Conservatives to the Rescue in California Homeless Crisis

Homelessness in California reaching peak figures – most recent Point in Time count in Sacramento County reveals 5,570 people currently homeless, 19 percent more than in 2017.

Though the Point in Time numbers aren’t completely true – certain families or individuals that are “couch surfing” or sleeping over at a friend’s garage or paying their motels are not considered homeless. Through the U.S. Department of Education’s more flexible definition of a homeless family it shows a much worse situation than expected – while data for 2017-18 is not yet available, studies show that in the 2016-17 school year, roughly 42,000 children in California were going through homelessness, which is a 19 percent increase over the previous six years.

From what has been put out as numbers so far, it’s not implausible to say the situation will just keep worsening and the number of homeless families will continue to increase.

“The president is extremely concerned about this because of the epidemic that could occur and so we’re looking at both short term and long term,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said on Monday.

“We have to actually get the people out of there. Put them in a clean place,” he added.

Although Carson later said these are local problems, help from the federal government will definitely be there, with a motivating factor being “compassion”.

“But as a compassionate society, it is something that we have to do. Something about we can’t just talk about it,” Carson said, hinting that action will be taken instead of only commenting on the issue.

Individual problems can arise from experiencing homelessness – many children who have been homeless grow up with mental illness, anxiety, depression, some are more likely to be aggressive – the trauma only deepens as they grow when the problem isn’t addressed.

The city of Sacramento has acknowledged this problem and $1 million of its 2019-20 homelessness budget will go for the needs of homeless families and children.