Speaker 1: Hello, this is it could happen here and today it's
Speaker 1: me James, and I'm joined by four of my friends
Speaker 1: here in San Diego, and we are talking about San
Speaker 1: Diegos lying there and how he likes to punch down
Speaker 1: on poor people even though he promised he wouldn't. So
Speaker 1: joining me today, I'm gonna ask you guys to want
Speaker 1: introduce yourselves. It can spend a little bit about what
Speaker 1: relevant background you have in the area, and then we'll
Speaker 1: get into it because there's a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1: So Mandy, would you like to go first. I'm Mandy.
Speaker 1: I am I'm a homeless advocate and mostly do on
Speaker 1: the groundwork mutually aid UM, and then I advocate for
Speaker 1: them as much as I can almost city municipalities, UM,
Speaker 1: and just organize that way great, And Colleen, you can
Speaker 1: go next to us. Okay, Yeah, my name is Colin Cusack.
Speaker 1: I'm a criminal defense attorney and I uh represent uh
Speaker 1: proximately fifty homeless person's pro bono right now who are
Speaker 1: sighted with the crimes of survival such as encroachment and
Speaker 1: overnight camping, so I can challenge and have them to
Speaker 1: quote unconstitutional Michael McConnell, I'm an advocate for people who
Speaker 1: are living unsheltered or homeless, and I've been working on
Speaker 1: this for about thirteen years. First part working within this
Speaker 1: system as a philanthropist, advocate, volunteer, former vice chair of
Speaker 1: the Regional Task Force on the Homeless. I'm a founding
Speaker 1: was a founding member of a local philanthropy group called
Speaker 1: Funders Togethered and Homelessness San Diego. I have participated on
Speaker 1: quite a few initiatives such as a blitzweek where we
Speaker 1: housed about a hundred people in three days, Cities Initiative
Speaker 1: where we worked on any veteran and chronic homelessness created
Speaker 1: the regions first by nameless for veterans. Worked on a
Speaker 1: lot of unmandated CEOC Continuum of care initiatives such as
Speaker 1: how we score projects to get homelessness funding. UH long
Speaker 1: communicated with are endless elected official Todd Gloria, who's now mayor,
Speaker 1: who's made so many promises over the years and so
Speaker 1: many claims on homelessness. People just doubt almost everything he
Speaker 1: says about homelessness at this point, rightfully so. And UH
Speaker 1: probably most most known for my on the ground advocacy
Speaker 1: now where I do a lot of in Camas support
Speaker 1: work with of course unsheltered people, film the police around
Speaker 1: in camera sweeps and enforcement of of laws that target
Speaker 1: homeless people and continue that till this day. Nice Yeah,
Speaker 1: containing a lot of work on the street. It's great
Speaker 1: to see and the Levi's at least indeed, Hi you guys,
Speaker 1: I'm LEVI gapone with homeful Solutions, UM. I have lived
Speaker 1: experience and being homeless. UM. I also work with a
Speaker 1: group of kids called Lived Experience Advisors here in San Diego. UM.
Speaker 1: We try to hold them accountable and keep them honest.
Speaker 1: UM and uh we're also able to advocate for uh
Speaker 1: a lot of what these people need in the recovery process,
Speaker 1: just beyond like, UM, housing, which is the main thing.
Speaker 1: We know that the homeless problem is a real estate crisis. UM.
Speaker 1: And then I also work as a housing navigator downtown. UM.
Speaker 1: So I work with a case load of about two clients, UM,
Speaker 1: about sixty or seventy of them. I would say, have
Speaker 1: UM S, M I S and I'm down UM really
Speaker 1: in like uh kind of one of the main areas
Speaker 1: of town that UM, you know, we have a lot
Speaker 1: of these people living outdoors, so uh, UM I'm at
Speaker 1: kind of the front lines of it every day when
Speaker 1: it comes to people needed to get a shelter bed,
Speaker 1: I'm the one that they cry to, um, you know
Speaker 1: when when they think that it's a you know, when
Speaker 1: they don't understand that it's the system that's broken. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm the one that they get yelled at. But that
Speaker 1: gets yelled at, but you know, they think I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not doing enough, you know. And um so it's really
Speaker 1: interesting to be able to see all sides of it
Speaker 1: and see the promises that get made. And I literally
Speaker 1: have clients come in and say, oh, hey, look everything's
Speaker 1: gonna be fine because the mayor just said this week
Speaker 1: he's opening a new shelter. And I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: let's do the math. That's a forty bed shelter, right
Speaker 1: and there's eight thousand homes people in the county, so
Speaker 1: you know, and so um yeah, I have to kind
Speaker 1: of break down that. It's a good responsibility, I guess,
Speaker 1: to to break down the system to my clients so
Speaker 1: that they can understand how broken it is, as well
Speaker 1: as uh, you know, me being able to teach some
Speaker 1: patients to get them through the process too. So um yeah,
Speaker 1: that's me yeah, that's good, thank you, And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to get into how broken the system is
Speaker 1: because it consistently I think, like every time, like I
Speaker 1: like to ride my bike around a lot, I'm always
Speaker 1: riding around town. Often are running to people who are
Speaker 1: in distress, right, especially when we ride past the hospital,
Speaker 1: which is something we can get into, and they'll be like, oh,
Speaker 1: just just call up what you sort them out with
Speaker 1: a shelter bed and like, and then they'll have this
Speaker 1: horrible moment of realization where they're like, oh shit, like
Speaker 1: there's nowhere for this person to go. So let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about Todd Gloria. Right, Todd Gloria's are there.
Speaker 1: He's a democrat. He ran on a very progressive platform generally,
Speaker 1: and what he's done has been extremely reactionary. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to start just by reading some Todd tweets. Todds
Speaker 1: of poster um. Perhaps not not as much of a
Speaker 1: poster as Rachel Richel laying his I guess communications manager.
Speaker 1: I think she has the soul of a poster and
Speaker 1: will attack people working like Michael to help people, which
Speaker 1: is distressing to see. But I wanted to Uh, I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk a little bit about Todd, So I've
Speaker 1: got a few quotes here June. Yes, I will be
Speaker 1: the first to enforce the law against those sheltered around
Speaker 1: sheltered who break any law. But I will not use
Speaker 1: our code to harass and criminalize sick and poor people.
Speaker 1: That's the number one Augusten. What if we chose to
Speaker 1: take the resources we used to criminalize the homeless and
Speaker 1: redirect them to building housing instead? What if Todd um
Speaker 1: January in his tag Michael in this one. Maybe right,
Speaker 1: but the sad fact is that this doesn't just happen
Speaker 1: before the p I t C. That's the point in
Speaker 1: time count of unhoused people. It happens all the time.
Speaker 1: It's unfair to the unsheltered and too STPD. My goal
Speaker 1: is to end chronic homelessness. The only way to do
Speaker 1: this is with permanent supportive housing, not criminalization. Uh. You're right,
Speaker 1: but that's not what you do it. Uh, Californians of
Speaker 1: all political views, No, a homelessness crisis is a serious problem.
Speaker 1: More housing and services, not criminalization. It's past time to
Speaker 1: tackle this problem. I could keep going with these things,
Speaker 1: but I won't go. I think folks get the pictures
Speaker 1: so Tod talked a lot about how we don't need
Speaker 1: to criminalize poverty, how we don't need to criminalize living
Speaker 1: on the street. UH, and then has proceeded to criminalize
Speaker 1: living on the street, right, and so maybe we can
Speaker 1: just start with these sweeps sort of happened pretty much consistently,
Speaker 1: I think since took office and UH people might be
Speaker 1: familiar with a little bit, Like they may have seen
Speaker 1: some of the bikes being thrown away that that was
Speaker 1: like Michael had a video of that which which had
Speaker 1: how many views? Now, oh gosh, I don't know a
Speaker 1: million or more. Yeah, it's a lot of people have
Speaker 1: seen that. But perhaps one if you would like to
Speaker 1: describe like exactly like how a sweep goes down right,
Speaker 1: Like like there's there's a process of posting sometimes the
Speaker 1: process of personal notices, but you don't have two personal
Speaker 1: notices because people are encroaching. Like what's this sort of
Speaker 1: justification for it? And then what does that look like
Speaker 1: for people on the ground. February fourteenth of this year
Speaker 1: is when Todd Gloria's started his UH sweep enforcement. Um
Speaker 1: it was unspoken, but during COVID UH they were just
Speaker 1: killing people with COVID and instead of my police, although
Speaker 1: the police were doing your own thing. UM. So this
Speaker 1: is what the police do at the sweeps as they
Speaker 1: use a series of unconstitutional ordinances, city ordinances only existing
Speaker 1: in the city of San Diego. UM. And these unconstitutional
Speaker 1: ordinances taken together make it illegal for UM anybody to
Speaker 1: exist in public space. So me, our mothers, our children,
Speaker 1: anybody in public space can be ticketed for these violations
Speaker 1: because they're so overbroad. For example, UM, standing on a sidewalk,
Speaker 1: just being there on a sidewalk, UM will be enough
Speaker 1: to get you a citation issued if you can't prove
Speaker 1: you have a house to live in. UM. These laws,
Speaker 1: like I said, they're written over broad. They apply to everyone,
Speaker 1: but the police use their discretion to only use them
Speaker 1: against poor persons. The Vehicle Habitation Ordinance UM lists a
Speaker 1: series of items that if they're found in your car,
Speaker 1: police could use those to arrest you. And those items
Speaker 1: include things like food, water, trash. So everybody with food, water,
Speaker 1: or trash. It doesn't have to be all three, just
Speaker 1: one of them. UM could be the objected to being arrested,
Speaker 1: have their conford, have their taken to shelter, having their
Speaker 1: children taken to CPS and all because um, the city
Speaker 1: wants to come after poor people with with ordinances. UM,
Speaker 1: so here's the fund. The dis ordinances can be charged
Speaker 1: either as misdemeanors or infractions. Mayor Glory announced a progressive
Speaker 1: ordinance scheme, which means on day one, say Monday of
Speaker 1: the week, the individual is issued a warning. On day two,
Speaker 1: the individual is issued a infraction citation. That infraction citation
Speaker 1: gives them a day to appear months down the road
Speaker 1: UM to contest the case. But the very next day
Speaker 1: they can be issued a misdemeanor citation. That misdemeanors titation
Speaker 1: also has a date months down the road the resolution
Speaker 1: and then UM gave four they can be arrested and
Speaker 1: taken into custody UM, all without ever having a day
Speaker 1: in court. UM. The citations, if there are issued to
Speaker 1: people in Midway or downtown San Diego, direct them to
Speaker 1: appear in Claremont Mesa. It's about twelve miles away. These
Speaker 1: are individuals that have mobility issues. They can't get to
Speaker 1: and from court. They can't They can't really get to
Speaker 1: and from the end of the street very well without
Speaker 1: police starting to take away their property. Court won't allow
Speaker 1: them to bring their property in with them. The buses
Speaker 1: won't allow them to bring their property on the buses.
Speaker 1: So they have to make a choice. Do they risk
Speaker 1: losing all the remaining property that they have in the
Speaker 1: world to go to court to defend against the charge
Speaker 1: that they're really don't have the h The police can
Speaker 1: cite either as a misdemeanor infraction. But when they site
Speaker 1: as an infraction, that individual doesn't get UM an appointed
Speaker 1: attorney and UM nor jury trial and so UM the punishment,
Speaker 1: the issuance of the citation becomes the punishment process. We're
Speaker 1: just just trying to get to court and take care
Speaker 1: responsibilities becomes a chore, even if later it's dismissed. We
Speaker 1: found out two public records requests that of the misdemeanors
Speaker 1: that are being cited, are them are being dismissed. So
Speaker 1: people aren't getting their attempt, their their opportunity to defend
Speaker 1: themselves in court. They're all being dismissed UM and so
Speaker 1: if the city was was serious about believing that these
Speaker 1: individuals were committing criminal offenses, then they wouldn't be dismissing
Speaker 1: them after of them after they were were issued so
Speaker 1: colleens talking about the the the laws or the codes
Speaker 1: that are used to used during enforcement sweeps of people
Speaker 1: out here on the streets. So the police go out
Speaker 1: and use these codes and municipal codes two write people
Speaker 1: tickets and eventually take them to jail. That's just one
Speaker 1: kind of sweet that's the enforced and sweeps. There's also
Speaker 1: clean up sweeps or abatement sweeps. We call them homeless
Speaker 1: and canment sweeps or homeless community sweeps where per settlement
Speaker 1: with past lawsuits, the city has to post three hour
Speaker 1: seventy two notices in areas. Then they come out with
Speaker 1: the police and environmental services and clean up cruise and
Speaker 1: they'll throw away all your belongings if you're not there.
Speaker 1: So that's another kind of sweep. So there's actually two
Speaker 1: kinds of sweeps. There's these clean up sweeps where they
Speaker 1: throw away your belongings, and then there's the enforcement sweeps
Speaker 1: where they just go out with sometimes, oh gosh, Colleen,
Speaker 1: we've probably seen as many as fifteen maybe fifteen plus
Speaker 1: police go out to ticket people in a particular homeless
Speaker 1: community so and just put them through the ringer with
Speaker 1: all these citations that Colleen went through yeah, and then
Speaker 1: press LEVI are you familiar with the system? Right? I
Speaker 1: think maybe the the idea here is that the police
Speaker 1: are supposed to offer them shelter, right, if they asked shelter,
Speaker 1: they're supposed to offer it to them. Can you just
Speaker 1: explain about how that shelter could be extremely difficult or
Speaker 1: impossible for people to access? Yeah? Absolutely, and then I'll
Speaker 1: tell you kind of some of the consequences that UM
Speaker 1: people face even or as a result of this. But
Speaker 1: um so, basically, like let me paint the picture for you.
Speaker 1: So UM our location as a drop in center, we
Speaker 1: don't have any housing here on site. UM and uh
Speaker 1: so the clients will typically there's a line out the
Speaker 1: gate when we get here at eight o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: At eight o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock, all
Speaker 1: I do is shelter referrals. So that's everybody that's coming
Speaker 1: in the door that wants to get a shelter bed
Speaker 1: for that night that night. Right. We're doing this at
Speaker 1: eight o'clock in the morning, and oftentimes I will get
Speaker 1: one or two. Some days I don't get anyone into shelter,
Speaker 1: um because by nine o'clock all of those beds are full.
Speaker 1: And that's what they report back to me as the
Speaker 1: service provider, right is is at nine o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: there's no more shelter beds. Um. And uh. On top
Speaker 1: of that, to the other thing to to mention too
Speaker 1: is like, you know, the police are supposed to offer
Speaker 1: them shelter, but um, we have like some kind of
Speaker 1: like conglomerates as far as organizations go in the shelter space. UM.
Speaker 1: So if a client is for some reason not allowed
Speaker 1: to go back to that shelter, um, that's one pretty
Speaker 1: much forever. Um and be it could be something like
Speaker 1: behavior like they got anxiety and yelled at somebody right,
Speaker 1: or it could be uh, someone who can't complete their
Speaker 1: A d l S as they call it, um, or
Speaker 1: like an incontinence issue. Um. So there's times where a
Speaker 1: doctor will say, yes, it is sanitary and medically necessary
Speaker 1: for you to use this little bottle or whatever, But
Speaker 1: then the shelter will then kick them out and not
Speaker 1: let them return for that kind of thing. So by
Speaker 1: nine o'clock, the shelter beds are full. Um. In the beginning,
Speaker 1: when the Padres first started playing, they were doing their
Speaker 1: sweeps real early Um, now they're doing their sweeps, um,
Speaker 1: after the time that I'm being told as a service
Speaker 1: provider that the shelters are already full and um and
Speaker 1: on top of that our shelter system, you're you can't
Speaker 1: stay there during the day, right, So some of these
Speaker 1: people that they're taking their stuff and throwing it away
Speaker 1: are actually in shelter. You know, they just had to
Speaker 1: take their belongings with them back to the streets where
Speaker 1: everyone can see them every day, and and you know
Speaker 1: all that. But recently I had a client who we
Speaker 1: had spent like a month and a half trying to
Speaker 1: get him in the shelter every single day and it
Speaker 1: wasn't going through. Finally we got him in the shelter,
Speaker 1: and um, a ticket for encroachment had come up that
Speaker 1: you know, was not paid and he didn't go to court.
Speaker 1: So even though he was and shelter in the middle
Speaker 1: of the day, the police officers stopped him, they arrested
Speaker 1: him for his warrant. He was in there all weekend
Speaker 1: and he lost to shelter them. Yeah, so that's and
Speaker 1: perhaps you and Mandy could explain then, like some of
Speaker 1: the things, because yeah, under the guise of I guess
Speaker 1: a clean up or abatement or whatever you want to
Speaker 1: call it. Like often they're actively stripping people of the
Speaker 1: things that they need to access shelter, to access housing,
Speaker 1: to transport themselves around, right, and just what if you
Speaker 1: want to take on like what this means, M, Well,
Speaker 1: they'll you know, they do it under the guys, we're
Speaker 1: gonna you know, we're cleaning up the area. UM. But
Speaker 1: they will drag entire tents full of people's belongings and
Speaker 1: put them in the compactor. They won't go through them.
Speaker 1: They never look. Oftentimes there's medication in their ideas, paperwork,
Speaker 1: things that you know, people have to have to survive. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, people can't get housing if don't have identify vacation.
Speaker 1: It's really difficult for them to get identification UM living
Speaker 1: on the streets. You know, it's it's a process, and
Speaker 1: that process UM sets outreach workers back. So you know
Speaker 1: you've got an outreach worker who may have gotten a voucher,
Speaker 1: got them an i D, and you know they've taken
Speaker 1: their UM. It's called the espadat when they're entered into
Speaker 1: the housing system and they're waiting a housing match, and
Speaker 1: then their I D and everything gets thrown away, So
Speaker 1: then the outreach worker has to take time to go
Speaker 1: back and help them get another I D when they
Speaker 1: could be helping you know, someone else get set up
Speaker 1: to maybe get into housing. UM. You know, they don't,
Speaker 1: they don't look through the things. This causes um so
Speaker 1: much trauma for these folks. I've seen UM so a
Speaker 1: lot of times with sweeps. UM Sometimes I say, they'll
Speaker 1: allow people to gather their things and move them and
Speaker 1: then they'll sweep the area. I've seen times when they
Speaker 1: have had people gather their things, they moved their things,
Speaker 1: and then the police surround their things while people are
Speaker 1: standing there and they placed their things in front of
Speaker 1: them while they are begging for their things, and they
Speaker 1: will not let them have them, and they will put
Speaker 1: them in the trash compactor in front of them. And
Speaker 1: it's I mean, the only way that you can view
Speaker 1: that is it's just punishment, Like you're not you know,
Speaker 1: you're out here, you're poor, we don't have many options
Speaker 1: for you, but we're going to do this to deter
Speaker 1: you because we just don't want to see you here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I remember I was talking to someone downtown a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago and stop to give some folks
Speaker 1: some water, and like, uh, this person was saying, like,
Speaker 1: this is the ship I chose to bring with me,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't, you know, It's not like I could
Speaker 1: take everything, and these are the things that I wanted
Speaker 1: to keep because they were special to me. And yet
Speaker 1: now now they're being trashed. Indeed, I think a person
Speaker 1: was thrown in one of those bin lorries, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: like inside their tent and just fucking unbelievable. And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've established these sweeps are cruel. We've established that there's
Speaker 1: not really anywhere for people to go, right, and that
Speaker 1: they don't they don't provide a lasting solution to homelessness.
Speaker 1: They just they just move people around and make it
Speaker 1: harder for them. And so one of the things that
Speaker 1: we do in San Diego is that we have this
Speaker 1: thing called a point in time count, right, and I
Speaker 1: think there have been some fairly credible suggestions that the
Speaker 1: sweeps were increased in certain areas around the point in
Speaker 1: time count. So is what if you want to explain
Speaker 1: what that count like is and does? Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: point in time count really only captures like one night
Speaker 1: out of the year, people experiencing homelessness. UM, there was
Speaker 1: a couple of hostitles even in UM that process this
Speaker 1: year it was particularly really cold that night. UM there
Speaker 1: were some tech glitches that should have been worked doubt
Speaker 1: way more in advance. UM. But UM that really only
Speaker 1: pictures like takes capture of one night. UM. The data
Speaker 1: I like to often refer to because it just feels
Speaker 1: more realistic to me is um our TFH. UM states
Speaker 1: that in any given year, there's thirty thousand people seeking
Speaker 1: assistance for homelessness. So UM, whereas our point in time count,
Speaker 1: you know, shows one night. UM, there is data being
Speaker 1: collected all year round. So at the point in time count,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of volunteers, UM go out very
Speaker 1: early in the morning. UM, they have them count the population. UM,
Speaker 1: try to do some interviews with them real quick. UM.
Speaker 1: The interviews are very personal. UM. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: it's it's not necessarily something somebody wants to wake up
Speaker 1: an answer at five am. But we found some people
Speaker 1: that were, you know, willing to talk. UM. But that's
Speaker 1: that's the point in time account and a nutshell okay,
Speaker 1: And then like what's I know that Downtown? I think
Speaker 1: the Downtown Partnership collects our own data, right, because the
Speaker 1: data we have is very unreliable, what's our best guess
Speaker 1: at people like maybe in the city who are unsheltered
Speaker 1: at this time. I believe it's over fifteen unsheltered homelessness,
Speaker 1: meaning that they're not in a shelter or you know,
Speaker 1: some kind of program, Okay, in just and that's just
Speaker 1: in downtown San Diego, not the whole county, okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So downtown San Diego, for people not familiar, is a
Speaker 1: pretty small part of a very large county, right and
Speaker 1: with I think San Diego has the highest ratio of
Speaker 1: average income to property prices anywhere in the country now,
Speaker 1: if I record correctly, it's incredibly unaffordable. And so this
Speaker 1: has led unfortunately but probably pretty predictably, to a number
Speaker 1: of deaths on our streets, right and four or four
Speaker 1: last week if I recall correctly, or four in a
Speaker 1: seven day period this August is it's hot. It's hot
Speaker 1: for San Diego right now. And despite this, we've seen
Speaker 1: this just like incredibly callous response from the city, I
Speaker 1: guess where Like we've seen Todd, for instance, talk Gloria,
Speaker 1: who's on there giving a speech in front of a
Speaker 1: shelter where somebody's remains were taken away a few hours before,
Speaker 1: and not mentioning that someone had just passed away in
Speaker 1: that place. I want to talk to people about the
Speaker 1: gap between rhetoric and reality, because if you were only
Speaker 1: learning about this from the city and its Twitter account,
Speaker 1: you'd think that it was fined right because he's posting
Speaker 1: about these new shelter pits. But perhaps you can explain
Speaker 1: how best that's to drop in the ocean and the worth.
Speaker 1: It's a distraction from the problems getting worse. I think that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's the reality that they want the public
Speaker 1: to see, and then there's the reality that's happening. Um.
Speaker 1: And they think that they're failing so badly um at
Speaker 1: getting people into services because um, many of the services
Speaker 1: just don't fit people's needs. UM. So they want to
Speaker 1: paint this picture that all the unsheltered people that are
Speaker 1: out in their tents, living on the street, or living
Speaker 1: in their vehicles are service resistant. UM. And I hear
Speaker 1: that all the time. You know, we asked them, they
Speaker 1: don't want services. It's not that people don't want services.
Speaker 1: Many of these people have tried some of the service
Speaker 1: centers in San Diego, and the barriers are extremely high. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, the check in time and check out time
Speaker 1: can be difficult for people that are working. Um, they'll
Speaker 1: separate families so um. You know sometimes the they'll tell you, oh,
Speaker 1: you can go in together if your husband and wife
Speaker 1: or if your partners, and then you get to the
Speaker 1: shelters and they say, I'm sorry, you can't be together
Speaker 1: because we don't have family space. So you have to
Speaker 1: go to a men's shelter and you have to go
Speaker 1: to a women's shelter. Um. They'll also do that with uh.
Speaker 1: Say a mother has a sixteen year old son and
Speaker 1: she needs to go into a shelter, and there's not
Speaker 1: a family shelter. Um, she cannot take her son into
Speaker 1: a women's shelter with her. He has to go into
Speaker 1: a men's shelter. UM. So you know. Then you know,
Speaker 1: people with their pets, they're only source of like love
Speaker 1: and acceptance. You know, a lot of places won't take pets.
Speaker 1: A lot of places take people if they're using substances.
Speaker 1: So we've got all these boundaries that are keeping people
Speaker 1: on the streets and no one's talking about at and
Speaker 1: no one's talking about the fact that some of not
Speaker 1: all of them, but some of the service providers UM
Speaker 1: are profiting off of these poor people because they represent
Speaker 1: state and federal dollars UM. So you've got shelters that
Speaker 1: are run horribly, and you know, the more people that
Speaker 1: come in, they just want to cycle them through because
Speaker 1: that gives them money, and that pays their CEO and
Speaker 1: all of their family members that are you know, working
Speaker 1: for the nonprofit UM. And and these people because they're unsheltered,
Speaker 1: they don't feel they have a voice, they don't feel
Speaker 1: they can speak up because of retaliation. So they're just
Speaker 1: constantly abused. And then you've got the city who's saying,
Speaker 1: look at all these fantastic things we're doing UM, which
Speaker 1: is is couldn't be farther from the truth UM. And
Speaker 1: then they constantly use the narrative that folks are service
Speaker 1: resistant UM, when in reality, the services that are out
Speaker 1: there are too few and UM too difficult, and just
Speaker 1: they're not meaning people where they're at and they're just
Speaker 1: setting people up to fail every time. Yeah, as well
Speaker 1: said another thing I want to get into with the
Speaker 1: shelter specifically is these congregate shelters, right, and what in
Speaker 1: the in the context of an ongoing pandemic that maybe
Speaker 1: is transitioning into another pandemic. Can you explain what what's
Speaker 1: a congregod shelter right, it's along way, but it's it's
Speaker 1: what does it mean? And how are those dangerous? Especially
Speaker 1: for medically compromised older people living on the street. Or
Speaker 1: bulk of our shelter system here in San Diego, in
Speaker 1: the city of San Diego is congregate shelter h meaning
Speaker 1: people are just placed in one big room or in
Speaker 1: some cases big circus type tents. We have a few
Speaker 1: of those where people are sleeping in cots literally three
Speaker 1: ft apart. So you can imagine how horrible that is
Speaker 1: for the spread of disease. That's why we've had some
Speaker 1: very large outbreaks of COVID in our in our shelter system,
Speaker 1: and and they're frequently closed. The new intakes. I think
Speaker 1: it's really important also to let folks know that, like
Speaker 1: you said, if you live, if you look at mayor
Speaker 1: glorious Twitter or social media feed, you think they're doing
Speaker 1: everything they can and there's all these resources, but on
Speaker 1: any given day, there may be a few dozen shelter
Speaker 1: beds available for literally thousands and thousands of people that
Speaker 1: are sleeping on our streets at night, and the only
Speaker 1: reason there's a few dozen shelter beds is because they've
Speaker 1: kicked some people out that day for a break in
Speaker 1: some minor rules. Most people who leave shelter go back
Speaker 1: to the street, so shelter is not a very good
Speaker 1: pathway to anything. Roughly one in seven people who leaves
Speaker 1: a City of San Diego shelter go to a permanent
Speaker 1: housing solution. That's that's a very very In fact, under
Speaker 1: Mayor Gloria, I've seen some of the lowest success rates
Speaker 1: of our system than I've ever seen in my thirteen
Speaker 1: years of working on this. Our our system has actually
Speaker 1: is actually working worse than it was before Todd Gloria
Speaker 1: took over. So he has done very very little, and
Speaker 1: most of what he's done has been mostly performative, adding
Speaker 1: some shelter beds here and there, uh very little on
Speaker 1: the housing front. In fact, he's left tens of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars on the table that he hasn't applied for.
Speaker 1: He did not utilize a California funding stream called Project
Speaker 1: Room Key that would have allowed him to rent hotel
Speaker 1: rooms mostly on the government dime on our taxpayer dime
Speaker 1: to get people off the street. He actually refused to
Speaker 1: do that. He has refused to open safe camp areas
Speaker 1: where people could go and camp and get off of
Speaker 1: the sidewalks. Many of us and and others in the
Speaker 1: community have pushed for real solution and for him to
Speaker 1: utilize these funding sources, and he's absolutely refused to do it. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: like we stated earlier, he has deployed the police, garbage trucks,
Speaker 1: and everybody else to go out there and make people's
Speaker 1: lives miserable. So he's just been an absolute failure on
Speaker 1: this issue. And at the same time, he's been the
Speaker 1: one who's given the most lip service two solutions for this.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely incredible what a disaster he has been for,
Speaker 1: not only for the unsheltered community, but for San Diego.
Speaker 1: I've begun, I've began saying that he is San Diego's
Speaker 1: worst enemy. And and I just can't believe as somebody
Speaker 1: who supported him, supported him in his election urge people
Speaker 1: to vote for him. You can imagine how who do
Speaker 1: winked I was. I just can't believe that this guy
Speaker 1: has been so horrible for our city, and and and
Speaker 1: every indication is that he's going to continue being He's
Speaker 1: gonna continue running the ide into the ground and letting
Speaker 1: people die on our streets at record numbers. Correct me
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, But but didn't when he came out
Speaker 1: of the gate, didn't Gloria estimate how many people he
Speaker 1: was gonna house under his term and did me low
Speaker 1: ball at me, lower the number than than in previous years.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was some kind of was that a
Speaker 1: state or a federal government goal that he set? And
Speaker 1: he actually set a goal of housing people that was
Speaker 1: less than we had done in the previous year. So
Speaker 1: his his big stretch was to actually house fewer people.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's even I don't even know
Speaker 1: if he's even getting there. I mean, this guy, this
Speaker 1: guy is unbelievable. The kind of nonsense that he is
Speaker 1: pulling on the citizens of our city. It is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But he has invested so much in pr and he's
Speaker 1: got these folks who who are just good at spinning
Speaker 1: this this nonsense to make it sound good. And because
Speaker 1: he gets a lot of media attention, he has a
Speaker 1: big obviously a big pulpit to disput this nonsense from
Speaker 1: he's he's able to get a lot of people to
Speaker 1: believe it now on homelessness, anybody who has a decent
Speaker 1: set of eyes, it's basically calling bullshit. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know a whole lot of people anymore who
Speaker 1: think we're we're doing very well on this issue. And
Speaker 1: so I think he's gonna have a harder and harder
Speaker 1: time convincing people that he's worthy of worthy of re election,
Speaker 1: are certainly worthy of a higher office at some point,
Speaker 1: which is all he seems to care about. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: more so so, he's personally to blame. He has personal
Speaker 1: involvement of getting rid of ten thousand s r o
Speaker 1: s single rental units that that if we had those today,
Speaker 1: minus our eight thousand almost people, we would not have homelessness.
Speaker 1: So of units that he was required to replace and
Speaker 1: never replace them, that's his fault. I call him a monster.
Speaker 1: I I was, you know, Kevin Falconer criminalized, but he
Speaker 1: was a Republican. We expected it of him, and he
Speaker 1: didn't tell the promise lest he was gonna end criminalization
Speaker 1: to get our vote. Um. One of the reasons that
Speaker 1: are probably the only the main reason that that Gloria
Speaker 1: didn't didn't put funding into Project GROUPTI. Um was because
Speaker 1: the city is in this unique position of owning and
Speaker 1: operating the nonprofit that runs the convention center. So when
Speaker 1: COVID hit, they were looking at non up at going
Speaker 1: belly up because they couldn't put any events in there
Speaker 1: and having to layoff all their staff. So instead of
Speaker 1: putting people in hotels where they'd be safe, they put
Speaker 1: them in a convention center where they'd be exposed to
Speaker 1: COVID and would die. But the city funded convin nonprofit
Speaker 1: would be funded. So um, that's just heinous and a
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty two million dollars is what Todd Gloria
Speaker 1: got the city to to pay out on a settlement
Speaker 1: on Ash Street, his boom doggle He cost the stad.
Speaker 1: He convite city Council to invest all this money to
Speaker 1: slide donor money to his just slide city money to
Speaker 1: his donors. For the listeners who aren't familiar with our
Speaker 1: real estate griff scene, So, James, if you were going
Speaker 1: to go buy a house right now, uh, you would
Speaker 1: think it is important that you get a property inspection? Correct? Yes? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Would you think it would be important to google or
Speaker 1: seek out documents that may inform you of as best
Speaker 1: as prior to your purchase. Yeah, I want to know that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So UM, these are two of the opportunities that they
Speaker 1: missed when they entered this deal with UM. Uh with
Speaker 1: the one on one Ash Street. Um. So they basically
Speaker 1: had a middleman SISTERA come in and purchased the property
Speaker 1: and then at least to own it back to the city. UM.
Speaker 1: At no time was an inspection done. Um. The asbestos
Speaker 1: was uh, people were aware of it, um, but there
Speaker 1: was no studies done on what the impact was going
Speaker 1: to be in all that. So now we've got ourselves
Speaker 1: sunk into this deal that m is estimated to cost
Speaker 1: taxpayers two hundred and two million dollars. Right, So I
Speaker 1: punched some of the maths. Okay, And if you assume
Speaker 1: uh one year's rent as twenty four thousand dollars, right,
Speaker 1: twenty two hundred and two million divided by twenty four
Speaker 1: thousand dollars is more than eight thousand people that this
Speaker 1: taxpayer money, you know. And it's always it's just and
Speaker 1: it's in a cycle, and it's it's not only the
Speaker 1: cycle there, but it's also the cycle of we don't
Speaker 1: have enough police, so they're bringing in more police when
Speaker 1: we don't have the housing. And then the police that
Speaker 1: we do have are working overtime to pick up shopping
Speaker 1: carts and throw away tens. You know. So, um so
Speaker 1: the astreet deal, there's plenty to google on it, but
Speaker 1: it is it is uh like historically going to go
Speaker 1: down in in San Diego. Screw ups for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a giant monument to grift go ahead, but we
Speaker 1: don't have any police. Is also more gaslighting. We have
Speaker 1: plenty of police. When I started practising law thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: two police officers would show up at the scene. Now
Speaker 1: at least six police officers show up every single time.
Speaker 1: We have an overblight of of police, and we could
Speaker 1: afford to lay off two thirds, agreed, Yeah yeah, but
Speaker 1: instead we just built childcarecenter for them. Yeahs back on
Speaker 1: that quick about the police. Um, one thing that I
Speaker 1: think they also push the narrative that you know, there's
Speaker 1: this hot team, the homeless Outreach team that the police
Speaker 1: they never take water, they never really take anything, um
Speaker 1: And they search for unsheltered people and they have these
Speaker 1: pop up events and they rarely get any traffic to
Speaker 1: these things, and people often wonder why, Um, we cannot
Speaker 1: expect unsheltered people to trust and accept help from the
Speaker 1: same people that criminalize them, terrorize them, harass them and
Speaker 1: throw their things away. Um. So you know, adding more
Speaker 1: police to deal with homelessness, Um, it's just also a
Speaker 1: waste of money. It caused more trauma to the unsheltered people,
Speaker 1: and it's completely unnecessary. So we're talking about this duality
Speaker 1: between like what said and what what what exists on
Speaker 1: the street, right, And it's it's very apparent people on
Speaker 1: the internet love to be wrong about George or well.
Speaker 1: But I think like the one time recently where I
Speaker 1: felt that like, oh well would be a useful things
Speaker 1: to deploy. Is the idea of a care court, like
Speaker 1: which is the thing that has been very strong on
Speaker 1: to Gavin Nuisance. First, Right, courts, in my opinion, don't
Speaker 1: care about people. It's not their role. Can someone explain
Speaker 1: what a care court is and why it's relevant in
Speaker 1: this setting. So the framework of this is you have
Speaker 1: a bunch of um liberals in Gloria and Gavin Newsom's
Speaker 1: ear saying we have to we have to end homelessness,
Speaker 1: and the politicians are saying, oh, well, we can't and
Speaker 1: homelessness because they're all mentally ill drug users. Okay, so
Speaker 1: that's the first premise that we're working with, and they're not.
Speaker 1: Ten are used drugs in a mental illness and debilitating
Speaker 1: to an abilitating extent in the homeless population. Um, and
Speaker 1: the drug use uh is parallels the rate of drug
Speaker 1: use in the house community. We don't take houses away
Speaker 1: from drug users who are housed and make them get
Speaker 1: sober before we return their houses to them. So requiring
Speaker 1: that they be sober beef before we get a house
Speaker 1: is asked backwards. Um, we have to get them into
Speaker 1: housing first. Now, the care court is set up just
Speaker 1: to pass more money to their donors. That's all it's
Speaker 1: set up to do. It's not gonna ease anything. It's
Speaker 1: gonna set up a situation where a person is considered
Speaker 1: gravely disabled, then they can be put into a conservatorship.
Speaker 1: And grave disabled is defined as unable to provide shelter
Speaker 1: for oneself. So essentially, everybody who is poor is now
Speaker 1: gravely disabled, and the rich who got them in this
Speaker 1: position can make all the decisions for them. I'm very
Speaker 1: passionate about this. Because it's it's cruel, and it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's essentially the return of all the institutionalization that
Speaker 1: was set set turned off. The whole reason that you know,
Speaker 1: Reagan got every get everybody released from the prisons because
Speaker 1: of the mental illness, but he never paid. There was
Speaker 1: never any payment into community mental health services. So um,
Speaker 1: now they want to return them to the institutionalization after
Speaker 1: never providing any street a sufficient street um services for them.
Speaker 1: And that's that's just cruel. Yeah. And so with the
Speaker 1: whole care court plan, there's like a few very large
Speaker 1: holes in it. One is that it does not mention
Speaker 1: that there is any housing uh stipulation at all, So
Speaker 1: it does not say that the conservator must provide them shelter. Um.
Speaker 1: The checking guidelines are once every thirty days, which is
Speaker 1: about like the same time period that we have them
Speaker 1: checking with their case managers. Is at least once every
Speaker 1: thirty days. Um. And they also try to try to
Speaker 1: tell it like, um, well, it's it could be temporary, right,
Speaker 1: like once they get better, then they'll be off the conservatorship.
Speaker 1: And what that says to me is it's like okay,
Speaker 1: you force them into treatment and then once they get
Speaker 1: kicked out of treatment, you say, okay, they're healed, and
Speaker 1: then you know they're back away from their services. And
Speaker 1: I've had clients who thought maybe a conservatorship is right
Speaker 1: for me. I've had clients like begging where they're like,
Speaker 1: I just can't do stuff right, like you know. Um.
Speaker 1: And I had one client specifically asked me to be
Speaker 1: her conservator, and I care about her so much, UM
Speaker 1: And if I thought that her having a conservator would
Speaker 1: really benefit her, then absolutely. But as of right now,
Speaker 1: there's no difference in um, whether a conservator can get
Speaker 1: somebody shelter better than me as a service provider, or
Speaker 1: if they can get them into a treatment program better
Speaker 1: than a service provider. Now, Colleen was talking about how
Speaker 1: only ten percent of our homeless population has a drug addiction,
Speaker 1: but in San Diego County as a whole, fifteen percent
Speaker 1: of Sandy agains have a substance use issue. Right my time,
Speaker 1: percent was debilitating a debilitating Uh yeah, okay, good to clarify, um.
Speaker 1: But so that being said, fifercent is way more than
Speaker 1: our homeless population. Those aren't the only ones with substance use.
Speaker 1: But if you're on medical right, if your low income
Speaker 1: and low income in in San Diego as anyone making
Speaker 1: less than seventy six thousand dollars per year UM, which
Speaker 1: is a lot more people than they realize. If you
Speaker 1: are low income UM until bumping just because if you're
Speaker 1: low income. But I have some memes here. I want
Speaker 1: to point some facts on the Care Court care to
Speaker 1: address houselessness, but of its sixty five million dollar budget,
Speaker 1: zero will go to housing and zero will go to
Speaker 1: mental health services. That's shocking. Zero to mental health services
Speaker 1: are housing care cord will weaponize its unchecked power and
Speaker 1: worse than historical violence against black and ground communities, and
Speaker 1: care Court claims to address mental health ability disabilities, but
Speaker 1: allows a judge to rub anyone they find unfit of
Speaker 1: autonomy over their health, home, and life. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: did remember my thoughts. So um, like the people on
Speaker 1: medical um there as far as detox facility goes, like
Speaker 1: we already know fentin als and everything. Now, even if
Speaker 1: somebody thinks they're gonna coke or or whatever they think
Speaker 1: it is, typically there is fvent al in it. So um,
Speaker 1: anyone who does wish to go through a detox um
Speaker 1: it's impossible to get them bets, Like I have clients
Speaker 1: who come in they're like, please, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: I gotta get worked this out of my life. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try. Can you get me into detox and
Speaker 1: we will spend the whole day, you know, And and
Speaker 1: and there's one and like all these people are competing
Speaker 1: for maybe one bet at the detox facility. So if
Speaker 1: it was like we had the infrastructure set up and
Speaker 1: we had this awesome mental health care and we have
Speaker 1: these awesome like street medics and street therapy, and we
Speaker 1: had okay, and everyone in the Conservative ship is gonna
Speaker 1: be housed at this place like then then maybe. But
Speaker 1: like this whole thing, it's just it's it's a load
Speaker 1: of crap. So believe if we had if we had
Speaker 1: all those things, if we had a good system that
Speaker 1: had good substance use treatment, good mental health care, and housing,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have all these folks on the street. Amen.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of interesting that they're they're creating something
Speaker 1: to solve an issue that they don't have the infrastructure
Speaker 1: to solve. But I think it's important to note that
Speaker 1: care Court is a conservatorship, but we already have conservatorship
Speaker 1: laws on the books conservatives laws, they're very strict. It's
Speaker 1: a very high threshold to get somebody conserved currently for
Speaker 1: good reason. You're taking away somebody's civil You're taking away
Speaker 1: somebody's right to make their own decisions, is what a
Speaker 1: conservatorship is. But for some folks that are gravely disabled
Speaker 1: and and impaired, it is the best thing to do.
Speaker 1: It's for you know, for very few people. But but
Speaker 1: the the city attorneys and the people in the hospitals, uh,
Speaker 1: the workers, Uh, they don't want to go through it
Speaker 1: because it is very difficult and challenging, and oftentimes the judge,
Speaker 1: the judge will deny it because that's how how important
Speaker 1: it is for people to have these civil rights. So
Speaker 1: sometimes even have to do a multiple times with somebody
Speaker 1: who probably you know, who may actually need it. And
Speaker 1: I speak from firsthand experience of helping people you know,
Speaker 1: go through this process and try to you know, and
Speaker 1: and trying to get a conservatorship on somebody who just
Speaker 1: really really needs it. Care court would lower that threshold
Speaker 1: so much, I I doubt it's legal. I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: gonna get challenged in court. It it is such a dangerous,
Speaker 1: dangerous leap against our civil liberties or civil rights. Uh
Speaker 1: that I I just am gonna find it incredible if
Speaker 1: if judges allow this to move forward when it's challenged. Uh.
Speaker 1: But the main point is that people need help. They
Speaker 1: need care, not court and if we would provide the care,
Speaker 1: which are elected officials don't want to do. I think
Speaker 1: this is just a cop out on their part. I
Speaker 1: think this is this is this is the elected official saying, uh,
Speaker 1: we have failed, so we'll just pun it to the
Speaker 1: courts and let them take ownership and control of this,
Speaker 1: which in effect, the courts are just kicking it to
Speaker 1: the counties because the county is are behavioral health provider
Speaker 1: who's gonna have to provide these services and be responsible
Speaker 1: for these folks. I think this is gonna be set
Speaker 1: a train wreck. But the one thing it is illuminating
Speaker 1: is that our behavioral our behavioral health system is so broken,
Speaker 1: so dysfunctional, that they would even be trying to do this.
Speaker 1: I think it's basically a an indictment of our system
Speaker 1: and but care courts not going to fix anything. That's
Speaker 1: and I think it's setting people up for failure. I've
Speaker 1: talked to some families who are who are really. Now,
Speaker 1: these are house folks who have uh seriously mentally ill
Speaker 1: loved ones, whether it's spouses or children, UM, siblings. They
Speaker 1: see this as a silver bullet two get care for
Speaker 1: these their loved ones. And maybe it works better for
Speaker 1: that segment of the population because they have somebody, they
Speaker 1: have a loved one as an advocate to make sure
Speaker 1: that the care is the care is the focus. But
Speaker 1: for for unsheltered folks, they're gonna be abused and used
Speaker 1: by this system. Uh maybe warehoused. Who knows, they're gonna
Speaker 1: end up worse off in my opinion, And so I
Speaker 1: for one, am against it as it's written, and certainly
Speaker 1: fear that the implementation of it is going to be
Speaker 1: a travesty. Uh that I just can't imagine. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine that this so called liberal state uh would try
Speaker 1: to trample the rights of people like this. And oh boy,
Speaker 1: I tell you it's there's so much dangerous about this
Speaker 1: that I mean, we could we could have a whole
Speaker 1: show talking about this and maybe and I'm sure there
Speaker 1: will be a lot of talk about this down the road.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I think they will, all right. So what
Speaker 1: I want to do is focus a little bit to
Speaker 1: finish up here on some solutions. So the things that
Speaker 1: a lot of you guys are doing right now to
Speaker 1: provide people with help, to provide people with the basic
Speaker 1: necessities of living a dignified existence, and like how the
Speaker 1: state could do better? Right? Like what what housing first
Speaker 1: solutions look like? What solutions are informed by evidence rather
Speaker 1: just informed by sort of cruelty and the desire to
Speaker 1: brush the problem aside. What do those look like? Well,
Speaker 1: I think you have to you know, you can't expect
Speaker 1: people to get well living on the street, so you've
Speaker 1: you've got to get them inside UM and congregate shelters.
Speaker 1: We've already talked about why those are so problematic on
Speaker 1: so many levels. UM. There is a model in San
Speaker 1: Diego that's being used by a nonprofit UM where right
Speaker 1: now it's only for elderly UM individuals. It's called Housing
Speaker 1: for the Homeless, and they put UM unsheltered elderly folks
Speaker 1: in hotel rooms and it's had tremendous success. For some reason,
Speaker 1: it cannot get funding city or UM county funding. UM.
Speaker 1: But getting these people off the street and out of
Speaker 1: survival mode is first and foremost, and then you've got
Speaker 1: them in a stable place so that services can find
Speaker 1: them when they need them. They can get the health
Speaker 1: care they need, they can get mental health services. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, we need to bolster our our rehab an
Speaker 1: addiction UM services. We also need more harm reduction UM.
Speaker 1: You know, it can take you one to three weeks
Speaker 1: to get in just a detox at McAlister, which is
Speaker 1: the only UM detox center in San Diego south of Incionidas,
Speaker 1: and detox is separate from UM, so we living. So
Speaker 1: you made detox, and then it may be another one
Speaker 1: to three week way to UM get into Solver Living,
Speaker 1: which is just enough time to get turned back out
Speaker 1: on the streets and relax again. UM. And after that,
Speaker 1: even there's no housing at the end of the tunnel,
Speaker 1: so you know, really the biggest thing that we're missing
Speaker 1: is housing UM, and then everything else trickles down from there. UM.
Speaker 1: You know. Just building these relationships with people so that
Speaker 1: they can can trust that you're on their side and
Speaker 1: you're not going to lie to them, give them emptie promises,
Speaker 1: or or use them in some way to uh, to
Speaker 1: monetize them for yourself is one of the biggest things
Speaker 1: that I've found of importance for me as an on
Speaker 1: the ground UM, you know, outreach worker and doing mutual aid. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, most of the time, these people just don't
Speaker 1: have water. You know, they're they're thirsty, they're hungry, UM.
Speaker 1: And that's what poverty looks like. UM. So I think
Speaker 1: we've you know, we've got to get these people inside
Speaker 1: UM immediately, and then we start deploying the resources to them,
Speaker 1: UM to help them recover from the trauma you know,
Speaker 1: on the street or you know, whatever trauma led them
Speaker 1: to be in that situation. UM. I think people often
Speaker 1: forget that a lot of folks on the street. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, there's the foster to the streets pipeline, there's
Speaker 1: the jail to the streets pipeline. UM. So you know,
Speaker 1: many people don't end up on the streets because they
Speaker 1: have family to help them. And a lot of these
Speaker 1: folks on the streets they don't have any family members.
Speaker 1: So UM. You know, as a community, we need to
Speaker 1: step up and be their fan. So that that's great,
Speaker 1: and I think I think we we have to understand
Speaker 1: that the homeless service system, and I'm gonna talk about
Speaker 1: some of the good things that are happening because I
Speaker 1: think that's it's important for people to know there's a
Speaker 1: ton of stuff happening, both grassroots all the way up.
Speaker 1: But it's important to understand that the homeless service system
Speaker 1: can only do so much. As as Manny was talking
Speaker 1: about these pipelines that feed homelessness, people are becoming homelessness.
Speaker 1: I've never seen so many new people out here on
Speaker 1: the street in my work. I'm on the street some
Speaker 1: part well a lot of the every day, and I'm
Speaker 1: seeing more new people than I've ever seen in my
Speaker 1: last thirteen years. And there's all these feeder systems. It's
Speaker 1: it's child welfare, it's foster care, it's it's criminal justice,
Speaker 1: it's the education system. You know, you can name it.
Speaker 1: It's it's uh, the health care system. All these things
Speaker 1: are feeding homelessness. It's the it's the how we've commoditized housing,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, I can go on and on talking
Speaker 1: about what's feeding homelessness. It's the lack of safety nets,
Speaker 1: it's a lack of good mental health care and substance
Speaker 1: use care. So homeless services cannot control these things up above.
Speaker 1: These systems, these billion dollar systems that are feeds that
Speaker 1: are failing people and feeding homelessness what homeless services system is.
Speaker 1: And I like to say they've got a lot of
Speaker 1: mission creep going on here, because ideally they really should
Speaker 1: be focused on getting people into housing and out of homelessness,
Speaker 1: but they've become this this big system that's uh is
Speaker 1: really getting very costly to feed, and it's very inefficient
Speaker 1: and effective. But we know what solves homelessness. Housing and
Speaker 1: services solve homelessness, period and it works. We see when
Speaker 1: these new quality projects like Zephyr or Trinity place these
Speaker 1: these housing uh they're not projects, they're housing. They're housing
Speaker 1: with services, so we call them projects, but they're just
Speaker 1: like any other apartment building really, except they have supportive
Speaker 1: services for folks and they work extremely well. They have
Speaker 1: a N plus success rate of keeping folks housed, even
Speaker 1: folks who have some who are disabled and have some
Speaker 1: significant issues. And it helps provide that self sufficiency by
Speaker 1: providing a deep rental subsidy and supportive services for folks
Speaker 1: who aren't ever going to be able to take care
Speaker 1: of their own rent totally themselves. There is no free housing.
Speaker 1: Everybody who gets these these units pays their income, whether
Speaker 1: it's disability income, social security retirement, whatever, they're paying some
Speaker 1: money that's not free housing. People are helping themselves and
Speaker 1: that's really important to say, and they're participating in services.
Speaker 1: But once you're in housing, your participation in services rates
Speaker 1: go up because people want to continue to keep doing
Speaker 1: better and stay in the housing. These things are being built,
Speaker 1: they're being built as we speak, but at a snail's pace.
Speaker 1: And that's the things that I fault are elected leadership
Speaker 1: for is they're nibbling around the edges. So Todd, has
Speaker 1: Todd Gloria done some some good things, a few, but
Speaker 1: they're so small and he blows them up to like
Speaker 1: he's solving something and he's not. Has the county done
Speaker 1: some good things? Yeah, they've actually done more good things
Speaker 1: that I've ever seen them do, but it's still not
Speaker 1: anywhere close to the pace that we need. They've opened
Speaker 1: up some mental health crisis centers that are actually walk
Speaker 1: in centers. They put together some mental health crisis teams
Speaker 1: that respond to a small percentage of cases of when
Speaker 1: you call. But it is helping. All of these things help,
Speaker 1: but they need What really needs to be done is
Speaker 1: the things that we know work need to be taken
Speaker 1: to scale. But we have to also understand the challenges
Speaker 1: of that. We can't just fault the elected officials for
Speaker 1: some things they don't have control over. As we all know,
Speaker 1: there's it's hard time. It's a hard time hiring people.
Speaker 1: So we need a lot more staff that work with
Speaker 1: that are providing mental health services and substance use services.
Speaker 1: But we won't get there. And this is where the
Speaker 1: elected officials have have a lot of fault is they've
Speaker 1: really not put a priority in on this issue. And
Speaker 1: this is where there's the biggest disconnect. On one hand,
Speaker 1: you have Todd Gloria constantly saying how this is his
Speaker 1: number one issue. On the other hand, his actions don't
Speaker 1: show that. I'm a big believer in in bicycle safety
Speaker 1: and safe roads and things like that. But he seems
Speaker 1: to put more importance on a bike lane than he
Speaker 1: does solving homelessness. And they're both important. But we have
Speaker 1: five people dying on our streets because they're homeless. That's
Speaker 1: you know, he he needs to put He needs to
Speaker 1: back up his his talk with action. Just like you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're expanding some bike lanes and I think that's great. Uh,
Speaker 1: I think they need to do it a lot smarter.
Speaker 1: Because some of them don't seem to be that safe
Speaker 1: to me. But that's a whole another show to involved in.
Speaker 1: But they don't seem to be very strategic to me,
Speaker 1: and they just don't seem to be very They don't
Speaker 1: seem to care. They seem to be more interested in
Speaker 1: hoodwinking the public so they can get their next job.
Speaker 1: We need people who care mostly that care about people,
Speaker 1: but also care about spending our money efficiently and effectively.
Speaker 1: But some of the grassroots stuff, like I say, getting
Speaker 1: people into hotel rooms and then getting into housing is
Speaker 1: a good pathway. The county opened a small shelter I
Speaker 1: think it's forty four beds or so. It's the first
Speaker 1: small shelter that they opened that's really more tailored towards
Speaker 1: people with substance use and mental health needs. It has
Speaker 1: a great uptake rate and and and the feedback from
Speaker 1: people on the streets is good. So here we have
Speaker 1: something that the county did that was good. We need
Speaker 1: a lot more of them. But instead they're opening another
Speaker 1: jumbo tent. So these things are very frustrating to folks
Speaker 1: like myself and Mandy Felleen. The different people that the
Speaker 1: people who are actually on the ground working that are
Speaker 1: trying to get people into the assistance. We know what
Speaker 1: we know the things that people will go into, including
Speaker 1: substance use help. But whenever you try to get somebody
Speaker 1: in it and you're told there's a three week waiting list,
Speaker 1: you lose that person. They want to go, They want
Speaker 1: to go now. You've got to be responsive to the
Speaker 1: person's motivation in that moment to get the help. And
Speaker 1: it's heartbreaking for people like Mandy and me who are
Speaker 1: out there on the street and people are crying out
Speaker 1: for this help, and it's just bullshit when these folks,
Speaker 1: whether it's the police or the mayor, say that there's
Speaker 1: the people who don't want help. It's really disgusting because
Speaker 1: when you're on the street like we are and people
Speaker 1: are pleading for this help and we can't help them
Speaker 1: because it's not available, we know firsthand and we call bullshit.
Speaker 1: We call bullshit on on the rhetoric that comes out
Speaker 1: of these people's mouths. We know the people, We see
Speaker 1: their faces, those tears are real, that pleading for help
Speaker 1: is real, and we can actually help them if we
Speaker 1: do what's right. And so, uh, we could talk all
Speaker 1: day about some of the good things too, that the
Speaker 1: grassroots people like Mandy are out there, um, just on
Speaker 1: the ground doing We're not paid to do this. None
Speaker 1: of us here on this call except for Levi. Levi
Speaker 1: works within the system, and thank goodness for him. And
Speaker 1: the last thing I want to say, and I I'm
Speaker 1: always remiss if I don't remind remember to say this,
Speaker 1: but I always want to send a shout out. This
Speaker 1: is not the fault of the hard working people on
Speaker 1: the street, whether you're paid or not. I just want
Speaker 1: to say thanks to all of the folks who take
Speaker 1: on this job, paid or not, to go out and
Speaker 1: help people firsthand and try to do the best with
Speaker 1: this shitty system that they're given. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people who take very little pay they do this
Speaker 1: because they care, or the volunteers who do it because
Speaker 1: they care to help people. And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: folks out there really trying hard to help folks, and
Speaker 1: they are helping people one by one by one, and
Speaker 1: we need to support we need we have to have
Speaker 1: the support of the Todd Gloria's and the Nathan Fletchers
Speaker 1: of the world and the Gavin Newsom's to do the
Speaker 1: right thing and and to keep funding what works and
Speaker 1: to quit doing what doesn't. And so, UM, I think
Speaker 1: it's just important to round out by saying that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty good. Alright. So both of you
Speaker 1: are out helping people. I see it all the time
Speaker 1: on your on your social media. Where can people find you? Uh?
Speaker 1: And how can they support what you're doing if it's
Speaker 1: getting people, tend to getting people water that kind of thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: tree start with UM, let's just go down and this
Speaker 1: will start with Mandy. UM. I usually UM kind of
Speaker 1: bum off of Michael for funding. UM because most of
Speaker 1: everything I do, UM, I pay for myself. UM, so
Speaker 1: I you know, if he has he does a go
Speaker 1: fund me and then you know he'll be like, hey,
Speaker 1: I gotta go fund me money. And you know I
Speaker 1: meet him and he like loads up my car and
Speaker 1: off I go. UM. You know people can can find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter. UM, I think I'm cute Cooper to UM,
Speaker 1: I'm very passionate. So UM, you know it's like and
Speaker 1: be careful what you look at on my feed. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, I just I love these people, and UM,
Speaker 1: I want to see them because they're all people. I
Speaker 1: want to see them get the help and One thing
Speaker 1: that Michael taught me in the very beginning of this,
Speaker 1: because you know, I started this, um maybe about two
Speaker 1: or three years ago. One thing that Michael said to
Speaker 1: me that resonated with me, because you know, I was
Speaker 1: out doing these you know, like I call them parades now,
Speaker 1: which are like liberal marches, um, you know, yelling at
Speaker 1: buildings when I wants in, and you know, then going
Speaker 1: home and feeling good about what I did. UM. And
Speaker 1: he said, you know, Mandy, he said, every single social
Speaker 1: justice issue that everyone fights for, Black lives Matter, immigration, UM, disability, UM.
Speaker 1: You know, all of these things come together, you know, UM,
Speaker 1: l G, B, t Q, I A plus all of
Speaker 1: those people are overrepresented in the homeless population, and so
Speaker 1: it shakes down to that. And so I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: my mind was like bloan and I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, you know, I'm not her marching for people
Speaker 1: and the most marginalized of them are living on the street. UM.
Speaker 1: And there's very little help for those people because unfortunately,
Speaker 1: whether what whatever marginalized group of you come from, when
Speaker 1: you become homeless, that overtakes all of them. And there
Speaker 1: is a huge public hatred for unsheltered people, and it
Speaker 1: is my parson across the board. Um So we we
Speaker 1: all just need to realize that this is, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a societal failure and a social justice issue.
Speaker 1: Um And I hope that you know, more people would
Speaker 1: will get up and and get go to the ground
Speaker 1: and start talking to your unsheltered neighbors. Try to build
Speaker 1: a relationship with them, reach out to their humanity. Um
Speaker 1: And and if you just do it with one person,
Speaker 1: if each of us just did it with one person,
Speaker 1: it would make such a difference. Even if you can't
Speaker 1: get them in housing or you don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of money, literally, just treating them like a human being
Speaker 1: means so much to these folks. Yeah, that's that's very important. Kelly.
Speaker 1: What would you like to say? Where can people find you?
Speaker 1: How can they help? That was just like how to
Speaker 1: find us? Right, I know, I thought it was great.
Speaker 1: I welcome it all right, I thought it was really good.
Speaker 1: Everybody should have a Mandy. Um. I my name is
Speaker 1: Colleen Q. Sack c U s A C K. You
Speaker 1: can Google me and find me. I'm in searchable on
Speaker 1: the attorney directory. My number six two three or six
Speaker 1: three zero and my email address is C another c
Speaker 1: U s a c K dot policy at gmail dot com. Um,
Speaker 1: and I'm on Twitter at symbol O b j K
Speaker 1: s h N, which stands for objection. Great. Thank you,
Speaker 1: all right, Michael. So, I, like Mandy, I've just funded
Speaker 1: my work myself also except for about oh gosh, I
Speaker 1: don't know. A month or two ago, I was out
Speaker 1: on the street film in some sweeps, watching the police
Speaker 1: and the environmental service workers throw away people's tents and
Speaker 1: and I and I UM, and I said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go get those people some new tents. And the
Speaker 1: police officer told me, go ahead. We can throw them
Speaker 1: out faster than you can give them out. And I
Speaker 1: tweeted about that, and you know, I think it really,
Speaker 1: you know, it struck a chord with people. So I've
Speaker 1: had people offered to help before, but I've just had
Speaker 1: this real outpouring of of offerings to help lately. So
Speaker 1: for the first time ever, I set up a go
Speaker 1: fund Me, and in the first day I just said,
Speaker 1: you know, this is just to help support encampments that
Speaker 1: are impacted by the sweeps or or whatever is needed,
Speaker 1: and to support other grassroots people like Mandy who are
Speaker 1: out there. And I think I raised about three thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in the first day, and I was like, wow
Speaker 1: that it really was touching because you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: even hardly. I just put it out on Twitter, I think,
Speaker 1: and I haven't promoted it much since, but I think
Speaker 1: we're up to six or seven thousand dollars use that
Speaker 1: every day. I don't where are you the Uh I'm retired,
Speaker 1: so I get to do this uh all day long.
Speaker 1: People like Mandy, they have a job. They're doing this
Speaker 1: as a second job that's unpaid. So um so what
Speaker 1: I do is is is is help. Uh is the
Speaker 1: buy stuff? I help other I funneled money to other organizations.
Speaker 1: I also UH promote that it uh go fund me
Speaker 1: of other people on my social media site. So I
Speaker 1: really would appreciate you following me. On Twitter, it's at
Speaker 1: Homelessness s D at Homelessness SD. On Facebook, it's Homelessness
Speaker 1: New San Diego. On on Instagram it's the same, and
Speaker 1: on YouTube it's I think it's Homelessness New San Diego
Speaker 1: on YouTube. I just started a YouTube page. Well actually
Speaker 1: I started a long time ago, but I just started
Speaker 1: posting stuff on there. I have a lot of followers.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty active conversation. Especially on Twitter, I get
Speaker 1: the bear's people lashing out at me, attacking me because
Speaker 1: they don't like me calling them out. Um, I get
Speaker 1: you know, I get haters on there too. I let
Speaker 1: them voice their opinion. Uh, I let the conversation flow. Um.
Speaker 1: But what I do is your what And I do
Speaker 1: warn you that, especially on Twitter, it's heart wrenching stuff.
Speaker 1: So I'm out here on the ground, I'm seeing people die,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing horrible stuff and I'm sharing it with you
Speaker 1: because I think people deserve to know the truth. So
Speaker 1: elected officials like Mayor Todd Gloria, they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know the truth. But I'm gonna bring it to you.
Speaker 1: I've worked every day to bring you the truth that's
Speaker 1: going on out here on the street. And it's ugly,
Speaker 1: it's it's but it's also I also see some amazing stuff.
Speaker 1: I also see some amazing, heartwarming stuff, people helping people.
Speaker 1: So it's everything, but it's it's a roller coaster ride, folks,
Speaker 1: So you know, just be prepared and from there you
Speaker 1: can find my go fund me. Um. But most of all,
Speaker 1: you can get educated on the issue, make up your
Speaker 1: own mind. Uh, don't just listen to the bullshit that's
Speaker 1: spewed out of city hall. Uh, see it on the
Speaker 1: ground for yourself. Take people out with me. Uh. I
Speaker 1: do a lot of work with the media, but but
Speaker 1: just just just joy in the conversation, join the conversation, learn,
Speaker 1: donate if you want to learn where you can donate
Speaker 1: your time to other people. Yeah, message me, you can
Speaker 1: cut me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're just real people out
Speaker 1: there doing, you know, doing stuff. And I worked within
Speaker 1: the system trying to I went to all these meetings.
Speaker 1: I spent a whole ton of money within the within
Speaker 1: the mainstream system, which I'll never do again because it's
Speaker 1: a black hole. So I mostly promote grassroots stuff now
Speaker 1: and we're just out there doing it and and doing
Speaker 1: what we can uh in a very difficult situation. But
Speaker 1: join the conversation and see what's going on. And that's James.
Speaker 1: I just I appreciate all your support over the years,
Speaker 1: um uh, both amplifying our messages, getting messages out on
Speaker 1: social media, and just for everything that you do on
Speaker 1: social justice issues and and and safety issue is um
Speaker 1: so I can hold them accountable on the bike stuff, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: well do that's another episode. I will plug leavi on
Speaker 1: Levi's behalf because I leave, I had to jump off
Speaker 1: to sort out an emergency. But it's homeful Solutions, which
Speaker 1: on Twitter is at the Solution nine. You can find
Speaker 1: them there and leave. I can help folks if they
Speaker 1: are in San Diego access services and so yeah, that's
Speaker 1: being us today. Please do follow these people. Please get
Speaker 1: out and try and be a good neighbor to the
Speaker 1: young housed community. Wherever you are, feel free to reach
Speaker 1: out to any of us if you need some help
Speaker 1: or advice on how to do that or want to
Speaker 1: come out here in San Diego. All right, thank you
Speaker 1: very much. Everyone appreciate you taking some of your afternoons.