SAN FRANCISCO — Andrew Douglass shoved his garments and belongings into plastic trash baggage as 5 law enforcement officials surrounded his encampment — a colorless grey tent overflowing alongside a bustling sidewalk within the gritty Tenderloin neighborhood, the place homeless individuals lie sprawled on public sidewalks, generally in drug overdoses.
Officers gave him a selection: Go to a shelter or get arrested and cited for sleeping exterior.
Douglass was making an attempt to determine what to do as he dismantled his tent. If he accepted momentary shelter, he’d danger lacking an essential appointment together with his avenue medication case supervisor, who was because of meet him at his tent within the morning to assist him safe a low-income housing unit with wraparound providers — and he nervous about shedding his drugs, ID, and different important paperwork once more in one other homeless sweep.
Douglass, who didn’t have a working cellphone, knew if he moved from the place he’d slept for months, his case supervisor may not have the ability to discover him. “I’m so close to getting housing. I need to be here tomorrow morning so I can try and get inside,” he mentioned, making an attempt to purpose with officers as he was handcuffed and arrested for unlawful lodging.
California, the epicenter of the U.S. homelessness disaster, is cracking down on individuals residing exterior like by no means earlier than, taking an aggressive new stance to dismantling and clearing homeless encampments within the wake of a watershed U.S. Supreme Court docket ruling in late June that makes it simpler for presidency businesses to high quality and arrest individuals for residing on streets and sidewalks, in broken-down automobiles, or inside public parks — even when there isn’t a shelter or housing out there. From San Francisco to Los Angeles, communities are launching cleanup operations, ratcheting up enforcement of present anticamping legal guidelines, and, in some locations, passing new legal guidelines to attempt to stop individuals from residing open air.
On the bottom, well being care consultants and homeless service suppliers say the legislation enforcement crackdown is undercutting taxpayer investments in evidence-based remedy and housing providers which are being deployed by cities and states across the nation as politicians look to the well being care system to aggressively transfer individuals off the streets.
The sweeps — which have taken off beneath Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who issued an government order in late July requiring state businesses to take away encampments and inspiring native governments to do the identical — have unleashed chaos for homeless individuals and are breaking essential connections with well being care suppliers, social service businesses, and housing navigators making an attempt to assist them get wholesome and off the streets.
Newsom’s hard-line stance is undermining his signature Medicaid initiative, often known as CalAIM, which dedicates $12 billion over 5 years partly to serving to homeless individuals obtain well being care, housing, and social providers. The experimental program, meant to stabilize essentially the most weak and hold low-income sufferers out of expensive institutional care in hospitals, jails, and nursing properties, as an example, launched in early 2022 with backing from the Biden administration, and gives state and nationwide well being care funding to avenue medication groups, hospitals, medical health insurance firms, group clinics, and different organizations to serve homeless individuals.
It comes as Newsom introduced this month that his well being secretary, Mark Ghaly, who has spearheaded the state’s infusion of social providers for homeless individuals into the well being care system, can be stepping down.
Encampment clearings are additionally upheaving long-standing federal well being insurance policies that present billions of {dollars} every year to avenue medication suppliers, case administration groups, and front-line group clinic staff, together with by means of the nationwide “Health Care for the Homeless” program, which can be aimed toward serving to homeless individuals get wholesome and navigate a path to everlasting housing.
Newsom has been emphatic that streets will not be a house and that it’s unsafe to let individuals reside exterior amid public well being hazards like rats, drug needles, and piles of trash. The second-term governor, who has threatened to withhold homelessness funding from communities that fail to point out sufficient progress, argues that his insurance policies are serving to get individuals long-term housing and providers.
“There are simply no more excuses,” Newsom mentioned in July.
Well being care suppliers and homelessness consultants say the result’s a slow-moving well being care disaster instigated by the very Democratic politicians touting the necessity for care and providers round California, dwelling to extra homeless individuals than every other state within the nation.
No place goes as arduous as San Francisco, a fiercely liberal metropolis that has lengthy embraced its repute as a spot the place homeless individuals might discover refuge and strong providers.
Now, case managers, housing navigators, and avenue medication groups say weak individuals are rising sicker amid the crackdown and that a lot of their sufferers have merely disappeared. Others have misplaced drugs and important paperwork like delivery certificates and Social Safety playing cards, setting again efforts to stabilize individuals with housing, psychological well being providers, and dependancy remedy. Entrance-line suppliers right here say town has grow to be a obvious instance of homelessness coverage gone fallacious.
“All the sweeps and arrests are doing is moving people to the next sidewalk and disrupting their continuity of care. It’s a huge waste of resources,” mentioned Shannon Heuklom, a major care supplier and an knowledgeable in avenue medication for the San Francisco Group Well being Heart, with a clinic nestled within the coronary heart of the Tenderloin.
“Some portion of folks may end up in a shelter, but for the most part the city is just moving them all around and making them more unwell, making their mental health worse, making their physical health worse,” she mentioned.
Disrupted Care
Within the Tenderloin, Douglass was frantic. Police informed him and his spouse, Jasmine Byron, and one other associate, Christina Richardson, that they might keep away from arrest in the event that they went into a large congregate shelter. However they’d must sacrifice most of their stuff, taking simply two baggage every. They’d already misplaced lifesaving drugs, together with for epilepsy, in a earlier camp clearing. And Douglass had lastly changed his ID and bronchial asthma medicine; he didn’t need extra stuff thrown away amid the chaos.
On this early August morning, Douglass opted to stick with his belongings. The trio are a part of about 70 homeless arrests in San Francisco for the reason that metropolis’s mayor, London Breed, ratcheted up cleanup operations at first of August following the Supreme Court docket’s choice in late June, in keeping with San Francisco Police Division spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky.
“We’re here to enforce the law,” mentioned Lt. Wayman Younger, one of many 5 officers. “We get a lot of complaints: People can’t use the sidewalk; there’s a lot of garbage.”
Because the three had been separated and cuffed, a girl driving by caught her arms out her window and clapped, cheering the sidewalk arrest and yelled “Thank you!” A passerby in a wheelchair averted the tense standoff by rolling right into a site visitors lane, dodging automobiles as he seemed for a vacant part of sidewalk to make use of.
Douglass missed his housing appointment the morning after his arrest, confirmed his avenue medication case supervisor, Justin Jackson from the San Francisco Group Well being Heart. Amid his tossed belongings had been his ID card, which is required to get into housing, so he was again in line on the clinic the following day filling out a Division of Motor Automobiles voucher kind to exchange it free of charge.
As a result of Douglass is homeless and on Medi-Cal, California’s model of Medicaid, he’s eligible for CalAIM providers that help homeless sufferers with discovering a everlasting place to reside, in addition to serving to to cowl safety deposits and utility payments. CalAIM additionally provides eviction prevention assist, and subsequent yr California is anticipated so as to add a brand new Medi-Cal profit offering as much as six months of free hire or momentary housing.
However together with his paperwork thrown away, his eligibility for housing was delayed.
Entrance-line staff are actually spending immense time and sources serving to individuals substitute valuables like drugs, Social Safety playing cards, and delivery certificates misplaced because of sweeps. They discover sufferers are skipping routine well being care and spot an uptick in drug use, anxiousness, and melancholy.
“This is just making homelessness worse,” mentioned Evelyn Peña, a CalAIM care supervisor on the Mission Neighborhood Well being Heart in San Francisco.
Taylor Cuffaro, a nurse practitioner and avenue medication supplier with the San Francisco Group Well being Heart, trudged the streets of the Tenderloin with Eli Benway, a licensed medical social employee who gives discuss remedy and different behavioral well being remedy on the road, looking for sufferers on a vivid August afternoon.
Some wanted assist managing power ailments and psychological well being situations. Others had been due for antipsychotic injectables that last more than capsule drugs. Some wanted refills of HIV drugs.
“Health insurance companies aren’t just going to give you more medication,” Cuffaro mentioned. “That’s not how it works, so people really are at risk of dying faster.”
A part of what’s being squandered is belief, which is significant for getting individuals off the streets. “These sweeps are just making our job impossible,” Cuffaro mentioned, looking out unsuccessfully for a affected person in an alley.
Politics of Homelessness
The statewide crackdown is enjoying out regardless of a rising physique of proof exhibiting that offering strong well being care, together with social providers and intensive case administration, can successfully transfer homeless individuals off the streets and enhance well being, whereas additionally saving taxpayer and well being care spending on expensive institutional care.
Democrats are embracing a get-tough strategy as public endurance wears skinny over the intractable disaster. Newsom’s stance is just not completely new: Throughout his tenure as San Francisco mayor, from 2004 to 2011, he spearheaded controversial homelessness concepts, together with an ordinance often known as sit/lie, which made it unlawful to take a seat or lie on public sidewalks.
Newsom and native leaders, together with Breed, say they need to stability making certain public security and clear streets with a humane strategy to clearing camps, whereas making an attempt to get individuals indoors. Breed administration officers argue that whereas some homeless individuals do settle for shelter, many are opting to remain on the streets whereas declining remedy.
“People won’t accept shelter, and they won’t follow up on their medical care or behavioral health treatment or any of that, often because they need to stay and monitor their belongings, some of which are totally soiled and becoming a health hazard,” mentioned David Nakanishi, a medical social employee who heads the Breed administration’s Wholesome Streets Operation Heart, which spearheads the sweeps.
In Los Angeles, in the meantime, avenue medication supplier Brett Feldman is shedding his sufferers amid the sweeps. “It really undermines our housing efforts,” he mentioned.
A metropolis report launched in Could discovered that clearing camps and implementing anticamping legal guidelines that ban individuals from sleeping, sitting, or holding belongings on sidewalks in sure delicate areas, together with faculty zones, parks, or freeway underpasses, is just not successfully serving to individuals into housing. After spending roughly $3 million implementing anticamping legal guidelines from 2021 to 2023, the report discovered, town positioned simply two individuals into everlasting housing and 81% of encampment websites have been repopulated.
In a single central Los Angeles district the place legislation enforcement is just not aggressively implementing anticamping legal guidelines, avenue homelessness fell roughly 38% in a one-year interval from 2023 to 2024, mentioned Indu Subaiya, interim CEO for the nonprofit Healthcare in Motion, which has been housing and treating sufferers there.
“We’re starting to actually see results and reductions in unsheltered homelessness,” Subaiya mentioned. “However, in Southern California counties aggressively enforcing Newsom’s executive order and clearing encampments, we’re seeing our patients and their medical conditions set back profoundly.”
As soon as Douglass was launched, he was again within the Tenderloin looking for housing and popping his tent up the road from his earlier hangout.
“Every time I try to get my documents to get housing, I get knocked backwards,” he mentioned. “I guess the city thinks we all need to be in handcuffs.”
By the following morning, the encampment had grown twice in measurement.
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This text was produced by KFF Well being Information, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially unbiased service of the California Well being Care Basis.
