SAN FRANCISCO — Andrew Douglass shoved his garments and belongings into plastic trash luggage as 5 law enforcement officials surrounded his encampment — a colorless grey tent overflowing alongside a bustling sidewalk within the gritty Tenderloin neighborhood, the place homeless individuals lie sprawled on public sidewalks, generally in drug overdoses.
Officers gave him a selection: Go to a shelter or get arrested and cited for sleeping outdoors.
Douglass was attempting to determine what to do as he dismantled his tent. If he accepted momentary shelter, he’d danger lacking an vital appointment together with his avenue drugs case supervisor, who was as a consequence of meet him at his tent within the morning to assist him safe a low-income housing unit with wraparound providers — and he nervous about dropping his drugs, ID, and different very important paperwork once more in one other homeless sweep.
Douglass, who didn’t have a working cellphone, knew if he moved from the place he’d slept for months, his case supervisor may not be capable of discover him. “I’m so close to getting housing. I need to be here tomorrow morning so I can try and get inside,” he mentioned, attempting to motive with officers as he was handcuffed and arrested for unlawful lodging.
California, the epicenter of the U.S. homelessness disaster, is cracking down on individuals residing outdoors like by no means earlier than, taking an aggressive new stance to dismantling and clearing homeless encampments within the wake of a watershed U.S. Supreme Court ruling in late June that makes it easier for presidency companies to tremendous and arrest individuals for residing on streets and sidewalks, in broken-down automobiles, or inside public parks — even when there is no such thing as a shelter or housing accessible. From San Francisco to Los Angeles, communities are launching cleanup operations, ratcheting up enforcement of current anticamping legal guidelines, and, in some locations, passing new laws to attempt to forestall individuals from residing outdoor.
On the bottom, well being care specialists and homeless service suppliers say the legislation enforcement crackdown is undercutting taxpayer investments in evidence-based therapy and housing providers which might be being deployed by cities and states across the nation as politicians look to the well being care system to aggressively transfer individuals off the streets.
The sweeps — which have taken off beneath Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who issued an govt order in late July requiring state companies to take away encampments and inspiring native governments to do the identical — have unleashed chaos for homeless individuals and are breaking essential connections with well being care suppliers, social service companies, and housing navigators attempting to assist them get wholesome and off the streets.
Newsom’s hard-line stance is undermining his signature Medicaid initiative, known as CalAIM, which dedicates $12 billion over 5 years partly to serving to homeless individuals obtain well being care, housing, and social providers. The experimental program, meant to stabilize essentially the most weak and maintain low-income sufferers out of pricey institutional care in hospitals, jails, and nursing properties, as an illustration, launched in early 2022 with backing from the Biden administration, and offers state and nationwide well being care funding to avenue drugs groups, hospitals, medical insurance firms, neighborhood clinics, and different organizations to serve homeless individuals.
It comes as Newsom introduced this month that his well being secretary, Mark Ghaly, who has spearheaded the state’s infusion of social providers for homeless individuals into the well being care system, could be stepping down.
Encampment clearings are additionally upheaving long-standing federal well being insurance policies that provide billions of {dollars} annually to street medicine providers, case administration groups, and front-line neighborhood clinic staff, together with by the nationwide “Health Care for the Homeless” program, which can also be aimed toward serving to homeless individuals get wholesome and navigate a path to everlasting housing.
Newsom has been emphatic that streets should not a house and that it’s unsafe to let individuals stay outdoors amid public well being hazards like rats, drug needles, and piles of trash. The second-term governor, who has threatened to withhold homelessness funding from communities that fail to point out sufficient progress, argues that his insurance policies are serving to get individuals long-term housing and providers.
“There are simply no more excuses,” Newsom mentioned in July.
San Francisco Public Works crews dismantle and clear a sprawling homeless encampment within the metropolis’s Tenderloin neighborhood.(Angela Hart/KFF Health News)
Health care suppliers and homelessness specialists say the result’s a slow-moving well being care disaster instigated by the very Democratic politicians touting the necessity for care and providers round California, house to extra homeless individuals than some other state within the nation.
No place goes as onerous as San Francisco, a fiercely liberal metropolis that has lengthy embraced its fame as a spot the place homeless individuals may discover refuge and strong providers.
Now, case managers, housing navigators, and avenue drugs groups say weak individuals are rising sicker amid the crackdown and that a lot of their sufferers have merely disappeared. Others have misplaced drugs and significant paperwork like start certificates and Social Security playing cards, setting again efforts to stabilize individuals with housing, psychological well being providers, and habit therapy. Front-line suppliers right here say the town has change into a evident instance of homelessness coverage gone unsuitable.
“All the sweeps and arrests are doing is moving people to the next sidewalk and disrupting their continuity of care. It’s a huge waste of resources,” mentioned Shannon Heuklom, a main care supplier and an skilled in avenue drugs for the San Francisco Community Health Center, with a clinic nestled within the coronary heart of the Tenderloin.
“Some portion of folks may end up in a shelter, but for the most part the city is just moving them all around and making them more unwell, making their mental health worse, making their physical health worse,” she mentioned.
Disrupted Care
Douglass argues with officers from the San Francisco Police Department, who ordered him to dismantle his encampment and settle for shelter, or he’d be arrested and cited for unlawful lodging. He feared dropping his drugs and different belongings.(Angela Hart/KFF Health News)
In the Tenderloin, Douglass was frantic. Police informed him and his spouse, Jasmine Byron, and one other accomplice, Christina Richardson, that they might keep away from arrest in the event that they went into a large congregate shelter. But they’d need to sacrifice most of their stuff, taking simply two luggage every. They’d already misplaced lifesaving drugs, together with for epilepsy, in a earlier camp clearing. And Douglass had lastly changed his ID and bronchial asthma treatment; he didn’t need extra stuff thrown away amid the chaos.
On this early August morning, Douglass opted to stick with his belongings. The trio are a part of about 70 homeless arrests in San Francisco because the metropolis’s mayor, London Breed, ratcheted up cleanup operations to start with of August following the Supreme Court’s resolution in late June, in line with San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky.
“We’re here to enforce the law,” mentioned Lt. Wayman Young, one of many 5 officers. “We get a lot of complaints: People can’t use the sidewalk; there’s a lot of garbage.”
As the three have been separated and cuffed, a lady driving by caught her palms out her window and clapped, cheering the sidewalk arrest and yelled “Thank you!” A passerby in a wheelchair averted the tense standoff by rolling right into a visitors lane, dodging automobiles as he seemed for a vacant part of sidewalk to make use of.
Christina Richardson and Jasmine Byron, who’re homeless in San Francisco, are arrested and cited in early August for illegally residing outdoor amid a legislation enforcement crackdown ordered by San Francisco Mayor London Breed.(Angela Hart/KFF Health News)
Douglass missed his housing appointment the morning after his arrest, confirmed his avenue drugs case supervisor, Justin Jackson from the San Francisco Community Health Center. Amid his tossed belongings have been his ID card, which is required to get into housing, so he was again in line on the clinic the following day filling out a Department of Motor Vehicles voucher kind to interchange it totally free.
Because Douglass is homeless and on Medi-Cal, California’s model of Medicaid, he’s eligible for CalAIM providers that help homeless sufferers with discovering a everlasting place to stay, in addition to serving to to cowl safety deposits and utility payments. CalAIM also offers eviction prevention help, and subsequent 12 months California is predicted so as to add a brand new Medi-Cal profit offering up to six months of free hire or momentary housing.
But together with his paperwork thrown away, his eligibility for housing was delayed.
Front-line staff at the moment are spending immense time and sources serving to individuals substitute valuables like drugs, Social Security playing cards, and start certificates misplaced as a consequence of sweeps. They discover sufferers are skipping routine well being care and spot an uptick in drug use, anxiousness, and melancholy.
“This is just making homelessness worse,” mentioned Evelyn Peña, a CalAIM care supervisor on the Mission Neighborhood Health Center in San Francisco.
Taylor Cuffaro, a nurse practitioner and avenue drugs supplier with the San Francisco Community Health Center, trudged the streets of the Tenderloin with Eli Benway, a licensed medical social employee who offers speak remedy and different behavioral well being therapy on the road, looking for sufferers on a vivid August afternoon.
Some wanted assist managing persistent illnesses and psychological well being situations. Others have been due for antipsychotic injectables that last more than capsule drugs. Some wanted refills of HIV drugs.
“Health insurance companies aren’t just going to give you more medication,” Cuffaro mentioned. “That’s not how it works, so people really are at risk of dying faster.”
Part of what’s being squandered is belief, which is significant for getting individuals off the streets. “These sweeps are just making our job impossible,” Cuffaro mentioned, looking unsuccessfully for a affected person in an alley.
Nurse practitioner Taylor Cuffaro, a avenue drugs supplier with the San Francisco Community Health Center, helps a homeless lady writhing on the highway.(Angela Hart/KFF Health News)
Politics of Homelessness
The statewide crackdown is taking part in out regardless of a growing body of evidence displaying that offering strong well being care, together with social providers and intensive case administration, can successfully transfer homeless individuals off the streets and enhance well being, whereas additionally saving taxpayer and well being care spending on pricey institutional care.
Democrats are embracing a get-tough strategy as public persistence wears skinny over the intractable disaster. Newsom’s stance will not be totally new: During his tenure as San Francisco mayor, from 2004 to 2011, he spearheaded controversial homelessness concepts, together with an ordinance often called sit/lie, which made it illegal to take a seat or lie on public sidewalks.
Newsom and native leaders, together with Breed, say they have to stability making certain public security and clear streets with a humane strategy to clearing camps, whereas attempting to get individuals indoors. Breed administration officers argue that whereas some homeless individuals do settle for shelter, many are opting to remain on the streets whereas declining therapy.
“People won’t accept shelter, and they won’t follow up on their medical care or behavioral health treatment or any of that, often because they need to stay and monitor their belongings, some of which are totally soiled and becoming a health hazard,” mentioned David Nakanishi, a medical social employee who heads the Breed administration’s Healthy Streets Operation Center, which spearheads the sweeps.
In Los Angeles, in the meantime, avenue drugs supplier Brett Feldman is dropping his sufferers amid the sweeps. “It really undermines our housing efforts,” he mentioned.
A metropolis report released in May discovered that clearing camps and imposing anticamping legal guidelines that ban individuals from sleeping, sitting, or preserving belongings on sidewalks in sure delicate areas, together with college zones, parks, or freeway underpasses, will not be successfully serving to individuals into housing. After spending roughly $3 million imposing anticamping legal guidelines from 2021 to 2023, the report discovered, the town positioned simply two individuals into everlasting housing and 81% of encampment websites have been repopulated.
Eli Benway (standing at left), a licensed medical social employee and avenue drugs supplier, and nurse practitioner Taylor Cuffaro (far proper) attend to a homeless lady who has been in a medical disaster on the streets. (Angela Hart/KFF Health News)
San Francisco Public Works crews clear up a homeless encampment. (Angela Hart/KFF Health News)
In one central Los Angeles district the place legislation enforcement will not be aggressively imposing anticamping legal guidelines, avenue homelessness fell roughly 38% in a one-year interval from 2023 to 2024, mentioned Indu Subaiya, interim CEO for the nonprofit Healthcare in Action, which has been housing and treating sufferers there.
“We’re starting to actually see results and reductions in unsheltered homelessness,” Subaiya mentioned. “However, in Southern California counties aggressively enforcing Newsom’s executive order and clearing encampments, we’re seeing our patients and their medical conditions set back profoundly.”
Once Douglass was launched, he was again within the Tenderloin attempting to find housing and popping his tent up the road from his earlier hangout.
“Every time I try to get my documents to get housing, I get knocked backwards,” he mentioned. “I guess the city thinks we all need to be in handcuffs.”
By the following morning, the encampment had grown twice in measurement.
Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom overlaying public well being revealed by Civic News Company and KFF Health News. Sign up for its newsletters here.
This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially unbiased service of the California Health Care Foundation.
Angela Hart:
[email protected],
@ahartreports
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