letter to the editor

Letter to the Editor: Questions About Engardio’s Plans for the Homeless

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Editor:

In his most recent essay “Why Tents Can’t Be Removed,” Supervisor Joel Engardio once more transforms fantasy into reality. Engardio brands a judge’s ruling as “nonsensical.” Why? According to Engardio this is because tents cannot be removed when no alternative shelter is available for the entire population. Let us be clear: Shelters are a temporary solution and do not suit the needs of many. What other solutions are Engardio putting into place?

Engardio admits that 40% (an estimate which may well be too low) of the unhoused will be forced to move their tent – if it and their other belongings are not confiscated and even resold – to some other location people would rather not see them in because shelter beds are not sufficient. He complains of legal claims against the City, claims which pale in comparison to the $70 million paid out to settle 1,750 police malfeasance lawsuits from 2010 to May, 2023.

We need to house these people in dignity; shelters need to be only a temporary solution. Many unhoused individuals do not find that shelters meet their needs. We need to understand why and make accommodations whenever possible. Sweeps are morally unconscionable, and it is shameful that Breed, Haney and others have had tents removed before they were coming to an area.

Engardio’s solution is to not have a workable plan. Engardio wishes to herd the unhoused into parking lots at windy Candlestick. Free will does not enter into it. Nor does the availability of employment, who would fund the project, the wishes of neighbors, and so on.

Engardio is absolutely correct on one point: The government, not homeowners, should be repairing our sidewalks (and removing all graffiti), and homeowners should have regulations regarding benches and “decorative” fences better explained to them so that they do not unknowingly flaunt the law and regulations. Our less fortunate neighbors need not just care and shelter but care and shelter that work for them and meet their needs.

Harry S. Pariser

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  3. The largest study in decades of the homeless situation was recently just released.
    You should read it instead of recycling talking points involving mythology.

    https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/california-homelessness-study-18152805.php

    *Contrary to the “myth of homeless migration,” the report said, 90% of participants lost their last housing, where they lived for at least a month, in California, and 75% still lived in the same county. Of those whose last housing was in California, the median stay was a year, with 9% living there for less than three months. A majority of participants — 66% — were born in California.

    *Nearly half of the participants were over the age of 50, with the median age 47.

    *Black and Native American groups were overrepresented, with 26% of participants reporting Black as one of their racial identities compared with 7% of the state’s population. Similarly, 12% of participants identified Native American/Alaskan Native as one of their racial identities, despite being only 3% of California’s population.

    *More than 1 in 5 people cited a loss of income as the main economic reason they lost their last housing. All participants were disconnected from the job market and services, although almost half were looking for work. Some participants lost their jobs after becoming homeless for reasons such as their car getting towed, Kushel said.

    *People can become homeless with very little warning: The median length of time that people had warning they would become homeless if they held a lease was 10 days, but the median amount of time for people who did not have a lease, such as staying with family, was one day.

    *Nearly 1 in 5 entered homelessness after spending at least three months in an institution, including jail, prison or a drug treatment program, and of those, few received transition services upon release.

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    • That study suffers from serious selection bias. It only included homeless who agreed to fill out their long survey. That systematically excludes people with drug or mental health issues, or who simply don’t think there’s much point to talking to yet another bunch of academic researchers.

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      • The study’s staff surveyed 3,198 participants statewide and conducted 365 in-depth interviews from October 2021 to November 2022. Researchers used statistical methods to ensure the individuals were representative of California and to calculate statewide estimates.

        All data is subject to selection bias. The best you can do is ensure the sample is represented proportionally to the larger population, which is what this study did do. There is also no proof or reason to believe that those who were not-included in the study were any more or less afflicted with drug or mental health issues. Why would that skew the population origin statistics anyway?

        3,198 people is a large enough sample to mitigate the selection bias to which you are using to pooh pooh the aggregate statistics that I listed in my earlier post. The rates of the non-included individuals are highly unlikely to deviate from the rates obtained by the participants in the study. A 20% statistic might mean within 18% to 22% for example, but that is really statistically insignificant.

        And seriously, so what. The data collected by this study is representative of those who were in the sample. If the selection bias means excluding a large number of drug and mental health persons, that really is irrelevant for the statistics I listed above concerning the origins and economic conditions creating homelessness.

        Or go read the report yourself.

        Click to access CASPEH_Report_62023.pdf

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