<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1654184812430,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000017a-8cb2-d416-ad7a-beb7278f0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1654184812430,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000017a-8cb2-d416-ad7a-beb7278f0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_38566008", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"913524"} }); ","_id":"00000181-2519-d05c-adbd-fd9f1aa90000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedThe Democratic leaders that control our nation’s cities should never have let the problem get this bad, but hopeful signs across the country show patience is wearing thin when it comes to homeless encampments.
In Washington, D.C., it took the fatal shooting of a homeless man in broad daylight at an encampment in Thomas Circle to spur the city to action. Authorities still don’t know if the shooting death was a suicide, homicide, or self-defense, but they do know that the Thomas Circle encampment has been the site of 35 arrests in just the past four months for various firearms and narcotics offenses. In one case, a man brandished a gun in a neighborhood convenience store before hiding it in one of the tents.
Public safety is not the only thing harmed by letting homeless encampments fester. The illegal campsites are also public health threats, as they attract and support massive rodent populations and do not have sanitary infrastructure to prevent the spread of disease.
Even the Biden administration is beginning to address the problem. Federal authorities finally cleaned out an illegal encampment that had grown to 35 people in Columbus Circle, which is National Park Service land located right outside Union Station.
Local and federal authorities in Washington had become far too lenient in allowing encampments to fester before COVID, but with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advising cities not to crack down on illegal camping during the pandemic, the number of encampments exploded to almost 100 in Washington alone.
Now, with the pandemic finally over, authorities can begin pushing people into the shelters and housing programs they need. Many of those in encampments don’t want to go to shelters because of rules against pets, drug use, and intimate relations. But there is an upper limit to the increased violence and public health dangers city residents should tolerate just because homeless people feel that the available shelters cramp their preferred lifestyles.
Washington is not the only locality that has had enough of homeless encampments intruding on people’s lives. The Los Angeles City Council approved a new ordinance this week that would make it easier for city officials to clear illegal campers within 500 feet of schools and daycare centers.
“I’ve seen elementary schools with conditions that none of us as parents would find acceptable for our children,” LA Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said at the council meeting. “Individuals with mental illness, some of them absolutely unclothed, shouting profanities to the listening ear of children.”
The LAUSD superintendent is right: Children should not have to hear people who are mentally ill and naked shouting obscenities on the way to school every day. But neither should adults have to experience the same disturbing sights, sounds, and smells.
Resources are not the problem. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being pumped into homeless programs nationwide. They just aren’t being spent wisely. Yes, there is substantially more that local governments could do about housing affordability, but more money for housing subsidies is not the answer as long as housing supply is constricted. Both local and federal governments need to roll back the environmental and zoning laws that are preventing new housing units from being built.
Much more can be done to provide mental health and job counseling services for the homeless population, but these services won’t work if homeless people are allowed to continue many of the bad behaviors that landed them in a homeless encampment in the first place.
We can hope the move to dismantle homeless encampments in Washington and LA will continue to spread to blue cities throughout the country.
