The National Health Care for the Homeless Council is appalled at California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order last week that authorizes statewide encampment sweeps of unhoused people while making no requirements for connecting people to permanent housing. Thousands of low-income Californians are now subject to even greater rates of harassment, arrests, and fines —simply because they have nowhere else to go. Unfortunately, other communities are now emboldened to take similar measures. This is reprehensible and does nothing to end homelessness.
Poor health and medical debt drive many people into homelessness, and once a person experiences homelessness, their existing health conditions get worse and new conditions emerge. Further, being unhoused makes it much harder to engage in care and become well again. Encampment sweeps cause many harms, including severing the relationships forged with street medicine, mobile health, and other health care providers. In turn, this causes higher rates of hospitalizations and premature deaths. Simply put: Homelessness is hazardous to health, and sweeps kill.
There must be an active, two-track solution to both reduce the harm to unsheltered people while also moving them toward permanent housing. Our new issue brief reflects the reality that more communities are experimenting with “sanctioned encampments,” which we call Temporary Supported Communities, or TSCs. This term emphasizes the temporary nature of these spaces, the support needed to stabilize and move people to permanent housing, and the community that forms among those living together.
The issue brief is organized around three goals, each focusing on vital practices:
- Increasing Safety, Security, and Greater Stability
- Expanding Connections to Care
- Establishing Stronger Pathways to Permanent Housing
Homelessness itself is the direct result of longstanding conscious public policy choices rooted in systemic racial and social injustice. Hence, Black, Brown, and Indigenous people will experience even greater harms from public and police harassment, sweeps, arrests, and fines — pushing the goal of housing even further out of reach.
We challenge local jurisdictions to adopt a two-track solution by stopping encampment sweeps, reducing harm using the specific strategies in our brief, and moving people into permanent housing. Everyone in our community deserves better.
“I feel like I have a calmer spirit here, and I don’t have to run here or there. Every day I get something accomplished that is positive. This is a starting step for me — I’m practicing having my own apartment and that gives me hope.”
— TSC Resident
“As much as we want to work to end homelessness, as healthcare providers, we’ll continue to go where our patients are.”
— HCH Provider
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Homepage thumbnail photo by Mike Blake, Reuters