California Housing Crisis Needs Structural Solutions, Not Quick Fixes

California’s Housing Crisis Needs Structural Solutions, Not Quick Fixes
The visible effects of California’s housing crisis are apparent to anyone who walks down the street in any major city. Makeshift encampments abound, and an increasing number of seniors and disabled people are forced to live outside. It is unsurprising that residents and politicians want to do “something, anything” to immediately address this humanitarian disaster.
Unfortunately, our impulse for immediate action has led to short-sighted policy-making and a focus on short-term measures. These often treat being unhoused as a crime -- wasting valuable resources and causing serious harm.
In my role at the ACLU SoCal, I represent unhoused clients, many of whom are older adults with disabilities, whose rights have been violated simply for existing outside.
As one example, we are currently challenging the City of San Bernardino’s destruction of unhoused people’s property and violations of disability rights. One plaintiff, who uses a wheelchair and has a service dog, could not move her belongings after being ordered to do so. When she asked for help, the city destroyed her walker, documents, and other belongings. In another case we helped argue on appeal last month, the City of Sacramento endangered unhoused people by bulldozing their encampments in triple-digit heat.
These cases, as well as Grants Pass v. Johnson currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, illustrate the harmful consequences of doing “something, anything” to move unhoused people from public view-addressing the visible symptoms of the housing crisis without solving the underlying causes. “Quick fixes” like criminalizing unhoused people only make the problem worse.
To solve our state’s housing crisis, we need to think about housing differently. In some ways, we need to revisit New Deal-era political will. Franklin Delano Roosevelt spurred the first investments in public housing and proudly proclaimed that every American has the right to a decent home. This view of housing as a human right is essential because it acknowledges the role of government in fulfilling this right.
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00:00 Introduction
04:53 Housing as a Human Right
07:54 Housing Crisis
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ACLU Attorney Kath Rogers gives a detailed rundown of the Housing as a Human Right movement, including what government policies over past decades created our current houselessness calamity.