Speaker 1: It is the fixed California hour on the John Phillips Show,
Speaker 1: Johnny's on Vacation. It's Randy Wang here and the phone
Speaker 1: number to join us is eight hundred two two two
Speaker 1: five two two two one eight hundred two two two
Speaker 1: five two two two. Your emails at Johnny Don't Like
Speaker 1: Show at gmail dot com or Randy Wang Radio at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com.
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Speaker 1: Our next guest is another one of our favorites. He
Speaker 1: is a recovery advocate based in San Francisco. His website
Speaker 1: is Tomwolfrecovery dot com. Tom Wolf, Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: John Phillips Show.
Speaker 3: Hey Randy, it's great to be back.
Speaker 1: So your Mayor Daniel Lurry had quite the week where
Speaker 1: one pole calls him the most popular mayor in the
Speaker 1: entire country, and he got to hold a press conference
Speaker 1: showing a noticeable drop in homelessness in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: What do you make of it?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, if you come to San Francisco, you'll
Speaker 3: see that homelessness on the street is down. There's less
Speaker 3: what they call unsheltered homeless on the street. Do we
Speaker 3: still have open drug markets, yes. Do we still have
Speaker 3: a lot of overdose deaths, yes, But it's visibly better
Speaker 3: in neighborhoods like the Tenderloin and South of Market in
Speaker 3: San Francisco, where just a couple of years ago you
Speaker 3: had four hundred tenths on the street at one point.
Speaker 3: Now there's less than thirty on the street. So we're
Speaker 3: actually seeing some proms.
Speaker 1: It is so wild and it's such a different picture
Speaker 1: of homelessness than compared to Los Angeles. I counted one
Speaker 1: hundred tenths just on Vano and Boulevard from Bourbank Airport
Speaker 1: to my house on the other side of the valley
Speaker 1: when we were flying back from San Francisco this weekend.
Speaker 3: Los Angeles is its own, like separate ecosystem. You almost
Speaker 3: have to put it in a separate category when you
Speaker 3: talk about homelessness than any other city in the country,
Speaker 3: because it's miles and miles of tents, thousands of homeless,
Speaker 3: forty seven thousand in LA seventy four thousand in La County,
Speaker 3: and you also have things like human trafficking and prostitution happening,
Speaker 3: along with gangs that deal drugs, all wrapped up within it.
Speaker 3: And honestly, the leadership in LA is absolutely failing at
Speaker 3: addressing even the slightest change.
Speaker 1: I like to say that LA looks at what San
Speaker 1: Francisco did three years ago, and instead of realizing that
Speaker 1: they're already on the other side of it, they like
Speaker 1: to double down on stupid.
Speaker 3: That's a great point. In LA's not alone. Seattle's also
Speaker 3: doubling down on stupid. It's really unfortunate in LA. There's
Speaker 3: just a couple of really pragmatic elected officials down there,
Speaker 3: but then they're being led by Karen Bass, who's just
Speaker 3: done an abysmal job. I mean, there's no other way
Speaker 3: to look at it. And you know I'm not here
Speaker 3: to like bash her, but you got to be honest,
Speaker 3: like you have to look at results. Has homelessness really dropped?
Speaker 3: She says it has, but all she have to do
Speaker 3: is drive down Figaro Street or go to skid Row
Speaker 3: and you know that that's not true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you ask anybody at skid Row, they will
Speaker 1: say the problem has not gotten any better. Some will
Speaker 1: say the problem has gotten worse. In a RAND study
Speaker 1: looked at specific neighborhoods, including skid Row, and found Karen
Speaker 1: Bass's numbers to be thirty percent off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, so look, economics one on one is
Speaker 3: you can manipulate data, right, And so she's cherry picking
Speaker 3: data from one specific study that we know is is
Speaker 3: inaccurate because it's all based on self reported data and
Speaker 3: what volunteers happen to see in that snapshot of a moment.
Speaker 3: That's how they arrive at conclusions. Like you hear all
Speaker 3: these homeless organizations saying only twenty nine percent of the
Speaker 3: people on the street struggle with addiction when we know
Speaker 3: that it's eighty percent or higher.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the lessons that our buffoons
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles can learn from, not only San Francisco,
Speaker 1: but neighboring San Jose, which you have seen real improvements
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years.
Speaker 3: Well, they injected accountability back into the policy of how
Speaker 3: they approach holmlessness. So in San Jose they basically give
Speaker 3: you three opportunities to accept services if you're on the street,
Speaker 3: and if you turn down those services three times, then
Speaker 3: it becomes punitive. At that point then the police get involved.
Speaker 3: In San Francisco, they started breaking up the open drug
Speaker 3: markets during the day, so they're still there at night,
Speaker 3: but they're not so much there in the day anymore.
Speaker 3: They went in. The first thing they did is they
Speaker 3: arrested everybody that had an open warrant, and that turned
Speaker 3: out to be about twenty five percent of the people
Speaker 3: on the street actually were absconding from justice. They were
Speaker 3: running from justice from other counties, even to other states.
Speaker 3: And so yesterday I saw a video in San Francisco
Speaker 3: where someone was arrested by the FBI. That means they
Speaker 3: had a federal warrant when they were being arrested. So
Speaker 3: those are some of the steps that we've taken putting
Speaker 3: accountability back into the process, and you're seeing almost immediate results.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: One of the new strategies that Lurie has unveiled specifically
Speaker 1: in the Tenderloin is the is the Reset Center someplace
Speaker 1: where we would take people who are high on fentanyl
Speaker 1: or math instead of taking them to jail and trying
Speaker 1: to get them cleaned before they try to offer them help.
Speaker 1: I know this program just started, but what do you
Speaker 1: think of it?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's good. Look they're looking for
Speaker 3: an in between because here's the reality. If you arrest
Speaker 3: somebody on the street or using drugs or being you know,
Speaker 3: under the influence, that's a low level misdemeanor. They're going
Speaker 3: to go to jail. They're gonna get booked into jail,
Speaker 3: and they're going to be released within twenty four hours.
Speaker 3: And then you just took that cop that did that
Speaker 3: arrest off the street for four hours to do a
Speaker 3: police report. The resets Center gives the police an opportunity
Speaker 3: to pick people up off the street, taken to this
Speaker 3: facility where they have to stay for twelve hours. There's
Speaker 3: a sheriff's deputy there, making sure that they stay for
Speaker 3: twelve hours until they sober up, and then they're being
Speaker 3: offered treatment on demand. At that point, they're saying, hey,
Speaker 3: we can get you into a detox bed today, you
Speaker 3: want to take it, that kind of thing, and I
Speaker 3: think that you're going to start to see, you know,
Speaker 3: while the results will be limited, they only have twenty
Speaker 3: five chairs in there, you're going to start to see
Speaker 3: some positive results over time, I think.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: And another thing that the city has been trying to
Speaker 1: advocate for, specifically Supervisor Dorsey, is having housing that is
Speaker 1: drug free, which is such a crazy concept even have
Speaker 1: to say out loud in the state of California. But
Speaker 1: that is a controversial idea.
Speaker 3: It is a controversial idea. Look, last year, there was
Speaker 3: an Assembly bill that made it to Newsom's desk that
Speaker 3: I was a big part of. I was a co
Speaker 3: sponsor of that bill. It was Assembly Bill two fifty
Speaker 3: five to just ask for up to ten percent of
Speaker 3: housing ballers to be used for drug free recovery housing.
Speaker 3: And at the last minute he vetoed that bill, which
Speaker 3: is insane to me because there's clearly a need. Look,
Speaker 3: you go to rehab, let's say a ninety day program
Speaker 3: and you come out of rehab and they put you
Speaker 3: back in the same SRO building that you were in
Speaker 3: on skid row. The chances of you staying sober are
Speaker 3: like zero. You have no chance of staying sober. So
Speaker 3: you've just wasted all that time and money and work
Speaker 3: and effort to get someone sober just to have them
Speaker 3: go right back to using again. We need to create
Speaker 3: spaces so we can break this cycle of addiction, which
Speaker 3: is really the key to reducing homelessness, is breaking that
Speaker 3: cycle of addiction, getting people not only into treatment, but
Speaker 3: then giving them a place to live after that for
Speaker 3: a while that's drug free, so they can get on
Speaker 3: their feet and hopefully get a job and re enter society,
Speaker 3: which is what we should all want well.
Speaker 1: And I think San Francisco really was the poster child
Speaker 1: for why housing first doesn't work, because you've told you've
Speaker 1: said that statyst's one this show before, but it's always
Speaker 1: worth mentioning A big portion of overdose deaths in the
Speaker 1: city of San Francisco happened inside those SROs.
Speaker 3: That's right, and we have the data now. One in
Speaker 3: four overdose deaths in San Francisco now come in inside
Speaker 3: permanent supportive housing. We're housing first housing, and this is
Speaker 3: why I support HUD. At the federal level, they're trying
Speaker 3: to change and unravel housing first to create more opportunities
Speaker 3: for transitional housing and drug free housing, et cetera. And
Speaker 3: states like California are actually suing the federal government. They're
Speaker 3: suing HUD to try to block it because they want
Speaker 3: to protect all the NGOs that are getting millions and
Speaker 3: millions of dollars in funding to keep running these buildings
Speaker 3: that they call housing that are just drug dends where
Speaker 3: people end up dying at a rate of one in
Speaker 3: four and it's just not It's not only not sustainable,
Speaker 3: it's actually cruel to the people that you're trying to help.
Speaker 1: You know, I almost forgot about that because I do
Speaker 1: follow you in social media. But yeah, you were at
Speaker 1: the White House recently, you were taking this message national.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, I've been to the White House now twice
Speaker 3: in the last month. UH, working in conjunction with the
Speaker 3: Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Office of
Speaker 3: National Drug Control Policy, which just released their National Drug
Speaker 3: Strategy last week that focuses on drug prevention, on recovery
Speaker 3: from addictions on accountability. I'm going after the cartel's pumping
Speaker 3: fenconyl into the United States by the metric ton and
Speaker 3: I couldn't be honestly more grateful to say that I
Speaker 3: support them one hundred percent. They're actually putting the focus
Speaker 3: back on recovery for the first time in a long time,
Speaker 3: and it really makes it feel like my work is
Speaker 3: paying off because I was given a seat at the table.
Speaker 1: Hey, you think the next time you're down there, you
Speaker 1: could knock on the door of the DEA and see
Speaker 1: if they could go do a raid on the Hondos
Speaker 1: and the tenderloin.
Speaker 3: Man, you know what. So it's funny because I've had
Speaker 3: that conversation. But they don't need to go to San
Speaker 3: Francisco to do the raid. They need to go across
Speaker 3: the Bay to Oakland, where they all live. They know that.
Speaker 3: It's just there's a lot of political factors that go
Speaker 3: into that, and just right now in California with the
Speaker 3: sensitivity around ice and doing raids and things like that,
Speaker 3: and the DEA, Yeah, it would be an unpopular thing
Speaker 3: in this state to do even if it was the
Speaker 3: right thing to do.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what's wild.
Speaker 1: I always point this out because it's just it's baffling
Speaker 1: to me. But a couple of years ago, Matt Dorsey
Speaker 1: tries to amend the sanctuary city law in San Francisco
Speaker 1: to exempt Honduran fentanyl dealers, saying that we should be
Speaker 1: able to turn them over to ICE. And he got
Speaker 1: shot down and called a racist for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah he did, and you know, I give him a
Speaker 3: lot of credit for having the courage to go and
Speaker 3: do that. And all that was going to do was add, like,
Speaker 3: there's a list of exceptions for people that are illegal
Speaker 3: immigrants that commit crimes like murder and rape and sexual assault,
Speaker 3: those are exceptions in which you could be turned over
Speaker 3: to ICE to be deported. He just wanted to add
Speaker 3: a felony conviction for drug dealing to that list. That's simple,
Speaker 3: very simple modification. And it brought out all the immigrant
Speaker 3: rights groups and they protested and called them all kinds
Speaker 3: of names, and you know, the rest of the board
Speaker 3: had to vote voted down because they were looking over
Speaker 3: their shoulder at this kind of you know, frothing mob
Speaker 3: of radical leftists that were coming forward and saying, you
Speaker 3: can't do this, And it's just mind boggling to me.
Speaker 3: That they would want to protect organized drug dealers that
Speaker 3: have killed forty five hundred people in San Francisco in
Speaker 3: the last five years. It's truly mind boggling to be
Speaker 3: well and then.
Speaker 1: One of the other complicated, even if we're just trying
Speaker 1: to charge these people locally. Brooke Jenkins, who I think
Speaker 1: does a fantastic job, she has explained that even if
Speaker 1: they arrest a hunter and drug dealer, they tell the
Speaker 1: judge that they're a victim of human trafficking, and the
Speaker 1: judge buys it.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the jury buys it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not just in a superior court, but in federal court.
Speaker 3: Sometimes the jury buys it. There was just a hung
Speaker 3: jury the other day in federal court here in San
Speaker 3: Francisco for a hunter and drug dealer that got picked
Speaker 3: up by the Feds. The jury was deadlocked on conviction,
Speaker 3: and they used the argument that they were dealing under duress,
Speaker 3: which is completely false. It's already been debunked. That whole
Speaker 3: argument has been debunked and disproven by a news article
Speaker 3: that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle two years ago
Speaker 3: about this. So it's amazing that they're still using that
Speaker 3: argument and people are still buying that false narrative.
Speaker 1: We're speaking with Tom Wolf. You can get them on
Speaker 1: social media at t Wolf Recovery and his website is
Speaker 1: Tomwolf Recovery dot com. Now, I was just up in
Speaker 1: San Francisco last week, and I didn't spend any time
Speaker 1: in the Tenderloin, but I thought the city looked cleaner
Speaker 1: that I've seen it in a very long time. I
Speaker 1: felt incredibly safe. Union Square was really clean. Of course,
Speaker 1: the good neighborhoods have always been vibrant and incredible. But
Speaker 1: what I have seen over the weekend is there's a
Speaker 1: lot of concern as to well cleanup efforts are going
Speaker 1: on in the Tenderloin, and in Soma a lot of
Speaker 1: the open air drug market is now getting pushed to
Speaker 1: the mission.
Speaker 2: What is going on in the mission?
Speaker 3: Okay, so there's two things going on in the mission district.
Speaker 3: Number One, the supervisor or the city council member that
Speaker 3: runs that district is out on mental health leave because
Speaker 3: she's embroiled in the middle of a scandal and is
Speaker 3: too afraid to come back to work to actually face
Speaker 3: the consequences. So there's no leadership in that district right now.
Speaker 3: That's number one. And then number two. It's true they've
Speaker 3: moved a lot of the people on the street out
Speaker 3: to the Mission district, including the organized drug dealers that
Speaker 3: they're out there at sixteenth Mission right now, and if
Speaker 3: you go there after six pm, it's three to four
Speaker 3: hundred people deep. So the crowds that we used to
Speaker 3: see at Civic Center a couple of years ago in
Speaker 3: San Francisco are now manifesting over at sixteenth Commission. And
Speaker 3: I really feel bad for that neighborhood because that's actually
Speaker 3: a really cool neighborhood that's being really adversely affected by
Speaker 3: the drugs. It doesn't help that around the corner there's
Speaker 3: basically a supervised an unsanctioned supervised consumption site that operates
Speaker 3: there that gives out free drug supplies to people on
Speaker 3: the street. So if you put those kinds of services there,
Speaker 3: expect it to become a magnet. And that's exactly what's
Speaker 3: happened to that neighborhood. And so with that said, there's
Speaker 3: still a lot of work to be done, but I
Speaker 3: will say overall, overall, San Francisco is doing much better.
Speaker 1: You know, in the last couple of minutes that we have,
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to explain your take on this,
Speaker 1: because you have lived experience, you were, you were formally homeless,
Speaker 1: you were formally addicted to these drugs, Can you explain
Speaker 1: to the average person how dangerous all of this harm
Speaker 1: reduction stuff is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, so, the idea of harm addiction originally
Speaker 3: was to keep you alive until you find the miracle
Speaker 3: of recovery, and really before that, it was to keep
Speaker 3: you from getting the HIV virus from the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: Back in the eighties. It's what that transformed into is
Speaker 3: just supporting drug users with giving you clean drug supplies,
Speaker 3: free crack pipes, free met pipes, free foil and strauts
Speaker 3: to smoke your fencial, free needles, all of that. It's
Speaker 3: kind of like giving someone a gun and saying, hey,
Speaker 3: the bullet dealer is right there on the corner, and
Speaker 3: you can buy a bullet for five bucks and you
Speaker 3: can play Russian roulette. That's basically what is happening with
Speaker 3: harm reduction. And that's how dangerous it is if you
Speaker 3: look at it that way, that's how lethal it's become.
Speaker 3: And it's really unfortunate because I don't think that was
Speaker 3: their original intent, but that's what it's become.
Speaker 1: It's completely out of control. In Los Angeles, we're seeing
Speaker 1: these needle pass out programs everywhere, including right out side
Speaker 1: of Norms Delhi in MacArthur Park. We're seeing in Sacramento
Speaker 1: they're now at the public libraries putting out a needle
Speaker 1: distribution center in the parking lot. It's like, how are
Speaker 1: you supposed to take your kids there? It's insane.
Speaker 3: It is insane, And look, I get it right, Like,
Speaker 3: I'm a former intervenous drug user, so I understand like
Speaker 3: you want to have clean supplies. But like, if you
Speaker 3: think about how much money the state spends on that,
Speaker 3: I mean, they spend like one hundred million dollars a
Speaker 3: year through the state Department of Public Health on these
Speaker 3: harm reduction services. How many treatment beds, how many detox
Speaker 3: beds could we fund and provide throughout California with that
Speaker 3: money instead? So I really would you know, ask people
Speaker 3: to really consider when they go out and vote and
Speaker 3: they're voting for someone for governor or whoever, they consider
Speaker 3: what that means, what kind of ripple effect that's going
Speaker 3: to mean down the line. When you get departments like
Speaker 3: public health that decide how much money they're going to
Speaker 3: spend on harm reduction services to keep the homeless industrial
Speaker 3: complex going.
Speaker 1: The website is Tomwolf Recovery dot com. You can follow
Speaker 1: him on social media and t Wolf Recovery. Tom Wolf,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your message that you're putting
Speaker 1: out there every single day, and it's always such a
Speaker 1: pleasure to talk to you, my friend.
Speaker 3: Hey, it's my pleasure, Ran, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is
Speaker 1: the telephone number. Let's go to David in Sherman Oaks. David, Hello, Hi, Ran,
Speaker 1: love your show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Yeah, I just wanted to express
Speaker 3: uh irritation that the entire City of La library system
Speaker 3: is going to be shut down next Tuesday for what
Speaker 3: they call staff Development Day, all seventy three advnches. I
Speaker 3: don't know how many staff, maybe one thousand plus or solf.
Speaker 3: We have a one billion dollar budget short, one billion
Speaker 3: dollar budget footfall. Yet somehow they have the I'm and
Speaker 3: the money to shut down our entire library system at
Speaker 3: our expense for a whole day to do what staff development.
Speaker 3: It's really it's so irritating.
Speaker 1: They're going to watch a bunch of seminars and how
Speaker 1: to be better communicators. Meanwhile, the kids are not going
Speaker 1: to be able to read the books, and the homeless
Speaker 1: are not going to be able to watch porn at
Speaker 1: the library computers. It's going to be such a sad
Speaker 1: day in the city of La Well, I'm.
Speaker 3: Not homeless, but I need to never mind. But it's
Speaker 3: all getting aside. It's just frustrating because you know, working
Speaker 3: class people, you know, we depend upon the library for
Speaker 3: Internet and you know, legitimate stuff, whether it's looking for
Speaker 3: a job, or it's getting funding out what's going on
Speaker 3: with our healthcare providers or checking our banking.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and that is a resource that your tax
Speaker 1: dollars pay for. So that's a resource that should be
Speaker 1: open every single day. Thanks for bringing that to our attention, David,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for the call. It's Randy Wang here
Speaker 1: on the John Phillips. He's got a Caroline in Santa Monica. Caroline.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hi, Randy.
Speaker 5: That guy about the lapo is so awesome, Mark. I
Speaker 5: have friends who work there. A friend of mine runs
Speaker 5: public services at the Central branch, and do you know
Speaker 5: kind of crap she has to put up from the
Speaker 5: public and on top of which they are technical except
Speaker 5: for having a voice to talk to. They're technically available
Speaker 5: twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. You
Speaker 5: can get ebooks, you can watch movies, you can search databases,
Speaker 5: and they get less than good support from our city
Speaker 5: fathers because they're always trying to cut their budget. So
Speaker 5: I think the guy was just completely out of line
Speaker 5: just because he can't go in one day.
Speaker 1: Well, he seems to be a big supporter of the library.
Speaker 1: He's upset that he can't use it, and he's confused
Speaker 1: as to why he can't use it.
Speaker 2: That seems pretty understandable.
Speaker 5: But what other departments in service dates A lot of
Speaker 5: them do, but they don't affect the public, and so
Speaker 5: he's taking out I think that he's giving the staff
Speaker 5: who do the actual work short shrift is what my
Speaker 5: problem is, Okay, because they work really hard and maybe
Speaker 5: they need a service day. Teachers get service days three
Speaker 5: or four times a year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what they do with those. I
Speaker 1: think that's just an extra vacation day for them. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for the call, Caroline, appreciate it. You know,
Speaker 1: let's talk about our schools for a second. Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: did his May Revice press conference today. It went on
Speaker 1: for like two hours. He did take a lot of
Speaker 1: questions and I listened to a good portion of it
Speaker 1: while I was driving in this afternoon, and Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: talked about how much much more this state is investing
Speaker 1: in education than when he got here. Gavin Knew some
Speaker 1: claims that the state of California was only spending about
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand dollars per pupil in twenty eighteen, seven and
Speaker 1: a half years later, Gavin Newsome again, these are the
Speaker 1: numbers he was saying today, claims that we are spending
Speaker 1: about twenty eight thousand dollars per pupil. That is a
Speaker 1: huge increase and we haven't really seen a lot of
Speaker 1: results for that. Now you can argue that part of
Speaker 1: that is they did create TK for all, so instead
Speaker 1: of having to send your four year old to daycare,
Speaker 1: you can send them to pre kindergarten for how long
Speaker 1: do you think that is? Like two hours or three hours?
Speaker 1: Like you can't you know, I got to imagine when
Speaker 1: you've got a kid that's in like, you know, half
Speaker 1: day school, you still can't like go work. So I
Speaker 1: guess you just get a little break from the little one.
Speaker 1: So we have that, But especially since COVID. The outcomes
Speaker 1: that we have for reading proficiency, for math proficiency, for graduation,
Speaker 1: it's quite low, especially when you consider how well regarded
Speaker 1: our higher education system is. You know, the CSUS and
Speaker 1: the UCS. People have nothing but great things to say
Speaker 1: about them. The community colleges are so good, all of
Speaker 1: the fake AI students want to go there. But when
Speaker 1: it comes to our local schools, when it comes to
Speaker 1: our public schools, where is the disconnect in the money
Speaker 1: that we are spending and what we are getting. Because
Speaker 1: not only our outcomes an issue, but every single school
Speaker 1: district is in a budget deficit. They're all having to
Speaker 1: make cuts. The teachers say they're not making enough money,
Speaker 1: so they're not getting it. Where is all the money going. Well,
Speaker 1: here's something that you may not know. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons that a lot of the money we spend on
Speaker 1: education doesn't necessarily go to education is because this state
Speaker 1: is spending an unbelievable amount of money settling sex abuse
Speaker 1: lawsuits from decades and decades ago. And according to some
Speaker 1: incredible investigative reporting from Julie Wats at CBS California investigates,
Speaker 1: every single school in the state of California pays into
Speaker 1: the same insurance policy for liability for these lawsuits, and
Speaker 1: that has gotten so prohibitively expensive. It's the newest wrinkle
Speaker 1: in the California insurance crisis. The schools can't afford the insurance.
Speaker 1: For more on this, here is.
Speaker 6: And I came forward to tell my story. People thought
Speaker 6: I was crazy.
Speaker 7: Joellechastic story starting back in the eighties at a Catholic
Speaker 7: high school in Orange County.
Speaker 6: My junior year in the grooming process, the manipulation process
Speaker 6: which gets a survivor to think that the abuse is okay,
Speaker 6: started right away. The worst part, the worst part is
Speaker 6: that the school knew all along.
Speaker 7: She says. Behind that smile was a troubled and vulnerable
Speaker 7: young girl, something she says her choir teacher took advantage of.
Speaker 6: He sexually abused me over a two year period and
Speaker 6: by the time I graduated. By the time I graduated
Speaker 6: high school, I was pregnant and had a sexually transmitted disease.
Speaker 1: WHOA, Okay, she better get every dollar that's entitled to her.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are so many horrific, gruesome stories, and
Speaker 1: when they happen inside of school, well, someone's going to
Speaker 1: be held accountable, and the taxpayer is usually the one.
Speaker 7: It would be more than a decade before she get
Speaker 7: the courage to publicly share her story.
Speaker 6: That is the burden of shame of child sexual assault.
Speaker 6: I was not ready when I was nineteen.
Speaker 7: That's why she helped pass this twenty nineteen law that
Speaker 7: extended the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse lawsuits.
Speaker 6: Thousands and thousands of survivors have come forward.
Speaker 7: Nearly a decade later. Survivors like Joelle's say the law
Speaker 7: is working, exposing abuse and forcing accountability. School districts across
Speaker 7: California are paying billions to settle decades old abuse claims.
Speaker 1: And it's not just school districts. The County of Los
Speaker 1: Angeles recently passed a four billion dollar settlement billion with
Speaker 1: a B to settle with all different kinds of sexual
Speaker 1: abuse from children that happened at a daycare center run
Speaker 1: by the county in Almonte and of course at the
Speaker 1: juvenile halls.
Speaker 7: Exposing abuse and forcing accountability, school districts across California are
Speaker 7: paying billions to settle decades old abuse claims, but critics
Speaker 7: warn justice comes at a cost.
Speaker 4: Everybody wants justice for these individuals, but there are unintended consequences.
Speaker 7: According to public records, doctor April Moore's small rural district
Speaker 7: recently paid more than one point four million dollars to
Speaker 7: settle a case of alleged abuse from the seventies. How
Speaker 7: many teachers?
Speaker 1: Wow, So you're the one that handles the books for
Speaker 1: these schools and you're getting cases that come across your
Speaker 1: desk that you're going to have to not pay the teachers,
Speaker 1: not lower the classroom size because you're paying settlements from
Speaker 1: things that happen in some circumstances before these people were
Speaker 1: even born.
Speaker 7: How many teachers could that money pay for?
Speaker 4: At least twelve twelve, twelve to fourteen teachers?
Speaker 7: The school superintendent says, in most cases, schools pay settlements
Speaker 7: to avoid even more costly legal battles.
Speaker 4: We can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wouldn't be a good look if LAUSD took
Speaker 1: the Mark Burnt story and took that one to trial.
Speaker 4: We can't even investigate accurately.
Speaker 7: With physical records and which is long gone and in
Speaker 7: some cases the accused dead. Digging through old yearbooks is
Speaker 7: sometimes the only way to confirm whether a student or
Speaker 7: employee even attended a school.
Speaker 1: So yeah, for a lot of these county institutions, it's
Speaker 1: actually standard practice to destroy records and that has made
Speaker 1: it even more difficult to adjudicate some of these things.
Speaker 4: So we're paying claims for things that may have happened
Speaker 4: in the past, and we're using the funds that are
Speaker 4: earmarked and designated for today's students.
Speaker 7: And do so.
Speaker 1: Just remember the cost per pupil twenty eight thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a year used to be seventeen thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: Some of that's going to the kids, some of that's
Speaker 1: going to the teachers, but a lot of it is
Speaker 1: going to settle all of these lawsuits.
Speaker 7: And due to school insurance pools, districts without abuse claims
Speaker 7: can be on the hook for settlements. On the other
Speaker 7: side of the state. You see, instead of paying for
Speaker 7: individual insurance policies, California schools pool their money to cover claims.
Speaker 1: This is where the issue becomes something that I wasn't
Speaker 1: even aware of how big of a problem this is
Speaker 1: the entire state of California schools, which there are what
Speaker 1: a thousand school districts in this massive state. They're all
Speaker 1: on the same insurance policy and So when one district
Speaker 1: in southern California has to settle up for a sex
Speaker 1: abuse lawsuit, every single district in the state is going
Speaker 1: to have to pay more in premiums.
Speaker 7: You see, instead of paying for By the way, it.
Speaker 1: Is another interesting conversation. The City of La They get
Speaker 1: sued about every ten minutes for legitimate reasons and illegitimate reasons.
Speaker 1: Someone once sued the City of La because they were drunk,
Speaker 1: piggybacking walking around on New Year's even they tripped on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk, and they got a few million dollars. But
Speaker 1: they're exploring trying to get insurance because right now they
Speaker 1: pay all these settlements out of the general fund. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, what insurance company is going to insure the
Speaker 1: City of Los Angeles for liability lawsuits? Can you imagine
Speaker 1: what the premiums would be?
Speaker 7: You see. Instead of paying for individual insurance policies, California
Speaker 7: schools pool their money into covered claims, so one settlement
Speaker 7: impacts the entire pool. The ripple effect ongoing to school
Speaker 7: insurance costs have nearly tripled today's struggling students or losing
Speaker 7: teachers and programs because of crimes committed in some cases
Speaker 7: before the students were even born, and at schools they've
Speaker 7: never heard of, and.
Speaker 1: We are not able to pay the teachers. This is
Speaker 1: why there's all these fights and all these causes for strikes.
Speaker 1: We're not able to actually take that money that's supposed
Speaker 1: to go help the kids. The extra money the state
Speaker 1: brought in that Prop ninety eight went to fund the schools,
Speaker 1: it's all going to lawsuits to settle claims from crimes
Speaker 1: that happened decades ago.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing.
Speaker 1: I think every single one of these victims deserves justice,
Speaker 1: but it is an eye opening look as to where
Speaker 1: all that money for education is actually going.
Speaker 4: And that, to me, is an injustice for today's students.
Speaker 8: If you were sexually abused in a California school, you
Speaker 8: may still have time to act.
Speaker 7: Critics point to add like these from law firms looking
Speaker 7: for clients.
Speaker 4: There's like this whole new, massive cottage industry that's arising.
Speaker 7: Andybam, an attorney representing Los Angeles County, points to an
Speaker 7: LA Times investigation that found personal injury attorneys allegedly paid
Speaker 7: people cash outside of Social services office to join their
Speaker 7: sex abuse lawsuit.
Speaker 2: I want to believe a well, that sure sounds like
Speaker 2: a scam.
Speaker 7: I want to believe a woman or anybody who comes
Speaker 7: forward and says I was sexually abused by this person.
Speaker 7: I've litigated cases where that was true. I've also litigated
Speaker 7: cases where it was found to be not true. But
Speaker 7: Joelcastic stresses those cases are the exception, not the rule.
Speaker 7: In a system that's failed victims for decades.
Speaker 6: False allegations and false claims and lawsuits are extraordinarily rare.
Speaker 1: And they're rare, is you know for a victim to
Speaker 1: you look at like the Swallwell situation, for the scrutiny
Speaker 1: that those women have to go through to put themselves
Speaker 1: on the public stage, to open themselves up to threats
Speaker 1: that apparently were happening on Snapchat from Swallwell, it would
Speaker 1: be really tough to be making that up.
Speaker 6: And they're rare.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it does happen, but I got to imagine
Speaker 1: the majority of these cases, they're legitimate, and we're going
Speaker 1: to have to pay, and.
Speaker 6: They're rare because the process stinks.
Speaker 7: As the cost of these cases grow, so do calls
Speaker 7: for reform. Critics want to cap attorney's fees and limit
Speaker 7: future payouts, which to attorneys worn could ultimately harm survivors.
Speaker 6: Survivors need to be able to have their day in court.
Speaker 7: The Archdiocese of Orange County eventually settled Castics case for
Speaker 7: one point five million dollars.
Speaker 2: Because that's what your tithing's going towards.
Speaker 6: Because if you have your day in court and you
Speaker 6: prove it, then you should be entitled to that accountability
Speaker 6: that you deserve.
Speaker 7: The question now for California lawmakers, does justice for survivors
Speaker 7: have to come at the cost of today's students? For
Speaker 7: CBS News, California Investigates and Julie Watts.
Speaker 1: So there's the thing that you learned today because I
Speaker 1: learned it today while I was washing dishes this morning
Speaker 1: and listening to this Julie Watts report. If you ever
Speaker 1: wondered why, oh why we're spending twenty eight thousand dollars
Speaker 1: per student and we're getting a subpar education for it.
Speaker 1: Part of it is the bureaucracy. Part of it is
Speaker 1: our education standards and not teaching phonics. Part of it
Speaker 1: is the sweetheart deals that we negotiated to these unions.
Speaker 1: But the other part of it that you may not
Speaker 1: have been aware of is that insurance costs for California
Speaker 1: schools have tripled in the last few years, and that
Speaker 1: is because they're having to settle decades old sexual abuse lawsuits.
Speaker 1: And something tells me we're gonna be doing this for
Speaker 1: a long time now. If there's one issue in the
Speaker 1: state of California that I feel like does not get
Speaker 1: talked about, you know, as much as we hear the
Speaker 1: biggest issues affecting Californias are homelessness and affordability and housing.
Speaker 1: It's never my issue. I mean, those are big issues
Speaker 1: and they are important. But the issue that I am
Speaker 1: concerned with more than anything else, and the one issue
Speaker 1: that makes me want to pull my beautiful head of
Speaker 1: hair out, is the traffic that we deal with in
Speaker 1: the state of California.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I have to say, traffic is a nightmare pretty much
Speaker 1: all the time in San Francisco. But it is a
Speaker 1: very walkable city, and I don't really mind the traffic
Speaker 1: if I'm in the back of a way MO just
Speaker 1: playing my music playlist and just watching the city. It's
Speaker 1: the actual driving through the traffic I have to suffer
Speaker 1: for an hour each way every single day on the
Speaker 1: four H five Freeway, and that is why I'm always
Speaker 1: looking for our emerging candidates for governor, for mayor to
Speaker 1: at least address what would you do to solve the
Speaker 1: god awful traffic that we have because expanding La Metro
Speaker 1: really hasn't done a damn thing. All the money that
Speaker 1: we've spent, it still doesn't really go to most places,
Speaker 1: so most people will never use it, regardless of if
Speaker 1: it's safe or not. The high speed rail was supposed
Speaker 1: to be done six years ago. The one line that's
Speaker 1: going to be finished in ten years is Wasco to Merced,
Speaker 1: which doesn't really help a lot of people.
Speaker 2: So here's an interesting new idea.
Speaker 1: What if instead of a high speed train, because it
Speaker 1: takes a really long time to build trains in California,
Speaker 1: they can do it in other countries, but they don't
Speaker 1: have sequa in other countries. What about the concept of
Speaker 1: high speed buses. Apparently this is being studied for more.
Speaker 1: Here's kcra.
Speaker 8: Well, could California drivers soon share the road with buses
Speaker 8: that travel up to one hundred and forty miles per hour.
Speaker 8: It's part of a futuristic idea from Caltrans to bring
Speaker 8: high speed buses to our state.
Speaker 7: Kise your threes.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm guessing now with electric motors, you can
Speaker 1: get cars that go that fast. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know how safe that is. I mean, it's got to
Speaker 1: be in its own dedicated lane. I'm assuming you don't
Speaker 1: want somebody cutting you off with that.
Speaker 7: Kisse your ray threees Denz and Cortez looks at the
Speaker 7: solutions leaders are looking at to make all of this work.
Speaker 9: The future of California commuting may look a lot different
Speaker 9: than this.
Speaker 10: We can travel throughout California on these buses.
Speaker 9: Caltrans now exploring whether high speed buses traveling up to
Speaker 9: one hundred and forty miles per hour could one day
Speaker 9: share the roads with drivers.
Speaker 1: So does that mean they're going to take a couple
Speaker 1: of lanes off the five Freeway and make them bus
Speaker 1: only lanes?
Speaker 10: This project is simply exploring long term possibilities.
Speaker 9: The vision connecting major cities like Sacramento, the Bay Area,
Speaker 9: Los Angeles, and San Diego with dedicated lanes on freeways,
Speaker 9: transit hubs, and long distance express service.
Speaker 8: Long distance travel by bus could become an attractive and
Speaker 8: affordable way to go between California metropolitan areas and you.
Speaker 2: Could probably watch a movie in the back.
Speaker 9: Researchers turning towards international examples like South Australia's Audelaide's Obon
Speaker 9: that has been in service for four decades, high.
Speaker 10: Speed buses could one day provide some of the speed
Speaker 10: advantage at a longer costume using existing freeway corridors once
Speaker 10: the technology is ready.
Speaker 1: Under one con so, I'm divided on this because you're
Speaker 1: talking about taking away existing lanes, which is going to
Speaker 1: make the car traffic even worse. At the same time,
Speaker 1: if you're going to build more public transit, more places
Speaker 1: where you have people in big vehicles, trains take way
Speaker 1: too damn long. The bus only lanes, whether it's on
Speaker 1: the streets of LA or the freeways. At least theoretically,
Speaker 1: that's something that you could get done a lot faster,
Speaker 1: but you're going to have to make it real safe
Speaker 1: and convenient, or nobody's going to use it. Well, there's
Speaker 1: something that I didn't know. California is looking into freeway
Speaker 1: buses that go one hundred and forty miles an hour,