I've worked as primary care clinician in a "homeless clinic" in San Francisco for close to 30 years; a friend has worked in a similar clinic in Boston for the same length of time. Our jobs are not so different. I find it puzzling that people write essays & books trying to understand American homelessness without simultaneously analyzing American "billionaire-ness." It's all part of the same problem. Talking about the poor without simultaneously touching on the mega-rich & the hollowing of the middle class is like the blind man talking about the elephant's tail while ignoring its ears & tusks. Nick, you have lots of experience with side-by-side extreme wealth & extreme poverty in developing countries. I'd be more interested in your reflections on what you've seen there compared to what you're noticing here in the US, than in your commentary on the superficial differences in homelessness on east & west coasts.
Mr. Kristof’s piece focused on outcomes and ineffectual governing not the real problem of a bifurcated society. If the jobs are so similar why are outcomes so different on the East Coast? I believe he’s asking for solutions not seeking to downplay the macro conditions enabling our shameful unequal society.
Your description of her statements doesn't do them justice. To be fair, she said <<<[W]e may have to do some immediate negotiation in the short term about maybe even ceding those multi-use paths for a short time but then trying to make sure that we’re carving out greater space on the right-of-way. What I want to do is bring the community together to enhance understanding of the different groups. There’s a lot of acrimony between a lot of groups — cyclists and people without housing, cyclists and motorists, and motorists, you know, and transit — we’ve got to get people talking more civilly so that we can start to hammer out solutions to our biggest problems. Because right now, having hundreds of people concentrated along the paths is not working for anyone involved.>>>
I'd be curious if the Point-In-Time homelessness statistics show a migration away from East Coast homelessness and toward southern and western camps. Weather and urbanization may make living rough untenable and perhaps those easterners who prefer staying out of mass shelters migrate elsewhere?
I think this is a factor too. I recall providing social worker services to such people even 45 years ago. They got to the south but claimed they couldn't get home.
Anna Rogers: Thanks for your reply. So that means Kristof is correct that East coast authorities are doing better at managing the homeless. Any thoughts on what LA authorities could do better?
It isn’t so difficult as it has been made out to be. When the cities on the West Coast decided to offer ever more services and to stop policing petty crime and drug crimes, the homeless population ballooned overwhelming those efforts. Yes, the climate is more moderate, but that isn’t the reason. The reason is well intentioned but ineffective solutions have backfired at the same time that cities like Seattle and Portland have seen their longtime leaders bow out and replaced by ideologues with few, if any practical solutions. Allowing park camping, wanton vandalism, petty theft and the drug trade to go on unabated is killing these cities.
It’s tragic because Portland and Seattle’s once had livability that was envied by tourists and cherished by locals. No more. Still possessed of much natural beauty, the once vibrant downtown in each place is very different today. Failure to favor the interests and concerns of the majority in misplaced notions of so called “compassion” only increased the numbers of, and misery and suffering of, the homeless, mentally ill, and addicted. Businesses have been done in by the burden of protecting themselves from crime, and cleaning up after the street denizens, and have thrown in the towel.
Effective leaders are scarce, and those who try are quickly labeled by every distasteful name in the extreme lexicon, jeered at, and pretty much run out of office. No wonder few put themselves forward.
Without better, more effective leaders, and more civic engagement by the citizens, nothing will change. It’s easier to blame “the rich”, or “the system” or “end stage capitalism” than it is to get involved in solutions and leadership.
That’s heartbreaking, because without the involvement of the people who complain about the conditions in the parks, or the petty crime in the neighborhoods, or the drug use and vandalism but do nothing else, nothing will change. But those people need a defined call to action, and something to coalesce around to be effective….and that takes leaders. Leaders with guts, determination, and the ability to communicate a clear set of desired actions.
Offering more services? Did you know that it's estimated there are a thousand homeless unaccompanied youth in Salem and only 14 dedicated shelter beds? That in a city like Portland with thousands of homeless there are only a few hundred shelter beds for women, and that the only access to in-patient mental health care is through the jail system? I don't think anybody comes to Oregon for the "services." They come here for the reasonably temperate climate and the benign neglect as folks have looked the other way for decades.
Linda, a nice analysis overall. I'm *delighted* Nick Kristof is taking on this challenge because it's about damn time somebody tried to put all these difficult pieces together and make some sense out of it. I can't think of anyone better to do it than Nick.
First off: It's a multi-group problem; homeless, struggling immigrants, gangs, drug users, the mentally ill, wild and crazy teenagers, "easy money" thieves stealing Amazon pkgs from porches... the list goes on.
Second: Because it's a multi-group problem, the attempted solutions will probably have to be different for each group.
I would like to posit that the common denominator is a lack of acceptance of social behavior standards by the members of each group. The way I think of it is that they've gone "feral". They'll steal the package from your porch, crap on the sidewalk, break your windows, shoplift, do drugs... you get the picture.
I think most of us in Blue America want to be accepting of "diversity" and tolerant of outlandish individual behavior, but there simply have to be some social standards. Chewing cardboard nude in front of Safeway is not acceptable. We had hoped that leaving well enough alone would let everyone "be their true self" and just *assumed* that everyone had some minimal social behavioral standards. Obviously not or, if they did, some have jettisoned them to have more "fun" and be "their own person".
Maybe the bottom line question is: How can we possibly re-socialize the feral?
Jail? Fat chance. That will make many of them worse. And we already have HUGE jail and prison populations; do we really need more? The court systems have been backlogged for years prior to Covid and they've only gotten more crowded since Covid. Justice is no longer swift, certain or fair.
More services? Services don't civilize. Many homeless (houseless if you prefer) are great and do well in shelter. Many don't and destroy their unit.
More drug treatment? Sure. But that's only a partial solution for 1 group.
More money? Sure, that would help. But it's not going to make the feral civilized.
As long as America stresses and worships the individual at the expense of the community I think this is what we can expect (see David Brooks and George Packer). Blue State Citizens need to get back to saying "NO, we don't do that here." Good luck with that one! I have no thoughts about why the West Coast seems to be having more problems with this than the East Coast except maybe the weather helps and maybe we're more wild than the East. I hope Mr. Kristof can offer some suggestions and hope because right now the social and political futures both look dismal as hell.
My opinion on this is that our cities have let things simply get out of hand. All homeless people should be rounded up and triaged according to what their problems are. All able bodied people without mental problems should be sorted out, housed, and given jobs. All people with mental problems should be put in institutions (yes, we will have to open them up again) and given treatment. All drug addicts should also be put into rehab situations and helped. NO ONE should be allowed to sleep on the streets. I know this sounds like someone who is not a liberal made this up, but I AM a liberal and I have mentioned this idea to other liberals who all agreed with me that this is the only way to handle this problem. The criminals must be arrested and put in jail - not let out over and over again. Sorry, but this is what needs to be done.
Not to be rude, but unfortunately I spent too much time being homeless after becoming disabled and widowed, and I would say the visible population has far more mental health/addiction issues than you can imagine, not to mention criminal histories. I have always said that even if a person doesn't fall into homelessness with mental health issues, after six months they'll have plenty -- its a harrowing experience. And when "jobs" don't cover the cost of housing, what good is it getting somebody spruced up enough to sweep parking garages or make sandwiches when they have no place to sleep or shower?
You would be the Best voice for what is needed to support folks who are homeless.
CA has a program to convert older motels into housing for homeless folks. That seems like a start if the funding continues.
RVs are quite practical in how they use space and are very 'livable' in the right environments, with an infrastructure for water, sewage, garbage, etc.
Old strip malls are also ripe for conversion to low income housing as we see so many shuttered up while homeless tents park outside. That's not helping anyone with buildings left empty....
Lets start with utilizing what we've got.....time to imagine ...... a better future.
Oregon has the motel conversion program on a small, county-by-county basis. It takes a strong local agency to manage the funding. Medford's Rogue Retreat has done it and I don't know how many others.
I spent a decade in Multnomah County advocating for homeless people, speaking out on behalf of those whose mental health is more stable when they're accompanied by animals. I watched as we siloed systems into various population demographics and, in retrospect, completely failed to recognize how the "new meth" took over our streets. Now I am old and unwell (but, fortunately, housed!) and it will be up to others to fight this battle. But thank you for the compliment.
I agree and tend to be 'progressive'-- to me letting people literally rot outside is not progressive. The countries I admire have none of this going on
Are you completely unwilliing to consider someone might 'rehabilitate' with some compassion, patience, and resources .... instead of your 'enforcement' attitude?
You might win more converts with 'honey' instead of 'vinegar'......
Are you freaking kidding me? Who gets to have the power over deciding the fate of another person's life? Is it going to be a psychologist or psychiatrist making these decisions, or a bachelors' or less level government worker who doesn't know or care? And if you think everyone with mental problems should be institutionalized, then you're the crazy one. Institutionalization is the equivalent of death to many people. Let them have their freedom and let them sleep outside, if they are not bothering anyone. If they are, that's a different story. But before you go around blithely advocating institutionalization, you should try it for a while.
If somebody's camping in a public space, they are "bothering" all of us. Sidewalks are not meant for habitation. If somebody has a "meth problem," they're definitely bothering somebody even before they go psychotic and chop up their grandma. They can't work and start stealing, they leave syringes around parks and playgrounds, they make public spaces scary. Yes, we need to make sure our institutions are humane. Leaving those with brain disorders so severe they're eating road kill or hallucinating in the middle of busy highways to fend for themselves is as cruel as a bad institution. I wish there was a better answer.
You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but it is people like your who have caused this ongoing problem. Some people simply are not able to manage their lives to the best effect and all the people living on the streets should prove that. By the way, all the triaging should certainly be done by competent and qualified people. I thought that was implicit.
I encourage you to listen to this interview with Freddie deBoer, a Marxist/Progressive/Bipolar guy who disagrees with you. I do not have nearly the skill to communicate as he does. This conversation starts in one place and ranges to other ideas, and in all of the topics he has very helpful, very insightful views.
Not sure where you live but they aren't just bothering people. They are shooting each other and killing/physically attacking people minding their own business unfortunately
As much as murderers complain about it, they get rounded up, convicted, and confined against their will because they're a danger to society. We've decriminalized drugs but the people not only have been chemicalized out of their own free will but have become a danger to public safety and public health. Still, incarcerating somebody for an illness without treating that illness IS a violation of civil rights. When do we mandate that somebody with public addiction issues be forced into treatment? How do we re-define "danger to self and others?"
You are sick. How dare you so carelessly advocate for institutionalization. People have civil rights. You have the right to refuse treatment and be homeless. Mentally ill people are PEOPLE with the same rights as you. And when you say only institutions will work for mentally ill homeless people, it shows how little you know. Have you ever heard of mental health court? Or Assertive Community Treatment teams? Bet not. Those are ways people with severe mental illnesses can be monitored AND stay in the community. FFS. People like you disgust me.
there are multiple factors contributing to West Coast homelessness but don’t underestimate the temperate weather, if the politicians are not worried they could freeze to death in winter, their sense of urgency to solve the problem is lower since it is a ‘hard’ problem to solve, especially with the subset that have legitimate mental health issues
It is worth pointing out that there are many warm states (like Texas) that have basically no homelessness problem at all. The primary difference is the apartment vacancy rate and the rate at which each state is building housing. Blue states just aren’t building enough of it.
Agreed I think the temperate weather drives a lot MORE homeless people (and people with mental health problems) to PNW than cold east coast cities. While the east coast cities are also liberal I think the degree of liberalism is more extreme in the west coast and this is reflected in the elected politicians who have lax policies that fail to tackle the core issues at hand. So I see two main differences btwn east and west coast being both a difference of magnitude and poor leadership.
I write as a Democrat, a liberal, and a donor to you, Tina Kotek, and Tobias Read. I was searching for someone who would shake up the excessive moral signaling going on in Portland. Anarchists were allowed to co-mingle with BLM protesters. City, county, and state police officers could have gone in and arrested lawbreakers, separating the vandals from the peaceful. They held back. "Violence is the language of the oppressed." At each level of government there was failure to recognize that the violence was destroying the BLM effort. Officeholders needed to say that they were not being cruel or over-policing; they were protecting Portland and the right to protest by employing tough love.
No one wants to be cruel. No one want to site homeless near anyone. The result is the endless cruelty of people on median strips and parks, destroying the city. If police unions won't arrest people, fire the police chief and get one who will command enough respect that police do their jobs. We Democrats are supposed to be the party of good government. We should provide good government. It is OK to fire people who don't do a good job. The public expects it. They would appreciate seeing Democrats demanding it.
Democrats are too indulgent, too afraid of looking mean, too afraid of being criticized for being mean, or racist, or racist-adjacent, or not sufficiently anti-racist. So they tolerated lawbreaking, and therefore gave the city over to lawbreakers.
I think the West Coast is where the hippie movement flowered, and we've ended up with idealist folks who can be a little disconnected from practical reality, and I think this creates a feedback loop of politicians who are afraid to upset the voters. Progressivism is more like a religion on the West Coast, where it might be a little different in other places. Just an thought!
I have worked with homeless on the East Coast, and in California. I think weather is an incentive to solve the problems, and might be an element of your thesis. However, I think we have to go back to the Regan years, and the disinvestment in housing and mental health services. Deinstitutionalizing those with mental health, and not providing community based services was a huge creator of poverty and more. The expectation that 'charity' would replace federal investment in housing and services was really a failure, and the fact that folks have forgotten these policy creations of homelessness is huge. One of my favorite books is 'Sweet Charity and the End of Entitlement' by Papendock lays this out well. I suggest too that in the period since Regan we have resorted to the criminalization of homelessness, and incarcerated many. The health care system leaves those who are poor without care, only ER services, where they are promptly discharged to the street, where they get sicker and die. Just some thoughts. Edie Jessup
In the most simplistic of terms, the differences in east coast culture and west coast culture can be understood in the different ways they were settled, evolved, and reinforced by waves of immigrants that came and stayed there. Thse who went west brought a different mythos, one that assumed qualities and standards that resonate today. Manifest Destiny, gold rushes, free or cheap land bring elements of people seeking wealth, unbridled opportunity, and a freedom connected to land like few other places in the USA. I grew up in Texas, which has a unique blend of east and west, then spent a few decades in Michigan, where labor and natural resources forged deep bonds, now somewhat broken in a post-industrial world. Now my home is in Oregon, where I'm learning to discern the differences between east and west and coastal cultures... there's a lot of the old west here, and it's not Portland, which I have always loved for its blue collar days (like Michigan). I can't be sure, but the space between progressive and conservative is wider here that any place I've ever seen.
I'm a firm believer in education and have to think it's key to the problem...not just K-12, but adult and public education.
Here in Santa Cruz CA we have an overwhelming homeless population camped out right under our County Administration Bldg. Courts won't let the County remove them without an alternative space to go to. No one wants them in their neighborhood. Yet, we spend a huge portion of our taxes on dealing with homeless needs at the expense of anything else it seems, including public parks taken over by homeless campers.
When a hotel project is proposed it gets shot down by our "progressives" who scream we should be building housing for low income folks....completely ignoring it takes business and revenue to generate the funds for our country to function. No good idea or solution escapes 'the progressives' who seem opposed to all construction that isn't for homeless.
Around here its " BANANAs" :
Build
Absolutely
Nothing
Anywhere
Near
Anyone
And another year rolls by and we have even more homeless....everywhere under bridges, offramps, along our creeks and rivers.....making for an ecological nightmare, along with the countless needles discarded without regard for anyone else....
I'm torn daily between compassion and disgust....along with so many others wanting to see positive change and solutions~
I too live in Santa Cruz and agree with you. As I drive into town from Branciforte I see the same car/homes that have been there for years. Letters to the editor in the Sentinel about the overnight parking on West Cliff appear almost daily. I no longer go downtown to as it has become unsafe.
And, every time I drive by the vacant old drive-in I wonder why we don't establish a homeless camp there. Its doing nothing but growing weeds....for years now.
It has water service, restrooms, some kind of kitchen facility, and, its fenced for security, is not near a residential neighborhood, and has bus service across the street and a hospital 1/4 mi away for any overdoses. Why is it sitting empty while folks have no where else to go especially those old broken down RVs no one wants in front of their house ?
the perfect place for homeless housing? The old Community Hospital on Frederick St. MANY rooms, all could hold 2 people, each has a bathroom. Central nurse's stations. 2 easily-monitored entrances. What's Dignity doing with it? They say they're going to demolish it but it's been sitting idle for several years. Sutter Health owns the Drive-In location. Maybe Dignity would like to make a real contribution to the community? Nah, probably not.
There has to be some reason because your idea is obvious. Wonder if it is private property and owner does not want it used for this purpose. But homelessness is just not in our backyard or front yard for that matter. Take a drive down El Camino Real close to Stanford and it is old RV row.
Yes I agree that too often 'progressive' policies lead to unintended consequences and often don't tangibly help people. Portland in particular has a number of people in leadership (city and county) that are distracted by ideas of 'diversity' and equity, and when we have a number of emergencies happening these things feel excessive at best. None of this was apparent to me until the pandemic and subsequent homeless camp sprawl, which forced me to pay attention to local politics. Before this happened, I was only focused on national issues and always happily voted for all progressive measures and candidates.
In the late 90s, a vertically integrated heroin import and distribution racket was thriving in Portland, which had a huge heroin problem, but not much violence or social disorder to go with it. It was disturbing, one day, to see from the bus flames and smoke rising from Mount Tabor. A meth lab in a rented house. The city had a very low homicide rate, though there was significant violence. A lot has changed for the worse.
I very much doubt that drugs are easier to get in Portland, or much more tolerated, than here in Florida.
I think the "new meth" is causing people to behave in really strange ways.
Portland actually decriminalized possession of small amounts of ALL drugs. Of course this was supposed to go hand-in-hand with helping folks into addiction recovery centers, but the execution of it all is pretty poor. From what I've heard in the Portland chatter, police very rarely hand out the citations that are required to make the program work. And we know from the data that folks rarely ask for the recovery help they need from the citations that are given.
I think you are right. We've had homeless around the edges of my neighborhood since 2015, but in the last year the ones nearby are a different type. Hostile, menacing, delusional.
This article truly is fantastic. Right now I'm observing two dismemberment homicide cases, both involving women who, on the new meth, carved up people around them. This article explains why that's happening. Thank you for sharing.
I read the article after your comments. I'm fairly certain there are key elements in this "new-meth" problem that we're not familiar with as a society. I wasn't. The nearly instant mental illness and disassociation with reality is alarming, so is the length of time for rehabilitation. Surely THIS is a large part of the problem of our homeless explosion.
I’m a teacher in Oregon. The education system in Oregon is very weak in my view, though I cannot compare this to the East , as I’ve only been a teacher since moving out here in 2018. I did live for 20 years in New York City, and definitely feel shocked by Portland’s downfall as I find it to currently be scarier and dirtier than I expected it to be in comparison. New York City has large global investment behind it, so it seems unfair to compare the standard of living in PDX to NYC. Apples to oranges, really.
My concern about Portland is that it lacks a wide range of people living there and keeping a sense of balance and stability. In other words, the political demographic of the city is very narrow and everyone tends to think the same and have the same ethos about society. In NYC you’ve got a range of views, a range of political persuasions. Your Wall Street banker is going to call himself fiscally conservative, but socially liberal, your working folks might be more likely to be Democrats and proud union members in NYC.
Portland seems to lack balance in government precisely because everyone thinks similarly and perhaps bad policies go unchallenged. This references the “purity versus pragmatism” you spoke of in your piece.
But education is definitely broken in Oregon. I entered a Masters for Teaching at an Oregon university in 2018, and the ideas in that program were half baked and lacked research and evidence. It was extremely ethos driven, and actually teaching students seemed secondary to “building relationships.”
If I had to summarize the program’s goal I would say to make sure that I, as the teacher, did not come away thinking I should be leading the class. I was instructed over and over to be the “guide on the side” to “not worry if I don’t teach them anything,” to make sure I “built that relationship” in order to be that “stable adult” in that student’s life.
Except the stability seemed to be based on how well they liked me, and not on whether they learned from me. Some of this is reasonable, but as the main focus and base of all of teaching it’s a disaster.
Just look at the approach to reading. At least teachers are demanding approaches with more evidence now, but there are a robust number of people in education who arrogantly balk at evidence-based approaches to reading. There is a commitment in education to ethos, belief, and ideology. There is an eschewing of structure, academics, and rigor. (The fear being we will traumatize the kids with expectations, so we have none that are solid.)
I talked with a man living on the street in my Portland neighborhood. He says that he can’t get a job because he was a felon, he can’t leave his RV, parked on the street, because it may be towed or other street people will steal his stuff. Does he like living on the street, I asked. “No. I hate it”.
On the homelessness front, two major factors: Cost of housing, and winter. There's a lot of left-leaning NIMBYism that drives housing costs up in LA, SF, Portland, and Seattle. And if you don't have a home, it's a lot better to hang out in LA or San Francisco (or even Seattle) than in the Midwest or East Coast. But whatever flaws of governance, none of the major west coast cities is remotely troubled as, say, Baltimore.
I don't fault schools so much for closing during COVID; schools are huge COVID spreaders. Maybe they closed for too long but it seems like this is one of many situations where Democrats are suffering from "no good deed goes unpunished."
The San Francisco school board's focus on renaming schools is, admittedly, an absurdity.
Could it be that the climate allowing homelessness year round (compared with the East Coast) along with cities giving benefits to unsheltered people are factors that draw people without housing to West Coast cities?
A lot of people think the weather is a major factor. I'm skeptical, though i might be wrong. I think the climate may draw people to San Diego and Los Angeles, but to Portland or Seattle winters? Really? After all, there are Democratic cities like Houston and Dallas that have much better winters, and the same is true of Washington DC, Charlottesville, Richmond, Chapel Hill and a number of other Blue cities in the East or South.
I am visiting in the South and the humidity is horrible - not something you have as much in Portland or Seattle. Yes, mild winters here but horrendous summers to be living outside.
That makes sense, so looks like the answer isn't the climate. Will be interested to read, when you are ready, what you think are the factors. Thank you very much, as always, for sharing your very well thought out and knowledgable ideas!
I thought of that too. When I lived in Hawaii I realized it was a forgiving place to be homeless as the weather is milder year round and food grows on trees. It's possible homelessness is higher on the West Coast because homeless people are not forced to migrate to a more forgiving climate.
In the state of WA we have no income tax so services folks rely on are funded on regressive taxes that affect low income and the poor the most. There is not enough housing, there aren’t enough access to shelters, transitioning housing, drug addiction programs, services for families with kids, etc. The history of redlining and zoning that doesn’t allow for multi-family everywhere plus the arrival of the tech boom have made homelessness and poverty more visible and growing. Finally, Seattle isn’t terrifying. South Seattle and certain areas of downtown have been dealing with issues of petty violence, drug use and folks living in the streets for decades. The thing now is that is affecting the richer white neighborhoods in the North. So the response sadly isn’t more equitable taxes or social services, is being the police in so my neighborhood isn’t affected. We need real solutions that serve the poor so they can be housed no matter what.
Yes, I was wondering about the red lining effects but didn't they do that on the East Coast too? Maybe just not as much. I live in North Seattle and have friends which I love but would call neo-liberals who vote for Dems but also opposed the fairly recent expansions of Additional Dwelling Units (ADUs) into their neighborhoods. I also do homeless outreach in SODO so have homeless friends. I don't know the answer, but the city of Seattle sure does rake in the revenue for all of the high priced development that has been going on in recent years.
I've worked as primary care clinician in a "homeless clinic" in San Francisco for close to 30 years; a friend has worked in a similar clinic in Boston for the same length of time. Our jobs are not so different. I find it puzzling that people write essays & books trying to understand American homelessness without simultaneously analyzing American "billionaire-ness." It's all part of the same problem. Talking about the poor without simultaneously touching on the mega-rich & the hollowing of the middle class is like the blind man talking about the elephant's tail while ignoring its ears & tusks. Nick, you have lots of experience with side-by-side extreme wealth & extreme poverty in developing countries. I'd be more interested in your reflections on what you've seen there compared to what you're noticing here in the US, than in your commentary on the superficial differences in homelessness on east & west coasts.
Mr. Kristof’s piece focused on outcomes and ineffectual governing not the real problem of a bifurcated society. If the jobs are so similar why are outcomes so different on the East Coast? I believe he’s asking for solutions not seeking to downplay the macro conditions enabling our shameful unequal society.
Agreed. I think my personal solution is to note vote for ideologues but rather for pragmatic candidates. This person almost won the last mayoral election, and in this interview was discussing her idea of ceding multi use bike paths to the homeless: https://bikeportland.org/2020/10/27/mayoral-candidate-sarah-iannarone-addresses-off-street-path-safety-concerns-322077
Your description of her statements doesn't do them justice. To be fair, she said <<<[W]e may have to do some immediate negotiation in the short term about maybe even ceding those multi-use paths for a short time but then trying to make sure that we’re carving out greater space on the right-of-way. What I want to do is bring the community together to enhance understanding of the different groups. There’s a lot of acrimony between a lot of groups — cyclists and people without housing, cyclists and motorists, and motorists, you know, and transit — we’ve got to get people talking more civilly so that we can start to hammer out solutions to our biggest problems. Because right now, having hundreds of people concentrated along the paths is not working for anyone involved.>>>
These differences aren't superficial? East coast homeless aren't living in encampments as a rule.
I'd be curious if the Point-In-Time homelessness statistics show a migration away from East Coast homelessness and toward southern and western camps. Weather and urbanization may make living rough untenable and perhaps those easterners who prefer staying out of mass shelters migrate elsewhere?
I think this is a factor too. I recall providing social worker services to such people even 45 years ago. They got to the south but claimed they couldn't get home.
Anna: Where are the east coast homeless living?
Shelters, motels, halfway housing, transitional housing
Anna Rogers: Thanks for your reply. So that means Kristof is correct that East coast authorities are doing better at managing the homeless. Any thoughts on what LA authorities could do better?
Los Angeles? I live in Portland...
Foglight: My comment about massive builder profits is my way of pointing to the "billionaire-ness" issue.
It isn’t so difficult as it has been made out to be. When the cities on the West Coast decided to offer ever more services and to stop policing petty crime and drug crimes, the homeless population ballooned overwhelming those efforts. Yes, the climate is more moderate, but that isn’t the reason. The reason is well intentioned but ineffective solutions have backfired at the same time that cities like Seattle and Portland have seen their longtime leaders bow out and replaced by ideologues with few, if any practical solutions. Allowing park camping, wanton vandalism, petty theft and the drug trade to go on unabated is killing these cities.
It’s tragic because Portland and Seattle’s once had livability that was envied by tourists and cherished by locals. No more. Still possessed of much natural beauty, the once vibrant downtown in each place is very different today. Failure to favor the interests and concerns of the majority in misplaced notions of so called “compassion” only increased the numbers of, and misery and suffering of, the homeless, mentally ill, and addicted. Businesses have been done in by the burden of protecting themselves from crime, and cleaning up after the street denizens, and have thrown in the towel.
Effective leaders are scarce, and those who try are quickly labeled by every distasteful name in the extreme lexicon, jeered at, and pretty much run out of office. No wonder few put themselves forward.
Without better, more effective leaders, and more civic engagement by the citizens, nothing will change. It’s easier to blame “the rich”, or “the system” or “end stage capitalism” than it is to get involved in solutions and leadership.
That’s heartbreaking, because without the involvement of the people who complain about the conditions in the parks, or the petty crime in the neighborhoods, or the drug use and vandalism but do nothing else, nothing will change. But those people need a defined call to action, and something to coalesce around to be effective….and that takes leaders. Leaders with guts, determination, and the ability to communicate a clear set of desired actions.
Offering more services? Did you know that it's estimated there are a thousand homeless unaccompanied youth in Salem and only 14 dedicated shelter beds? That in a city like Portland with thousands of homeless there are only a few hundred shelter beds for women, and that the only access to in-patient mental health care is through the jail system? I don't think anybody comes to Oregon for the "services." They come here for the reasonably temperate climate and the benign neglect as folks have looked the other way for decades.
Linda, a nice analysis overall. I'm *delighted* Nick Kristof is taking on this challenge because it's about damn time somebody tried to put all these difficult pieces together and make some sense out of it. I can't think of anyone better to do it than Nick.
First off: It's a multi-group problem; homeless, struggling immigrants, gangs, drug users, the mentally ill, wild and crazy teenagers, "easy money" thieves stealing Amazon pkgs from porches... the list goes on.
Second: Because it's a multi-group problem, the attempted solutions will probably have to be different for each group.
I would like to posit that the common denominator is a lack of acceptance of social behavior standards by the members of each group. The way I think of it is that they've gone "feral". They'll steal the package from your porch, crap on the sidewalk, break your windows, shoplift, do drugs... you get the picture.
I think most of us in Blue America want to be accepting of "diversity" and tolerant of outlandish individual behavior, but there simply have to be some social standards. Chewing cardboard nude in front of Safeway is not acceptable. We had hoped that leaving well enough alone would let everyone "be their true self" and just *assumed* that everyone had some minimal social behavioral standards. Obviously not or, if they did, some have jettisoned them to have more "fun" and be "their own person".
Maybe the bottom line question is: How can we possibly re-socialize the feral?
Jail? Fat chance. That will make many of them worse. And we already have HUGE jail and prison populations; do we really need more? The court systems have been backlogged for years prior to Covid and they've only gotten more crowded since Covid. Justice is no longer swift, certain or fair.
More services? Services don't civilize. Many homeless (houseless if you prefer) are great and do well in shelter. Many don't and destroy their unit.
More drug treatment? Sure. But that's only a partial solution for 1 group.
More money? Sure, that would help. But it's not going to make the feral civilized.
As long as America stresses and worships the individual at the expense of the community I think this is what we can expect (see David Brooks and George Packer). Blue State Citizens need to get back to saying "NO, we don't do that here." Good luck with that one! I have no thoughts about why the West Coast seems to be having more problems with this than the East Coast except maybe the weather helps and maybe we're more wild than the East. I hope Mr. Kristof can offer some suggestions and hope because right now the social and political futures both look dismal as hell.
My opinion on this is that our cities have let things simply get out of hand. All homeless people should be rounded up and triaged according to what their problems are. All able bodied people without mental problems should be sorted out, housed, and given jobs. All people with mental problems should be put in institutions (yes, we will have to open them up again) and given treatment. All drug addicts should also be put into rehab situations and helped. NO ONE should be allowed to sleep on the streets. I know this sounds like someone who is not a liberal made this up, but I AM a liberal and I have mentioned this idea to other liberals who all agreed with me that this is the only way to handle this problem. The criminals must be arrested and put in jail - not let out over and over again. Sorry, but this is what needs to be done.
Not to be rude, but unfortunately I spent too much time being homeless after becoming disabled and widowed, and I would say the visible population has far more mental health/addiction issues than you can imagine, not to mention criminal histories. I have always said that even if a person doesn't fall into homelessness with mental health issues, after six months they'll have plenty -- its a harrowing experience. And when "jobs" don't cover the cost of housing, what good is it getting somebody spruced up enough to sweep parking garages or make sandwiches when they have no place to sleep or shower?
You would be the Best voice for what is needed to support folks who are homeless.
CA has a program to convert older motels into housing for homeless folks. That seems like a start if the funding continues.
RVs are quite practical in how they use space and are very 'livable' in the right environments, with an infrastructure for water, sewage, garbage, etc.
Old strip malls are also ripe for conversion to low income housing as we see so many shuttered up while homeless tents park outside. That's not helping anyone with buildings left empty....
Lets start with utilizing what we've got.....time to imagine ...... a better future.
Oregon has the motel conversion program on a small, county-by-county basis. It takes a strong local agency to manage the funding. Medford's Rogue Retreat has done it and I don't know how many others.
I spent a decade in Multnomah County advocating for homeless people, speaking out on behalf of those whose mental health is more stable when they're accompanied by animals. I watched as we siloed systems into various population demographics and, in retrospect, completely failed to recognize how the "new meth" took over our streets. Now I am old and unwell (but, fortunately, housed!) and it will be up to others to fight this battle. But thank you for the compliment.
I agree and tend to be 'progressive'-- to me letting people literally rot outside is not progressive. The countries I admire have none of this going on
Are you completely unwilliing to consider someone might 'rehabilitate' with some compassion, patience, and resources .... instead of your 'enforcement' attitude?
You might win more converts with 'honey' instead of 'vinegar'......
Are you freaking kidding me? Who gets to have the power over deciding the fate of another person's life? Is it going to be a psychologist or psychiatrist making these decisions, or a bachelors' or less level government worker who doesn't know or care? And if you think everyone with mental problems should be institutionalized, then you're the crazy one. Institutionalization is the equivalent of death to many people. Let them have their freedom and let them sleep outside, if they are not bothering anyone. If they are, that's a different story. But before you go around blithely advocating institutionalization, you should try it for a while.
If somebody's camping in a public space, they are "bothering" all of us. Sidewalks are not meant for habitation. If somebody has a "meth problem," they're definitely bothering somebody even before they go psychotic and chop up their grandma. They can't work and start stealing, they leave syringes around parks and playgrounds, they make public spaces scary. Yes, we need to make sure our institutions are humane. Leaving those with brain disorders so severe they're eating road kill or hallucinating in the middle of busy highways to fend for themselves is as cruel as a bad institution. I wish there was a better answer.
You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but it is people like your who have caused this ongoing problem. Some people simply are not able to manage their lives to the best effect and all the people living on the streets should prove that. By the way, all the triaging should certainly be done by competent and qualified people. I thought that was implicit.
I encourage you to listen to this interview with Freddie deBoer, a Marxist/Progressive/Bipolar guy who disagrees with you. I do not have nearly the skill to communicate as he does. This conversation starts in one place and ranges to other ideas, and in all of the topics he has very helpful, very insightful views.
https://www.commonsense.news/p/honestly-does-glorifying-sickness
Not sure where you live but they aren't just bothering people. They are shooting each other and killing/physically attacking people minding their own business unfortunately
Rounding people up and putting them into institutions against their will is probably not going to fly under our current constitution.
As much as murderers complain about it, they get rounded up, convicted, and confined against their will because they're a danger to society. We've decriminalized drugs but the people not only have been chemicalized out of their own free will but have become a danger to public safety and public health. Still, incarcerating somebody for an illness without treating that illness IS a violation of civil rights. When do we mandate that somebody with public addiction issues be forced into treatment? How do we re-define "danger to self and others?"
The illness must be treated in institutions like it used to be.
You are sick. How dare you so carelessly advocate for institutionalization. People have civil rights. You have the right to refuse treatment and be homeless. Mentally ill people are PEOPLE with the same rights as you. And when you say only institutions will work for mentally ill homeless people, it shows how little you know. Have you ever heard of mental health court? Or Assertive Community Treatment teams? Bet not. Those are ways people with severe mental illnesses can be monitored AND stay in the community. FFS. People like you disgust me.
Well then that needs to happen because right now everyone's right to public safety is being infringed upon
Maybe so, but it's the only thing that will work.
Finally someone with common sense
there are multiple factors contributing to West Coast homelessness but don’t underestimate the temperate weather, if the politicians are not worried they could freeze to death in winter, their sense of urgency to solve the problem is lower since it is a ‘hard’ problem to solve, especially with the subset that have legitimate mental health issues
It is worth pointing out that there are many warm states (like Texas) that have basically no homelessness problem at all. The primary difference is the apartment vacancy rate and the rate at which each state is building housing. Blue states just aren’t building enough of it.
Agreed I think the temperate weather drives a lot MORE homeless people (and people with mental health problems) to PNW than cold east coast cities. While the east coast cities are also liberal I think the degree of liberalism is more extreme in the west coast and this is reflected in the elected politicians who have lax policies that fail to tackle the core issues at hand. So I see two main differences btwn east and west coast being both a difference of magnitude and poor leadership.
And the rehab industry is powerful in CA. https://www.ocregister.com/rehab-riviera/
Yes. DSAs vs Democrats. Tons of DSAs in CA they’re like sewer rats
I write as a Democrat, a liberal, and a donor to you, Tina Kotek, and Tobias Read. I was searching for someone who would shake up the excessive moral signaling going on in Portland. Anarchists were allowed to co-mingle with BLM protesters. City, county, and state police officers could have gone in and arrested lawbreakers, separating the vandals from the peaceful. They held back. "Violence is the language of the oppressed." At each level of government there was failure to recognize that the violence was destroying the BLM effort. Officeholders needed to say that they were not being cruel or over-policing; they were protecting Portland and the right to protest by employing tough love.
No one wants to be cruel. No one want to site homeless near anyone. The result is the endless cruelty of people on median strips and parks, destroying the city. If police unions won't arrest people, fire the police chief and get one who will command enough respect that police do their jobs. We Democrats are supposed to be the party of good government. We should provide good government. It is OK to fire people who don't do a good job. The public expects it. They would appreciate seeing Democrats demanding it.
Democrats are too indulgent, too afraid of looking mean, too afraid of being criticized for being mean, or racist, or racist-adjacent, or not sufficiently anti-racist. So they tolerated lawbreaking, and therefore gave the city over to lawbreakers.
Peter Sage
Medford, Oregon
https://peterwsage.blogspot.com
I think the West Coast is where the hippie movement flowered, and we've ended up with idealist folks who can be a little disconnected from practical reality, and I think this creates a feedback loop of politicians who are afraid to upset the voters. Progressivism is more like a religion on the West Coast, where it might be a little different in other places. Just an thought!
As a lifelong New Englander, I'm inclined to think there is some truth there. Culturally, New Englanders are more pragmatic than idealistic.
I agree. Read Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion to get the flip side of the utopian idealists that have populated the west coast.
I have worked with homeless on the East Coast, and in California. I think weather is an incentive to solve the problems, and might be an element of your thesis. However, I think we have to go back to the Regan years, and the disinvestment in housing and mental health services. Deinstitutionalizing those with mental health, and not providing community based services was a huge creator of poverty and more. The expectation that 'charity' would replace federal investment in housing and services was really a failure, and the fact that folks have forgotten these policy creations of homelessness is huge. One of my favorite books is 'Sweet Charity and the End of Entitlement' by Papendock lays this out well. I suggest too that in the period since Regan we have resorted to the criminalization of homelessness, and incarcerated many. The health care system leaves those who are poor without care, only ER services, where they are promptly discharged to the street, where they get sicker and die. Just some thoughts. Edie Jessup
Thing is, Reagan doesn’t explain The difference between East and west coast, which is the question here.
In the most simplistic of terms, the differences in east coast culture and west coast culture can be understood in the different ways they were settled, evolved, and reinforced by waves of immigrants that came and stayed there. Thse who went west brought a different mythos, one that assumed qualities and standards that resonate today. Manifest Destiny, gold rushes, free or cheap land bring elements of people seeking wealth, unbridled opportunity, and a freedom connected to land like few other places in the USA. I grew up in Texas, which has a unique blend of east and west, then spent a few decades in Michigan, where labor and natural resources forged deep bonds, now somewhat broken in a post-industrial world. Now my home is in Oregon, where I'm learning to discern the differences between east and west and coastal cultures... there's a lot of the old west here, and it's not Portland, which I have always loved for its blue collar days (like Michigan). I can't be sure, but the space between progressive and conservative is wider here that any place I've ever seen.
I'm a firm believer in education and have to think it's key to the problem...not just K-12, but adult and public education.
Here in Santa Cruz CA we have an overwhelming homeless population camped out right under our County Administration Bldg. Courts won't let the County remove them without an alternative space to go to. No one wants them in their neighborhood. Yet, we spend a huge portion of our taxes on dealing with homeless needs at the expense of anything else it seems, including public parks taken over by homeless campers.
When a hotel project is proposed it gets shot down by our "progressives" who scream we should be building housing for low income folks....completely ignoring it takes business and revenue to generate the funds for our country to function. No good idea or solution escapes 'the progressives' who seem opposed to all construction that isn't for homeless.
Around here its " BANANAs" :
Build
Absolutely
Nothing
Anywhere
Near
Anyone
And another year rolls by and we have even more homeless....everywhere under bridges, offramps, along our creeks and rivers.....making for an ecological nightmare, along with the countless needles discarded without regard for anyone else....
I'm torn daily between compassion and disgust....along with so many others wanting to see positive change and solutions~
I too live in Santa Cruz and agree with you. As I drive into town from Branciforte I see the same car/homes that have been there for years. Letters to the editor in the Sentinel about the overnight parking on West Cliff appear almost daily. I no longer go downtown to as it has become unsafe.
And, every time I drive by the vacant old drive-in I wonder why we don't establish a homeless camp there. Its doing nothing but growing weeds....for years now.
It has water service, restrooms, some kind of kitchen facility, and, its fenced for security, is not near a residential neighborhood, and has bus service across the street and a hospital 1/4 mi away for any overdoses. Why is it sitting empty while folks have no where else to go especially those old broken down RVs no one wants in front of their house ?
Another Santa Cruzan...
the perfect place for homeless housing? The old Community Hospital on Frederick St. MANY rooms, all could hold 2 people, each has a bathroom. Central nurse's stations. 2 easily-monitored entrances. What's Dignity doing with it? They say they're going to demolish it but it's been sitting idle for several years. Sutter Health owns the Drive-In location. Maybe Dignity would like to make a real contribution to the community? Nah, probably not.
Great ideas Robert!
There has to be some reason because your idea is obvious. Wonder if it is private property and owner does not want it used for this purpose. But homelessness is just not in our backyard or front yard for that matter. Take a drive down El Camino Real close to Stanford and it is old RV row.
Yes I agree that too often 'progressive' policies lead to unintended consequences and often don't tangibly help people. Portland in particular has a number of people in leadership (city and county) that are distracted by ideas of 'diversity' and equity, and when we have a number of emergencies happening these things feel excessive at best. None of this was apparent to me until the pandemic and subsequent homeless camp sprawl, which forced me to pay attention to local politics. Before this happened, I was only focused on national issues and always happily voted for all progressive measures and candidates.
I think there's more data points I'd need in order to draw up theories:
What do the drug routes coming from Mexico look like? Are they more concentrated in the west?
What are the weather extremes in the various Dem-led cities?
What are the housing costs in those cities?
What do homeless resources look like in each city?
In the late 90s, a vertically integrated heroin import and distribution racket was thriving in Portland, which had a huge heroin problem, but not much violence or social disorder to go with it. It was disturbing, one day, to see from the bus flames and smoke rising from Mount Tabor. A meth lab in a rented house. The city had a very low homicide rate, though there was significant violence. A lot has changed for the worse.
I very much doubt that drugs are easier to get in Portland, or much more tolerated, than here in Florida.
I think the "new meth" is causing people to behave in really strange ways.
Portland actually decriminalized possession of small amounts of ALL drugs. Of course this was supposed to go hand-in-hand with helping folks into addiction recovery centers, but the execution of it all is pretty poor. From what I've heard in the Portland chatter, police very rarely hand out the citations that are required to make the program work. And we know from the data that folks rarely ask for the recovery help they need from the citations that are given.
I think you are right. We've had homeless around the edges of my neighborhood since 2015, but in the last year the ones nearby are a different type. Hostile, menacing, delusional.
There's a fantastic article in the Atlantic that explains this phenomenon. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20211018&silverid=%25%25RECIPIENT_ID%25%25&utm_term=The%20Atlantic%20Daily
This article truly is fantastic. Right now I'm observing two dismemberment homicide cases, both involving women who, on the new meth, carved up people around them. This article explains why that's happening. Thank you for sharing.
I read the article after your comments. I'm fairly certain there are key elements in this "new-meth" problem that we're not familiar with as a society. I wasn't. The nearly instant mental illness and disassociation with reality is alarming, so is the length of time for rehabilitation. Surely THIS is a large part of the problem of our homeless explosion.
Great article. Scary, but necessary. Thanks for recommending it.
Yes read it when it came out. The change in my area hadn't happened yet. Great article.
I’m a teacher in Oregon. The education system in Oregon is very weak in my view, though I cannot compare this to the East , as I’ve only been a teacher since moving out here in 2018. I did live for 20 years in New York City, and definitely feel shocked by Portland’s downfall as I find it to currently be scarier and dirtier than I expected it to be in comparison. New York City has large global investment behind it, so it seems unfair to compare the standard of living in PDX to NYC. Apples to oranges, really.
My concern about Portland is that it lacks a wide range of people living there and keeping a sense of balance and stability. In other words, the political demographic of the city is very narrow and everyone tends to think the same and have the same ethos about society. In NYC you’ve got a range of views, a range of political persuasions. Your Wall Street banker is going to call himself fiscally conservative, but socially liberal, your working folks might be more likely to be Democrats and proud union members in NYC.
Portland seems to lack balance in government precisely because everyone thinks similarly and perhaps bad policies go unchallenged. This references the “purity versus pragmatism” you spoke of in your piece.
But education is definitely broken in Oregon. I entered a Masters for Teaching at an Oregon university in 2018, and the ideas in that program were half baked and lacked research and evidence. It was extremely ethos driven, and actually teaching students seemed secondary to “building relationships.”
If I had to summarize the program’s goal I would say to make sure that I, as the teacher, did not come away thinking I should be leading the class. I was instructed over and over to be the “guide on the side” to “not worry if I don’t teach them anything,” to make sure I “built that relationship” in order to be that “stable adult” in that student’s life.
Except the stability seemed to be based on how well they liked me, and not on whether they learned from me. Some of this is reasonable, but as the main focus and base of all of teaching it’s a disaster.
Just look at the approach to reading. At least teachers are demanding approaches with more evidence now, but there are a robust number of people in education who arrogantly balk at evidence-based approaches to reading. There is a commitment in education to ethos, belief, and ideology. There is an eschewing of structure, academics, and rigor. (The fear being we will traumatize the kids with expectations, so we have none that are solid.)
I talked with a man living on the street in my Portland neighborhood. He says that he can’t get a job because he was a felon, he can’t leave his RV, parked on the street, because it may be towed or other street people will steal his stuff. Does he like living on the street, I asked. “No. I hate it”.
On the homelessness front, two major factors: Cost of housing, and winter. There's a lot of left-leaning NIMBYism that drives housing costs up in LA, SF, Portland, and Seattle. And if you don't have a home, it's a lot better to hang out in LA or San Francisco (or even Seattle) than in the Midwest or East Coast. But whatever flaws of governance, none of the major west coast cities is remotely troubled as, say, Baltimore.
I don't fault schools so much for closing during COVID; schools are huge COVID spreaders. Maybe they closed for too long but it seems like this is one of many situations where Democrats are suffering from "no good deed goes unpunished."
The San Francisco school board's focus on renaming schools is, admittedly, an absurdity.
Could it be that the climate allowing homelessness year round (compared with the East Coast) along with cities giving benefits to unsheltered people are factors that draw people without housing to West Coast cities?
A lot of people think the weather is a major factor. I'm skeptical, though i might be wrong. I think the climate may draw people to San Diego and Los Angeles, but to Portland or Seattle winters? Really? After all, there are Democratic cities like Houston and Dallas that have much better winters, and the same is true of Washington DC, Charlottesville, Richmond, Chapel Hill and a number of other Blue cities in the East or South.
I am visiting in the South and the humidity is horrible - not something you have as much in Portland or Seattle. Yes, mild winters here but horrendous summers to be living outside.
That makes sense, so looks like the answer isn't the climate. Will be interested to read, when you are ready, what you think are the factors. Thank you very much, as always, for sharing your very well thought out and knowledgable ideas!
I thought of that too. When I lived in Hawaii I realized it was a forgiving place to be homeless as the weather is milder year round and food grows on trees. It's possible homelessness is higher on the West Coast because homeless people are not forced to migrate to a more forgiving climate.
I was surprised to learn Alaska has unsheltered people.
In the state of WA we have no income tax so services folks rely on are funded on regressive taxes that affect low income and the poor the most. There is not enough housing, there aren’t enough access to shelters, transitioning housing, drug addiction programs, services for families with kids, etc. The history of redlining and zoning that doesn’t allow for multi-family everywhere plus the arrival of the tech boom have made homelessness and poverty more visible and growing. Finally, Seattle isn’t terrifying. South Seattle and certain areas of downtown have been dealing with issues of petty violence, drug use and folks living in the streets for decades. The thing now is that is affecting the richer white neighborhoods in the North. So the response sadly isn’t more equitable taxes or social services, is being the police in so my neighborhood isn’t affected. We need real solutions that serve the poor so they can be housed no matter what.
Yes, I was wondering about the red lining effects but didn't they do that on the East Coast too? Maybe just not as much. I live in North Seattle and have friends which I love but would call neo-liberals who vote for Dems but also opposed the fairly recent expansions of Additional Dwelling Units (ADUs) into their neighborhoods. I also do homeless outreach in SODO so have homeless friends. I don't know the answer, but the city of Seattle sure does rake in the revenue for all of the high priced development that has been going on in recent years.
Again, why is it different on the west coast vs East coast?