The endemic problem of homelessness in California is well known and has been a growing issue for quite a few years. In addition to the dangers faced by the homeless themselves, the public has grown increasingly alarmed at the surges that have been seen in crime, drug trafficking, drug abuse, sexual assaults, and everything else that comes along with large, semi-permanent homeless encampments. Unfortunately, it’s a daunting problem that the government has been completely unable to make a significant dent in, particularly in the larger, urban areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco.
But San Mateo County has announced a bold new approach that they claim will deliver real results and do so remarkably quickly. In fact, they claim they will be able to reduce their homeless population to zero and have a roof over everyone’s heads by the end of this year. It’s a laudable goal and it would be amazing to see, but how do they plan to do it? Well, San Mateo has far fewer homeless people than the large cities, so they are bundling up all the funding they can get and purchasing a number of empty hotels. They will move all of the homeless into those rooms and tend to them there. After this brief excerpt from the LA Times explaining the details, we’ll discuss how this approach is about to totally blow up in their faces.