The U.S. Supreme Court built a smolder under Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., (make that Newsome) and he’s not happy about it.
For that matter, neither is the left Los Angeles Times.
Recently the court, in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, "upheld the ability of the city of Grants Pass, Oregon., to enforce a law that prohibited camping in public places even though the city had no shelter to offer people being forced to leave.
"The ruling overturned the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco and ruled that it is not 'cruel and unusual' punishment for city officials to forbid homeless people from sleeping on the streets or in parks."
The left stenographers at The Times think it’s the duty of the city to provide drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill, petty criminals on the run and people who refuse to conform to accepted rules and norms with free homes and in the meantime the derelicts can seize public property and convert it to private use.
It’s a little like piracy.
These dangerous nomads steal, attack pedestrians, vandalize public property and generally poop — often literally — on the culture and then slip back into the shelter of the encampment. All they lack are ships, cannon, and ocean.
On the other hand, they do have government support.
The ruling meant Newsom could no longer blame the court for his inaction, so he issued an executive order "requiring state agencies to remove homeless encampments in their jurisdictions and urging cities to follow suit."
Newsom announced, "We must act with urgency to address dangerous encampments, which subject unsheltered individuals living in them to extreme weather, fires, predatory and criminal activity, and widespread substance use, harming their health, safety and well-being, and which also threaten the safety and viability of nearby businesses and neighborhoods, and undermine the cleanliness and usability of parks, water supplies and other public resources."
Most of those problems are self-inflicted and personal, except where they infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens, and are therefore not really the responsibility of government.
In truth Newsom's order is a toothless public relations stunt.
It has no deadlines, no enforcement guidelines and doesn’t apply to cities.
Still the Times and the homeless industrial complex are very unhappy.
"Despite its tone of urgency, the order sets no specific timeline for agencies to remove encampments. Nor does it lay out a program for providing the tens of thousands of new shelter beds and permanent housing that would be needed to accommodate the state’s estimated 181,000 homeless people, 70% of whom are unsheltered."
Then the stenographers throw Newsome a lifeline or a fig leaf, if you prefer.
"Overall, the governor has dedicated $24 billion to clean up encampments, move Californians off the streets and sidewalks and convert hotels and motels into temporary shelters, among dozens of other initiatives."
The $24 billion is the real point though. California has spent that astonishing amount with nothing to show for it, except the cancelled checks.
Fox News found, "an audit which indicated the state had spent around $24 billion between 2018 and 2023 to tackle homelessness – but did not consistently track whether the huge outlay of public money did anything to actually improve the problem."
But it did improve the bank accounts of the leeches latching on to promoting homelessness as a career.
Here’s an example. After that audit was released the oh, so compassionate city council of Santa Monica went to work. "Santa Monica city officials last week approved a multimillion-dollar apartment unit for the homeless…
"The 122-unit building for the homeless will include a mix of studio, one, two and three-bedroom apartments, along with ground floor retail and residential and commercial parking spaces.
"A design concept available on the city's website shows that the multi-apartment unit will cost more than $123 million, for a cost of just over $1 million each for the 122 apartments."
One million dollars per apartment. Let’s put that in perspective. In the private sector — those greedy capitalists who have to make money or they become homeless — the cost per apartment is much different.
The folks at Willowdale Equity have a commercial loan calculator and their research shows, "Building a single unit in an apartment complex would run you around $80,000 to $280,000 per unit."
That’s a nationwide average.
Janover Multifamily Loans, who loan builders money for construction and therefore are up to date on costs, calculate the average cost of building a 122-apartment complex with an average unit size of 1,000 sq. ft. should run in the neighborhood of $42,700,000.00.
That’s an average cost per unit of $350,000.00.
Taking the high estimate, that is a $650,000 difference between what the government in Santa Monica wants to pay and what the private sector will charge.
Where does the extra money go?
It’s patronage, in the form of paychecks, for government bureaucrats and the compassion-crusaders who both want their cut of the free money.
LA’s homeless housing program is so proud they’ve "brought nearly 2,900 people indoors since December 2022."
What they're not so proud of is 31% of the "vulnerable" didn’t like the rules, so they moved back on the street.
It’s a revolving door powered by your tax dollars; it amounts to the Boondoggle Express.
And these parasites don’t intend for their gravy train to ever end.
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker's bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now With Added Humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.