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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 11:05 a.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kiko Suarez struggled to afford living in the Bay Area until he got a decent deal on an RV. Since making it his home in January, the carpenter has slowly found his footing again, working construction jobs in San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, after months of parking his vehicle on Winston Drive behind Stonestown Mall in southwest San Francisco, Suarez could soon be forced out of the area and the community he’s helped build.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city plans to impose new four-hour parking restrictions on the street where he and dozens of other families park their RVs starting Dec. 19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not going to be able to deal with that, not with my schedule,” Suarez told KQED. “I don’t know where I will go or where I will park it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are currently few parking restrictions on the strip of Winston Drive, where Suarez and the other families park, except for weekly street cleanings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting Dec. 19, however, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will enforce four-hour parking between Lake Merced Boulevard and Buckingham Way from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who don’t move their cars will be issued a $92 ticket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965071\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965071\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Hands leaf through a binder filled with tickets.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Resident Kiko Suarez displays all of the SFMTA parking tickets he’s received while living in his RV on Winston Drive. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, SFMTA proposed the daytime parking limits at the request of Supervisor Myrna Melgar, according to the transit agency, “to make Winston Drive safer for pedestrians and cyclists who currently navigate the sidewalks and bike lane to travel between Lowell High School, SF State, Lake Merced, and the Stonestown shopping center,” SFMTA spokesperson Erica Kato told KQED in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes, approved at a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfmta.com/calendar/board-directors-meeting-september-19-2023\">Sept. 19 SFMTA Board meeting\u003c/a>, are also intended to open up parking for nearby San Francisco State University staff, students and visitors and to make way for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfmta.com/projects/lake-merced-quick-build-project\">traffic improvement project\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But several people living in the RVs say they will have nowhere to go and have been pushing the city to create a space where they could safely park, similar to the vehicle triage center that was set up in the Bayview during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Jessica Coello, Winston Drive RV resident\"]‘We aren’t going to have a safe place to go, and we’ll get a lot of tickets. If we get a lot of tickets, they’ll tow the RVs, and we won’t have anywhere to live.’[/pullquote]The city is considering at least two contenders for a safe parking location for RVs. But there are no plans to open such a site before the parking restrictions go into effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Despite assessing dozens of sites over the past two years, we have been unable to identify a suitable property for this service,” Emily Cohen, deputy director for communications and legislative affairs at the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said in an email to KQED. “We are not giving up on the goal of opening a westside safe parking program.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supervisor Melgar declined to comment on this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, HSH has been meeting with the RV residents to connect people with housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HSH said it is actively in contact with about 70 households living in vehicles on Winston. Of those, 20 are families with children that have been offered short-term and long-term housing vouchers, according to Cohen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 20 people living in vehicles in that area have already moved into their new short- or long-term housing offer. Dozens more are enrolled in the city’s shelter system, waiting for referrals to go through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are actively working with these households to move them into long-term housing,” Cohen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are still many people living in the area who don’t have any housing lined up or a place to move their RV come December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='More Housing Coverage' tag='housing']Finding temporary shelter in the interim won’t be easy. As of Oct. 23, there were \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/adult-temporary-shelter/shelter-reservation-waitlist/\">377 people on the waiting list for emergency shelter in San Francisco\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the clock now ticking, advocates for unhoused people say the city must find a solution quickly so no residents are ticketed, towed, or forced to abandon their vehicles and live on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The families on Winston Drive and Buckingham Way deserve dignity and safety, including a safe parking site and access to permanent housing,” Eleana Binder, policy manager for the homeless services nonprofit Glide, said in a written statement. “Implementing the parking restrictions without options will push them deeper into instability and homelessness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People like Suarez say it will be impossible to move their vehicle every four hours while at work, so they’ll have to find a new place to park to avoid the $92 parking tickets. For him, a single parking ticket is nearly half of this daily $220 paycheck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SFMTA also noted it has payment plans for tickets, community service alternatives and \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfmta.com/discounts-people-experiencing-homelessness\">discounts for people experiencing homelessness\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965072\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965072\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person with long hair in a bun puts something under the wheel of an RV.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jessica Coello puts a wedge under the front tire of her RV after moving it for street sweeping on Winston Drive in San Francisco on Oct. 17, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Others said they have no other option but to try to stay and move their vehicle when they can.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Coello has lived on Winston Drive for about a year with her two kids, ages 15 and 17, who go to high school in the city. Like many of her neighbors, she started living on Winston during the pandemic after she lost work. It was cheaper than paying rent and has allowed her to save up some money for her kids’ college education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We aren’t going to have a safe place to go, and we’ll get a lot of tickets,” she told KQED about her fears looking ahead. “If we get a lot of tickets, they’ll tow the RVs, and we won’t have anywhere to live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coello, who works in childcare and housekeeping, has struggled to find regular work after the pandemic. But she wants to stay close to her children’s school so they can graduate on time. She feels lost without options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They don’t accept RVs anywhere. Either they are too close to the houses, and people there don’t want RVs near, or we are on the streets, and they can’t stay there,” she told KQED. “If you put restrictions, we’ll be homeless. It will be an even worse situation for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965419\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A group of people stand together holding signs in an outdoor setting.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965419\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Residents chant during a rally calling on San Francisco to provide safe parking sites and housing for families living in RVs near San Francisco State University at risk of eviction on Winston Drive on Oct. 24, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Joshua Hernandez, 21, moved to an RV on Winston Drive with his girlfriend just three months ago, after it got too expensive to continue renting their apartment in Daly City. He’s working as a plumber and his girlfriend is taking classes at Skyline Community College. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even if we worked long days everyday, it wasn’t enough to pay our bills and still go to college. So we moved here. And it feels way better now, we can save for our future,” he told KQED outside a rally on Tuesday morning where families living in RVs were demanding the city find a safe parking site before the new rules kick in. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many of the families parked next to him, Suarez said, the new parking limits will “pretty much force everyone out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Suarez hopes he’s wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know people are fed up with homelessness, but what else are we supposed to do?” Suarez said. “The government needs to listen and do what’s appropriate. That’s all I hope for.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are currently few parking restrictions on the strip of Winston Drive, where Suarez and the other families park, except for weekly street cleanings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting Dec. 19, however, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will enforce four-hour parking between Lake Merced Boulevard and Buckingham Way from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who don’t move their cars will be issued a $92 ticket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965071\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965071\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Hands leaf through a binder filled with tickets.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-009-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Resident Kiko Suarez displays all of the SFMTA parking tickets he’s received while living in his RV on Winston Drive. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, SFMTA proposed the daytime parking limits at the request of Supervisor Myrna Melgar, according to the transit agency, “to make Winston Drive safer for pedestrians and cyclists who currently navigate the sidewalks and bike lane to travel between Lowell High School, SF State, Lake Merced, and the Stonestown shopping center,” SFMTA spokesperson Erica Kato told KQED in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes, approved at a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfmta.com/calendar/board-directors-meeting-september-19-2023\">Sept. 19 SFMTA Board meeting\u003c/a>, are also intended to open up parking for nearby San Francisco State University staff, students and visitors and to make way for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfmta.com/projects/lake-merced-quick-build-project\">traffic improvement project\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But several people living in the RVs say they will have nowhere to go and have been pushing the city to create a space where they could safely park, similar to the vehicle triage center that was set up in the Bayview during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We aren’t going to have a safe place to go, and we’ll get a lot of tickets. If we get a lot of tickets, they’ll tow the RVs, and we won’t have anywhere to live.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The city is considering at least two contenders for a safe parking location for RVs. But there are no plans to open such a site before the parking restrictions go into effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Despite assessing dozens of sites over the past two years, we have been unable to identify a suitable property for this service,” Emily Cohen, deputy director for communications and legislative affairs at the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said in an email to KQED. “We are not giving up on the goal of opening a westside safe parking program.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supervisor Melgar declined to comment on this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, HSH has been meeting with the RV residents to connect people with housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HSH said it is actively in contact with about 70 households living in vehicles on Winston. Of those, 20 are families with children that have been offered short-term and long-term housing vouchers, according to Cohen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 20 people living in vehicles in that area have already moved into their new short- or long-term housing offer. Dozens more are enrolled in the city’s shelter system, waiting for referrals to go through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are actively working with these households to move them into long-term housing,” Cohen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are still many people living in the area who don’t have any housing lined up or a place to move their RV come December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Finding temporary shelter in the interim won’t be easy. As of Oct. 23, there were \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/adult-temporary-shelter/shelter-reservation-waitlist/\">377 people on the waiting list for emergency shelter in San Francisco\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the clock now ticking, advocates for unhoused people say the city must find a solution quickly so no residents are ticketed, towed, or forced to abandon their vehicles and live on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The families on Winston Drive and Buckingham Way deserve dignity and safety, including a safe parking site and access to permanent housing,” Eleana Binder, policy manager for the homeless services nonprofit Glide, said in a written statement. “Implementing the parking restrictions without options will push them deeper into instability and homelessness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People like Suarez say it will be impossible to move their vehicle every four hours while at work, so they’ll have to find a new place to park to avoid the $92 parking tickets. For him, a single parking ticket is nearly half of this daily $220 paycheck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SFMTA also noted it has payment plans for tickets, community service alternatives and \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfmta.com/discounts-people-experiencing-homelessness\">discounts for people experiencing homelessness\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965072\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965072\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person with long hair in a bun puts something under the wheel of an RV.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231017-LakeMercedRVs-015-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jessica Coello puts a wedge under the front tire of her RV after moving it for street sweeping on Winston Drive in San Francisco on Oct. 17, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Others said they have no other option but to try to stay and move their vehicle when they can.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Coello has lived on Winston Drive for about a year with her two kids, ages 15 and 17, who go to high school in the city. Like many of her neighbors, she started living on Winston during the pandemic after she lost work. It was cheaper than paying rent and has allowed her to save up some money for her kids’ college education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We aren’t going to have a safe place to go, and we’ll get a lot of tickets,” she told KQED about her fears looking ahead. “If we get a lot of tickets, they’ll tow the RVs, and we won’t have anywhere to live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coello, who works in childcare and housekeeping, has struggled to find regular work after the pandemic. But she wants to stay close to her children’s school so they can graduate on time. She feels lost without options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They don’t accept RVs anywhere. Either they are too close to the houses, and people there don’t want RVs near, or we are on the streets, and they can’t stay there,” she told KQED. “If you put restrictions, we’ll be homeless. It will be an even worse situation for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965419\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A group of people stand together holding signs in an outdoor setting.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965419\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231024-LakeMercedRVPresser-003-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Residents chant during a rally calling on San Francisco to provide safe parking sites and housing for families living in RVs near San Francisco State University at risk of eviction on Winston Drive on Oct. 24, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Joshua Hernandez, 21, moved to an RV on Winston Drive with his girlfriend just three months ago, after it got too expensive to continue renting their apartment in Daly City. He’s working as a plumber and his girlfriend is taking classes at Skyline Community College. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even if we worked long days everyday, it wasn’t enough to pay our bills and still go to college. So we moved here. And it feels way better now, we can save for our future,” he told KQED outside a rally on Tuesday morning where families living in RVs were demanding the city find a safe parking site before the new rules kick in. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many of the families parked next to him, Suarez said, the new parking limits will “pretty much force everyone out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Suarez hopes he’s wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know people are fed up with homelessness, but what else are we supposed to do?” Suarez said. “The government needs to listen and do what’s appropriate. That’s all I hope for.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "unhoused-californians-are-living-on-the-bleeding-edge-of-climate-change",
"title": "Unhoused Californians Are Living on the 'Bleeding Edge' of Climate Change",
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"headTitle": "Unhoused Californians Are Living on the ‘Bleeding Edge’ of Climate Change | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of the third season of KQED’s podcast Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America. You can \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/soldout\">find that series here\u003c/a> and read about why \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984697/why-kqed-focused-a-season-of-its-housing-podcast-on-climate-change#:~:text=Sold%20Out%20Is%20Back%20With%20Season%203&text=Host%20Erin%20Baldassari%20leads%20a,an%20affordable%20place%20to%20live.\">KQED chose to focus a season of its housing podcast on climate change\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen summer temperatures in Fresno break 100 degrees, Deana Everhart cooks. It’s a rare privilege for a woman without a kitchen or a house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marie Callender’s TV dinners are her favorite, and she puts them on the sidewalk to let the sun do an oven’s work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They will cook as if they were in a microwave,” she said on a 108-degree day in July. “In about 30 minutes, they’re hot and ready.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It might be the only perk that’s come with the increasingly hellish summers plaguing her hometown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 61, Everhart has lived about 20 years cycling on and off Fresno’s streets. But as she gets older, and the \u003ca href=\"https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/bdd9567a847a4b52abd20253539143df/page/Weather-and-Climate/?views=All-Climate-Indicators%2CHeat-Waves\">heat waves become more frequent\u003c/a>, it’s harder to survive outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This past year has been especially challenging as \u003ca href=\"https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/atmospheric-rivers-hit-west-coast\">historic winter storms\u003c/a> gave way to a blistering summer. Now, she’s bracing for yet another potentially drenching winter, thanks to El Niño.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Everhart is caught in the middle of an ever-changing web of policies, put in place by Fresno city leaders who face pressures to reduce street homelessness while mitigating the harm unhoused residents face from deadly weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a story playing out across California as our climate and housing crises collide. \u003ca href=\"https://www.hudexchange.info/programs/coc/coc-homeless-populations-and-subpopulations-reports/?filter_Year=2019&filter_Scope=State&filter_State=CA&filter_CoC=&program=CoC&group=PopSub\">The number of unsheltered people in California rose 6.5%\u003c/a> from 2019 to 2022. The increase is much steeper in Fresno, where unsheltered homelessness has spiked 48% since 2019, the vast majority of that increase during the first year of the pandemic, according to the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dangerously Hot Days Are on the Rise in Fresno\" aria-label=\"Interactive line chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-EbsnW\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EbsnW/6/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: none;\" width=\"1000\" height=\"600\" data-external=\"1\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The heat index is what the temperature feels like to the human body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature. As the heat index rises, so does the risk of heat-related illness.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the number of dangerously hot days in Fresno has \u003ca href=\"https://www.climatecentral.org/graphic/high-heat-index-days-2023?graphicSet=High+Heat+Index+Days&location=Fresno&lang=en\">gone up by 17 days a year\u003c/a> since 1979. The state is \u003ca href=\"https://oehha.ca.gov/climate-change/epic-2022/changes-climate/precipitation\">increasingly yo-yoing between periods of drought and heavy rain\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://blog.ucsusa.org/pablo-ortiz/climate-change-impacts-on-california-central-valley-the-warning-shot-the-us-is-ignoring/\">a trend that’s particularly pronounced in the Central Valley\u003c/a>, where bursts of heavy precipitation easily lead to flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seniors like Everhart are \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/extremeheat/older-adults-heat.html\">especially vulnerable\u003c/a> to the elements, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10061143/#:~:text=The%20cumulative%20disadvantage%20experienced%20by,functional%20and%20cognitive%20impairment%2C%20incontinence\">living on the streets hastens aging\u003c/a>. Dr. Margot Kushel, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, compared the physical condition of a 50-year-old living outside to that of a person two to three decades older in the general population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Folks experiencing homelessness are on the bleeding edge of the health crises that are happening with extremes of temperature,” said Kushel, the lead investigator on a \u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/our-impact/our-studies/california-statewide-study-people-experiencing-homelessness\">landmark survey\u003c/a> of houseless Californians released this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It found that people 50 years and older now represent nearly half of single adults experiencing homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just hard,” Everhart said. “At my age, everything combined is hard on me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The most-best shade in all of Fresno’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It was sometime in late spring when Everhart rolled her belongings onto a patch of dirt under an overpass near downtown Fresno. She was thinking about the oncoming heat when she chose the spot, shielded by hundreds of tons of concrete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the most-best shade, I bet, in all of Fresno, right here,” Everhart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC5564168870&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The camp she made there with a longtime friend, Shannon Thom, was a jumble of carts and strollers piled with dozens of bulging plastic bags, chairs in various states of disrepair, empty food containers and a molding sheet cake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Somebody gave it to us, but it’s already old,” Everhart said. “Out here, you learn to accept stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954896\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954896 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A woman in a pink hat leans on a chainlink fence under a freeway overpass.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Deana Everhart, 61, spent the hottest part of the summer sheltering under an overpass near downtown Fresno. She’s been unhoused on and off for about 20 years. “I remember how scared I was the first time sleeping by myself,” she said of her early days on the streets. Today, it’s hard for her to imagine another way of life. While she said she wants housing, the responsibility that comes with it feels daunting. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The living arrangement was chaotic but reflected their years of combined street savvy: cell phones, documents, food and clothes concealed by junky-looking bags were less likely to entice thieves. Allowing trash to build up around them was less likely to draw complaints than throwing it into the dumpster outside a nearby apartment complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the years, they’ve camped together and developed a system to keep each other and their things safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We take shifts on sleeping because we have to watch the stuff 24/7,” Everhart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her skin is tanned and freckled from years of sun, but there’s something girlish about her. She wears her long, dark hair in low pigtails. In her 20s, Everhart played guitar in an all-girl metal band called Sweet Lies — “Like sweet, but not so sweet,” she said. “We were rocker girls.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She still seems to relish the spotlight, but these days, she tends to hold her hand in front of her mouth while she talks because she’s shy about her teeth. She can’t always brush them outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everhart’s path to homelessness is entwined with her mental illness. As her obsessive-compulsive disorder became increasingly debilitating, she struggled to hold on to housing. Court records show she has been evicted twice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everhart now lives on $1,252 a month in Social Security disability benefits, plus food stamps — less than the median rent in Fresno, which spiked in recent years. Between 2017 and 2021, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2021-03-31/fresno-rent-spike-taps-into-california-covid-housing-trends\">rents rose almost 40\u003c/a>%, the biggest increase of any large city in the country. [aside postID=news_11964791 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/CalMatters01-1020x680.jpg']Despite her situation, she is less worried about herself than her son, Travis Everhart. He’s 39, has schizophrenia and lives on Fresno’s streets, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the camp, she pointed out a box full of his things and the mat where he sleeps beside her when he’s not wandering the city alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last time she and Thom, 41, shared a room, they said her son was banned from visiting because his psychosis caused him to yell out. Early last summer, after a string of hot days gave him a nasty sunburn that turned his nose the mottled blue-red of raw hamburger meat, Everhart gave up her housing to be closer to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I thought, I’ll go to him,” she said. “I’m trying to keep my son alive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few months later, her anxiety about his well-being reached a new level after the death of his friend, Patrick Weaver, who was also unhoused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two were close in age, shared a love of comic books and a diagnosis of schizophrenia, Everhart said, adding, “It’s hard for my son to find a good friend like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weaver was found dead in a parking lot, according to a city official, at the tail end of a solid month of triple-digit temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Devastating is the only word I could think of to describe that,” Everhart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She believes heat played a role in Weaver’s death. He died four days after Fresno reached its second hottest temperature on record: 114 degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Fresno County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office has yet to release his death report to KQED but did confirm the official cause was an overdose. Weaver had methamphetamine and fentanyl in his system. Meth raises a person’s body temperature and contributes \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-31/california-heat-related-deaths-climate-change-homelessness-methamphetamine\">to heat-related illness and death\u003c/a> across California. \u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/our-impact/our-studies/california-statewide-study-people-experiencing-homelessness\">Almost one-third\u003c/a> of unhoused Californians reported using it, according to the UCSF survey Kushel led.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schizophrenia, which is \u003ca href=\"https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-019-2361-7\">vastly more common\u003c/a> among unhoused people than the general population, affects the brain’s ability to regulate body temperature and make reasoned decisions, potentially putting people at a \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/content/article/schizophrenia-pinpointed-key-factor-heat-deaths#:~:text=Epidemiologists%20combing%20through%20provincial%20health,increase%20compared%20with%20typical%20summers.\">higher risk of heat-related death\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The number of unhoused people who die due to extreme weather in Fresno, and around California, is hard to know. Historically, most coroners haven’t tracked housing status. KQED public records requests to coroners and medical examiners across the state yielded few results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But people experiencing homelessness are \u003ca href=\"https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/BFI_WP_2023-41.pdf\">already far more likely to die than their housed counterparts\u003c/a>. Depending on age, studies found that \u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2795475?guestAccessKey=7ac6269d-6dbd-4288-a405-b1ecca6e082e&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=082922\">death is three\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1556797\">nine times\u003c/a> more common on the streets. And there is some evidence extreme weather worsens those odds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unhoused people made up almost \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-19/la-me-homeless-heat-deaths#:~:text=Although%20the%20unhoused%20population%20represents,data%20from%20the%20coroner's%20office.\">half of heat-related deaths in Los Angeles County last year, though they represent less than 1% of the population\u003c/a>. In Sacramento County, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.srceh.org/_files/ugd/ee52bb_c3a8312b492b4ded8980857803c67708.pdf\">death rate among people experiencing homelessness in 2021 from hypothermia was 215.5 times higher than the county rate overall\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A ‘complete disaster’ or a lifesaver?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Faced with the confluence of increasingly deadly weather and a growing homeless population that’s especially vulnerable to it, Fresno city leaders are being forced to respond. Last year, under pressure from advocates, they \u003ca href=\"https://fresno.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11257222&GUID=51A17E03-0CE8-412D-BA38-6CB5A21A72C1\">expanded the city’s warming and cooling centers\u003c/a>, the primary resource for unhoused people during extreme weather events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cooling centers now open when temperatures reach 100 degrees, instead of 105, and stay open longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bigger change was to warming centers last winter. Because of the heavy rain, city officials \u003ca href=\"https://fresno.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11534615&GUID=D8ADCBC2-BA69-4C93-B820-E5B00A3589CB\">voted to keep certain centers open\u003c/a> for more than three months straight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People crowded in, filling them beyond capacity. The community centers, once home to after-school programs, services for the elderly and adult recreational activities, became de facto homeless shelters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In response to climate change, we’re having to fundamentally change the use of community centers in neighborhoods,” said City Councilmember Miguel Arias, who represents the district where Everhart and most of the city’s unhoused residents live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The backlash came fast and loud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954903\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954903 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED.jpg\" alt='The doors of a large community center are seen beyond a gate with a sign reading \"cooling center.\"' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Ted C. Wills Community Center in Fresno hosts a temporary reprieve during triple-digit heat. In Fresno, like in many cities, warming and cooling centers are the main resource for unhoused people in extreme weather. Changes to Fresno’s centers have generated a backlash from residents in surrounding neighborhoods. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It was a complete disaster for our neighborhood,” said Chris Collins, who lives with his family directly next to the Ted C. Wills Community Center, one of four recreation centers that became a warming center last winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said someone was living in a tent in the alley behind their house, and more tents lined the sidewalk around the corner. Another person dumped a stroller full of belongings in their front yard, and in the middle of the night, a man pounded on his neighbor’s door and refused to leave until the owner pulled out a gun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, staff at the center were completely overwhelmed, according to one parks department employee who declined to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak to the media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People brought alcohol and weapons into the sleeping area, used drugs in the bathroom and left huge messes, according to the staffer. They said before the community center’s preschool program was put on pause, a little girl stepped in human waste and ended up smearing it on her clothes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arias acknowledged the challenges. Almost overnight, he said, employees accustomed to running rec rooms were disinfecting cots and triaging ailments ranging from gangrene to diabetic seizures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s got to be a better solution,” Collins said, adding that neighbors never had a problem with the center operating as it had in the past, a few days at a time. [aside postID=news_11956715 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/GettyImages-1557929497-KQED-1020x661.jpg']But as the stretches of wild weather get longer and city leaders are forced to step in, Arias expects this kind of conflict isn’t going away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is one of the many unintended consequences of climate change at the local level,” he said. “And residents will continue to push back on local government as we try to adjust and expand services to save lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes that made Collins and his neighbors miserable made the center lifesaving for Everhart, who stayed there nearly the whole time it was open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody loved it and most of the people in there were seniors,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past, she rarely used the warming centers because the sporadic schedules made them impractical and people weren’t allowed to bring their belongings inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last winter, she’s not sure how she would have survived without it. “I was truly scared,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Managing the centers now requires a full-time city employee, and Fresno has already more than doubled what it spends on them, from $300,000 to $800,000, Arias said. By next year, he expects that will rise to $1 million annually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the controversy last winter, the city is looking for ways to minimize the impact on neighbors and center staff. The plan is to \u003ca href=\"https://www.planetbids.com/Fresno/BMfiles/20230707105523093%20PUBLIC%20NOTICE%2012400023.pdf\">turn over management to nonprofits and churches\u003c/a>, who would run the programs out of the community centers for now, and eventually find alternative facilities, Arias hopes.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A painful family history\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Everhart once held jobs, went to community college and had an apartment and a car. There were always signs of her mental illness, but as she grew older, it progressed into a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By her early 30s, she had four children, no income except what welfare programs supplied and couldn’t manage the responsibilities of parenting or maintaining a home. All of her kids ended up with their grandparents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She was not capable of raising children because of how her mental illness affected her way to function,” her daughter Carolyn Mercer, 30, wrote in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mercer, who was out of her mother’s care by the time she was 2 years old, described her as neglectful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954907\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954907 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A car drives up a street set below a freeway overpass.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An overpass along State Route 180, near the place Deana and Shannon camped during the summer. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I know I wasn’t taking as good of care of the kids as I felt I should,” Everhart said, acknowledging she was struggling with her mental health at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Having OCD is like working two or three jobs — it’s mentally exhausting,” she said. “I did the best I could. I needed help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since she became homeless, Everhart has only lived indoors for short stretches. She said she lost a room in an SRO because she spent four hours in the shower, convinced she was still covered in soap, and got kicked out of a women’s shelter because she couldn’t keep up with their schedule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and Thom said they’re on waiting lists for housing, but Everhart finds the obligations that come with being housed daunting. She was hesitant when asked if she’d take what the city might eventually be able to offer: a converted motel room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not opposed to it, but if I have to be out here I’m OK,” she said, adding that she feels a sense of duty to help care for more severely incapacitated people living on the streets. “Maybe I just feel like I need to be out here to help them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s one responsibility, perhaps the only one, she feels equal to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954897\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954897 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A woman stands in the shade under a freeway overpass grasping the post of a street sign.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shannon Thom, 41, has camped with Deana for the past several years. Living together allows them to sleep in shifts to keep watch over each other and their things. They take turns using the bathroom at a liquor store, or take short breaks from the heat at a nearby cooling center. Shannon grew up in Fresno, bouncing around apartments with her mother and sister. At one point, she ended up homeless with her mother on L.A.’s Skid Row, she said. After her mother and sister died, she was left without any close relatives. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the winter, she and Thom keep extra blankets and jackets from thrift stores to hand out. She found one man’s family on Facebook and reconnected them, and when another young man wandered over to their camp confused and hungry one afternoon, Everhart was eager to help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Honey, if you wait a minute we’ll go to the store over there and get you a cup o’ noodle and we’ll heat it in the microwave and get you a little soda,” she said. “Do you want that?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All I see in her is a little girl that never got the love and affection she truly deserved from her parents. I wish she would see the little girl in me that needed that same love, but she never will.’[/pullquote]She finds purpose in caring for people on the streets, trying in her way to “mother” them — most of all, her own son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Everhart’s daughter said she never benefited from this tenderness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I finally came to the realization that I will never get the mother I always wanted and needed,” she said. Mercer is no longer in contact with her mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s come to understand the pain her mother caused her as a legacy of Everhart’s own abuse and neglect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All I see in her is a little girl that never got the love and affection she truly deserved from her parents,” she said, speculating that this played a role in the development of Everhart’s mental illness. “I wish she would see the little girl in me that needed that same love, but she never will.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Mercer can’t help but worry about her mother, aging on the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It always keeps me up at night when I’m able to keep warm in my home with a heater in the winter or be comfortable with AC in the summer,” she said. “I always feel a sense of guilt that I never know if she’s ‘comfortable’ and safe from the elements outdoors while I’m able to live comfortably.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Business as usual\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Early this past summer, even as Fresno was expanding cooling centers, city leaders were taking aim at unhoused residents with a \u003ca href=\"https://fresno.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=12032871&GUID=50F7141B-5564-4058-A28C-71BC9843868A\">new law restricting access to any place designated a “sensitive area.\u003c/a>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the many sites listed as possible targets are overpasses, underpasses and bridges — places where Everhart often finds refuge from heat and rain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everhart and Thom fretted about where they would go to avoid the new law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t be under here. We thought they were bad — they went from bad to worse,” Everhart said, referring to the city’s Homeless Assistance Response Team. “We’re very scared now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954898\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954898 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a light pink button down shirt stands in front of large brown doors.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias outside the entrance to the cooling center at the Ted C Wills community center. He and other city officials are facing pressure from homeowners and businesses to clean up homelessness while advocates simultaneously demand urgent action to protect unhoused people from increasingly extreme weather. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before they could figure out a plan, the Response Team showed up — a visit that had nothing to do with the new law, as far as Everhart could tell. It was just business as usual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was forecast to hit 110 degrees in Fresno that day, and the National Weather Service was \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/NWSHanford/status/1680213678715723776?s=20\">warning of a “major to extreme risk” for heat-related illnesses\u003c/a>, especially for people with no escape from the elements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Undeterred, city workers cleared the trash surrounding the camp, then told Everhart and Thom to leave the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know, it’s real hot,” Everhart recalled telling one of the police officers with the team that responds to complaints about encampments. “Where can we go? I’m 61 years old. You want me to roll my stuff in the 110-degree [heat] and die?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sweeps like this one have become routine, but advocates worry the new law, with its heightened restrictions, will make them even more frequent. Fresno city leaders approved the plan despite warnings that the consequences could be dire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s as though the city council looked for places where people go, where they can find shelter, and singled out those places,” said ACLU attorney William Freeman, who \u003ca href=\"https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article276239381.html\">urged the city council not to pass the plan\u003c/a>, arguing it violates the constitutions of the United States and California. “Ordinances that essentially require people to constantly be moving and prohibit them from having any fixed place to be just puts tremendous stress on them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arias, one of the council members who put the new rule forward, said it was about ensuring unhoused people and their things don’t block public rights of way, a goal another official chalked up to an attempt to avoid a lawsuit similar to the one \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article272274053.html\">Sacramento is facing\u003c/a> from residents with disabilities who say homeless camps have taken over sidewalks, making it impossible for them to get around the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, Arias said, clearing encampments is a public health requirement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954904\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954904 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A hand holds two bottles of cold water.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nas, an unhoused man in the Tower District in Fresno, holds cold water bottles given to him by\u003cbr>local advocates with the Fresno Homeless Union, Bob and Linda McCloskey, on July 1, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“When you have the amount of feces, the amount of drug paraphernalia, the amount of rotting food, all in one location, you get outbreaks of disease,” he said. “That’s why we have to respond.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After city workers left, Everhart and Thom set up their camp again — this time, about 200 feet from where they’d been, still under the same overpass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city formed the response team last year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article257698758.html\">pitching it as a more compassionate alternative\u003c/a> to the police department’s former homeless task force. The team includes outreach workers from a local nonprofit, staff from the code enforcement department and police officers. The city rolled it out along with a new 311 line to field complaints about unhoused people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything we do, everything, revolves around them — trying to evade them,” Everhart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and Thom said the team has thrown away nearly all their possessions several times, a mental and financial blow that can be especially grave in extreme weather. They’ve lost things they need to survive in the heat and the cold, like blankets, clothes, food and water. By Everhart’s count, the response team has shuffled them around the city seven times in less than a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Activists here have tried — without success — to get the city to stop sweeps during extreme weather. This past summer, the Sacramento Homeless Union won a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article277931013.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">temporary injunction\u003c/a> banning the city from cleaning encampments during a heat wave, a case Everhart followed closely when she could charge her phone. [aside label='More Stories on Housing' tag='housing']Advocates are pushing for sanctioned encampments where people can set up tents or RVs with the city’s permission and tiny home villages with air conditioning. Everhart has helped them lobby for dumpsters and porta-potties to solve some of the sanitation concerns about camps. Long term, they are fighting for rent control and more affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2019, Fresno has spent over $100 million to address homelessness, more than 90% of it on housing, according to the city. It’s permanently housed nearly 1,900 people while sheltering or temporarily putting up more than 3,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the city estimates there are still 1,700 people living on its streets. “And that’s because the unhoused numbers continue to grow,” Arias said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A welcome ‘vacation’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In early September, an infected spider bite sent Everhart to the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She suspects a black widow because she spotted one near where she was sleeping. She had surgery to remove the necrotic flesh on her thumb, and the doctor put in a drain she described as a McDonald’s straw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My thumb looks like the zombie apocalypse,” she joked from her hospital bed. “I am not exaggerating either. It looks terrible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A couple of weeks earlier, her son, Travis Everhart, went to jail for property damage and resisting arrest. Everhart’s understanding is that he threw some rocks at a car, “because the car was loud,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s glad he’s set to be released in November, but in a way, she’s relieved he’s in jail. At least she knows where he is and that he has food and shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid of all this, the hospital, with its air conditioning and bed, is almost a welcome vacation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been nice, I’ll tell you that,” she said. “They bring your food, you lay in this comfortable bed that has lots of pillows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She met with a social worker there, but when she explained she was already on a waiting list for housing, Everhart said the woman told her there wasn’t much else to do but wait.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she gets released from the hospital, the plan is to have Thom help her tie a plastic bag around her bandaged hand to keep out the dirt. Their camp is alongside a different stretch of freeway now, where they’ll wait for her son to get out of jail. There, under a tarp and umbrella, they’ll try to shelter from the waning heat and the coming rains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "KQED follows one woman struggling to survive on the streets of Fresno during a summer of blisteringly hot temperatures.",
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"title": "Unhoused Californians Are Living on the 'Bleeding Edge' of Climate Change | KQED",
"description": "KQED follows one woman struggling to survive on the streets of Fresno during a summer of blisteringly hot temperatures.",
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"headline": "Unhoused Californians Are Living on the 'Bleeding Edge' of Climate Change",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of the third season of KQED’s podcast Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America. You can \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/soldout\">find that series here\u003c/a> and read about why \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984697/why-kqed-focused-a-season-of-its-housing-podcast-on-climate-change#:~:text=Sold%20Out%20Is%20Back%20With%20Season%203&text=Host%20Erin%20Baldassari%20leads%20a,an%20affordable%20place%20to%20live.\">KQED chose to focus a season of its housing podcast on climate change\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">W\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>hen summer temperatures in Fresno break 100 degrees, Deana Everhart cooks. It’s a rare privilege for a woman without a kitchen or a house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marie Callender’s TV dinners are her favorite, and she puts them on the sidewalk to let the sun do an oven’s work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They will cook as if they were in a microwave,” she said on a 108-degree day in July. “In about 30 minutes, they’re hot and ready.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It might be the only perk that’s come with the increasingly hellish summers plaguing her hometown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 61, Everhart has lived about 20 years cycling on and off Fresno’s streets. But as she gets older, and the \u003ca href=\"https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/bdd9567a847a4b52abd20253539143df/page/Weather-and-Climate/?views=All-Climate-Indicators%2CHeat-Waves\">heat waves become more frequent\u003c/a>, it’s harder to survive outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This past year has been especially challenging as \u003ca href=\"https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/atmospheric-rivers-hit-west-coast\">historic winter storms\u003c/a> gave way to a blistering summer. Now, she’s bracing for yet another potentially drenching winter, thanks to El Niño.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Everhart is caught in the middle of an ever-changing web of policies, put in place by Fresno city leaders who face pressures to reduce street homelessness while mitigating the harm unhoused residents face from deadly weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a story playing out across California as our climate and housing crises collide. \u003ca href=\"https://www.hudexchange.info/programs/coc/coc-homeless-populations-and-subpopulations-reports/?filter_Year=2019&filter_Scope=State&filter_State=CA&filter_CoC=&program=CoC&group=PopSub\">The number of unsheltered people in California rose 6.5%\u003c/a> from 2019 to 2022. The increase is much steeper in Fresno, where unsheltered homelessness has spiked 48% since 2019, the vast majority of that increase during the first year of the pandemic, according to the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dangerously Hot Days Are on the Rise in Fresno\" aria-label=\"Interactive line chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-EbsnW\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EbsnW/6/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: none;\" width=\"1000\" height=\"600\" data-external=\"1\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The heat index is what the temperature feels like to the human body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature. As the heat index rises, so does the risk of heat-related illness.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the number of dangerously hot days in Fresno has \u003ca href=\"https://www.climatecentral.org/graphic/high-heat-index-days-2023?graphicSet=High+Heat+Index+Days&location=Fresno&lang=en\">gone up by 17 days a year\u003c/a> since 1979. The state is \u003ca href=\"https://oehha.ca.gov/climate-change/epic-2022/changes-climate/precipitation\">increasingly yo-yoing between periods of drought and heavy rain\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://blog.ucsusa.org/pablo-ortiz/climate-change-impacts-on-california-central-valley-the-warning-shot-the-us-is-ignoring/\">a trend that’s particularly pronounced in the Central Valley\u003c/a>, where bursts of heavy precipitation easily lead to flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seniors like Everhart are \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/extremeheat/older-adults-heat.html\">especially vulnerable\u003c/a> to the elements, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10061143/#:~:text=The%20cumulative%20disadvantage%20experienced%20by,functional%20and%20cognitive%20impairment%2C%20incontinence\">living on the streets hastens aging\u003c/a>. Dr. Margot Kushel, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, compared the physical condition of a 50-year-old living outside to that of a person two to three decades older in the general population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Folks experiencing homelessness are on the bleeding edge of the health crises that are happening with extremes of temperature,” said Kushel, the lead investigator on a \u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/our-impact/our-studies/california-statewide-study-people-experiencing-homelessness\">landmark survey\u003c/a> of houseless Californians released this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It found that people 50 years and older now represent nearly half of single adults experiencing homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just hard,” Everhart said. “At my age, everything combined is hard on me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The most-best shade in all of Fresno’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It was sometime in late spring when Everhart rolled her belongings onto a patch of dirt under an overpass near downtown Fresno. She was thinking about the oncoming heat when she chose the spot, shielded by hundreds of tons of concrete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the most-best shade, I bet, in all of Fresno, right here,” Everhart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC5564168870&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The camp she made there with a longtime friend, Shannon Thom, was a jumble of carts and strollers piled with dozens of bulging plastic bags, chairs in various states of disrepair, empty food containers and a molding sheet cake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Somebody gave it to us, but it’s already old,” Everhart said. “Out here, you learn to accept stuff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954896\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954896 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A woman in a pink hat leans on a chainlink fence under a freeway overpass.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-06-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Deana Everhart, 61, spent the hottest part of the summer sheltering under an overpass near downtown Fresno. She’s been unhoused on and off for about 20 years. “I remember how scared I was the first time sleeping by myself,” she said of her early days on the streets. Today, it’s hard for her to imagine another way of life. While she said she wants housing, the responsibility that comes with it feels daunting. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The living arrangement was chaotic but reflected their years of combined street savvy: cell phones, documents, food and clothes concealed by junky-looking bags were less likely to entice thieves. Allowing trash to build up around them was less likely to draw complaints than throwing it into the dumpster outside a nearby apartment complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the years, they’ve camped together and developed a system to keep each other and their things safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We take shifts on sleeping because we have to watch the stuff 24/7,” Everhart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her skin is tanned and freckled from years of sun, but there’s something girlish about her. She wears her long, dark hair in low pigtails. In her 20s, Everhart played guitar in an all-girl metal band called Sweet Lies — “Like sweet, but not so sweet,” she said. “We were rocker girls.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She still seems to relish the spotlight, but these days, she tends to hold her hand in front of her mouth while she talks because she’s shy about her teeth. She can’t always brush them outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everhart’s path to homelessness is entwined with her mental illness. As her obsessive-compulsive disorder became increasingly debilitating, she struggled to hold on to housing. Court records show she has been evicted twice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everhart now lives on $1,252 a month in Social Security disability benefits, plus food stamps — less than the median rent in Fresno, which spiked in recent years. Between 2017 and 2021, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2021-03-31/fresno-rent-spike-taps-into-california-covid-housing-trends\">rents rose almost 40\u003c/a>%, the biggest increase of any large city in the country. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Despite her situation, she is less worried about herself than her son, Travis Everhart. He’s 39, has schizophrenia and lives on Fresno’s streets, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the camp, she pointed out a box full of his things and the mat where he sleeps beside her when he’s not wandering the city alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last time she and Thom, 41, shared a room, they said her son was banned from visiting because his psychosis caused him to yell out. Early last summer, after a string of hot days gave him a nasty sunburn that turned his nose the mottled blue-red of raw hamburger meat, Everhart gave up her housing to be closer to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I thought, I’ll go to him,” she said. “I’m trying to keep my son alive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few months later, her anxiety about his well-being reached a new level after the death of his friend, Patrick Weaver, who was also unhoused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two were close in age, shared a love of comic books and a diagnosis of schizophrenia, Everhart said, adding, “It’s hard for my son to find a good friend like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weaver was found dead in a parking lot, according to a city official, at the tail end of a solid month of triple-digit temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Devastating is the only word I could think of to describe that,” Everhart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She believes heat played a role in Weaver’s death. He died four days after Fresno reached its second hottest temperature on record: 114 degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Fresno County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office has yet to release his death report to KQED but did confirm the official cause was an overdose. Weaver had methamphetamine and fentanyl in his system. Meth raises a person’s body temperature and contributes \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-31/california-heat-related-deaths-climate-change-homelessness-methamphetamine\">to heat-related illness and death\u003c/a> across California. \u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/our-impact/our-studies/california-statewide-study-people-experiencing-homelessness\">Almost one-third\u003c/a> of unhoused Californians reported using it, according to the UCSF survey Kushel led.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schizophrenia, which is \u003ca href=\"https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-019-2361-7\">vastly more common\u003c/a> among unhoused people than the general population, affects the brain’s ability to regulate body temperature and make reasoned decisions, potentially putting people at a \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/content/article/schizophrenia-pinpointed-key-factor-heat-deaths#:~:text=Epidemiologists%20combing%20through%20provincial%20health,increase%20compared%20with%20typical%20summers.\">higher risk of heat-related death\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The number of unhoused people who die due to extreme weather in Fresno, and around California, is hard to know. Historically, most coroners haven’t tracked housing status. KQED public records requests to coroners and medical examiners across the state yielded few results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But people experiencing homelessness are \u003ca href=\"https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/BFI_WP_2023-41.pdf\">already far more likely to die than their housed counterparts\u003c/a>. Depending on age, studies found that \u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2795475?guestAccessKey=7ac6269d-6dbd-4288-a405-b1ecca6e082e&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=082922\">death is three\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1556797\">nine times\u003c/a> more common on the streets. And there is some evidence extreme weather worsens those odds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unhoused people made up almost \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-19/la-me-homeless-heat-deaths#:~:text=Although%20the%20unhoused%20population%20represents,data%20from%20the%20coroner's%20office.\">half of heat-related deaths in Los Angeles County last year, though they represent less than 1% of the population\u003c/a>. In Sacramento County, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.srceh.org/_files/ugd/ee52bb_c3a8312b492b4ded8980857803c67708.pdf\">death rate among people experiencing homelessness in 2021 from hypothermia was 215.5 times higher than the county rate overall\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A ‘complete disaster’ or a lifesaver?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Faced with the confluence of increasingly deadly weather and a growing homeless population that’s especially vulnerable to it, Fresno city leaders are being forced to respond. Last year, under pressure from advocates, they \u003ca href=\"https://fresno.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11257222&GUID=51A17E03-0CE8-412D-BA38-6CB5A21A72C1\">expanded the city’s warming and cooling centers\u003c/a>, the primary resource for unhoused people during extreme weather events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cooling centers now open when temperatures reach 100 degrees, instead of 105, and stay open longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bigger change was to warming centers last winter. Because of the heavy rain, city officials \u003ca href=\"https://fresno.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11534615&GUID=D8ADCBC2-BA69-4C93-B820-E5B00A3589CB\">voted to keep certain centers open\u003c/a> for more than three months straight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People crowded in, filling them beyond capacity. The community centers, once home to after-school programs, services for the elderly and adult recreational activities, became de facto homeless shelters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In response to climate change, we’re having to fundamentally change the use of community centers in neighborhoods,” said City Councilmember Miguel Arias, who represents the district where Everhart and most of the city’s unhoused residents live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The backlash came fast and loud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954903\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954903 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED.jpg\" alt='The doors of a large community center are seen beyond a gate with a sign reading \"cooling center.\"' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-11-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Ted C. Wills Community Center in Fresno hosts a temporary reprieve during triple-digit heat. In Fresno, like in many cities, warming and cooling centers are the main resource for unhoused people in extreme weather. Changes to Fresno’s centers have generated a backlash from residents in surrounding neighborhoods. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It was a complete disaster for our neighborhood,” said Chris Collins, who lives with his family directly next to the Ted C. Wills Community Center, one of four recreation centers that became a warming center last winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said someone was living in a tent in the alley behind their house, and more tents lined the sidewalk around the corner. Another person dumped a stroller full of belongings in their front yard, and in the middle of the night, a man pounded on his neighbor’s door and refused to leave until the owner pulled out a gun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, staff at the center were completely overwhelmed, according to one parks department employee who declined to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak to the media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People brought alcohol and weapons into the sleeping area, used drugs in the bathroom and left huge messes, according to the staffer. They said before the community center’s preschool program was put on pause, a little girl stepped in human waste and ended up smearing it on her clothes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arias acknowledged the challenges. Almost overnight, he said, employees accustomed to running rec rooms were disinfecting cots and triaging ailments ranging from gangrene to diabetic seizures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s got to be a better solution,” Collins said, adding that neighbors never had a problem with the center operating as it had in the past, a few days at a time. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But as the stretches of wild weather get longer and city leaders are forced to step in, Arias expects this kind of conflict isn’t going away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is one of the many unintended consequences of climate change at the local level,” he said. “And residents will continue to push back on local government as we try to adjust and expand services to save lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes that made Collins and his neighbors miserable made the center lifesaving for Everhart, who stayed there nearly the whole time it was open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody loved it and most of the people in there were seniors,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past, she rarely used the warming centers because the sporadic schedules made them impractical and people weren’t allowed to bring their belongings inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last winter, she’s not sure how she would have survived without it. “I was truly scared,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Managing the centers now requires a full-time city employee, and Fresno has already more than doubled what it spends on them, from $300,000 to $800,000, Arias said. By next year, he expects that will rise to $1 million annually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the controversy last winter, the city is looking for ways to minimize the impact on neighbors and center staff. The plan is to \u003ca href=\"https://www.planetbids.com/Fresno/BMfiles/20230707105523093%20PUBLIC%20NOTICE%2012400023.pdf\">turn over management to nonprofits and churches\u003c/a>, who would run the programs out of the community centers for now, and eventually find alternative facilities, Arias hopes.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A painful family history\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Everhart once held jobs, went to community college and had an apartment and a car. There were always signs of her mental illness, but as she grew older, it progressed into a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By her early 30s, she had four children, no income except what welfare programs supplied and couldn’t manage the responsibilities of parenting or maintaining a home. All of her kids ended up with their grandparents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She was not capable of raising children because of how her mental illness affected her way to function,” her daughter Carolyn Mercer, 30, wrote in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mercer, who was out of her mother’s care by the time she was 2 years old, described her as neglectful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954907\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954907 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A car drives up a street set below a freeway overpass.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-04-02-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An overpass along State Route 180, near the place Deana and Shannon camped during the summer. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I know I wasn’t taking as good of care of the kids as I felt I should,” Everhart said, acknowledging she was struggling with her mental health at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Having OCD is like working two or three jobs — it’s mentally exhausting,” she said. “I did the best I could. I needed help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since she became homeless, Everhart has only lived indoors for short stretches. She said she lost a room in an SRO because she spent four hours in the shower, convinced she was still covered in soap, and got kicked out of a women’s shelter because she couldn’t keep up with their schedule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and Thom said they’re on waiting lists for housing, but Everhart finds the obligations that come with being housed daunting. She was hesitant when asked if she’d take what the city might eventually be able to offer: a converted motel room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not opposed to it, but if I have to be out here I’m OK,” she said, adding that she feels a sense of duty to help care for more severely incapacitated people living on the streets. “Maybe I just feel like I need to be out here to help them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s one responsibility, perhaps the only one, she feels equal to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954897\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954897 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A woman stands in the shade under a freeway overpass grasping the post of a street sign.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-07-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shannon Thom, 41, has camped with Deana for the past several years. Living together allows them to sleep in shifts to keep watch over each other and their things. They take turns using the bathroom at a liquor store, or take short breaks from the heat at a nearby cooling center. Shannon grew up in Fresno, bouncing around apartments with her mother and sister. At one point, she ended up homeless with her mother on L.A.’s Skid Row, she said. After her mother and sister died, she was left without any close relatives. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the winter, she and Thom keep extra blankets and jackets from thrift stores to hand out. She found one man’s family on Facebook and reconnected them, and when another young man wandered over to their camp confused and hungry one afternoon, Everhart was eager to help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Honey, if you wait a minute we’ll go to the store over there and get you a cup o’ noodle and we’ll heat it in the microwave and get you a little soda,” she said. “Do you want that?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All I see in her is a little girl that never got the love and affection she truly deserved from her parents. I wish she would see the little girl in me that needed that same love, but she never will.’[/pullquote]She finds purpose in caring for people on the streets, trying in her way to “mother” them — most of all, her own son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Everhart’s daughter said she never benefited from this tenderness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I finally came to the realization that I will never get the mother I always wanted and needed,” she said. Mercer is no longer in contact with her mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s come to understand the pain her mother caused her as a legacy of Everhart’s own abuse and neglect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All I see in her is a little girl that never got the love and affection she truly deserved from her parents,” she said, speculating that this played a role in the development of Everhart’s mental illness. “I wish she would see the little girl in me that needed that same love, but she never will.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Mercer can’t help but worry about her mother, aging on the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It always keeps me up at night when I’m able to keep warm in my home with a heater in the winter or be comfortable with AC in the summer,” she said. “I always feel a sense of guilt that I never know if she’s ‘comfortable’ and safe from the elements outdoors while I’m able to live comfortably.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Business as usual\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Early this past summer, even as Fresno was expanding cooling centers, city leaders were taking aim at unhoused residents with a \u003ca href=\"https://fresno.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=12032871&GUID=50F7141B-5564-4058-A28C-71BC9843868A\">new law restricting access to any place designated a “sensitive area.\u003c/a>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the many sites listed as possible targets are overpasses, underpasses and bridges — places where Everhart often finds refuge from heat and rain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everhart and Thom fretted about where they would go to avoid the new law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t be under here. We thought they were bad — they went from bad to worse,” Everhart said, referring to the city’s Homeless Assistance Response Team. “We’re very scared now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954898\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954898 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a light pink button down shirt stands in front of large brown doors.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-14-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias outside the entrance to the cooling center at the Ted C Wills community center. He and other city officials are facing pressure from homeowners and businesses to clean up homelessness while advocates simultaneously demand urgent action to protect unhoused people from increasingly extreme weather. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before they could figure out a plan, the Response Team showed up — a visit that had nothing to do with the new law, as far as Everhart could tell. It was just business as usual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was forecast to hit 110 degrees in Fresno that day, and the National Weather Service was \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/NWSHanford/status/1680213678715723776?s=20\">warning of a “major to extreme risk” for heat-related illnesses\u003c/a>, especially for people with no escape from the elements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Undeterred, city workers cleared the trash surrounding the camp, then told Everhart and Thom to leave the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know, it’s real hot,” Everhart recalled telling one of the police officers with the team that responds to complaints about encampments. “Where can we go? I’m 61 years old. You want me to roll my stuff in the 110-degree [heat] and die?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sweeps like this one have become routine, but advocates worry the new law, with its heightened restrictions, will make them even more frequent. Fresno city leaders approved the plan despite warnings that the consequences could be dire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s as though the city council looked for places where people go, where they can find shelter, and singled out those places,” said ACLU attorney William Freeman, who \u003ca href=\"https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article276239381.html\">urged the city council not to pass the plan\u003c/a>, arguing it violates the constitutions of the United States and California. “Ordinances that essentially require people to constantly be moving and prohibit them from having any fixed place to be just puts tremendous stress on them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arias, one of the council members who put the new rule forward, said it was about ensuring unhoused people and their things don’t block public rights of way, a goal another official chalked up to an attempt to avoid a lawsuit similar to the one \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article272274053.html\">Sacramento is facing\u003c/a> from residents with disabilities who say homeless camps have taken over sidewalks, making it impossible for them to get around the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, Arias said, clearing encampments is a public health requirement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11954904\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11954904 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A hand holds two bottles of cold water.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/230701-FRESNO-UNHOUSED-HEAT-MHN-17-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nas, an unhoused man in the Tower District in Fresno, holds cold water bottles given to him by\u003cbr>local advocates with the Fresno Homeless Union, Bob and Linda McCloskey, on July 1, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“When you have the amount of feces, the amount of drug paraphernalia, the amount of rotting food, all in one location, you get outbreaks of disease,” he said. “That’s why we have to respond.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After city workers left, Everhart and Thom set up their camp again — this time, about 200 feet from where they’d been, still under the same overpass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city formed the response team last year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article257698758.html\">pitching it as a more compassionate alternative\u003c/a> to the police department’s former homeless task force. The team includes outreach workers from a local nonprofit, staff from the code enforcement department and police officers. The city rolled it out along with a new 311 line to field complaints about unhoused people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything we do, everything, revolves around them — trying to evade them,” Everhart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and Thom said the team has thrown away nearly all their possessions several times, a mental and financial blow that can be especially grave in extreme weather. They’ve lost things they need to survive in the heat and the cold, like blankets, clothes, food and water. By Everhart’s count, the response team has shuffled them around the city seven times in less than a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Activists here have tried — without success — to get the city to stop sweeps during extreme weather. This past summer, the Sacramento Homeless Union won a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article277931013.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">temporary injunction\u003c/a> banning the city from cleaning encampments during a heat wave, a case Everhart followed closely when she could charge her phone. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Advocates are pushing for sanctioned encampments where people can set up tents or RVs with the city’s permission and tiny home villages with air conditioning. Everhart has helped them lobby for dumpsters and porta-potties to solve some of the sanitation concerns about camps. Long term, they are fighting for rent control and more affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2019, Fresno has spent over $100 million to address homelessness, more than 90% of it on housing, according to the city. It’s permanently housed nearly 1,900 people while sheltering or temporarily putting up more than 3,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the city estimates there are still 1,700 people living on its streets. “And that’s because the unhoused numbers continue to grow,” Arias said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A welcome ‘vacation’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In early September, an infected spider bite sent Everhart to the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She suspects a black widow because she spotted one near where she was sleeping. She had surgery to remove the necrotic flesh on her thumb, and the doctor put in a drain she described as a McDonald’s straw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My thumb looks like the zombie apocalypse,” she joked from her hospital bed. “I am not exaggerating either. It looks terrible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A couple of weeks earlier, her son, Travis Everhart, went to jail for property damage and resisting arrest. Everhart’s understanding is that he threw some rocks at a car, “because the car was loud,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s glad he’s set to be released in November, but in a way, she’s relieved he’s in jail. At least she knows where he is and that he has food and shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid of all this, the hospital, with its air conditioning and bed, is almost a welcome vacation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been nice, I’ll tell you that,” she said. “They bring your food, you lay in this comfortable bed that has lots of pillows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She met with a social worker there, but when she explained she was already on a waiting list for housing, Everhart said the woman told her there wasn’t much else to do but wait.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she gets released from the hospital, the plan is to have Thom help her tie a plastic bag around her bandaged hand to keep out the dirt. Their camp is alongside a different stretch of freeway now, where they’ll wait for her son to get out of jail. There, under a tarp and umbrella, they’ll try to shelter from the waning heat and the coming rains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Why Tiny Homes Will Remain Part of California’s Homelessness Equation for Years",
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"content": "\u003cp>Despite moving into her new digs just a month ago, Darlene Pizarro and her white dog, Angel, are already regulars at the local dog run.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pizarro’s new place is not quite a city neighborhood and where she lives isn’t quite a home, but a tiny home, one of 94 city-funded units for the homeless at that lot. But Pizarro, who last lived as a squatter in an abandoned house, was relieved to be there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Tiny home” describes a specific type of housing more permanent than a tent or disaster shelter but less than a single-family home, townhouse, apartment or something else thought of as permanent housing. The structures — smaller than 400 square feet, often lacking either a kitchen or private bathroom — have become increasingly common in California’s response to homelessness over the past five years, though opinions are split on how much to rely on them in years to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site of Pizarro’s tiny home, on Guadalupe Parkway in the city’s downtown, opened in May as the newest of San Jose’s six sites that aim to fill the steps between traditional, congregate homeless shelters — think “room full of bunk beds and cubicles” — and an apartment of one’s own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It boasts all the fixings of what homeless advocates say are best practices for temporary housing:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Individualized case management allowing residents to stay as long as they need to get permanent housing\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Laundry and kitchen facilities\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The privacy of individual rooms that lock, with personal bathrooms\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Other elements that emphasize residents’ dignity, like the dog run and weekly community events.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Tiny homes are sometimes called modular homes or, in the case of San Jose, “emergency interim housing.” The city is all in, operating more than 600 such beds across six sites and building more. Mayor Matt Mahan attributes to them \u003ca href=\"https://news.santaclaracounty.gov/news-release/county-santa-clara-and-city-san-jose-release-preliminary-results-2023-point-time\">a recent 10% decline\u003c/a> in the city’s unsheltered population, and notes that of the 1,500 people the city has sheltered in its tiny home sites, 48% moved to permanent housing. That’s compared to an average rate of 34% \u003ca href=\"https://osh.sccgov.org/sites/g/files/exjcpb671/files/documents/SH%20Dashboard%20and%20TemporaryHousing_PSH_Report_June_2023_Final.pdf\">across Santa Clara County’s shelters\u003c/a> over the past three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Jennifer Loving, CEO, Destination: HOME\"]‘People are tired of seeing homelessness and they’re saying, ‘Do something, now.’ These non-congregate shelters are being positioned as the, ‘We’re doing something now.’’[/pullquote]Tiny homes are increasingly California cities’ shelter option of choice for new sites to house the homeless. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration earlier this year said it is sending out 1,200 units statewide. San Jose and Sacramento, each set to receive hundreds, recently said they had selected their sites; as of October the state is \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article280140969.html\">still selecting vendors\u003c/a> to build the homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are our single best solution to the crisis on our streets,” Mahan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The rise of the tiny home\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Mahan’s zeal to open more tiny home sites got him in hot water this year in an age-old debate over which end of the housing shortage to focus on: temporary or permanent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates of tiny homes say they’re fast, cheap ways to get people sheltered immediately. Other longtime homeless advocates applaud tiny homes as improved shelter options but are wary about over-relying on them in the long-term solution to homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Non-congregate tiny homes are better than congregate shelter, but people are still homeless when they live there,” said Jennifer Loving, CEO of the nonprofit Destination: HOME, one of the primary agencies coordinating Santa Clara County’s response to homelessness. “You may be getting some more homeless folks into temporary shelter, but what about the hordes of people dying for an affordable place to live?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, San Jose officials diverted $8 million of the city’s $137 million in homelessness and housing funding from developing affordable housing to running and building more tiny homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11960819,news_11943746,news_11959120\" label=\"Related Stories\"]Mahan \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanjoseca.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/97404/638188872211600000\">initially proposed\u003c/a> putting 36% of the housing funds, which come from a 2020 property sales tax, toward temporary housing and 53% toward permanent housing for low- and middle-income households (the remainder would go toward rental assistance and administrative costs). He called it a one-time diversion to address the homelessness crisis on the streets while waiting on affordable housing that can cost more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2022-06-20/california-affordable-housing-cost-1-million-apartment\">$1 million a unit\u003c/a> in the Bay Area and take years to build.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates and several city council members pushed back on what would have been a dramatic shift from past spending plans, which put three-quarters of the funds toward developing affordable housing and 15% on shelter. The city passed a compromise budget that put 68% of the funds toward permanent housing and 21% toward temporary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Loving said the only way to keep temporary sites successful is to keep developing permanent housing for residents to move into.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are tired of seeing homelessness and they’re saying, ‘Do something, now,’” Loving said. “I think these non-congregate shelters are being positioned as the, ‘We’re doing something now.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While California cities have been installing tiny homes for at least the past five years, it was the pandemic that thrust the potential solution into the spotlight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has for the past decade been shifting its focus from temporary shelter towards building permanent supportive housing: affordable, long-term living options that come with social services. Permanent supportive housing units have been on the rise since 2008 in California as the number of temporary spots fell, according to an analysis of federal data by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/jrFR3/1/\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/8TIQx/1/\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with a global pandemic and a record number of Californians falling into homelessness faster than the state could house them, officials turned toward non-congregate but temporary options like hotel rooms and tiny homes to keep people sheltered. In 2021, interim housing spots in California again exceeded permanent supportive housing units for the first time since 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A sense of privacy\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Also making the sites attractive are a host of modular housing companies springing up to offer tiny homes that are more livable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared to flimsier and less fireproof prior models that evoked disaster zones, many tiny homes now include double-pane windows that can open, individual thermostats and doorbells. In San Jose, one site where the city broke ground this year will include some tiny homes that have private kitchenettes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though not all cities use them, many companies build modular units with en suite bathrooms, which residents say provide significantly more privacy and dignity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964997\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964997\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A row of small homes. The home on the left is orange and the far right is red.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14-1920x1281.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new tiny home community in San Jose on Oct. 10, 2023. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It was the bathrooms that convinced Pizarro to accept an offer of shelter at the San Jose site last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 67-year-old has been homeless for five years and did not trust traditional shelters, where she said, “You have to sleep with one eye open” to evade theft. With a stable place to sleep, Pizarro says she plans to look for retail work and apply for a housing voucher to get her own permanent place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m very hyper and active, and I like to work because I know if I sit around, I’m going to fade away and I’m not ready for that yet,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964998\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964998\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A woman wearing a purple sweater outside.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Monica Rojo is a resident of the new tiny home community built in San Jose on Oct. 10, 2023. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Others aren’t ready to plan their next steps yet. Monica Rojo, 50, moved into her room in May after having lived at a creekside encampment with about 70 others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a woman camping alone, she feared violence constantly. She now feels safer, and since getting her own shower, she no longer feels the disdain of others when she walks into stores. She’s personalized her room with photos of her three adult children in Mexico — two engineers and a nurse, she beams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rojo, a former janitor, said she’s recovering from leukemia and depression and working on getting her IDs after most of her documents were stolen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This program opens the doors, for work, for everything,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Advocates split on tiny homes\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The more each tiny home feels like a real one, the more it costs — and the closer it inches to the “real housing” that advocates say is what actually solves homelessness. In San Jose, plumbing and utilities for the Guadalupe Parkway site drove the cost of each unit from $30,000 for the structure itself to more than $175,000. (Some of the cost was covered by philanthropy, city officials said.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahan’s aware of the tradeoffs. But he said he’s striking the right balance by pushing for temporary shelter that is dignified, while folks wait for permanent housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all know the two extremes,” he said of the spectrum of housing options, from camps to permanent supportive housing. “One is kind of the perfect solution, or as close to it as you can get. The other is abject human misery and totally unacceptable. I am of the opinion that we have to spend more, we have to put more of our emphasis on the lower rungs of the ladder, the side of the spectrum that is improving on sanctioned encampments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some in the tiny homes movement would take it even further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964994\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964994\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A person walks past small homes.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06-1920x1281.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Resident Johnny Nielson walks through the DignityMoves tiny home village in downtown San Francisco, on Oct. 3, 2023. The program provides interim supportive housing to individuals experiencing homelessness. \u003ccite>(Loren Elliott/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Funk is CEO of DignityMoves, a nonprofit advocating for tiny home shelter sites. More than two years ago the nonprofit got San Francisco’s only tiny homes village so far set up in mere months, with donated structures on a sliver of a city parking lot. Residents can stay as long as they need, with regular access to social and health care workers at the 90 structures. Funk said the site takes advantage of a lot that’s in the yearslong wait of being developed into housing; the structures can be easily relocated when the project breaks ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DignityMoves pushed \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB634\">a bill\u003c/a> in the state Senate this year to allow non-congregate, relocatable tiny home projects to bypass certain permitting procedures, and direct cities and counties to make available empty land for those uses. The bill initially defined such projects under the state building code as a type of housing, rather than as temporary shelter. Funk even suggested using housing vouchers to pay for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she didn’t expect the controversy she sparked. A group of advocates pushed back on the bill, arguing that, as Alex Visotzky of the National Alliance to End Homelessness put it, “it blurred the line between housing and shelter.” Sharon Rapport of the Corporation for Supportive Housing pointed out that certain shelters already can bypass permitting restrictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It should be that that kind of expedited process is reserved for housing projects or any other kind of projects that are really promoting good policy,” Rapport said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite some amendments requiring the projects to include plans for residents to get permanent housing when the land is needed for other uses, the bill died in the Senate appropriations committee in May. Its author, San Mateo Democratic Sen. Josh Becker, said he intends to bring it back next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even Pallet Shelter, an early tiny homes builder that has supplied units for 36 sites across 32 California cities, was opposed to Becker’s bill. Amy King, CEO of the Washington-based company, said she asked for the bill to be amended to prohibit such sites from charging rents to tenants. No such change was made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am not a supporter of this type of housing becoming a substitute for permanent housing,” King said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Funk said she wasn’t trying to divert resources from one end of the housing spectrum to the other, but said the lines between the two may be too rigid when permanent housing is so scarce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If someone needs or wants to stay in a tiny home for multiple years until they’re “ready” to move into a permanent apartment, she says, why shouldn’t it count as their housing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site DignityMoves opened in San Francisco illustrates both her point and her skeptics’.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964996\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964996\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with blue hair a jacket and lots of clothing behind her sits down while a woman wearing purple is in the foreground.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14-1920x1281.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jezzeille Murdock speaks with a clinical case manager at the DignityMoves tiny home village in downtown San Francisco, on Oct. 3, 2023. \u003ccite>(Loren Elliott/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mia Salvaggio moved in two and a half years ago. She became homeless in 2020, after couch surfing and battling a drug addiction. After bouncing around different campsites in the Bay Area, Salvaggio chose the offer of shelter space at DignityMoves because it afforded her some privacy, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Being there has allowed her to meet a caseworker who helped her get her Social Security card. In an interview, she rattled off a long list of goals to focus on next: drug treatment, getting evaluated by a mental health provider and landing a part-time job. She was waiting for news about a permanent housing placement in early October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she was grateful for the stay at the site, but some aspects still make it a far cry from a home: There’s no kitchen, the communal restrooms are porta-potties and the showers are on a trailer, which staff only keep open until 2:30 p.m. each day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Salvaggio was also tired of living in close quarters with other residents, whom she accused of stealing her things and dirtying common areas. The rooms at that site are only 64 square feet, smaller than San Jose’s structures, and guests aren’t allowed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As long as I can prepare my own food and have my own bathroom,” she’ll be satisfied, Salvaggio said. “I haven’t literally sat on a toilet seat for probably two and a half years.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Despite moving into her new digs just a month ago, Darlene Pizarro and her white dog, Angel, are already regulars at the local dog run.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pizarro’s new place is not quite a city neighborhood and where she lives isn’t quite a home, but a tiny home, one of 94 city-funded units for the homeless at that lot. But Pizarro, who last lived as a squatter in an abandoned house, was relieved to be there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Tiny home” describes a specific type of housing more permanent than a tent or disaster shelter but less than a single-family home, townhouse, apartment or something else thought of as permanent housing. The structures — smaller than 400 square feet, often lacking either a kitchen or private bathroom — have become increasingly common in California’s response to homelessness over the past five years, though opinions are split on how much to rely on them in years to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site of Pizarro’s tiny home, on Guadalupe Parkway in the city’s downtown, opened in May as the newest of San Jose’s six sites that aim to fill the steps between traditional, congregate homeless shelters — think “room full of bunk beds and cubicles” — and an apartment of one’s own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It boasts all the fixings of what homeless advocates say are best practices for temporary housing:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Individualized case management allowing residents to stay as long as they need to get permanent housing\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Laundry and kitchen facilities\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The privacy of individual rooms that lock, with personal bathrooms\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Other elements that emphasize residents’ dignity, like the dog run and weekly community events.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Tiny homes are sometimes called modular homes or, in the case of San Jose, “emergency interim housing.” The city is all in, operating more than 600 such beds across six sites and building more. Mayor Matt Mahan attributes to them \u003ca href=\"https://news.santaclaracounty.gov/news-release/county-santa-clara-and-city-san-jose-release-preliminary-results-2023-point-time\">a recent 10% decline\u003c/a> in the city’s unsheltered population, and notes that of the 1,500 people the city has sheltered in its tiny home sites, 48% moved to permanent housing. That’s compared to an average rate of 34% \u003ca href=\"https://osh.sccgov.org/sites/g/files/exjcpb671/files/documents/SH%20Dashboard%20and%20TemporaryHousing_PSH_Report_June_2023_Final.pdf\">across Santa Clara County’s shelters\u003c/a> over the past three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘People are tired of seeing homelessness and they’re saying, ‘Do something, now.’ These non-congregate shelters are being positioned as the, ‘We’re doing something now.’’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Tiny homes are increasingly California cities’ shelter option of choice for new sites to house the homeless. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration earlier this year said it is sending out 1,200 units statewide. San Jose and Sacramento, each set to receive hundreds, recently said they had selected their sites; as of October the state is \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article280140969.html\">still selecting vendors\u003c/a> to build the homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are our single best solution to the crisis on our streets,” Mahan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The rise of the tiny home\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Mahan’s zeal to open more tiny home sites got him in hot water this year in an age-old debate over which end of the housing shortage to focus on: temporary or permanent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates of tiny homes say they’re fast, cheap ways to get people sheltered immediately. Other longtime homeless advocates applaud tiny homes as improved shelter options but are wary about over-relying on them in the long-term solution to homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Non-congregate tiny homes are better than congregate shelter, but people are still homeless when they live there,” said Jennifer Loving, CEO of the nonprofit Destination: HOME, one of the primary agencies coordinating Santa Clara County’s response to homelessness. “You may be getting some more homeless folks into temporary shelter, but what about the hordes of people dying for an affordable place to live?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, San Jose officials diverted $8 million of the city’s $137 million in homelessness and housing funding from developing affordable housing to running and building more tiny homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Mahan \u003ca href=\"https://www.sanjoseca.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/97404/638188872211600000\">initially proposed\u003c/a> putting 36% of the housing funds, which come from a 2020 property sales tax, toward temporary housing and 53% toward permanent housing for low- and middle-income households (the remainder would go toward rental assistance and administrative costs). He called it a one-time diversion to address the homelessness crisis on the streets while waiting on affordable housing that can cost more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2022-06-20/california-affordable-housing-cost-1-million-apartment\">$1 million a unit\u003c/a> in the Bay Area and take years to build.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates and several city council members pushed back on what would have been a dramatic shift from past spending plans, which put three-quarters of the funds toward developing affordable housing and 15% on shelter. The city passed a compromise budget that put 68% of the funds toward permanent housing and 21% toward temporary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Loving said the only way to keep temporary sites successful is to keep developing permanent housing for residents to move into.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are tired of seeing homelessness and they’re saying, ‘Do something, now,’” Loving said. “I think these non-congregate shelters are being positioned as the, ‘We’re doing something now.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While California cities have been installing tiny homes for at least the past five years, it was the pandemic that thrust the potential solution into the spotlight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has for the past decade been shifting its focus from temporary shelter towards building permanent supportive housing: affordable, long-term living options that come with social services. Permanent supportive housing units have been on the rise since 2008 in California as the number of temporary spots fell, according to an analysis of federal data by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/jrFR3/1/\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/8TIQx/1/\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with a global pandemic and a record number of Californians falling into homelessness faster than the state could house them, officials turned toward non-congregate but temporary options like hotel rooms and tiny homes to keep people sheltered. In 2021, interim housing spots in California again exceeded permanent supportive housing units for the first time since 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A sense of privacy\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Also making the sites attractive are a host of modular housing companies springing up to offer tiny homes that are more livable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared to flimsier and less fireproof prior models that evoked disaster zones, many tiny homes now include double-pane windows that can open, individual thermostats and doorbells. In San Jose, one site where the city broke ground this year will include some tiny homes that have private kitchenettes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though not all cities use them, many companies build modular units with en suite bathrooms, which residents say provide significantly more privacy and dignity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964997\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964997\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A row of small homes. The home on the left is orange and the far right is red.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14-1920x1281.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-14.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new tiny home community in San Jose on Oct. 10, 2023. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It was the bathrooms that convinced Pizarro to accept an offer of shelter at the San Jose site last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 67-year-old has been homeless for five years and did not trust traditional shelters, where she said, “You have to sleep with one eye open” to evade theft. With a stable place to sleep, Pizarro says she plans to look for retail work and apply for a housing voucher to get her own permanent place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m very hyper and active, and I like to work because I know if I sit around, I’m going to fade away and I’m not ready for that yet,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964998\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964998\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A woman wearing a purple sweater outside.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/101023-San-Jose-Tiny-Homes-TH-CM-27.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Monica Rojo is a resident of the new tiny home community built in San Jose on Oct. 10, 2023. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Others aren’t ready to plan their next steps yet. Monica Rojo, 50, moved into her room in May after having lived at a creekside encampment with about 70 others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a woman camping alone, she feared violence constantly. She now feels safer, and since getting her own shower, she no longer feels the disdain of others when she walks into stores. She’s personalized her room with photos of her three adult children in Mexico — two engineers and a nurse, she beams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rojo, a former janitor, said she’s recovering from leukemia and depression and working on getting her IDs after most of her documents were stolen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This program opens the doors, for work, for everything,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Advocates split on tiny homes\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The more each tiny home feels like a real one, the more it costs — and the closer it inches to the “real housing” that advocates say is what actually solves homelessness. In San Jose, plumbing and utilities for the Guadalupe Parkway site drove the cost of each unit from $30,000 for the structure itself to more than $175,000. (Some of the cost was covered by philanthropy, city officials said.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahan’s aware of the tradeoffs. But he said he’s striking the right balance by pushing for temporary shelter that is dignified, while folks wait for permanent housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all know the two extremes,” he said of the spectrum of housing options, from camps to permanent supportive housing. “One is kind of the perfect solution, or as close to it as you can get. The other is abject human misery and totally unacceptable. I am of the opinion that we have to spend more, we have to put more of our emphasis on the lower rungs of the ladder, the side of the spectrum that is improving on sanctioned encampments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some in the tiny homes movement would take it even further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964994\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964994\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A person walks past small homes.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06-1920x1281.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-06.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Resident Johnny Nielson walks through the DignityMoves tiny home village in downtown San Francisco, on Oct. 3, 2023. The program provides interim supportive housing to individuals experiencing homelessness. \u003ccite>(Loren Elliott/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Funk is CEO of DignityMoves, a nonprofit advocating for tiny home shelter sites. More than two years ago the nonprofit got San Francisco’s only tiny homes village so far set up in mere months, with donated structures on a sliver of a city parking lot. Residents can stay as long as they need, with regular access to social and health care workers at the 90 structures. Funk said the site takes advantage of a lot that’s in the yearslong wait of being developed into housing; the structures can be easily relocated when the project breaks ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DignityMoves pushed \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB634\">a bill\u003c/a> in the state Senate this year to allow non-congregate, relocatable tiny home projects to bypass certain permitting procedures, and direct cities and counties to make available empty land for those uses. The bill initially defined such projects under the state building code as a type of housing, rather than as temporary shelter. Funk even suggested using housing vouchers to pay for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she didn’t expect the controversy she sparked. A group of advocates pushed back on the bill, arguing that, as Alex Visotzky of the National Alliance to End Homelessness put it, “it blurred the line between housing and shelter.” Sharon Rapport of the Corporation for Supportive Housing pointed out that certain shelters already can bypass permitting restrictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It should be that that kind of expedited process is reserved for housing projects or any other kind of projects that are really promoting good policy,” Rapport said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite some amendments requiring the projects to include plans for residents to get permanent housing when the land is needed for other uses, the bill died in the Senate appropriations committee in May. Its author, San Mateo Democratic Sen. Josh Becker, said he intends to bring it back next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even Pallet Shelter, an early tiny homes builder that has supplied units for 36 sites across 32 California cities, was opposed to Becker’s bill. Amy King, CEO of the Washington-based company, said she asked for the bill to be amended to prohibit such sites from charging rents to tenants. No such change was made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am not a supporter of this type of housing becoming a substitute for permanent housing,” King said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Funk said she wasn’t trying to divert resources from one end of the housing spectrum to the other, but said the lines between the two may be too rigid when permanent housing is so scarce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If someone needs or wants to stay in a tiny home for multiple years until they’re “ready” to move into a permanent apartment, she says, why shouldn’t it count as their housing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site DignityMoves opened in San Francisco illustrates both her point and her skeptics’.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964996\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964996\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14-800x534.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with blue hair a jacket and lots of clothing behind her sits down while a woman wearing purple is in the foreground.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14-1920x1281.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/100323-DignityMoves-Tiny-Homes-LE-CM-14.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jezzeille Murdock speaks with a clinical case manager at the DignityMoves tiny home village in downtown San Francisco, on Oct. 3, 2023. \u003ccite>(Loren Elliott/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mia Salvaggio moved in two and a half years ago. She became homeless in 2020, after couch surfing and battling a drug addiction. After bouncing around different campsites in the Bay Area, Salvaggio chose the offer of shelter space at DignityMoves because it afforded her some privacy, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Being there has allowed her to meet a caseworker who helped her get her Social Security card. In an interview, she rattled off a long list of goals to focus on next: drug treatment, getting evaluated by a mental health provider and landing a part-time job. She was waiting for news about a permanent housing placement in early October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she was grateful for the stay at the site, but some aspects still make it a far cry from a home: There’s no kitchen, the communal restrooms are porta-potties and the showers are on a trailer, which staff only keep open until 2:30 p.m. each day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Salvaggio was also tired of living in close quarters with other residents, whom she accused of stealing her things and dirtying common areas. The rooms at that site are only 64 square feet, smaller than San Jose’s structures, and guests aren’t allowed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As long as I can prepare my own food and have my own bathroom,” she’ll be satisfied, Salvaggio said. “I haven’t literally sat on a toilet seat for probably two and a half years.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "california-voters-to-weigh-behavioral-health-reforms-after-newsom-signature",
"title": "California Voters to Weigh Behavioral Health Reforms After Newsom Signature",
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"content": "\u003cp>An \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11961241/inside-californias-landmark-mental-health-reforms\">ambitious plan to change how California funds mental health care\u003c/a> will go before voters in March after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a pair of bills Thursday to place the reforms on the primary ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes to the Mental Health Services Act and a corresponding housing bond are aimed at helping Californians with severe mental illness while living on the street. The measures won overwhelming support in the Legislature despite concerns from California counties and some mental health advocates. Together, they represent Newsom’s latest effort to transform care at the intersection of mental health and homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two bills Newsom signed on Thursday — Senate Bill 326 and Assembly Bill 531 — will appear on the March 5, 2024 ballot as Proposition 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was bipartisan legislation that we signed today, Democrats, Republicans — all of us impacted by the issue of mental health, mental illness,” Newsom said at a bill signing ceremony in Los Angeles. “So we’re very excited about the prospect of our success in March.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SB 326 reworks the state’s Mental Health Services Act, first approved by voters in 2004. The MHSA places a 1% tax on personal income over $1 million to fund mental health care, along with services aimed at preventing mental health issues in kids and teens from becoming more severe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"California Gov. Gavin Newsom\"]‘This was bipartisan legislation that we signed today, Democrats, Republicans — all of us impacted by the issue of mental health, mental illness.’[/pullquote]Under the changes, the law would be renamed the Behavioral Health Services Act, and tax dollars could be used to treat substance abuse, in addition to mental illness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Going forward, 30% of the act’s revenue would be set aside for housing, which could include temporary units or rental subsidies for Californians with acute mental health care needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all come to this with our own personal stories about the frustrations of knocking our heads against walls, trying to get people we love help,” said Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton), the bill’s author. “Well, now we have all the pieces together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill faced initial opposition from providers of youth mental health services, who argued the plan lacked clear set-asides to pay for early interventions — such as paying for mental health clinicians to come into classrooms and help early childhood educators identify issues with students. The plan was amended to include specific set-asides for early intervention and Californians younger than 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County governments remained skeptical of the bill. Tax revenue from wealthy Californians is a volatile revenue source, and directing more of that money toward housing could leave less funding for core mental health services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='More on California Law' tag='california-law']“Counties have a significant and growing obligation to fund behavioral health services under the Medi-Cal entitlement and use MHSA funds to support that obligation,” according to the final Senate analysis of the bill. “This proposal leaves counties with fewer resources to do so, including less funding available to use as a Medi-Cal match to draw down additional federal dollars.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 531 proposes a $6.38 billion bond, with the goal of providing 10,000 new beds and supportive housing units for those with severe behavioral health needs who, supporters of the plan argue, currently end up in emergency rooms or back on the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over $1 billion will be set aside for veterans with behavioral health needs. Supporters of the plan are promising community-based facilities, and not the locked state mental hospitals of years past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jolissa Hebard, an outreach supervisor with the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Westside Los Angeles, said she has lived with substance use and has relatives with bipolar disorder. She also has a son who has attempted suicide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The stuff that we are doing today is going to help families to help themselves and help their loved ones,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration pushed hard to win support for the mental health changes in the state Legislature and the governor will actively pitch his plan to voters next year, said Dana Williamson, Newsom’s chief of staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If he were here, he’d tell you this is his biggest priority,” Williamson told KQED’s Political Breakdown last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Jolissa Hebard, outreach supervisor, National Alliance on Mental Illness\"]‘The stuff that we are doing today is going to help families to help themselves and help their loved ones.’[/pullquote]Since taking office, Newsom has pushed for changes to how state and local governments deal with people suffering from severe psychosis or substance abuse — many of whom end up living in encampments on sidewalks or riverbeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11924117/governors-care-court-plan-passes-assembly-clearing-way-to-become-law\">governor signed into law the CARE Court program\u003c/a>, which authorizes judges to compel care and housing for Californians with severe mental illness. That law is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101894425/care-court-is-coming-to-san-francisco-heres-what-we-can-expect\">rolling out this fall in eight counties\u003c/a> before statewide implementation next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, Newsom signed a bill \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11963961/newsom-signs-law-expanding-conservatorships-for-those-experiencing-severe-mental-illness-substance-abuse\">expanding the state’s conservatorship law\u003c/a> governing the use of involuntary medical care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposition 1 will be the only statewide measure on the March 5 ballot. Voters will also weigh in on primaries for president and California’s U.S. Senate seat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "California Voters to Weigh Behavioral Health Reforms After Newsom Signature | KQED",
"description": "The changes to the Mental Health Services Act represent Gov. Gavin Newsom's latest effort to transform care at the intersection of mental health and homelessness.",
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"headline": "California Voters to Weigh Behavioral Health Reforms After Newsom Signature",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>An \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11961241/inside-californias-landmark-mental-health-reforms\">ambitious plan to change how California funds mental health care\u003c/a> will go before voters in March after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a pair of bills Thursday to place the reforms on the primary ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes to the Mental Health Services Act and a corresponding housing bond are aimed at helping Californians with severe mental illness while living on the street. The measures won overwhelming support in the Legislature despite concerns from California counties and some mental health advocates. Together, they represent Newsom’s latest effort to transform care at the intersection of mental health and homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two bills Newsom signed on Thursday — Senate Bill 326 and Assembly Bill 531 — will appear on the March 5, 2024 ballot as Proposition 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was bipartisan legislation that we signed today, Democrats, Republicans — all of us impacted by the issue of mental health, mental illness,” Newsom said at a bill signing ceremony in Los Angeles. “So we’re very excited about the prospect of our success in March.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SB 326 reworks the state’s Mental Health Services Act, first approved by voters in 2004. The MHSA places a 1% tax on personal income over $1 million to fund mental health care, along with services aimed at preventing mental health issues in kids and teens from becoming more severe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘This was bipartisan legislation that we signed today, Democrats, Republicans — all of us impacted by the issue of mental health, mental illness.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Under the changes, the law would be renamed the Behavioral Health Services Act, and tax dollars could be used to treat substance abuse, in addition to mental illness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Going forward, 30% of the act’s revenue would be set aside for housing, which could include temporary units or rental subsidies for Californians with acute mental health care needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all come to this with our own personal stories about the frustrations of knocking our heads against walls, trying to get people we love help,” said Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton), the bill’s author. “Well, now we have all the pieces together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill faced initial opposition from providers of youth mental health services, who argued the plan lacked clear set-asides to pay for early interventions — such as paying for mental health clinicians to come into classrooms and help early childhood educators identify issues with students. The plan was amended to include specific set-asides for early intervention and Californians younger than 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County governments remained skeptical of the bill. Tax revenue from wealthy Californians is a volatile revenue source, and directing more of that money toward housing could leave less funding for core mental health services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Counties have a significant and growing obligation to fund behavioral health services under the Medi-Cal entitlement and use MHSA funds to support that obligation,” according to the final Senate analysis of the bill. “This proposal leaves counties with fewer resources to do so, including less funding available to use as a Medi-Cal match to draw down additional federal dollars.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 531 proposes a $6.38 billion bond, with the goal of providing 10,000 new beds and supportive housing units for those with severe behavioral health needs who, supporters of the plan argue, currently end up in emergency rooms or back on the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over $1 billion will be set aside for veterans with behavioral health needs. Supporters of the plan are promising community-based facilities, and not the locked state mental hospitals of years past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jolissa Hebard, an outreach supervisor with the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Westside Los Angeles, said she has lived with substance use and has relatives with bipolar disorder. She also has a son who has attempted suicide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The stuff that we are doing today is going to help families to help themselves and help their loved ones,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration pushed hard to win support for the mental health changes in the state Legislature and the governor will actively pitch his plan to voters next year, said Dana Williamson, Newsom’s chief of staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If he were here, he’d tell you this is his biggest priority,” Williamson told KQED’s Political Breakdown last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Since taking office, Newsom has pushed for changes to how state and local governments deal with people suffering from severe psychosis or substance abuse — many of whom end up living in encampments on sidewalks or riverbeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11924117/governors-care-court-plan-passes-assembly-clearing-way-to-become-law\">governor signed into law the CARE Court program\u003c/a>, which authorizes judges to compel care and housing for Californians with severe mental illness. That law is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101894425/care-court-is-coming-to-san-francisco-heres-what-we-can-expect\">rolling out this fall in eight counties\u003c/a> before statewide implementation next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, Newsom signed a bill \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11963961/newsom-signs-law-expanding-conservatorships-for-those-experiencing-severe-mental-illness-substance-abuse\">expanding the state’s conservatorship law\u003c/a> governing the use of involuntary medical care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposition 1 will be the only statewide measure on the March 5 ballot. Voters will also weigh in on primaries for president and California’s U.S. Senate seat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Housing First, Paperwork Later: San Francisco Looks to Move People Off the Streets More Quickly",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco’s homelessness department is hoping to move more people who are living on the street into the city’s hundreds of vacant city-subsidized housing units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials on Wednesday announced a plan where people living on the street can move into available units before completing necessary paperwork proving their eligibility, which can often stall the housing placement process or deter people altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Somebody can move from living unsheltered on the streets and in two hours be home,” Emily Cohen, deputy director for communications and legislative affairs at the Dept. of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. “The homeless outreach team is out on the street. They are identifying people who are already prioritized for housing but don’t have their documents together at all yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, San Francisco had an estimated 7,754 people experiencing homelessness, a 3.5% decrease from the last point-in-time count in 2019, according to city data. More than 4,000 of those counted were unsheltered, meaning they didn’t have access to any temporary shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Shireen McSpadden, executive director, Dept. of Homelessness and Supportive Housing\"]‘This is a real opportunity for us to move people directly off the street and into housing.’[/pullquote]Meanwhile, reports have also shown that \u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/article/in-san-francisco-hundreds-of-homes-for-the-homeless-sit-vacant\">hundreds of the city’s permanent supportive housing units may sit vacant on any given day\u003c/a>. Advocates for unhoused San Franciscans have criticized the stark contrast between the volume of vacant units and the city’s well-documented need for housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s vacancy rate for units that are eligible for the rapid housing program is currently at around 9.5%, or around 1,000 units, according to Chris Block, housing placement manager at HSH. Only about a third of those units are immediately available, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a real opportunity for us to move people directly off the street and into housing,” said Shireen McSpadden, executive director of HSH. “It really helps with our vacancy rate in permanent supportive housing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s main housing pipeline will continue to function as-is. That program, \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/the-homelessness-response-system/coordinated-entry/\">called Coordinated Entry\u003c/a>, is used to assess someone’s needs and prioritize their placement for limited subsidized housing slots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This new effort comes after San Francisco and other cities in California opened up hotels for people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic and were able to rapidly house thousands of people by reducing some bureaucratic barriers before moving them in, Cohen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963502\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11963502\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/004_SanFrancisco_AbigailHotel_10222021-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/004_SanFrancisco_AbigailHotel_10222021-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/004_SanFrancisco_AbigailHotel_10222021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/004_SanFrancisco_AbigailHotel_10222021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/004_SanFrancisco_AbigailHotel_10222021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/004_SanFrancisco_AbigailHotel_10222021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shireen McSpadden, director of the Dept. of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, sits in a newly renovated room at the Abigail Hotel in San Francisco on Oct. 22, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The city has already started using the so-called “presumptive eligibility” approach and housed seven people in September, Block said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The approach focuses on people who are engaged with social services but may not have all their necessary documents to show they qualify for housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HSH is currently using the approach for vacant units funded directly by the city. Cohen said that her department has requested permission from federal officials to use the same process for some federally funded housing sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the city sheltered thousands of people through short-term pandemic relief programs, San Francisco still has a higher portion of its unhoused population living outdoors compared to cities such as San José, Long Beach, Denver, Boston and Washington, D.C., \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/2023%20Homelessness%20Benchmarking%20Report.pdf\">according to a 2023 report from the city’s controller (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition, more than 340 people were on \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/adult-temporary-shelter/shelter-reservation-waitlist/\">the city’s waiting list for temporary shelter\u003c/a> as of Wednesday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='More Housing Stories' tag='housing']Cohen said that the new approach would not be a “silver bullet” to the city’s homelessness crisis, but a way to make it easier and faster for people to move into available units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Home-by-the-Bay-Single_Page-Layout.pdf\">city’s strategic plan (PDF)\u003c/a> aims to cut unsheltered homelessness in half and total homelessness by 15% by June 2028. To get there, the city still needs at least 3,250 units of permanent supportive housing, 1,075 shelter beds, and services to prevent homelessness for more than 4,000 households, the plan reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Efforts to more quickly move people into housing come as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11960279/where-things-stand-in-san-franciscos-legal-battle-over-street-encampments\">San Francisco is fighting a lawsuit over how it responds to street homelessness\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September 2022, the Coalition on Homelessness sued the city for allegedly failing to adhere to its own policies around how to clear tent encampments on sidewalks, arguing that personal belongings were repeatedly thrown away and people were not first offered shelter. A judge has since banned San Francisco from sweeping homeless encampments unless it followed those policies. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11960279/where-things-stand-in-san-franciscos-legal-battle-over-street-encampments\">The city is now appealing the judge’s temporary order\u003c/a> while the broader lawsuit is under review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was the natural next step,” to furthering some of the city’s housing goals, said Cohen. “We are going to presume you meet the needs in eligibility for this housing based on everything we know about you, and we’ll worry about the paperwork later.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, San Francisco had an estimated 7,754 people experiencing homelessness, a 3.5% decrease from the last point-in-time count in 2019, according to city data. More than 4,000 of those counted were unsheltered, meaning they didn’t have access to any temporary shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Meanwhile, reports have also shown that \u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/article/in-san-francisco-hundreds-of-homes-for-the-homeless-sit-vacant\">hundreds of the city’s permanent supportive housing units may sit vacant on any given day\u003c/a>. Advocates for unhoused San Franciscans have criticized the stark contrast between the volume of vacant units and the city’s well-documented need for housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s vacancy rate for units that are eligible for the rapid housing program is currently at around 9.5%, or around 1,000 units, according to Chris Block, housing placement manager at HSH. Only about a third of those units are immediately available, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a real opportunity for us to move people directly off the street and into housing,” said Shireen McSpadden, executive director of HSH. “It really helps with our vacancy rate in permanent supportive housing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s main housing pipeline will continue to function as-is. That program, \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/the-homelessness-response-system/coordinated-entry/\">called Coordinated Entry\u003c/a>, is used to assess someone’s needs and prioritize their placement for limited subsidized housing slots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This new effort comes after San Francisco and other cities in California opened up hotels for people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic and were able to rapidly house thousands of people by reducing some bureaucratic barriers before moving them in, Cohen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963502\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11963502\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/004_SanFrancisco_AbigailHotel_10222021-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/004_SanFrancisco_AbigailHotel_10222021-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/004_SanFrancisco_AbigailHotel_10222021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/004_SanFrancisco_AbigailHotel_10222021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/004_SanFrancisco_AbigailHotel_10222021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/004_SanFrancisco_AbigailHotel_10222021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shireen McSpadden, director of the Dept. of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, sits in a newly renovated room at the Abigail Hotel in San Francisco on Oct. 22, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The city has already started using the so-called “presumptive eligibility” approach and housed seven people in September, Block said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The approach focuses on people who are engaged with social services but may not have all their necessary documents to show they qualify for housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HSH is currently using the approach for vacant units funded directly by the city. Cohen said that her department has requested permission from federal officials to use the same process for some federally funded housing sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the city sheltered thousands of people through short-term pandemic relief programs, San Francisco still has a higher portion of its unhoused population living outdoors compared to cities such as San José, Long Beach, Denver, Boston and Washington, D.C., \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/2023%20Homelessness%20Benchmarking%20Report.pdf\">according to a 2023 report from the city’s controller (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition, more than 340 people were on \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/adult-temporary-shelter/shelter-reservation-waitlist/\">the city’s waiting list for temporary shelter\u003c/a> as of Wednesday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Cohen said that the new approach would not be a “silver bullet” to the city’s homelessness crisis, but a way to make it easier and faster for people to move into available units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Home-by-the-Bay-Single_Page-Layout.pdf\">city’s strategic plan (PDF)\u003c/a> aims to cut unsheltered homelessness in half and total homelessness by 15% by June 2028. To get there, the city still needs at least 3,250 units of permanent supportive housing, 1,075 shelter beds, and services to prevent homelessness for more than 4,000 households, the plan reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Efforts to more quickly move people into housing come as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11960279/where-things-stand-in-san-franciscos-legal-battle-over-street-encampments\">San Francisco is fighting a lawsuit over how it responds to street homelessness\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September 2022, the Coalition on Homelessness sued the city for allegedly failing to adhere to its own policies around how to clear tent encampments on sidewalks, arguing that personal belongings were repeatedly thrown away and people were not first offered shelter. A judge has since banned San Francisco from sweeping homeless encampments unless it followed those policies. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11960279/where-things-stand-in-san-franciscos-legal-battle-over-street-encampments\">The city is now appealing the judge’s temporary order\u003c/a> while the broader lawsuit is under review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was the natural next step,” to furthering some of the city’s housing goals, said Cohen. “We are going to presume you meet the needs in eligibility for this housing based on everything we know about you, and we’ll worry about the paperwork later.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California's 'CARE Court' Program Starts Amid Concerns Over Effectiveness",
"headTitle": "California’s ‘CARE Court’ Program Starts Amid Concerns Over Effectiveness | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>An alternative mental health court program designed to fast-track people with untreated schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders into housing and medical care — potentially without their consent — kicked off in seven California counties, including San Francisco, on Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom created the new civil court process, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/care-court\">called CARE Court,\u003c/a> as part of a massive push to address the homelessness crisis in California. Lawmakers approved it despite \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/health-california-legislature-san-francisco-gavin-newsom-245e23bf1c02ea4b900649c6c54ba139\">deep misgivings over\u003c/a> insufficient housing and services, saying they needed to try something new to help those suffering in public from apparent psychotic breaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"San Francisco Superior Court Judge Michael Begert\"]‘It’s hopefully going to help some people who need some help, and it is probably not going to make a huge dent in what you observe in the community.’[/pullquote]Families of people diagnosed with severe mental illness rejoiced because the new law allows them to petition the court for treatment for their loved ones. Residents dismayed by the estimated 171,000 people experiencing homelessness in California cheered at the possibility of getting them help and off the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics blasted the new program as ineffective and punitive, given that it could coerce people into treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as petitions roll in Monday, it’s not clear who the program might help nor how effective it will be. That’s because the eligibility criteria is narrow and limited largely to people with \u003ca href=\"https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/CARE-Act-Eligibility-Criteria.pdf\">untreated schizophrenia and related disorders (PDF)\u003c/a>. Severe depression, bipolar disorder and addiction by itself do not qualify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s hopefully going to help some people who need some help, and it is probably not going to make a huge dent in what you observe in the community,” said San Francisco Superior Court Judge Michael Begert, who will supervise the court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are things to know about the new system:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What is ‘CARE Court’ and who is eligible?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, said in a news briefing last week that the program is aimed at catching people before their condition worsens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Family members and first responders are among those who can now file a petition on behalf of an adult they believe “is unlikely to survive safely” without supervision and whose condition is rapidly deteriorating. They also can file if an adult needs services and support to prevent relapse or deterioration that would likely result in “grave disability or serious harm” to themselves or others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11959302,news_11955211,news_11958561\" label=\"Related Stories\"]To be eligible, the person needs a diagnosis on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/CARE-Act-Eligibility-Criteria.pdf\">schizophrenia spectrum or other qualifying disorders (PDF)\u003c/a>. People with severe depression or bipolar disorder do not qualify. A person does not have to be homeless to be eligible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A special civil court in each county will review each petition with the county behavioral health agency evaluating eligibility. The individual will be appointed a lawyer and a support person of their choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the court determines the individual meets eligibility criteria, they will be asked to work with the county on a voluntary plan that includes housing, medication, counseling and other social services. The agreement would be in effect for up to a year with the possibility of extending it for another year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If all parties cannot agree to a voluntary plan, the statute says the court will order they work on a plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What happens if the person does not want to participate?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Civil rights advocates have raised fears that the new process will result in vulnerable people being forced into treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A person who does not successfully complete a plan could be subject to conservatorship and involuntary treatment, said Tal Klement, a deputy public defender in San Francisco who is among critics of the new process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the statute also allows the court to dismiss the proceedings if the individual declines to participate or to follow the agreement. Judge Begert, in San Francisco, said he cannot compel someone to engage; the best he can do is start building a relationship with the person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Veronica Kelley, Orange County behavioral health director, said the county’s judges understand building rapport with eligible candidates takes time and have agreed to grant her team extra time to reach voluntary agreements, despite the statute’s deadlines.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Are there enough homes, treatment beds and support?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The state has allocated money for emergency shelters — but critics say there is a constant shortage of case managers, appropriate in-patient treatment facilities and supportive housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco officials said in a statement that about 10% of more than 2,500 beds are open for new people. The treatment beds range from detox to step-down care for people leaving long-term care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opponents of the program say the state should have invested in more housing and existing services rather than establishing a new court system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The issue is not that these resources are available and people aren’t using them,” said Samuel Jain, senior policy attorney at Disability Rights California. “It’s that these voluntary community-based services are under-resourced and not accessible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What happens if the person is not eligible for care?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The National Alliance on Mental Illness in California, a grassroots organization supporting people with a mental illness and their families, pushed for the new mental health program. Some family members have long wanted a way to order their loved ones into treatment, the organization said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Cruz, the group’s CEO, encourages people not to give up if their family member does not qualify because other resources may be available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For us, it is just really about making sure that our loved ones have the best life that they could possibly have,” she said. “Living on the streets and dying on the streets is not the way for anybody to live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Which counties are accepting petitions?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>San Francisco, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Glenn counties launched the new program Monday. Los Angeles County will begin its program Dec. 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state estimates roughly 1,800 to 3,100 people could be eligible in the first seven counties. Los Angeles could bump up estimates to 3,600 to 6,200, although uptake could take time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rest of the state has until December 2024 to establish mental health courts.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Families of people diagnosed with severe mental illness rejoiced because the new law allows them to petition the court for treatment for their loved ones. Residents dismayed by the estimated 171,000 people experiencing homelessness in California cheered at the possibility of getting them help and off the streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics blasted the new program as ineffective and punitive, given that it could coerce people into treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as petitions roll in Monday, it’s not clear who the program might help nor how effective it will be. That’s because the eligibility criteria is narrow and limited largely to people with \u003ca href=\"https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/CARE-Act-Eligibility-Criteria.pdf\">untreated schizophrenia and related disorders (PDF)\u003c/a>. Severe depression, bipolar disorder and addiction by itself do not qualify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>To be eligible, the person needs a diagnosis on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/CARE-Act-Eligibility-Criteria.pdf\">schizophrenia spectrum or other qualifying disorders (PDF)\u003c/a>. People with severe depression or bipolar disorder do not qualify. A person does not have to be homeless to be eligible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A special civil court in each county will review each petition with the county behavioral health agency evaluating eligibility. The individual will be appointed a lawyer and a support person of their choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the court determines the individual meets eligibility criteria, they will be asked to work with the county on a voluntary plan that includes housing, medication, counseling and other social services. The agreement would be in effect for up to a year with the possibility of extending it for another year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If all parties cannot agree to a voluntary plan, the statute says the court will order they work on a plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What happens if the person does not want to participate?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Civil rights advocates have raised fears that the new process will result in vulnerable people being forced into treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A person who does not successfully complete a plan could be subject to conservatorship and involuntary treatment, said Tal Klement, a deputy public defender in San Francisco who is among critics of the new process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the statute also allows the court to dismiss the proceedings if the individual declines to participate or to follow the agreement. Judge Begert, in San Francisco, said he cannot compel someone to engage; the best he can do is start building a relationship with the person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Veronica Kelley, Orange County behavioral health director, said the county’s judges understand building rapport with eligible candidates takes time and have agreed to grant her team extra time to reach voluntary agreements, despite the statute’s deadlines.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Are there enough homes, treatment beds and support?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The state has allocated money for emergency shelters — but critics say there is a constant shortage of case managers, appropriate in-patient treatment facilities and supportive housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco officials said in a statement that about 10% of more than 2,500 beds are open for new people. The treatment beds range from detox to step-down care for people leaving long-term care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opponents of the program say the state should have invested in more housing and existing services rather than establishing a new court system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The issue is not that these resources are available and people aren’t using them,” said Samuel Jain, senior policy attorney at Disability Rights California. “It’s that these voluntary community-based services are under-resourced and not accessible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What happens if the person is not eligible for care?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The National Alliance on Mental Illness in California, a grassroots organization supporting people with a mental illness and their families, pushed for the new mental health program. Some family members have long wanted a way to order their loved ones into treatment, the organization said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Cruz, the group’s CEO, encourages people not to give up if their family member does not qualify because other resources may be available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For us, it is just really about making sure that our loved ones have the best life that they could possibly have,” she said. “Living on the streets and dying on the streets is not the way for anybody to live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Which counties are accepting petitions?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>San Francisco, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Glenn counties launched the new program Monday. Los Angeles County will begin its program Dec. 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state estimates roughly 1,800 to 3,100 people could be eligible in the first seven counties. Los Angeles could bump up estimates to 3,600 to 6,200, although uptake could take time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "oaklands-largest-housing-project-aims-to-build-3700-homes-on-site",
"title": "Oakland's Largest Housing Project Aims to Build 3,700 Homes On-Site",
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"content": "\u003cp>If you’ve driven south on Interstate 880 past downtown Oakland, you’ve likely seen the cluster of apartment buildings sprouting in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959720/millions-earmarked-for-affordable-housing-in-california\">Brooklyn Basin\u003c/a>, a 64-acre peninsula that juts out into the Oakland Estuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Dayona Johnson leased one of the new apartments, she hadn’t even heard the name Brooklyn Basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During her first visit, the neighborhood felt bare, but she loved the waterfront views, the quiet and the feeling that the area was “up and coming.” Moving to Brooklyn Basin for her 7-year-old son “has been life-changing,” Johnson, 34, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m a strong believer that your environment and where you live really sets the tone for how your day is going to go,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11953202\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11953202\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A woman wearing a white baseball cap leans against a wall in a kitchen and smiles at the camera.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED-1920x1278.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dayona Johnson stands for a portrait in her new kitchen at an affordable housing complex in the Brooklyn Basin neighborhood of Oakland on June 15, 2023. \u003ccite>(Kori Suzuki/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At a time when the Bay Area faces a major housing shortage, megaprojects like Brooklyn Basin create large-scale, high-density housing tucked into an urban area. The master-planned community is the largest residential project under construction in Oakland and promises to add up to 3,700 homes on the site of a former shipping dock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But building any new housing in the Bay Area is challenging, let alone a whole neighborhood from the ground up the way developers are doing at Brooklyn Basin. Megaprojects require years, if not decades, of planning and face challenges such as regulatory hurdles, complex environmental cleanup and difficulty lining up financing. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Dayona Johnson, resident, Brooklyn Basin\"]‘I’m a strong believer that your environment and where you live really sets the tone for how your day is going to go.’[/pullquote]After two decades, Brooklyn Basin is only about one-third of the way through development. Reaching completion could take another decade — and that’s a best-case scenario, which rarely happens with housing development in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We always thought [Brooklyn Basin] would be a big project,” said Mike Ghielmetti, CEO of Signature Development, the lead developer of the project. “It has a large acreage. It’s on the waterfront. It’s close to transit. It’s close to jobs. It’s a former industrial site that really wanted to be something different.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site was once a bustling dock where Mormon travelers from New York disembarked in Oakland off a ship named the Brooklyn in the mid-1800s. Brooklyn was also the name of a town that was later annexed by Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The area’s mix of industrial buildings, warehouses, marinas and a ship terminal were largely abandoned when the Port of Oakland selected Signature Development to buy the land for $18 million in 2001.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Five years later, the city approved Signature’s development proposal. Securing more approvals from various state and local agencies took another four years. Then came a series of legal battles from groups claiming the project did not meet state environmental laws. Other opponents wanted to convert the entire site into a park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the challenges were resolved in 2011, the real estate industry was reeling from the Great Recession, which made it hard to secure a construction loan. Signature finally broke ground in 2014 after Zarsion, a Chinese company, stepped in as a partner with $1.5 billion in financing. [aside postID=news_11956396 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66358_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-24-ks-KQED-1020x679.jpg']“It shouldn’t be this hard to produce housing for our children and grandchildren. And it shouldn’t be this hard to create places where people want to stay and call home,” Ghielmetti said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brooklyn Basin is slated to include up to 200,000 square feet of commercial space and 30 acres of parks and open space. A total of 13 residential buildings are planned — four of which will be for residents with lower income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Township Commons, a former shipping facility repurposed into a park, draws people from inside and outside the neighborhood for activities ranging from picnics to salsa dancing. The historic Ninth Avenue Terminal building was refurbished into a retail hall for restaurants and shops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A small grocery store, Rocky’s Market, opened in April 2020 but closed two years later citing complications from the pandemic and a lack of foot traffic. The former space, inside the terminal building, will be taken over by The Lumpia Company, a Filipino-inspired restaurant backed by Bay Area rapper E-40. The terminal building also houses an Oaklandish boutique and a California Canoe and Kayak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11953201\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11953201\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A large sunny plaza with a smattering of people set beside a body of water with a sail boat floating in it and others docked on the opposite shore.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED-1920x1278.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The view from one of the apartments in Brooklyn Basin. The project includes redeveloping the former shipping buildings and terminals. \u003ccite>(Kori Suzuki/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In February, Zocalo Coffee and Kitchen opened on the ground floor of one of the apartment buildings. Owner Sara Ubelhart said the shop does have some regulars, but weekday mornings are lighter than she would like. The shop is an expansion of Zocalo’s original coffee shop and roastery in San Leandro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I actually didn’t want to open up a new cafe,” she said. “But what really attracted me was the Commons — so much space outside, people outside using it, kids skating and on their bikes, and just all this community happening outside.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cafe fills up on weekends when people from outside the neighborhood come to hang out along the water. She expects it will take time to build up a larger customer base and is working on hosting more events in the cafe to draw crowds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Setting up in Brooklyn Basin “was definitely risky, is feeling risky. Not felt — \u003cem>feeling,\u003c/em>” she said. “We’ve got the water on one side and the freeway on the other, and then all of our neighborhood and community members are above us. So we’re really trying to figure out how to connect with those folks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, builders have constructed six mid-rise buildings with more than 1,000 apartments — three market-rate buildings and three of the affordable subsidized housing buildings. About 1,500 residents have moved in since leasing began in late 2019.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Sara Ubelhart, owner, Zocalo Coffee and Kitchen\"]‘What really attracted me was the Commons — so much space outside, people outside using it, kids skating and on their bikes, and just all this community happening outside.’[/pullquote]The first was the 241-unit Orion building, which opened just months before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Last year, tenants began filling up the 241-unit Artizan Apartments. This month, the first phase of the 378-unit Caspian will welcome its first residents. Rents start around $2,000 per month for a studio and range up to $5,300 for a three-bedroom apartment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now that the project is successful, people say, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve always loved that project,’” Ghielmetti said. “But there were a group of folks that didn’t and sued and delayed it. Those parks could have been opened five, eight years earlier. And the housing should have been there five, eight years earlier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area has not built nearly enough housing to keep up with job and population growth for the past few decades, according to Sarah Karlinsky, a housing and land use policy expert with SPUR, a San Francisco-based planning and urban development think tank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/SPUR_What_It_Will_Really_Take_To_Create_An_Affordable_Bay_Area_Report.pdf\">2021 report from SPUR (PDF)\u003c/a> found that the nine-county Bay Area added about 360,000 homes between 2000 and 2018, about one-third of what was needed. The organization estimates that the Bay Area needs to produce at least 2.2 million more homes by 2070, or roughly 45,000 units per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a megaproject can add thousands of homes to a city’s inventory, Karlinsky said, that is significant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even if our future population growth is not as strong as our prior population growth, we still have an affordability crisis, we still have incredibly expensive housing,” she said. “We’ve actually pushed out a lot of our low- and middle-income households to either far-flung portions of the region, outside of the region to the Central Valley or to other states entirely. And that is not healthy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All over the Bay Area, developers and city planners are reimagining numerous sites, including former industrial parks, military bases or massive parking lots. Treasure Island, a former naval station, is slated for more than 8,000 homes. Google is crafting plans for about 5,900 homes in downtown San José near Diridon Station. The San Francisco Giants are converting 28 acres of former surface parking in Mission Bay into 1,200 homes and 1.7 million square feet of commercial space. In San Mateo, developers have turned the former Bay Meadows Racetrack into an urban village now home to tech company offices, 1,000 homes, parks, restaurants and breweries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Megaprojects] are not going to solve our housing crisis. But without them, we have no chance of solving our housing crisis,” said Matt Regan, senior vice president of public policy for the Bay Area Council, a business advocacy group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s lengthy and complicated development process could be faster for smaller projects, Karlinsky said, but megaprojects are a different category.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are going to be people’s homes for generations, right? So you really want to make sure you get the environmental right. You want to make sure that you get the planning right,” she said. “They are the sort of projects that I would say are deserving of more community input and more scrutiny. And so, they do take a really long time to get done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2015, nonprofit developer MidPen Housing signed on to build the affordable housing component of Brooklyn Basin, including four subsidized buildings for older adults with lower-income, families and formerly unhoused people. Those units will make up around 14% of all the homes in Brooklyn Basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three of these affordable housing projects, including the one where Johnson lives, are completed and have added 341 homes that are now occupied. The fourth, a 124-unit building, is under construction. The cost of all four buildings, funded by a combination of local, state and federal grants and loans, is around $340 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11953200\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11953200\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a plaid sport coat leans on a railing while standing in front of the bright green exterior paneling of a building and large windows.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED-1920x1278.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">MidPen Housing President Matt Franklin stands for a portrait on the rooftop patio of an affordable housing complex in Brooklyn Basin on June 15, 2023. MidPen has signed on to build 4 buildings of subsidized housing. \u003ccite>(Kori Suzuki/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We feel really fortunate to be able to do 465 units in a new neighborhood in this central location in Oakland,” said Matt Franklin, head of MidPen. “We got over 13,000 applications for the three phases that we have done here. That’s just a small representation of how deep the need is here in Oakland and really throughout the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MidPen was drawn in by the waterfront and park space, but also the density of the buildings, Franklin said. Building up to seven or eight stories allows for more residents to access the neighborhood’s views and amenities. [aside label='More on Affordable Housing' tag='affordable-housing']“We’ve done a really nice job collectively for this to really feel like a neighborhood,” Franklin said. “All of the buildings are distinct from one another, but all are of a similar high quality. It’s indistinguishable, what’s a market rate unit or what’s an affordable unit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent afternoon, Johnson relaxed on a navy sofa in her living room that overlooks a playground she frequents with her son. Her apartment was adorned in soothing blue hues with tasteful decor akin to a Pinterest inspiration board. She gushed over the spaciousness of her two-bedroom unit and the waterfront park where she and her son spend hours walking, biking and riding scooters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before moving here, Johnson rented a cramped, one-bedroom in East Oakland for several years. The area was noisy thanks in part to frequent sideshows. The worst part was the violence, she said. She packed up and left after a shooting in her building. She and her son were staying in a hotel when she received a call that she had been selected for a home eight months after she put her name on the list. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Dayona Johnson, resident, Brooklyn Basin\"]‘This community has enhanced our overall wellness, mentally and spiritually — just everything. It’s been a great adjustment to our lives.’[/pullquote]“This environment has been a blessing to us,” Johnson said. “I want my son to be very well-rounded. I want him to be a grounded young man. I want him to be a kind person, a mindful person. And it’s difficult to do that in neighborhoods where there’s so much going on. You see so many things — homelessness — and just people not living their best lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She is focused on completing an associate’s degree at Laney College, about a half-mile from Brooklyn Basin. Johnson, who has dabbled in podcasting, has three semesters to go. She dreams of working in media production, and eventually becoming a homeowner. For now, she’s grateful she can make a home in Brooklyn Basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You feel safe and comfortable,” Johnson said. “This community has enhanced our overall wellness, mentally and spiritually — just everything. It’s been a great adjustment to our lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Oakland's Largest Housing Project Aims to Build 3,700 Homes On-Site | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If you’ve driven south on Interstate 880 past downtown Oakland, you’ve likely seen the cluster of apartment buildings sprouting in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959720/millions-earmarked-for-affordable-housing-in-california\">Brooklyn Basin\u003c/a>, a 64-acre peninsula that juts out into the Oakland Estuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Dayona Johnson leased one of the new apartments, she hadn’t even heard the name Brooklyn Basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During her first visit, the neighborhood felt bare, but she loved the waterfront views, the quiet and the feeling that the area was “up and coming.” Moving to Brooklyn Basin for her 7-year-old son “has been life-changing,” Johnson, 34, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m a strong believer that your environment and where you live really sets the tone for how your day is going to go,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11953202\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11953202\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A woman wearing a white baseball cap leans against a wall in a kitchen and smiles at the camera.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66352_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-17-ks-KQED-1920x1278.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dayona Johnson stands for a portrait in her new kitchen at an affordable housing complex in the Brooklyn Basin neighborhood of Oakland on June 15, 2023. \u003ccite>(Kori Suzuki/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At a time when the Bay Area faces a major housing shortage, megaprojects like Brooklyn Basin create large-scale, high-density housing tucked into an urban area. The master-planned community is the largest residential project under construction in Oakland and promises to add up to 3,700 homes on the site of a former shipping dock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But building any new housing in the Bay Area is challenging, let alone a whole neighborhood from the ground up the way developers are doing at Brooklyn Basin. Megaprojects require years, if not decades, of planning and face challenges such as regulatory hurdles, complex environmental cleanup and difficulty lining up financing. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>After two decades, Brooklyn Basin is only about one-third of the way through development. Reaching completion could take another decade — and that’s a best-case scenario, which rarely happens with housing development in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We always thought [Brooklyn Basin] would be a big project,” said Mike Ghielmetti, CEO of Signature Development, the lead developer of the project. “It has a large acreage. It’s on the waterfront. It’s close to transit. It’s close to jobs. It’s a former industrial site that really wanted to be something different.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site was once a bustling dock where Mormon travelers from New York disembarked in Oakland off a ship named the Brooklyn in the mid-1800s. Brooklyn was also the name of a town that was later annexed by Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The area’s mix of industrial buildings, warehouses, marinas and a ship terminal were largely abandoned when the Port of Oakland selected Signature Development to buy the land for $18 million in 2001.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Five years later, the city approved Signature’s development proposal. Securing more approvals from various state and local agencies took another four years. Then came a series of legal battles from groups claiming the project did not meet state environmental laws. Other opponents wanted to convert the entire site into a park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the challenges were resolved in 2011, the real estate industry was reeling from the Great Recession, which made it hard to secure a construction loan. Signature finally broke ground in 2014 after Zarsion, a Chinese company, stepped in as a partner with $1.5 billion in financing. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It shouldn’t be this hard to produce housing for our children and grandchildren. And it shouldn’t be this hard to create places where people want to stay and call home,” Ghielmetti said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brooklyn Basin is slated to include up to 200,000 square feet of commercial space and 30 acres of parks and open space. A total of 13 residential buildings are planned — four of which will be for residents with lower income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Township Commons, a former shipping facility repurposed into a park, draws people from inside and outside the neighborhood for activities ranging from picnics to salsa dancing. The historic Ninth Avenue Terminal building was refurbished into a retail hall for restaurants and shops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A small grocery store, Rocky’s Market, opened in April 2020 but closed two years later citing complications from the pandemic and a lack of foot traffic. The former space, inside the terminal building, will be taken over by The Lumpia Company, a Filipino-inspired restaurant backed by Bay Area rapper E-40. The terminal building also houses an Oaklandish boutique and a California Canoe and Kayak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11953201\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11953201\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A large sunny plaza with a smattering of people set beside a body of water with a sail boat floating in it and others docked on the opposite shore.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66345_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-04-ks-KQED-1920x1278.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The view from one of the apartments in Brooklyn Basin. The project includes redeveloping the former shipping buildings and terminals. \u003ccite>(Kori Suzuki/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In February, Zocalo Coffee and Kitchen opened on the ground floor of one of the apartment buildings. Owner Sara Ubelhart said the shop does have some regulars, but weekday mornings are lighter than she would like. The shop is an expansion of Zocalo’s original coffee shop and roastery in San Leandro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I actually didn’t want to open up a new cafe,” she said. “But what really attracted me was the Commons — so much space outside, people outside using it, kids skating and on their bikes, and just all this community happening outside.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cafe fills up on weekends when people from outside the neighborhood come to hang out along the water. She expects it will take time to build up a larger customer base and is working on hosting more events in the cafe to draw crowds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Setting up in Brooklyn Basin “was definitely risky, is feeling risky. Not felt — \u003cem>feeling,\u003c/em>” she said. “We’ve got the water on one side and the freeway on the other, and then all of our neighborhood and community members are above us. So we’re really trying to figure out how to connect with those folks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, builders have constructed six mid-rise buildings with more than 1,000 apartments — three market-rate buildings and three of the affordable subsidized housing buildings. About 1,500 residents have moved in since leasing began in late 2019.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The first was the 241-unit Orion building, which opened just months before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Last year, tenants began filling up the 241-unit Artizan Apartments. This month, the first phase of the 378-unit Caspian will welcome its first residents. Rents start around $2,000 per month for a studio and range up to $5,300 for a three-bedroom apartment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now that the project is successful, people say, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve always loved that project,’” Ghielmetti said. “But there were a group of folks that didn’t and sued and delayed it. Those parks could have been opened five, eight years earlier. And the housing should have been there five, eight years earlier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area has not built nearly enough housing to keep up with job and population growth for the past few decades, according to Sarah Karlinsky, a housing and land use policy expert with SPUR, a San Francisco-based planning and urban development think tank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/SPUR_What_It_Will_Really_Take_To_Create_An_Affordable_Bay_Area_Report.pdf\">2021 report from SPUR (PDF)\u003c/a> found that the nine-county Bay Area added about 360,000 homes between 2000 and 2018, about one-third of what was needed. The organization estimates that the Bay Area needs to produce at least 2.2 million more homes by 2070, or roughly 45,000 units per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a megaproject can add thousands of homes to a city’s inventory, Karlinsky said, that is significant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even if our future population growth is not as strong as our prior population growth, we still have an affordability crisis, we still have incredibly expensive housing,” she said. “We’ve actually pushed out a lot of our low- and middle-income households to either far-flung portions of the region, outside of the region to the Central Valley or to other states entirely. And that is not healthy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All over the Bay Area, developers and city planners are reimagining numerous sites, including former industrial parks, military bases or massive parking lots. Treasure Island, a former naval station, is slated for more than 8,000 homes. Google is crafting plans for about 5,900 homes in downtown San José near Diridon Station. The San Francisco Giants are converting 28 acres of former surface parking in Mission Bay into 1,200 homes and 1.7 million square feet of commercial space. In San Mateo, developers have turned the former Bay Meadows Racetrack into an urban village now home to tech company offices, 1,000 homes, parks, restaurants and breweries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Megaprojects] are not going to solve our housing crisis. But without them, we have no chance of solving our housing crisis,” said Matt Regan, senior vice president of public policy for the Bay Area Council, a business advocacy group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s lengthy and complicated development process could be faster for smaller projects, Karlinsky said, but megaprojects are a different category.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are going to be people’s homes for generations, right? So you really want to make sure you get the environmental right. You want to make sure that you get the planning right,” she said. “They are the sort of projects that I would say are deserving of more community input and more scrutiny. And so, they do take a really long time to get done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2015, nonprofit developer MidPen Housing signed on to build the affordable housing component of Brooklyn Basin, including four subsidized buildings for older adults with lower-income, families and formerly unhoused people. Those units will make up around 14% of all the homes in Brooklyn Basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three of these affordable housing projects, including the one where Johnson lives, are completed and have added 341 homes that are now occupied. The fourth, a 124-unit building, is under construction. The cost of all four buildings, funded by a combination of local, state and federal grants and loans, is around $340 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11953200\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11953200\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a plaid sport coat leans on a railing while standing in front of the bright green exterior paneling of a building and large windows.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66339_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-08-ks-KQED-1920x1278.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">MidPen Housing President Matt Franklin stands for a portrait on the rooftop patio of an affordable housing complex in Brooklyn Basin on June 15, 2023. MidPen has signed on to build 4 buildings of subsidized housing. \u003ccite>(Kori Suzuki/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We feel really fortunate to be able to do 465 units in a new neighborhood in this central location in Oakland,” said Matt Franklin, head of MidPen. “We got over 13,000 applications for the three phases that we have done here. That’s just a small representation of how deep the need is here in Oakland and really throughout the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MidPen was drawn in by the waterfront and park space, but also the density of the buildings, Franklin said. Building up to seven or eight stories allows for more residents to access the neighborhood’s views and amenities. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We’ve done a really nice job collectively for this to really feel like a neighborhood,” Franklin said. “All of the buildings are distinct from one another, but all are of a similar high quality. It’s indistinguishable, what’s a market rate unit or what’s an affordable unit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent afternoon, Johnson relaxed on a navy sofa in her living room that overlooks a playground she frequents with her son. Her apartment was adorned in soothing blue hues with tasteful decor akin to a Pinterest inspiration board. She gushed over the spaciousness of her two-bedroom unit and the waterfront park where she and her son spend hours walking, biking and riding scooters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before moving here, Johnson rented a cramped, one-bedroom in East Oakland for several years. The area was noisy thanks in part to frequent sideshows. The worst part was the violence, she said. She packed up and left after a shooting in her building. She and her son were staying in a hotel when she received a call that she had been selected for a home eight months after she put her name on the list. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘This community has enhanced our overall wellness, mentally and spiritually — just everything. It’s been a great adjustment to our lives.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“This environment has been a blessing to us,” Johnson said. “I want my son to be very well-rounded. I want him to be a grounded young man. I want him to be a kind person, a mindful person. And it’s difficult to do that in neighborhoods where there’s so much going on. You see so many things — homelessness — and just people not living their best lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She is focused on completing an associate’s degree at Laney College, about a half-mile from Brooklyn Basin. Johnson, who has dabbled in podcasting, has three semesters to go. She dreams of working in media production, and eventually becoming a homeowner. For now, she’s grateful she can make a home in Brooklyn Basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You feel safe and comfortable,” Johnson said. “This community has enhanced our overall wellness, mentally and spiritually — just everything. It’s been a great adjustment to our lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco will continue clearing tents from sidewalks and enforce the city’s sit-lie laws when people refuse offers of shelter, Mayor London Breed declared Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breed’s announcement follows recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959120/judge-partially-denies-motion-to-more-strictly-enforce-ban-on-homeless-encampment-sweeps\">guidance from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals\u003c/a> on a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11958939/sf-homelessness-lawsuit-faces-critical-hearing-over-sweeps-ban\">lawsuit started in September 2022\u003c/a>, when the Coalition on Homelessness sued the city of San Francisco for violating its own ordinances around clearing homeless encampments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December 2022, U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu ordered an injunction to prevent the city from enforcing sit-lie laws if no shelter is offered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For this entire year, a federal injunction has limited the city from enforcing certain laws against those who refuse shelter on our streets,” Breed tweeted on Monday. “The good news: a recent clarification from the court now sets a path forward for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mayor underscored that city workers will receive updated training on how to clear sidewalks and engage with unhoused people in a way that complies with the temporary injunction barring the city from forcefully moving someone living on the street without first offering them a genuine shelter option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, Judge Ryu ordered the city to do exactly that, while \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959120/judge-partially-denies-motion-to-more-strictly-enforce-ban-on-homeless-encampment-sweeps\">the city’s appeal against the overall injunction is under review\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our city workers have been doing the best job they can in carrying out encampment resolutions under the injunction, and they are now getting prepared to enforce these laws in light of this recent clarification by the Ninth Circuit,” \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/LondonBreed/status/1706354197409698280?s=20\">Breed wrote on Monday on X\u003c/a>, the social media website formerly known as Twitter. “This preparation is necessary so our workers understand what has changed, but also because the plaintiffs in this case will still be out interfering with their work. Filming them. Trying to tell our workers what they can and cannot do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorneys for the Coalition on Homelessness, representing both the ACLU and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, argue that the city has violated federal precedent by not providing appropriate shelter before removing unhoused people, and that the city trashed personal belongings during its sweeps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where we continue to see political theater from the city is this assumption or at least this articulation in the press that there are mass shelter refusals,” Zal Shroff, interim legal director for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, told KQED on Monday. “That doesn’t actually pan out in the data, even remotely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city is still thousands of temporary shelter beds and housing units short of meeting the current need. There are only about 3,500 shelter beds in San Francisco’s overloaded system, and as of Thursday, \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/adult-temporary-shelter/shelter-reservation-waitlist/\">nearly 400 people were on the online shelter wait list\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials representing the city, including the mayor and City Attorney David Chiu, said that the lawsuit and temporary ban on sweeps when shelter is not available have thwarted the city’s ability to keep sidewalks clean and free of hazards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An issue throughout the legal conflict has been whether or not the city can forcefully move people who are considered “involuntarily homeless” and what that means.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='Related Stories' tag='homelessness']Last month, the Ninth Circuit clarified that people who reject a valid shelter offering cannot be considered involuntarily homeless and, therefore, the city can enforce its laws against public sleeping and camping on sidewalks and in parks, in those cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In reviewing San Francisco’s appeal, Ryu asked the city to report how it trains law enforcement and street clearing crews, and to also identify which city workers have and have not been trained on the specifics of the injunction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regardless of the injunction, the city has been able to carry out most of its street cleaning and public safety operations, and can enforce many of its laws governing street and sidewalk activity. For example, under the injunction, the city can still clear encampments for accessibility, such as in the case of an emergency or providing room for a wheelchair passage, if they give 72 hours notice. The injunction does not impact law enforcement around health and safety codes, including drug use, and the city can still clear encampments for certain health or safety reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom — formerly the mayor of San Francisco — \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1696600790188822690\">meanwhile has also criticized the judge’s rulings\u003c/a> in San Francisco’s homelessness lawsuit, as well as similar cases and rulings that have provided the basis for Ryu’s decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those cases include \u003ca href=\"https://homelesslaw.org/supreme-court-martin-v-boise/\">Martin v. Boise\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2022/09/28/20-35752.pdf\">Johnson v. Grants Pass (PDF)\u003c/a>, which both have directed cities not to force unhoused residents to move unless they are offered shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Friday, \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-175/280288/20230922163648635_Amicus%20Brief%20for%20Governor%20Newsom%20-%20Grants%20Pass_Final.pdf\">Newsom issued an amicus brief (PDF)\u003c/a> asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Grants Pass, Oregon case and urging the court to give cities more freedom to clear encampments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While I agree with the basic principle that a city shouldn’t criminalize homeless individuals for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go within that city’s boundaries, courts continue to reach well beyond that narrow limit to block any number of reasonable efforts to protect homeless individuals and the broader public from the harms of uncontrolled encampments,” Newsom said in a press announcement. “It’s time for the courts to stop these confusing, impractical and costly rulings that only serve to worsen this humanitarian crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breed \u003ca href=\"https://londonbreed.medium.com/injunction-update-our-path-forward-11b7a7ce9f14\">wrote on Monday on Medium\u003c/a> that “over the next few weeks we will be reiterating and updating [city workers’] training and making sure they understand what they can and cannot do in line with the injunction and Ninth Circuit’s recent clarification.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shroff, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said that there’s never been any dispute over the definition of involuntarily homeless, and agreed the city can enforce sit-lie laws when someone rejects an appropriate shelter option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He disagreed, however, with the idea that shelter is commonly rejected. Instead, he argues that the city has continued to sweep encampments without following protocols outlined in the city’s own policies, which include to offer shelter and to “bag and tag” personal belongings rather than disposing of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The shelter system is at capacity every single day of the year because there is such a high demand for shelter and because for decades the city has failed to meaningfully invest in affordable housing for vulnerable residents of the city during the time of a tech boom and unprecedented and skyrocketing rents,” Shroff said. “They’re clearly seeking some justification for their continuing enforcement operations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco will continue clearing tents from sidewalks and enforce the city’s sit-lie laws when people refuse offers of shelter, Mayor London Breed declared Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breed’s announcement follows recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959120/judge-partially-denies-motion-to-more-strictly-enforce-ban-on-homeless-encampment-sweeps\">guidance from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals\u003c/a> on a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11958939/sf-homelessness-lawsuit-faces-critical-hearing-over-sweeps-ban\">lawsuit started in September 2022\u003c/a>, when the Coalition on Homelessness sued the city of San Francisco for violating its own ordinances around clearing homeless encampments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December 2022, U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu ordered an injunction to prevent the city from enforcing sit-lie laws if no shelter is offered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For this entire year, a federal injunction has limited the city from enforcing certain laws against those who refuse shelter on our streets,” Breed tweeted on Monday. “The good news: a recent clarification from the court now sets a path forward for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mayor underscored that city workers will receive updated training on how to clear sidewalks and engage with unhoused people in a way that complies with the temporary injunction barring the city from forcefully moving someone living on the street without first offering them a genuine shelter option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, Judge Ryu ordered the city to do exactly that, while \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959120/judge-partially-denies-motion-to-more-strictly-enforce-ban-on-homeless-encampment-sweeps\">the city’s appeal against the overall injunction is under review\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our city workers have been doing the best job they can in carrying out encampment resolutions under the injunction, and they are now getting prepared to enforce these laws in light of this recent clarification by the Ninth Circuit,” \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/LondonBreed/status/1706354197409698280?s=20\">Breed wrote on Monday on X\u003c/a>, the social media website formerly known as Twitter. “This preparation is necessary so our workers understand what has changed, but also because the plaintiffs in this case will still be out interfering with their work. Filming them. Trying to tell our workers what they can and cannot do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorneys for the Coalition on Homelessness, representing both the ACLU and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, argue that the city has violated federal precedent by not providing appropriate shelter before removing unhoused people, and that the city trashed personal belongings during its sweeps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where we continue to see political theater from the city is this assumption or at least this articulation in the press that there are mass shelter refusals,” Zal Shroff, interim legal director for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, told KQED on Monday. “That doesn’t actually pan out in the data, even remotely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city is still thousands of temporary shelter beds and housing units short of meeting the current need. There are only about 3,500 shelter beds in San Francisco’s overloaded system, and as of Thursday, \u003ca href=\"https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/adult-temporary-shelter/shelter-reservation-waitlist/\">nearly 400 people were on the online shelter wait list\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials representing the city, including the mayor and City Attorney David Chiu, said that the lawsuit and temporary ban on sweeps when shelter is not available have thwarted the city’s ability to keep sidewalks clean and free of hazards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An issue throughout the legal conflict has been whether or not the city can forcefully move people who are considered “involuntarily homeless” and what that means.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Last month, the Ninth Circuit clarified that people who reject a valid shelter offering cannot be considered involuntarily homeless and, therefore, the city can enforce its laws against public sleeping and camping on sidewalks and in parks, in those cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In reviewing San Francisco’s appeal, Ryu asked the city to report how it trains law enforcement and street clearing crews, and to also identify which city workers have and have not been trained on the specifics of the injunction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regardless of the injunction, the city has been able to carry out most of its street cleaning and public safety operations, and can enforce many of its laws governing street and sidewalk activity. For example, under the injunction, the city can still clear encampments for accessibility, such as in the case of an emergency or providing room for a wheelchair passage, if they give 72 hours notice. The injunction does not impact law enforcement around health and safety codes, including drug use, and the city can still clear encampments for certain health or safety reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom — formerly the mayor of San Francisco — \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1696600790188822690\">meanwhile has also criticized the judge’s rulings\u003c/a> in San Francisco’s homelessness lawsuit, as well as similar cases and rulings that have provided the basis for Ryu’s decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those cases include \u003ca href=\"https://homelesslaw.org/supreme-court-martin-v-boise/\">Martin v. Boise\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2022/09/28/20-35752.pdf\">Johnson v. Grants Pass (PDF)\u003c/a>, which both have directed cities not to force unhoused residents to move unless they are offered shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Friday, \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-175/280288/20230922163648635_Amicus%20Brief%20for%20Governor%20Newsom%20-%20Grants%20Pass_Final.pdf\">Newsom issued an amicus brief (PDF)\u003c/a> asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Grants Pass, Oregon case and urging the court to give cities more freedom to clear encampments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While I agree with the basic principle that a city shouldn’t criminalize homeless individuals for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go within that city’s boundaries, courts continue to reach well beyond that narrow limit to block any number of reasonable efforts to protect homeless individuals and the broader public from the harms of uncontrolled encampments,” Newsom said in a press announcement. “It’s time for the courts to stop these confusing, impractical and costly rulings that only serve to worsen this humanitarian crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breed \u003ca href=\"https://londonbreed.medium.com/injunction-update-our-path-forward-11b7a7ce9f14\">wrote on Monday on Medium\u003c/a> that “over the next few weeks we will be reiterating and updating [city workers’] training and making sure they understand what they can and cannot do in line with the injunction and Ninth Circuit’s recent clarification.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shroff, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said that there’s never been any dispute over the definition of involuntarily homeless, and agreed the city can enforce sit-lie laws when someone rejects an appropriate shelter option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He disagreed, however, with the idea that shelter is commonly rejected. Instead, he argues that the city has continued to sweep encampments without following protocols outlined in the city’s own policies, which include to offer shelter and to “bag and tag” personal belongings rather than disposing of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The shelter system is at capacity every single day of the year because there is such a high demand for shelter and because for decades the city has failed to meaningfully invest in affordable housing for vulnerable residents of the city during the time of a tech boom and unprecedented and skyrocketing rents,” Shroff said. “They’re clearly seeking some justification for their continuing enforcement operations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "'We Want to See Results': Affordable Housing Bills Inch Closer to Approval",
"headTitle": "‘We Want to See Results’: Affordable Housing Bills Inch Closer to Approval | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>You may not have seen the headlines (there weren’t any). You may have missed the raucous debate (there wasn’t much of one). But with the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/new-california-laws/\">end of the legislative session\u003c/a> last week, California is now on the verge of laying down a welcome mat for most major affordable housing projects across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s not because of a single bill, but a patchwork of current and former legislation that, taken together, “basically covers any flavor of affordable housing you could possibly want to build,” said Linda Mandolini, president of Eden Housing, an affordable housing development nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Homes designated for lower-income occupants, like all housing projects, face a gauntlet of potential challenges and holdups that add to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/homeless/article278499379.html\">already exorbitant cost of affordable housing\u003c/a> in California. Those hurdles include lawsuits filed under the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/08/ceqa-noise-pollution/\">wide-ranging California Environmental Quality Act\u003c/a>, extensive public hearings and other forms of opposition from local government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, affordable housing projects — in most places and most of the time — may soon be exempt from all that, fitted out in a suit of procedural armor made up of some half a dozen bills and laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A bill now sitting on the governor’s desk would cover up one of the last chinks in that armor. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1449\">Assembly Bill 1449\u003c/a>, authored by two Democratic Assembly members, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/david-alvarez-1980/\">David Alvarez\u003c/a> of San Diego and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/home/\">Buffy Wicks\u003c/a> of Oakland, would exempt certain affordable apartment developments from review under CEQA. To qualify, projects would have to be located in dense urban areas, set aside each unit for someone earning less than 80% of the area median income and abide by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/04/california-housing-law-union-dispute-2/\">stricter labor standards\u003c/a>, among other requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though modest and technical-sounding, that’s unusually broad for new construction in California. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Assemblymember David Alvarez (D-San Diego) \"]‘The politics of where Californians are and certainly where the Legislature is — we want to see results. We want to see housing being produced.’[/pullquote] “I do think it’s gonna be very consequential but it’s kind of flown under the radar,” Alvarez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His explanation why: “The politics of where Californians are and certainly where the Legislature is — we want to see results. We want to see housing being produced.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taken together with a handful of other bills and current laws, said Mark Stivers, a lobbyist with the California Housing Partnership, which co-sponsored AB 1449, the new legislation “effectively makes it possible for affordable housing providers to develop nearly all viable sites in California by-right and exempt from CEQA review.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speeding up approval for these projects comes with a trade-off. Environmental justice organizations, labor unions and various opponents of new development see CEQA as a vital tool to weigh in on what gets built, where and under what terms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our communities rely heavily on CEQA to be able to get more information about proposed developments that might be contributing to further pollution,” said Grecia Orozco, a staff attorney with the nonprofit Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local activists also often flood the public meetings of city councils and planning boards to pressure elected officials to \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/neighbors-question-plan-millbrae-hotel-homeless-housing/\">block unpopular projects\u003c/a> or extract concessions from developers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether AB 1449 and a handful of similar bills become law is now up to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Supporters have reason to be optimistic. The Newsom administration is pushing local governments to approve an \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/05/california-exodus-housing-cost/\">unprecedented 2.5 million additional homes\u003c/a> by 2030, he called the \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/CAgovernor/status/1629602373319688192\">CEQA process “broken”\u003c/a> and in the spring he \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/05/gavin-newsom-ceqa-reform/\">rolled out a package of bills\u003c/a> aimed at speeding up environmental challenges to projects — though \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/gavin-newsom-ceqa-reform-18114747.php\">housing was not included\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He has until Oct. 14 to sign or veto the bills now sitting on his desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A patchwork of carve-outs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Alvarez-Wicks bill isn’t the first legislative effort to grease the skids for new affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two others, both authored by San Francisco Democratic Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/scott-wiener-1970/\">Scott Wiener\u003c/a>, would force local governments to automatically approve \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/07/california-coast-housing-bill/\">apartment buildings in housing-strapped parts of the state\u003c/a> and most affordable housing projects on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-06/california-churches-nonprofit-colleges-could-build-homes-on-their-land-with-new-bill\">properties of houses of worship and nonprofit colleges\u003c/a>, so long as they comply with a list of zoning, affordability and labor requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A third piece of legislation by San José Democratic Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/dave-cortese-1956/\">Dave Cortese\u003c/a> exempts the decision by local governments to \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB406\">fund affordable housing projects\u003c/a> from environmental challenges, too. Newsom already signed it. [aside postID=news_11956396 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS66358_230615-brooklyn-basin-239-ks.NEF-24-ks-KQED-1020x679.jpg'] Still awaiting the governor’s pen are a handful of bills that make it more difficult to stall housing projects through environmental lawsuits in general. That includes a bill by Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/nancy-skinner-1954/\">Nancy Skinner\u003c/a>, a Berkeley Democrat, that would make it easier for \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB439\">courts to toss out environmental challenges they deem “frivolous”\u003c/a> or “solely intended to cause unnecessary delay.” Another by Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/philip-ting-1969/\">Phil Ting\u003c/a>, a San Francisco Democrat, would give local officials a \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1633\">deadline by which to approve or deny a project’s environmental review\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Ting proposal was fiercely opposed by many environmental activists and the State Building and Construction Trades Council, an umbrella group that represents many unionized construction workers. The bill would also make it more difficult for courts to award legal fees to groups that sue to block projects through CEQA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>J.P. Rose, a staff attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which regularly brings such suits, called that provision “the largest weakening of CEQA in recent history.” [aside label='More on Affordable Housing' tag='affordable-housing'] The fact that this long list of bills passed the Legislature — some by healthy margins — amounts to a notable political shift, said Christopher Elmendorf, a law professor at UC Davis who advised Ting on the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it illustrates that a sea change is underfoot in how people are starting to think about these environmental review laws,” he said, though he noted that the shift in California is still modest compared to those underway in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, the Washington legislature nearly unanimously passed a law to \u003ca href=\"https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2023-24/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/Senate/5412-S2%20SBR%20FBR%2023.pdf?q=20230621165457\">exempt virtually all new urban housing (PDF)\u003c/a> from that state’s environmental protection law.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The grand bargain continued\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many of the California bills build on a law passed last year that streamlines affordable housing construction along commercial corridors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In cobbling together \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2011\">the law\u003c/a>, its author, Wicks, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2022/08/california-housing-crisis-labor-deal/\">struck a compromise\u003c/a>: In exempting certain housing projects from environmental challenges and other local hurdles, developers would pay workers a higher minimum wage, provide them with health care benefits and abide by other stricter labor standards. That trade was the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/04/california-housing-law-union-dispute-2/\">key to winning the support of the state carpenters’ union\u003c/a> and breaking up a legislative logjam that had stymied housing production bills for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It also provided a template for Wiener’s two streamlining bills this year, along with the Alvarez-Wicks CEQA exemption proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That really laid the foundation for those of us who did work in the housing space this year,” said Alvarez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not every pro-housing advocate or CEQA critic is so content with the bargain. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Linda Mandolini, president, Eden Housing\"]‘You’ve got really strong laws, clear exemptions, and an attorney general who’s willing to step up and say you got to build it.’’[/pullquote] “A lot of these bills help a little,” said Jennifer Hernandez, a land-use attorney at the law firm Holland & Knight, who has \u003ca href=\"https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2015/08/in-the-name-of-the-environment-litigation-abuse-un\">cataloged CEQA challenges to housing projects\u003c/a> for years. But she notes that swapping out the threat of environmental litigation with higher payroll expenses just replaces one cost with another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In practice, she said, these exemptions are only likely to clear the way for substantial new housing construction in higher-cost areas where developers can make up the difference by charging higher rents to non-subsidized residents. “You really need premium rentals to pay for those higher labor standards,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for many affordable housing developers, it’s still a trade worth making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’ve got really strong laws, clear exemptions, and an attorney general who’s willing to step up and say you got to build it,” said Mandolini with Eden Housing, who has been working on housing in the state for more than two decades. “This is the best it has been in California. … If this had all existed 20 years ago, we might have built a lot more housing a lot faster.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>You may not have seen the headlines (there weren’t any). You may have missed the raucous debate (there wasn’t much of one). But with the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/new-california-laws/\">end of the legislative session\u003c/a> last week, California is now on the verge of laying down a welcome mat for most major affordable housing projects across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s not because of a single bill, but a patchwork of current and former legislation that, taken together, “basically covers any flavor of affordable housing you could possibly want to build,” said Linda Mandolini, president of Eden Housing, an affordable housing development nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Homes designated for lower-income occupants, like all housing projects, face a gauntlet of potential challenges and holdups that add to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/homeless/article278499379.html\">already exorbitant cost of affordable housing\u003c/a> in California. Those hurdles include lawsuits filed under the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/08/ceqa-noise-pollution/\">wide-ranging California Environmental Quality Act\u003c/a>, extensive public hearings and other forms of opposition from local government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, affordable housing projects — in most places and most of the time — may soon be exempt from all that, fitted out in a suit of procedural armor made up of some half a dozen bills and laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A bill now sitting on the governor’s desk would cover up one of the last chinks in that armor. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1449\">Assembly Bill 1449\u003c/a>, authored by two Democratic Assembly members, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/david-alvarez-1980/\">David Alvarez\u003c/a> of San Diego and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/home/\">Buffy Wicks\u003c/a> of Oakland, would exempt certain affordable apartment developments from review under CEQA. To qualify, projects would have to be located in dense urban areas, set aside each unit for someone earning less than 80% of the area median income and abide by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/04/california-housing-law-union-dispute-2/\">stricter labor standards\u003c/a>, among other requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though modest and technical-sounding, that’s unusually broad for new construction in California. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> “I do think it’s gonna be very consequential but it’s kind of flown under the radar,” Alvarez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His explanation why: “The politics of where Californians are and certainly where the Legislature is — we want to see results. We want to see housing being produced.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taken together with a handful of other bills and current laws, said Mark Stivers, a lobbyist with the California Housing Partnership, which co-sponsored AB 1449, the new legislation “effectively makes it possible for affordable housing providers to develop nearly all viable sites in California by-right and exempt from CEQA review.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speeding up approval for these projects comes with a trade-off. Environmental justice organizations, labor unions and various opponents of new development see CEQA as a vital tool to weigh in on what gets built, where and under what terms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our communities rely heavily on CEQA to be able to get more information about proposed developments that might be contributing to further pollution,” said Grecia Orozco, a staff attorney with the nonprofit Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local activists also often flood the public meetings of city councils and planning boards to pressure elected officials to \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/neighbors-question-plan-millbrae-hotel-homeless-housing/\">block unpopular projects\u003c/a> or extract concessions from developers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether AB 1449 and a handful of similar bills become law is now up to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Supporters have reason to be optimistic. The Newsom administration is pushing local governments to approve an \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/05/california-exodus-housing-cost/\">unprecedented 2.5 million additional homes\u003c/a> by 2030, he called the \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/CAgovernor/status/1629602373319688192\">CEQA process “broken”\u003c/a> and in the spring he \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/05/gavin-newsom-ceqa-reform/\">rolled out a package of bills\u003c/a> aimed at speeding up environmental challenges to projects — though \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/gavin-newsom-ceqa-reform-18114747.php\">housing was not included\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He has until Oct. 14 to sign or veto the bills now sitting on his desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A patchwork of carve-outs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Alvarez-Wicks bill isn’t the first legislative effort to grease the skids for new affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two others, both authored by San Francisco Democratic Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/scott-wiener-1970/\">Scott Wiener\u003c/a>, would force local governments to automatically approve \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/07/california-coast-housing-bill/\">apartment buildings in housing-strapped parts of the state\u003c/a> and most affordable housing projects on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-06/california-churches-nonprofit-colleges-could-build-homes-on-their-land-with-new-bill\">properties of houses of worship and nonprofit colleges\u003c/a>, so long as they comply with a list of zoning, affordability and labor requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A third piece of legislation by San José Democratic Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/dave-cortese-1956/\">Dave Cortese\u003c/a> exempts the decision by local governments to \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB406\">fund affordable housing projects\u003c/a> from environmental challenges, too. Newsom already signed it. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> Still awaiting the governor’s pen are a handful of bills that make it more difficult to stall housing projects through environmental lawsuits in general. That includes a bill by Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/nancy-skinner-1954/\">Nancy Skinner\u003c/a>, a Berkeley Democrat, that would make it easier for \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB439\">courts to toss out environmental challenges they deem “frivolous”\u003c/a> or “solely intended to cause unnecessary delay.” Another by Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/legislator-tracker/philip-ting-1969/\">Phil Ting\u003c/a>, a San Francisco Democrat, would give local officials a \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1633\">deadline by which to approve or deny a project’s environmental review\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Ting proposal was fiercely opposed by many environmental activists and the State Building and Construction Trades Council, an umbrella group that represents many unionized construction workers. The bill would also make it more difficult for courts to award legal fees to groups that sue to block projects through CEQA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>J.P. Rose, a staff attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which regularly brings such suits, called that provision “the largest weakening of CEQA in recent history.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> The fact that this long list of bills passed the Legislature — some by healthy margins — amounts to a notable political shift, said Christopher Elmendorf, a law professor at UC Davis who advised Ting on the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it illustrates that a sea change is underfoot in how people are starting to think about these environmental review laws,” he said, though he noted that the shift in California is still modest compared to those underway in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, the Washington legislature nearly unanimously passed a law to \u003ca href=\"https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2023-24/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/Senate/5412-S2%20SBR%20FBR%2023.pdf?q=20230621165457\">exempt virtually all new urban housing (PDF)\u003c/a> from that state’s environmental protection law.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The grand bargain continued\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many of the California bills build on a law passed last year that streamlines affordable housing construction along commercial corridors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In cobbling together \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2011\">the law\u003c/a>, its author, Wicks, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2022/08/california-housing-crisis-labor-deal/\">struck a compromise\u003c/a>: In exempting certain housing projects from environmental challenges and other local hurdles, developers would pay workers a higher minimum wage, provide them with health care benefits and abide by other stricter labor standards. That trade was the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/04/california-housing-law-union-dispute-2/\">key to winning the support of the state carpenters’ union\u003c/a> and breaking up a legislative logjam that had stymied housing production bills for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It also provided a template for Wiener’s two streamlining bills this year, along with the Alvarez-Wicks CEQA exemption proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That really laid the foundation for those of us who did work in the housing space this year,” said Alvarez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not every pro-housing advocate or CEQA critic is so content with the bargain. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> “A lot of these bills help a little,” said Jennifer Hernandez, a land-use attorney at the law firm Holland & Knight, who has \u003ca href=\"https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2015/08/in-the-name-of-the-environment-litigation-abuse-un\">cataloged CEQA challenges to housing projects\u003c/a> for years. But she notes that swapping out the threat of environmental litigation with higher payroll expenses just replaces one cost with another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In practice, she said, these exemptions are only likely to clear the way for substantial new housing construction in higher-cost areas where developers can make up the difference by charging higher rents to non-subsidized residents. “You really need premium rentals to pay for those higher labor standards,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for many affordable housing developers, it’s still a trade worth making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’ve got really strong laws, clear exemptions, and an attorney general who’s willing to step up and say you got to build it,” said Mandolini with Eden Housing, who has been working on housing in the state for more than two decades. “This is the best it has been in California. … If this had all existed 20 years ago, we might have built a lot more housing a lot faster.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The Alameda County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved \u003ca href=\"https://www.acgov.org/board/bos_calendar/documents/DocsAgendaReg_09_19_23/GENERAL%20ADMINISTRATION/Set%20Matter%20Calendar/President%20Miley_356939.pdf\">a countywide state of emergency (PDF)\u003c/a> on homelessness in the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order directs county staff at the Office of Homeless Care and Coordination to develop an emergency response plan, including determining how much funding is needed to significantly decrease homelessness and where to direct those resources. Supervisors said the hope is to fast-track funding and bypass regulations. But specifics around what that means have largely not yet been determined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I introduced this resolution because the number of people experiencing homelessness is surging, creating dangerous, inhumane situations across the county,” said Alameda County Board of Supervisors President Nate Miley, who represents parts of Oakland, Pleasanton, Ashland, Castro Valley and Fairview. “Alameda County is in crisis — this is an emergency, and it’s our job to respond accordingly!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the latest \u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.acgov.org/homelessness-assets/docs/reports/2022-Alameda-County-PIT-Report_9.22.22-FINAL-3.pdf\">county Point-in-Time data (PDF)\u003c/a>, the number of unhoused people in Alameda County increased by 22% from 2017 to 2022, going up from 5,629 to 9,747. The majority (73%) of unhoused residents in the county live outside, in cars or otherwise without access to shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11955554,news_11954909,news_11764548,news_11953216]Alameda County’s decision follows similar moves in places like \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/los-angeles-county-state-of-emergency-homeless-crisis/\">Los Angeles County\u003c/a>, which in January of this year also declared a state of emergency over its homelessness crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of the emergency order called the situation a health issue, and pointed to the fact that people in Alameda County who are unhoused have significantly higher mortality rates than Alameda residents on average. More than 1,100 Alameda County residents died while homeless between 2018 and 2021 — 5.8 times greater than the number who died in the general population, according to county data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the Bay Area and in Alameda County, homelessness also disproportionately impacts communities of color. Black residents make up nearly 43% of the county’s unhoused population but only 10% of the county’s overall population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2020, Alameda County has allocated more than $200 million to address homelessness through programs ranging from assisted living support to adding new units, in addition to crafting \u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.acgov.org/homelessness-assets/docs/reports/Home-Together-2026_Executive-Summary_050922.pdf\">the Home Together Plan (PDF)\u003c/a> last year. That plan provides a blueprint for the county to significantly reduce homelessness by 2026, from prevention efforts that would keep people housed to increasing housing and shelter placements for people who are unhoused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Board of Supervisors hearing on Tuesday, Miley said that the Home Together Plan has “some very good deliverables,” but that “there still is a situation that’s pressing upon us here in Alameda County.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authors of the Home Together Plan estimate that the county needs to add more than 24,000 housing units and subsidy slots, more temporary shelters, and a variety of programs like short-term support to prevent eviction, rental subsidies and supportive services within housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The total cost for increasing the shelter and housing opportunities across Alameda is about $2.5 billion, according to the plan, plus one-time development costs for acquiring and constructing new buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Despite the enormous efforts by the county, homelessness continues to increase. Combined with an\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11955733/oaklands-eviction-moratorium-just-ended-whats-next-for-renters-and-landlords\"> expected wave of evictions as pandemic-era renter protections end\u003c/a>, and we believe the situation is only going to get worse,” Erin Armstrong, senior policy advisor for Miley, wrote in an email to KQED. “Our hope is that this emergency [declaration] will unlock the tools and resources needed to fully address the crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Erin Armstrong, senior policy advisor\"]‘Despite the enormous efforts by the county, homelessness continues to increase.’[/pullquote]The first phase of the emergency response will be looking into what the county can actually do with such an order. (At Tuesday’s meeting Miley misspoke, saying the proposal would only require the county to explore an emergency plan, but his aid and legal council noted the actual item being voted on was the emergency declaration itself).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miley said he hopes that Alameda County will be able to potentially accelerate hiring workers on the frontlines for homelessness and behavioral health needs, as well as to more efficiently build or convert housing and request resources from the state and federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kerry Abbot, who directs the Office of Homeless Care and Coordination, said at the meeting on Thursday that it currently takes about six to nine months for the staff recruitment process to get underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board’s legal council said at the meeting that they still need to review what specific ways the emergency declaration will allow the county to circumvent certain rules and legislation, and that will look different for cities that have their own planning and hiring procedures as opposed to unincorporated areas of the county.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All our respective districts are reaching out about this issue,” said Supervisor Keith Carson. “When we come back in 60 days, I hope we can be more specific about what we can do as well as what we want to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Alameda County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved \u003ca href=\"https://www.acgov.org/board/bos_calendar/documents/DocsAgendaReg_09_19_23/GENERAL%20ADMINISTRATION/Set%20Matter%20Calendar/President%20Miley_356939.pdf\">a countywide state of emergency (PDF)\u003c/a> on homelessness in the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order directs county staff at the Office of Homeless Care and Coordination to develop an emergency response plan, including determining how much funding is needed to significantly decrease homelessness and where to direct those resources. Supervisors said the hope is to fast-track funding and bypass regulations. But specifics around what that means have largely not yet been determined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I introduced this resolution because the number of people experiencing homelessness is surging, creating dangerous, inhumane situations across the county,” said Alameda County Board of Supervisors President Nate Miley, who represents parts of Oakland, Pleasanton, Ashland, Castro Valley and Fairview. “Alameda County is in crisis — this is an emergency, and it’s our job to respond accordingly!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the latest \u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.acgov.org/homelessness-assets/docs/reports/2022-Alameda-County-PIT-Report_9.22.22-FINAL-3.pdf\">county Point-in-Time data (PDF)\u003c/a>, the number of unhoused people in Alameda County increased by 22% from 2017 to 2022, going up from 5,629 to 9,747. The majority (73%) of unhoused residents in the county live outside, in cars or otherwise without access to shelter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Alameda County’s decision follows similar moves in places like \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/los-angeles-county-state-of-emergency-homeless-crisis/\">Los Angeles County\u003c/a>, which in January of this year also declared a state of emergency over its homelessness crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of the emergency order called the situation a health issue, and pointed to the fact that people in Alameda County who are unhoused have significantly higher mortality rates than Alameda residents on average. More than 1,100 Alameda County residents died while homeless between 2018 and 2021 — 5.8 times greater than the number who died in the general population, according to county data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the Bay Area and in Alameda County, homelessness also disproportionately impacts communities of color. Black residents make up nearly 43% of the county’s unhoused population but only 10% of the county’s overall population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2020, Alameda County has allocated more than $200 million to address homelessness through programs ranging from assisted living support to adding new units, in addition to crafting \u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.acgov.org/homelessness-assets/docs/reports/Home-Together-2026_Executive-Summary_050922.pdf\">the Home Together Plan (PDF)\u003c/a> last year. That plan provides a blueprint for the county to significantly reduce homelessness by 2026, from prevention efforts that would keep people housed to increasing housing and shelter placements for people who are unhoused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Board of Supervisors hearing on Tuesday, Miley said that the Home Together Plan has “some very good deliverables,” but that “there still is a situation that’s pressing upon us here in Alameda County.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authors of the Home Together Plan estimate that the county needs to add more than 24,000 housing units and subsidy slots, more temporary shelters, and a variety of programs like short-term support to prevent eviction, rental subsidies and supportive services within housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The total cost for increasing the shelter and housing opportunities across Alameda is about $2.5 billion, according to the plan, plus one-time development costs for acquiring and constructing new buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Despite the enormous efforts by the county, homelessness continues to increase. Combined with an\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11955733/oaklands-eviction-moratorium-just-ended-whats-next-for-renters-and-landlords\"> expected wave of evictions as pandemic-era renter protections end\u003c/a>, and we believe the situation is only going to get worse,” Erin Armstrong, senior policy advisor for Miley, wrote in an email to KQED. “Our hope is that this emergency [declaration] will unlock the tools and resources needed to fully address the crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The first phase of the emergency response will be looking into what the county can actually do with such an order. (At Tuesday’s meeting Miley misspoke, saying the proposal would only require the county to explore an emergency plan, but his aid and legal council noted the actual item being voted on was the emergency declaration itself).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miley said he hopes that Alameda County will be able to potentially accelerate hiring workers on the frontlines for homelessness and behavioral health needs, as well as to more efficiently build or convert housing and request resources from the state and federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kerry Abbot, who directs the Office of Homeless Care and Coordination, said at the meeting on Thursday that it currently takes about six to nine months for the staff recruitment process to get underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board’s legal council said at the meeting that they still need to review what specific ways the emergency declaration will allow the county to circumvent certain rules and legislation, and that will look different for cities that have their own planning and hiring procedures as opposed to unincorporated areas of the county.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All our respective districts are reaching out about this issue,” said Supervisor Keith Carson. “When we come back in 60 days, I hope we can be more specific about what we can do as well as what we want to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Sacramento DA Sues City Over Failure to Sweep Homeless Encampments",
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"content": "\u003cp>Sacramento’s top prosecutor is suing the city’s leaders over failure to clean up homeless encampments, escalating a monthslong dispute with leaders in the state capital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County District Attorney Thien Ho announced the lawsuit Tuesday during a news conference in Sacramento, noting the homeless population in the city has jumped 250% in the last seven years. A group of residents and business owners also filed a companion lawsuit against the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ho said his office had asked the city to enforce local laws around sidewalk obstruction and to create additional professionally operated camping sites, but that the city did not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ho said the city is seeing a “collapse into chaos” and an “erosion of everyday life.” Courthouse workers have been harassed and assaulted downtown, and residents and businesses have to deal with drug users and property break-ins, while calls for help to city officials went unanswered, the lawsuit said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not compassionate to allow unsafe conditions to fester so badly that a 14-year-old boy cannot ride his bike to school or a group of little girls can’t play soccer on a field littered with needles,” the lawsuit said. “It’s not compassionate when someone in a wheelchair cannot use a sidewalk blocked by tents or a small business is forced to close forever due to repeated broken windows and vandalism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sacramento County had nearly 9,300 homeless people in 2022, based on data from the annual Point-in-Time count. That was up 67% from 2019. Roughly three-quarters of the county’s homeless population is unsheltered, and the majority of that group is living on Sacramento streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Homeless tent encampments have grown visibly in cities across the U.S. but especially in California, which is home to \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/homeless-california-study-poverty-high-rent-a2a4bfc9b386cb70fdd14d593f31b68c\">nearly one-third of unhoused people\u003c/a> in the country. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg\"]‘The city needs real partnership from the region’s leaders, not politics and lawsuits.’[/pullquote] Ho \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/homelessness-sacramento-district-attorney-mayor-lawsuit-b01d68283afea8a3010fc959180a5a5f\">had threatened in August\u003c/a> to file charges against city officials if they didn’t implement changes within 30 days. In a letter to the city, Ho demanded that Sacramento implement a daytime camping ban where homeless people have to put their belongings in storage between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said Ho was politicizing the issue. The city has added 1,200 emergency shelter beds, passed ordinances to protect sidewalks and schools and has created more affordable housing, Steinberg said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city is trying to avoid “the futile trap of just moving people endlessly from one block to the next,” Steinberg said. People’s frustrations are “absolutely justified” but Ho’s actions are a “performative distraction,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The city needs real partnership from the region’s leaders, not politics and lawsuits,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood’s office has also repeatedly urged Ho to work with the city to address the issue, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It sadly appears the DA would rather point fingers and cast blame than partner to achieve meaningful solutions for our community,” Alcala Wood said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ho, elected in 2022 after vowing on the campaign trail to address the city’s homelessness crisis, said he’s asked the city to share real-time data about available shelter beds with law enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a rare opportunity — a rare opportunity — for us to effectuate meaningful, efficient means of getting the critically, chronically unhoused off the streets,” Ho said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ho said he supports a variety of solutions including enforcing laws and establishing new programs to provide services to people facing addiction or mental health issues. He said he supports a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/mental-health-reform-investment-ballot-measure-eaed6702d5dd8e9a7d611029fdb0667c\">statewide bond measure\u003c/a> that would go toward building more treatment facilities. Voters will weigh in on that measure next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dispute between the district attorney and the city was further complicated by a lawsuit filed by a homeless advocacy group earlier this year that resulted in an order from a federal judge \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/heat-wave-homeless-sweeps-judge-order-58173a538f07b113557bf89ed8017309\">temporarily banning the city from clearing homeless encampments\u003c/a> during extreme heat. That order is now lifted but the group wants to see it extended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The attorney for the homeless coalition also filed a complaint with the state bar this month, saying Ho abused his power by pushing the city to clear encampments when the order was in place. [aside label='More Stories on California’s Unhoused Community' tag='homelessness'] Ho’s news conference included testimony from residents who say the city is not providing resources to deal with homelessness. Emily Webb said people living in an encampment near her home have trespassed on her property, blocked her driveway and threatened her family, but city officials have done little to clear the camp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re losing sleep and exhausted from this stress,” she said Tuesday. “We are beyond frustrated and no longer feel comfortable or safe in our home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics have said encampments are unsanitary and lawless, and block children, older residents and disabled people from using public space such as sidewalks. They say allowing people to deteriorate outdoors is neither humane nor compassionate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But advocates for homeless people say they can’t alleviate the crisis without more investment in affordable housing and services, and that camping bans and encampment sweeps unnecessarily traumatize homeless people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Sacramento’s top prosecutor is suing the city’s leaders over failure to clean up homeless encampments, escalating a monthslong dispute with leaders in the state capital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County District Attorney Thien Ho announced the lawsuit Tuesday during a news conference in Sacramento, noting the homeless population in the city has jumped 250% in the last seven years. A group of residents and business owners also filed a companion lawsuit against the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ho said his office had asked the city to enforce local laws around sidewalk obstruction and to create additional professionally operated camping sites, but that the city did not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ho said the city is seeing a “collapse into chaos” and an “erosion of everyday life.” Courthouse workers have been harassed and assaulted downtown, and residents and businesses have to deal with drug users and property break-ins, while calls for help to city officials went unanswered, the lawsuit said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not compassionate to allow unsafe conditions to fester so badly that a 14-year-old boy cannot ride his bike to school or a group of little girls can’t play soccer on a field littered with needles,” the lawsuit said. “It’s not compassionate when someone in a wheelchair cannot use a sidewalk blocked by tents or a small business is forced to close forever due to repeated broken windows and vandalism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sacramento County had nearly 9,300 homeless people in 2022, based on data from the annual Point-in-Time count. That was up 67% from 2019. Roughly three-quarters of the county’s homeless population is unsheltered, and the majority of that group is living on Sacramento streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Homeless tent encampments have grown visibly in cities across the U.S. but especially in California, which is home to \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/homeless-california-study-poverty-high-rent-a2a4bfc9b386cb70fdd14d593f31b68c\">nearly one-third of unhoused people\u003c/a> in the country. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> Ho \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/homelessness-sacramento-district-attorney-mayor-lawsuit-b01d68283afea8a3010fc959180a5a5f\">had threatened in August\u003c/a> to file charges against city officials if they didn’t implement changes within 30 days. In a letter to the city, Ho demanded that Sacramento implement a daytime camping ban where homeless people have to put their belongings in storage between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said Ho was politicizing the issue. The city has added 1,200 emergency shelter beds, passed ordinances to protect sidewalks and schools and has created more affordable housing, Steinberg said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city is trying to avoid “the futile trap of just moving people endlessly from one block to the next,” Steinberg said. People’s frustrations are “absolutely justified” but Ho’s actions are a “performative distraction,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The city needs real partnership from the region’s leaders, not politics and lawsuits,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood’s office has also repeatedly urged Ho to work with the city to address the issue, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It sadly appears the DA would rather point fingers and cast blame than partner to achieve meaningful solutions for our community,” Alcala Wood said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ho, elected in 2022 after vowing on the campaign trail to address the city’s homelessness crisis, said he’s asked the city to share real-time data about available shelter beds with law enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a rare opportunity — a rare opportunity — for us to effectuate meaningful, efficient means of getting the critically, chronically unhoused off the streets,” Ho said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ho said he supports a variety of solutions including enforcing laws and establishing new programs to provide services to people facing addiction or mental health issues. He said he supports a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/mental-health-reform-investment-ballot-measure-eaed6702d5dd8e9a7d611029fdb0667c\">statewide bond measure\u003c/a> that would go toward building more treatment facilities. Voters will weigh in on that measure next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dispute between the district attorney and the city was further complicated by a lawsuit filed by a homeless advocacy group earlier this year that resulted in an order from a federal judge \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/heat-wave-homeless-sweeps-judge-order-58173a538f07b113557bf89ed8017309\">temporarily banning the city from clearing homeless encampments\u003c/a> during extreme heat. That order is now lifted but the group wants to see it extended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The attorney for the homeless coalition also filed a complaint with the state bar this month, saying Ho abused his power by pushing the city to clear encampments when the order was in place. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> Ho’s news conference included testimony from residents who say the city is not providing resources to deal with homelessness. Emily Webb said people living in an encampment near her home have trespassed on her property, blocked her driveway and threatened her family, but city officials have done little to clear the camp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re losing sleep and exhausted from this stress,” she said Tuesday. “We are beyond frustrated and no longer feel comfortable or safe in our home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics have said encampments are unsanitary and lawless, and block children, older residents and disabled people from using public space such as sidewalks. They say allowing people to deteriorate outdoors is neither humane nor compassionate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But advocates for homeless people say they can’t alleviate the crisis without more investment in affordable housing and services, and that camping bans and encampment sweeps unnecessarily traumatize homeless people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Gavin Newsom's Mental Health Plan Heads to Voters. Here's What to Know",
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"content": "\u003cp>California voters next spring will get to decide on a ballot measure to create housing and treatment options for unhoused individuals with serious mental illness. If it passes, the measure championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom would mark the first major overhaul of the state’s community mental health system in 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two-pronged proposition on the March primary election ballot includes a nearly $6.4 billion bond to build 10,000 psychiatric treatment units. It also asks voters to redefine how counties spend money collected from a special “millionaire’s tax” to allocate a share of it for housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom and supporters have promoted Proposition 1 as a way to help address the state’s deteriorating homelessness and addiction crises. They contend that increased investment and an update to the state’s Mental Health Services Act are “long overdue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Legislature on Thursday overwhelmingly backed his proposal, with lopsided votes to place it on the 2024 ballot. Newsom still must sign the bills, and he said he would in a written statement after a late-night vote in the Assembly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These measures represent a key part of the solution to our homelessness crisis, and improving mental health for kids and families,” Newsom said. “Now, it will be up to voters to ratify the most significant changes to California’s mental health system in more than 50 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opponents of the ballot measure say diverting money in the Mental Health Services Act for housing will result in up to $1 billion in cuts to\u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4782\"> current mental health programs\u003c/a> like outpatient care and crisis response. Other advocates criticize the governor for making last-minute changes to the bond, allowing the money to be spent on involuntary treatment institutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what exactly are voters being asked to consider? Here’s how the proposal breaks down.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What is the Mental Health Services Act?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Mental Health Services Act, which voters passed as a ballot measure in 2004, levies a 1% tax on personal income over $1 million. It passed at a time when the state’s mental health system was severely underfunded. Since then, the tax has generated an estimated $26 billion for county mental health programs. Last year the tax garnered more than $3 billion. It supports roughly one-third of the state’s mental health system. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Gov. Gavin Newsom\"]‘These measures represent a key part of the solution to our homelessness crisis, and improving mental health for kids and families.’[/pullquote] The tax is not California’s only source of revenue for mental health programs. The state also receives money from Medi-Cal, and it spends a portion of its general fund on those services. Those sources come with strict spending limitations. For example, Medi-Cal primarily pays for treatment of mental health disorders but will not cover prevention programs. It also will not pay for inpatient treatment at a facility with more than 16 beds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Counties have come to rely on the relative flexibility of Mental Health Services Act dollars to pay for core services like outpatient care, outreach and engagement, school-based counseling, youth wellness programs, family resource centers, and crisis response teams.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What does Newsom want to do?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The most significant change put forth by the governor is a requirement that counties invest 30% of their Mental Health Services Act tax dollars — roughly $1 billion based on last year’s revenue — in housing programs, including rental subsidies and navigation services. Counties would have to spend half this money on people who are chronically homeless or living in encampments. They could also use up to one-quarter of the money to build or purchase housing units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg has been a staunch supporter of Newsom’s proposal. Steinberg was one of the co-authors of the Mental Health Services Act when he was an Assembly member in 2004.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To put it plainly, not enough of the Mental Health Services Act dollars are getting out to the people with the most persistent mental illnesses, specifically people who are chronically homeless and living with those underlying conditions,” Steinberg said during a press call in August. “So that’s where you start.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ballot measure puts counties on the hook for paying for substance use disorder treatment with Mental Health Services Act money. Counties have historically paid for addiction treatment with other funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, it\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>renames the program as the Behavioral Health Services Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11961360\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11961360\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02.jpeg\" alt=\"Gov. Gavin Newsom is pictured with his hands out as he speak to many folks in a warehouse in front of a microphone.\" width=\"2400\" height=\"1600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02.jpeg 2400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02-1020x680.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02-2048x1365.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2400px) 100vw, 2400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flanked by state and local politicians, Newsom announced the state’s plan to address homelessness across the state at Cal Expo in Sacramento, on March 16, 2023. \u003ccite>(Miguel Gutierrez Jr./CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>What will the bond measure do?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The second half of Newsom’s proposal places a $6.4 billion general obligation bond before voters to dramatically expand the state’s psychiatric and addiction treatment infrastructure. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg\"]‘To put it plainly, not enough of the Mental Health Services Act dollars are getting out to the people with the most persistent mental illnesses, specifically people who are chronically homeless and living with those underlying conditions.’[/pullquote] Nearly $4.4 billion would go toward building inpatient and residential treatment beds and could serve 100,000 people annually, officials said. California faces a shortage of \u003ca href=\"https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CTA2700/CTA2742-1/RAND_CTA2742-1.pdf\">nearly 8,000 adult psychiatric beds (PDF)\u003c/a>, said Nicole Eberhart, senior behavioral health scientist for the RAND Corporation, during testimony to an Assembly budget subcommittee in May. Long waitlists plague the state’s inpatient mental health system, and doctors say there’s nowhere to send stable patients who need long-term treatment focused on recovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another $2 billion will go toward building permanent supportive housing, with half set aside for veterans with mental health diagnoses or addiction disorders.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How many people are unhoused in California?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>More than 170,000 Californians are unhoused, the vast majority of whom live in street encampments. California has the highest homeless rate per 10,000 people, second only to the District of Columbia, and the highest proportion of unsheltered homeless individuals in the country, according to federal data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/06/california-homeless-growth-report/\">landmark study by the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative\u003c/a> found about two-thirds of unhoused Californians surveyed suffered from a mental health disorder but only 19% had received recent treatment. The driving force behind homelessness, however, was most often income loss, not mental illness or addiction, \u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/our-impact/our-studies/california-statewide-study-people-experiencing-homelessness\">according to the study\u003c/a>. [aside label='More Around California' tag='california-law']\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Who are the supporters?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Sen. Susan Talamantes-Eggman, a Democrat from Stockton, carried the proposed reform of the Mental Health Services Act in the Legislature. During Thursday’s Senate concurrence vote, Talamantes-Eggman said the way counties spend state mental health funding needs to address changes that have happened in the two decades since the act was first designed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, a Democrat from Thousand Oaks, carried the bond proposal in the Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayors and county supervisors from eight major regions, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, successfully lobbied to increase funding for the bond measure by $1.5 billion. City leaders were early supporters of the measure with more than two dozen submitting letters of support along with housing and homeless advocates and the National Alliance on Mental Illness California.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Who are the opponents?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Peer-run and disability organizations have been the staunchest opponents of the changes proposed in the ballot measure. They argue current clients will lose treatment options and accuse Newsom’s administration of using the proposal to fund his \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/08/care-court-california-start/\">CARE Court initiative\u003c/a> that passed last year. That law allows a court to place someone with a serious mental illness into an involuntary treatment program. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Paul Simmons, executive director, Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance\"]‘This is a really tough time for our communities. Our concern with [the proposition] is massive increases in involuntary and forced treatment.’[/pullquote] Groups representing people of color and LGBTQ+ communities also oppose the measure. They say it will eliminate prevention resources and worsen already stark disparities in access to treatment. Resource centers that target these populations are among the services most likely to get cut, county behavioral health leaders have said in public hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bond measure, which previously faced no opposition, drew fierce criticism from peer and disability advocates after last-minute amendments \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/mental-health/2023/09/mental-health-bond-gavin-newsom-amendments/\">allowed the money to be used on involuntary treatment facilities\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a really tough time for our communities,” said Paul Simmons, executive director of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. “Our concern with [the proposition] is massive increases in involuntary and forced treatment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children and family advocates withdrew previous opposition after securing significant concessions from the governor requiring 51% of spending on early intervention be targeted toward children and youth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California voters next spring will get to decide on a ballot measure to create housing and treatment options for unhoused individuals with serious mental illness. If it passes, the measure championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom would mark the first major overhaul of the state’s community mental health system in 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two-pronged proposition on the March primary election ballot includes a nearly $6.4 billion bond to build 10,000 psychiatric treatment units. It also asks voters to redefine how counties spend money collected from a special “millionaire’s tax” to allocate a share of it for housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom and supporters have promoted Proposition 1 as a way to help address the state’s deteriorating homelessness and addiction crises. They contend that increased investment and an update to the state’s Mental Health Services Act are “long overdue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Legislature on Thursday overwhelmingly backed his proposal, with lopsided votes to place it on the 2024 ballot. Newsom still must sign the bills, and he said he would in a written statement after a late-night vote in the Assembly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These measures represent a key part of the solution to our homelessness crisis, and improving mental health for kids and families,” Newsom said. “Now, it will be up to voters to ratify the most significant changes to California’s mental health system in more than 50 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opponents of the ballot measure say diverting money in the Mental Health Services Act for housing will result in up to $1 billion in cuts to\u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4782\"> current mental health programs\u003c/a> like outpatient care and crisis response. Other advocates criticize the governor for making last-minute changes to the bond, allowing the money to be spent on involuntary treatment institutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what exactly are voters being asked to consider? Here’s how the proposal breaks down.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What is the Mental Health Services Act?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Mental Health Services Act, which voters passed as a ballot measure in 2004, levies a 1% tax on personal income over $1 million. It passed at a time when the state’s mental health system was severely underfunded. Since then, the tax has generated an estimated $26 billion for county mental health programs. Last year the tax garnered more than $3 billion. It supports roughly one-third of the state’s mental health system. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> The tax is not California’s only source of revenue for mental health programs. The state also receives money from Medi-Cal, and it spends a portion of its general fund on those services. Those sources come with strict spending limitations. For example, Medi-Cal primarily pays for treatment of mental health disorders but will not cover prevention programs. It also will not pay for inpatient treatment at a facility with more than 16 beds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Counties have come to rely on the relative flexibility of Mental Health Services Act dollars to pay for core services like outpatient care, outreach and engagement, school-based counseling, youth wellness programs, family resource centers, and crisis response teams.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What does Newsom want to do?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The most significant change put forth by the governor is a requirement that counties invest 30% of their Mental Health Services Act tax dollars — roughly $1 billion based on last year’s revenue — in housing programs, including rental subsidies and navigation services. Counties would have to spend half this money on people who are chronically homeless or living in encampments. They could also use up to one-quarter of the money to build or purchase housing units.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg has been a staunch supporter of Newsom’s proposal. Steinberg was one of the co-authors of the Mental Health Services Act when he was an Assembly member in 2004.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To put it plainly, not enough of the Mental Health Services Act dollars are getting out to the people with the most persistent mental illnesses, specifically people who are chronically homeless and living with those underlying conditions,” Steinberg said during a press call in August. “So that’s where you start.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ballot measure puts counties on the hook for paying for substance use disorder treatment with Mental Health Services Act money. Counties have historically paid for addiction treatment with other funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, it\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>renames the program as the Behavioral Health Services Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11961360\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11961360\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02.jpeg\" alt=\"Gov. Gavin Newsom is pictured with his hands out as he speak to many folks in a warehouse in front of a microphone.\" width=\"2400\" height=\"1600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02.jpeg 2400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02-1020x680.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02-2048x1365.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/CMNewsom02-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2400px) 100vw, 2400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flanked by state and local politicians, Newsom announced the state’s plan to address homelessness across the state at Cal Expo in Sacramento, on March 16, 2023. \u003ccite>(Miguel Gutierrez Jr./CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>What will the bond measure do?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The second half of Newsom’s proposal places a $6.4 billion general obligation bond before voters to dramatically expand the state’s psychiatric and addiction treatment infrastructure. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> Nearly $4.4 billion would go toward building inpatient and residential treatment beds and could serve 100,000 people annually, officials said. California faces a shortage of \u003ca href=\"https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CTA2700/CTA2742-1/RAND_CTA2742-1.pdf\">nearly 8,000 adult psychiatric beds (PDF)\u003c/a>, said Nicole Eberhart, senior behavioral health scientist for the RAND Corporation, during testimony to an Assembly budget subcommittee in May. Long waitlists plague the state’s inpatient mental health system, and doctors say there’s nowhere to send stable patients who need long-term treatment focused on recovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another $2 billion will go toward building permanent supportive housing, with half set aside for veterans with mental health diagnoses or addiction disorders.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How many people are unhoused in California?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>More than 170,000 Californians are unhoused, the vast majority of whom live in street encampments. California has the highest homeless rate per 10,000 people, second only to the District of Columbia, and the highest proportion of unsheltered homeless individuals in the country, according to federal data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/06/california-homeless-growth-report/\">landmark study by the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative\u003c/a> found about two-thirds of unhoused Californians surveyed suffered from a mental health disorder but only 19% had received recent treatment. The driving force behind homelessness, however, was most often income loss, not mental illness or addiction, \u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/our-impact/our-studies/california-statewide-study-people-experiencing-homelessness\">according to the study\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Who are the supporters?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Sen. Susan Talamantes-Eggman, a Democrat from Stockton, carried the proposed reform of the Mental Health Services Act in the Legislature. During Thursday’s Senate concurrence vote, Talamantes-Eggman said the way counties spend state mental health funding needs to address changes that have happened in the two decades since the act was first designed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, a Democrat from Thousand Oaks, carried the bond proposal in the Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayors and county supervisors from eight major regions, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, successfully lobbied to increase funding for the bond measure by $1.5 billion. City leaders were early supporters of the measure with more than two dozen submitting letters of support along with housing and homeless advocates and the National Alliance on Mental Illness California.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Who are the opponents?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Peer-run and disability organizations have been the staunchest opponents of the changes proposed in the ballot measure. They argue current clients will lose treatment options and accuse Newsom’s administration of using the proposal to fund his \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/08/care-court-california-start/\">CARE Court initiative\u003c/a> that passed last year. That law allows a court to place someone with a serious mental illness into an involuntary treatment program. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> Groups representing people of color and LGBTQ+ communities also oppose the measure. They say it will eliminate prevention resources and worsen already stark disparities in access to treatment. Resource centers that target these populations are among the services most likely to get cut, county behavioral health leaders have said in public hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bond measure, which previously faced no opposition, drew fierce criticism from peer and disability advocates after last-minute amendments \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/mental-health/2023/09/mental-health-bond-gavin-newsom-amendments/\">allowed the money to be used on involuntary treatment facilities\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a really tough time for our communities,” said Paul Simmons, executive director of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. “Our concern with [the proposition] is massive increases in involuntary and forced treatment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children and family advocates withdrew previous opposition after securing significant concessions from the governor requiring 51% of spending on early intervention be targeted toward children and youth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"order": 1
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"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
"title": "Freakonomics Radio",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"meta": {
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Masters-of-Scale-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindshift-podcast/id1078765985",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/show/on-our-watch",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
}
},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Perspectives",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id73801135",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/perspectives/category/perspectives/feed/",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93dzIua3FlZC5vcmcvcGVyc3BlY3RpdmVzL2NhdGVnb3J5L3BlcnNwZWN0aXZlcy9mZWVkLw"
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},
"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/M4f5",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business--Economics-Podcasts/Planet-Money-p164680/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510289/podcast.xml"
}
},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
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