San Francisco’s solution to homelessness

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: local policies on homelessness.

Last month, California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered cities to clear encampments of homeless people.

Soon after that —

AUDIO: It’s a controversial push to get San Francisco’s unhoused population out of town.

—the mayor of San Francisco got involved. Mayor London Breed announced her crackdown on public camping: offering bus tickets when city shelters are full.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Mayor Breed’s executive order cites survey data saying nearly half of the homeless population in San Francisco came from elsewhere. The mayor’s so-called Journey Home program requires city workers to encourage homeless to leave before offering other city services.

BROWN: The stated goal is to reunite the individuals with family or friends back home.

But how effective is it?

WORLD Radio’s Anna Johansen Brown now with a story reported by WORLD’s Addie Offereins:

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN: People end up on the streets of San Francisco for a lot of reasons. Unemployment. Mental illness. Drug use.

PAUL WEBSTER: In the state of California, we make it very easy for people to be homeless.

Paul Webster used to serve as senior policy adviser in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Now, he’s executive director at the LA Alliance for Human Rights. Webster says a range of factors draw people to the state, from generous cash assistance welfare policies to warm weather.

WEBSTER: Because there is very lax enforcement of anti-camping, anti-sleeping ordinances. And that’s why you see some of these challenges and some of these issues with people coming to California who may not have the resources, the skills sets, or other challenges that cause them to become homeless in California.

So where do the unhoused people on California’s streets come from?

Last year, the University of California, San Francisco, released a study. It found that 9 in 10 homeless people lost their housing in the state. The study also claims that 7 in 10 were homeless in the county where they were once housed. In other words, they’re Californians.

But in a recent homeless count, the city of San Francisco found different results: Forty percent of the individuals surveyed came to the city from out of town or out of state.

MICHELE STEEB: People are coming to San Francisco from outside of San Francisco to enjoy more access to drugs, the access to benefits, whatever it may be…

Michele Steeb is a homelessness policy expert and the former director of a homeless shelter in Sacramento, California.

STEEB: Maybe they have friends and they just want to be in community with those friends that are, you know, living wherever they're living in San Francisco, on the streets. That is a really important point that this San Francisco example brings out.

So if many people who are homeless in California come from somewhere else, how does it work to help them return to where they came from? Paul Webster explains.

WEBSTER: People will say things like “I’m from Indianapolis,” or “I’m from Des Moines, Iowa,” or wherever they’re from, and instead of going through the tremendous expense of housing or other kinds of services, they say, “You know, doesn’t it kind of make sense if we can get you a bus ticket, a plane ticket, and get you reunified with your family?” And people will eventually accept that assistance and reconnect with their families of origin.

Still, homeless ministry leaders in California told WORLD they are skeptical that San Francisco’s busing program will effect lasting change in people’s lives. Helping someone move out of the city may merely shift the problem.

Jeff Hudson serves as interim CEO for the Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles. His county recently documented 75,000 homeless individuals.

HUDSON: It is a serious, systematic challenge that people are facing down here and in San Francisco that will not be solved by providing a bus ticket back to Des Moines.

Since last September, San Francisco has sent 92 individuals out of town. Almost 30 percent relocated to other California counties.

And there’s another problem.

HUDSON: It's not a simple phone call to folks and saying, I'm lonely and I'd love to be picked up.

Heading straight home isn’t always wise. Broken relationships may have contributed to an individual’s homelessness in the first place. Sometimes going to rehab or getting connected with community where they are now is a better option. But providing that level of support requires more involvement than city officials are sometimes prepared to offer.

JAMES WHITFORD: If we’re just talking about government dollars trying to move homeless people out of the city and back to family, that’s most likely going to fail.

James Whitford is CEO of True Charity, a network of poverty-fighting ministries. True Charity ministries are committed to offering compassion that is personal and that challenges individuals to participate in their own recovery.

He is also the founder and executive director of Watered Gardens, a homeless ministry in Joplin, Missouri.

WHITFORD: We're asking people about that, people come in the door, where's your family, who's most closely affiliated with you, that we should be involving?

Reunifying an individual with family can be a vital part of their recovery…if it’s done well. And reconciliation is best done through personal relationships, not state funded programs. Whitford recalls one chronically-homeless man who was addicted to drugs when he walked through their doors in Missouri.

WHITFORD: He comes in the mission. He's in need, and I'm asking him, where's your family? He starts to tell me about the burnt bridges of his family back in California, who would never want to see him again.

Whitford asked if he could try and find his mother’s phone number.

WHITFORD: He says that's fine, but you know, they're not going to want to talk to me…and I call her, and I have her on the phone, and I tell her that her son, John, is right across from me, and she begins to weep, and wants to talk with him, which he would’ve never thought.

John decided to head back to California and reunite with his family, and Whitford says that was a vital piece of his recovery.

WHITFORD: There's something really powerful that happens in the bridge rebuilding process, the forgiveness that's required for that to happen that motivates a person to continue on a track that's healthy for them.

For WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown, with reporting from Addie Offereins.

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