Georgia takes a different path on homelessness than failing California and Oregon
Zachary Faria
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The liberal project of encouraging and incentivizing homelessness while treating “sympathy” as a solution has failed on a massive scale on the West Coast, and it is inspiring some states to turn in a different direction.
Georgia’s new law on homelessness prevents localities from preventing the enforcement of ordinances on “unauthorized public camping, sleeping, or obstruction of sidewalks” and makes it clear that localities can offer diversion programs for homeless people “in lieu of citation or arrest.” The law will also lead to audits of how government money is spent on homeless programs and “the metrics used to determine success of the expenditures.”
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The law is a far cry from the homeless policies on display in California and Oregon, where Democratic cities have seen homelessness spiral out of control. In fact, the law is modeled in opposition to the policies those states have adopted.
According to Joe Lonsdale, Georgia’s law is modeled on the principles that states should not be “giving ‘free’ and permanent homes to the homeless without any mandate for treatment or sobriety,” that “camping on sidewalks and in public parks” should not be tolerated, and that homeless charities and other contributing organizations should only see funding based on their results, not their public activism.
It does not take a genius to see that an alternate tack from the California and Oregon models is needed. California and Oregon have the highest and third-highest homelessness rates, respectively. California and Oregon also have the highest and fourth-highest percentages of homeless people who are unsheltered.
California’s homelessness situation is particularly galling. The Golden State has 12% of the country’s population, but 30% of the country’s homeless population and 49% of the unsheltered homeless population.
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While Georgia seeks to push homeless people into diversion and rehabilitation programs or face citations or arrests, California and Oregon have adopted the permissive model of allowing homeless people to fall further into drug addiction. Those states have even embraced “safe-injection sites,” encouraging homeless people to shoot up whenever they want as long as they are supervised. It has done nothing to slow the wave of drug overdose deaths in Portland or San Francisco. In fact, it has made both overdose deaths and homelessness worse.
The West Coast liberal model embraced by California and Oregon is supposed to be one of “sympathy,” but there is nothing sympathetic about allowing homeless people to fall further into drug addiction or create unsafe environments on sidewalks. It is clear that the model that Georgia is following is superior to the permissiveness of San Francisco or Portland. More states should take note.