The toxic empathy of Democratic policies on homelessness and drug use allows homeless drug addicts to slowly kill themselves in the streets and even prevents them from getting the treatment they need to recover.
This is playing out in Riverside, California, where former Nickelodeon actor Tylor Chase’s drug addicted homeless life is being chronicled by news outlets and tabloids alike. Chase, 36, was recently placed on a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold but was released before he could receive the necessary treatment. Riverside police can’t do much else for him, as Chase declines all treatment and isn’t considered disabled or a threat to himself or others, even as he is “smoking meth during the evaluation with no shoes or jacket in the freezing cold” in December 2025.
NATIONAL GUARD SEIZES OVER A MILLION FENTANYL PILLS IN CALIFORNIA
It does not have to be this way. Possession of methamphetamine is a misdemeanor in California, and in response to a federal court order capping prison populations, Riverside County simply cites and releases drug addicts with a court date, if at all, creating a revolving door that makes it impossible to force people including Chase into the treatment programs they need.
Homelessness is also not illegal in California, removing another avenue for mandatory treatment. Democratic San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has lobbied to make it illegal for a homeless person to turn down a vacant shelter spot three times in an 18-month span, which would allow the state to get homeless people off the street and force them into drug treatment programs if necessary. Instead, California allows homeless people to occupy public sidewalks, parks, and even private property to freeze in the December weather amid another stretch of storms. There, they can fall further into drug addiction and pose multiple hazards to other people, from homeless fires to sanitation risks to random assaults on passing-by civilians.
REINSTITUTIONALIZING THE HOMELESS
In what way is this model better for anyone? It isn’t better for people living in communities beset by homeless encampments. It isn’t better for drug-addicted homeless people such as Chase, who spend their days slowly killing themselves with drugs in the freezing cold. A system that arrests someone such as Chase and then presents him with just two choices, jail or a mandatory treatment program, would obviously do more to help him than a system where he can “politely decline” treatment while smoking meth.
The idea that jail can never be on the table for homeless drug addicts means you cannot leverage jail time to funnel them into these mandatory treatment programs. California’s “empathy” for homeless drug addicts is thus keeping them locked in the death spiral of drug addiction and homelessness, thanks to the mistaken notion that this is somehow better for them.