In 2024, there were over 187,000 homeless people in California — the highest number out of all states. The homelessness crisis has been a topic of intense debate, with politicians proposing various solutions ranging from funding housing programs to clearing out encampments.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that city governments could punish people sleeping in public spaces. However, there are questions as to whether these policies are effective strategies to fix homelessness in the long run.
In San Jose, the mayor’s plans to arrest homeless people who do not accept multiple opportunities for shelter were recently approved. But while homeless shelters offer a temporary place to stay, they often have unsafe conditions that can make homeless people hesitant to utilize them due to issues like sexual abuse and health hazards.
“I was beat up [in a shelter] and raped, then they kicked me out and the police came and they wouldn’t make a police report,” said Jennifer Matter, who has been homeless for over a decade. “So I was cast out with nothing and I had to start over.”
During his 2024 presidential campaign, President Donald Trump talked about banning encampments. Gov. Gavin Newsom has also pushed for encampment clearings and threatened to withhold funding from cities that do not do so. However, many believe that forcing homeless people to leave encampments where they have built communities can undo any progress they have made towards exiting homelessness, such as the connections formed with service providers or the sense of community within the encampments.
“Instead of attempting to help these people and solve their problem through giving these people options, you’re taking away the little options that they do have,” said sophomore Aliya Khan.
Additionally, some argue that incarcerating people who refuse shelter does more harm than good. Those who are convicted as a result of these laws would have criminal records, which is likely to cause them to face discrimination when seeking housing and employment, according to a 2016 report about the reintegration of people released from prison.
“When you exit incarceration, if you don’t have services, if you don’t have connection to housing, if you don’t have jobs, you’re going to end up experiencing homelessness again, especially in California, where it’s so expensive to live,” said Teya Hisel, policy manager at Downtown Women’s Center in Los Angeles, which provides services for homeless people. “It’s just a brutal cycle.”
One method of addressing homelessness, called Housing First, ensures that homeless people have a stable place to live without requiring them to get mental health treatment or use other services before getting housing. A 2021 review found that Housing First reduced homelessness by 88% and housing stability increased by 41% compared to when treatment was prioritized instead.
“If you’re suspended in that kind of fight or flight, it’s really difficult to start dealing with anything else that’s going on in your life,” Hisel said. “It’s really hard to sustain a job [or] access mental health services. But if you can get into housing first, you have a place to come home to, and you have that sense of safety and security. You need your basic needs taken care of first before you can expand and start to deal with other things in your life.”
Unaffordable housing is a major cause of homelessness. Measure T, passed during the Nov. 2024 elections, is a city ordinance in San Mateo that imposes limitations on Measure Y, passed in 2020, which restricted the height and density of residential housing that could be built on a certain amount of land. Proponents of such measures believe that they will ease the housing shortage, leading to more affordability.
“Increasing production, increasing housing density, just creating more housing that is affordable, is so important,” Hisel said. “People need to be able to afford the housing they live in. Increasing the housing stock that is affordable helps that.”
Even with Measure T introducing the possibility of more housing units, some do not think that this alone will help alleviate homelessness.
“[The] price range wouldn’t be something that someone who’s homeless could afford,” Khan said. “I don’t think it would even be close just because of the amount of money that these apartments cost … we need more low-income housing to solve the issue.”
Others add that mistrust of donating to the homeless is preventing successful programs from being instated.
“Homeless people are homeless because they couldn’t find stability, and so if all they can really afford is a $5 beer bottle, then how are they gonna afford a whole house?” said sophomore Jordyn De Los Santos Bordner. “They have to turn to the drugs for support, and that’s why people don’t like giving homeless people money because they think that they’re gonna use it to buy drugs. And some do, some don’t, but when you’re kind of put in that difficult situation, it becomes a habit to turn to anything that provides you comfort.”
Several felt that the approach to finding strategies to reduce homelessness needs to be more tailored to the needs of the homeless.
“If anything, they should have more agencies coming out to pick [the homeless] up and put them into shelters or hotels, because there’s a lot of resources but there’s not a lot of footwork being done about it,” Matter said. “It would be really stupid to waste the taxpayers’ money to put them in jail.”
As the homelessness crisis continues to worsen, many feel that lawmakers’ responses are not sufficient enough to lead to long-term solutions.
