Governor Newsom referred to California freeways and underpasses as "too damn dirty" at his May press conference for the state budget revision, which detailed unprecedented action to address homelessness in California.
This sounds similar to “The Rent is Too Damn High”, a slogan popularized by New York politician Jimmy McMillan. Although we cannot argue with that - the rent is just too damn high.
However, the governor didn't focus on the price of rent - rather on the danger and unproductiveness of the homeless people.
Housing and Homelessness Crisis
The state in California is far from perfect from this perspective.
Inequitable housing policies, incredibly high rents, lack of safe, stable, and affordable housing, high costs of living, and low wages, are some of the factors that dictate the housing chaos.
If you add gentrification, displacement, and a global health crisis, you can see where is this going.
The idea is not to clean the areas of the homeless, rather help them by taking meaningful actions.
One of the governor's proposals was to partner with CalTrans for freeway underpass cleaning. It could be especially troublesome, given CalTrans’ history of engaging in illegal sweeps that displace already vulnerable communities.
Sweeps traumatize, harass, and victimize our unhoused neighbors; they’ve also caused over $5.5 million dollars in settlement lawsuits.
Violence against unhoused people is a major problem in California, and “dirty” rhetoric perpetuates it.
Hope is High
With the largest budget windfall in California history, we can spare the extra dollars to support our unhoused neighbors, not sweep them under the rug
There were already big problems in the past, and they were solved.
We don't need insults; rather empathy from our elected official.
The budget we have is just incredible. Let's use it to make the overall state a bit better.
California can be better than this. We all can help.