direct action protests aimed at "blocking the arteries of capitalism and jamming the wheels of production" amid Israel's ongoing genocidal assault on Palestinians in Gaza.
Asserting the need to "shift from symbolic actions to those that cause pain to the economy," organizer A15Action vowed ahead of Monday's demonstrations that "together we will coordinate to disrupt and blockade economic logistical hubs and the flow of capital."
Protesters taking part in the worldwide "economic blockade" flooded the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City in an afternoon action, while at least hundreds of people marched through downtown Los Angeles demanding a cease-fire in Gaza and no war against Iran.
In downtown Los Angeles several hundred people marching in a Pro-Palestinian protest, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/BoBhFWWKat
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) April 15, 2024
Earlier in the day in the San Francisco Bay Area, thousands of protesters blocked the iconic Golden Gate Bridge and two key East Bay highways—I-880 and I-980—from morning rush hour into the early afternoon. Protesters locked themselves and their vehicles together, complicating law enforcement efforts to disperse them and clear traffic lanes. They unfurled a banner reading "Stop the World for Gaza" across all three southbound lanes of the Golden Gate Bridge. The California Highway Patrol said 15 people had been arrested by 11:30 am local time.
"In halting traffic along this route we seek to stop the movement of millions of dollars in daily capital flow, much of which, headed to and from the Port of Oakland, the Oakland Airport, and the nearby rail yards directly and indirectly supports the ongoing genocide in Gaza," A15Action explained on Facebook.
Both directions of the Golden Gate Bridge have been shut down due to a Pro-Palestinian protest. Demonstrators have blocked the southbound direction of Highway 101. This is the second protest causing major back-ups on Bay Area roadways, the demonstration has blocked northbound… pic.twitter.com/oO5dMCvqFD
— ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) April 15, 2024
"Global capital is complicit in the war crimes occurring daily against Palestinians, and it also hurts us here at home," the organizers continued. "Increased cases of respiratory ailments and cancer are but some of the signs of this uneven devastation at home in Oakland."
"The genocide in Gaza is the horrible cost visited upon our comrades and brothers and sisters abroad," the group added. "We are shutting down 880 to disrupt the global flow of capital that causes so much destruction across the world. We are shutting down 880 in support of a liberated Palestine."
In Middletown, Connecticut, at least 10 people were arrested after dozens of demonstrators blockaded a road leading to Pratt & Whitney, which manufactures engines used in Israeli warplanes. The company is also a subsidiary of military-industrial complex giant RTX—formerly known as Raytheon—several of whose facilities have been previously targeted by protesters since last October.
The Middletown protesters—who said they weren't from any group but were acting in solidarity with A15Action—said Pratt & Whitney is "complicit in the arming of the Israeli military."
The activists demanded that the company—whose stock price has soared by nearly 50% since October—end exports to Israel "and begin the transition to a peace-based economy where the engines will not enable war and genocide."
(1/3) More than 50 protestors from NYC & CT shut down Pratt & Whitney Factory in Middletown, Connecticut demanding it halt its profiting from ongoing genocide in Gaza; Israel has been using planes powered by Pratt & Whitney’s engines to drop bombs on Gaza.
Demonstrators are… pic.twitter.com/SUJC3SkppN
— @TheIndypendent (@TheIndypendent) April 15, 2024
A15Action and allied actions shut down highways in Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Illinois—where 40 people were reportedly arrested after blocking the I-190 entrance to Chicago O'Hare International Airport.
"On this Tax Day, when millions are paying taxes which fund the ongoing U.S. and Israeli bombardment of Gaza, protestors seek to take dramatic action, alongside other A15Action organizers worldwide," Chicago Dissenters wrote on Instagram.
Arms giant Lockheed Martin's office in Arlington, Virginia was occupied by activists who locked themselves together while chanting "fund care, not killing."
Activists shut down the arms factory Lockheed Martin in Arlington, VA to protest its complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza by providing Israel with weapons.https://t.co/g4Lafxgrjk pic.twitter.com/IM3FqKsqdY
— Kuffiya (@Kuffiyateam) April 15, 2024
Boeing's St. Charles, Missouri facility—which demonstrators said "produces missiles and bombs sent directly to Israel"—was also targeted in a pre-dawn protest that ended with the arrest of seven activists, who are likely to face unlawful assembly and trespassing charges.
Protesters chanting "free, free Palestine" and "from the river to the sea" blockaded the Port of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. Similar chants were heard during a shutdown of Piraeus Port in Athens, Greece.
BREAKING: Anti-Israel protesters are blockading Deltaport in the Port of Vancouver.
This is part of a global campaign by the far-left activists who say: "No business as usual during a genocide".
They ask dock workers to join in.https://t.co/kddQK47rmL pic.twitter.com/l1ciRyhW1Q
— Efrain Flores Monsanto 🇨🇦🚛 (@realmonsanto) April 15, 2024
There were actions in cities including Barcelona, Spain; Dublin, Ireland; Utrecht, Netherlands; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and Adelaide, Australia, where Foreign Minister Penny Wong's office was the stage for an occupation and "die-in."
Demonstrations also took place targeting the Australian ports of Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne.
"As states founded on colonization and violent dispossession, so-called Australia has much in common with so-called Israel," A15Action wrote on Facebook. "The call for 'Land Back, Liberation, End Colonial Occupation' has been a consistent one since October."
"Building on a decadeslong movement for a free Palestine, and staunch Aboriginal resistance by the First Peoples of this continent, activists continue to protest at arms manufacturers that contribute essential F-35 fighter jet components to the global supply chain, complicit seats of government, universities funded by weapons dealers, and at Zionist-funded sporting and arts events," the group added.
"Land and sea blockades of the ports of Melbourne and Botany have caused major disruption to business as usual during the genocide," A15Action added. "Long live the Intifada!"
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