San Diego Works To Develop A Homeless “Bill of Rights”

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A homeless man in a wheelchair holds a sign beside a street crowded by pedestrians. The sign says, 'Bet you a dollar you'll read this.
Damn Clever Hobo photo by Kevin McShane is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
San Francisco: clever sign. Historically, not so clever urban responses to homelessness.

Bill of Rights? Well, San Diego’s mayor is actually calling this by a far more mundane phrase: policy changes.

But reading down the list, many or most of which have already been implemented, it’s possible to capture a sense of history. The list was “developed by the city’s Homelessness Strategies Department, incorporating feedback from people with lived experience.”

It reflects what may have recently been unthinking and uncaring community behaviours that were inflicted upon the people who are experiencing homelessness. The policy changes represent a victory, of sorts, for human decency and compassion. Indeed, whether described by dry bureaucratic language as “policy changes,” or overhyped (maybe a little) as a “bill of rights,” important basic protections are set forth for this extremely vulnerable (and in California, distressingly large) group of people.

There are a great many jurisdictions worldwide that are coming to grips with an explosion of homelessness and could well do with the enlightenment1 of San Diego’s “policy changes.”

Read more at NBC San Diego:  San Diego Mayor Announces Policy Changes To Homeless Encampment Cleanups

Meanwhile…

Just 200 kilometres (120 miles) up the road in Los Angeles, a neighbourhood park has been closed and surrounded by a fence. The official reason? Upgrades to equipment. And what happened to all the people who were living in the park? Outreach workers offered temporary accommodation in hotels. This suited some, but wasn’t a good fit for others who either left the hotels or didn’t accept the temporary accommodation in the first place.

As described in Slate, the closure in LA would appear to conform to San Diego’s policy changes. On the other hand, a whole new set of questions are raised by the article. If we’re looking at the birth of a homeless bill of rights here in California, there is still a long way to go. Read more in Slate: L.A. Cleared One of Its Largest Homeless Encampments. Is It the Start of a Crackdown?

 

Footnotes

  1. For an example of two intertwined governments on the far side of the world with conflicted homelessness policies, try: WA State Exasperated By City Council Compassion For Homeless Encampment