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For a state that prides itself on its liberal values and its high gross domestic product, California’s homeless encampments continue to be a national disgrace.
The city of Berkeley has revealed that it has removed 75 tons of trash and hazardous waste from homeless encampments between September 2021 and March 2022. The city’s encampments were littered with raw sewage, human waste, drug paraphernalia, and rodents, which were flowing out onto sidewalks and roads. Weekly trash collections led to the removal of nearly 500 pounds of garbage per homeless person per year.
On Tuesday, Oakland saw a fatal shooting at a “sprawling, multi-block” homeless encampment. Last April, two other people were shot at that same encampment. Meanwhile, Sacramento County has been dealing with multiple fires at or near homeless encampments, which have become a hotbed for out-of-control fires over the last few years. In San Francisco earlier this year, an encampment fire killed one homeless woman and left three others in critical condition.
These encampments are public safety and health hazards, for both the homeless people living in them and the communities they set up in. They are a mess of fires, crime, human waste, and drug paraphernalia that bleed out to nearby schools, businesses, parks, roads, and train tracks, with lethal results.
California has spent roughly $13 billion on homelessness programs over the past three years. All of that money has been for naught — in fact, California’s homeless population has only increased. The Golden State has roughly 28% of the nation’s homeless population despite having just under 12% of the general population. While Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom calls homelessness a national crisis, it is primarily a California crisis that has become worse over the last several years.
Democrats and liberal pundits point to California as their model for the country. Among its many other flaws, the California model includes rampant homelessness that no amount of money can fix, which poses a health and public safety risk to residents all across the state. California’s Democratic monopoly on power has only made things even worse. It is now a national embarrassment.
