California needs a serious approach. Adequate shelter could be deployed in a matter of single-digit months to get everyone off the street. Focus on that tangible win. It should be clear that the public commons will never, ever be up for grabs again.
At the same time, we need a ruthless crackdown on the metro regions that thumb their nose at the state's housing needs. The state should pass a 'shall issue' rule for new permits which stipulate that if state-level requirements are met, permits are automatically granted. Combine this with a severe paring-down of California Environmental Quality Act rules and a de-fanging of the California Coastal Commission. If we're not pushing every NIMBY in the state into a clinical depression, we're not trying hard enough.
Measuring success based on how much you're torturing your political opponents is a serious mistake that will lead you to doing things that aren't actually solving anything. Instead, it will lead you to do things based on whether or not it upsets people you don't like regardless of whether or not those things are actually advancing your agenda.
Better is to measure success based on whether or not you see an improvement to the problem you're addressing.
- Lack of affordable housing
- Lack of stable, livable-wage jobs
- Lack of accessible mental health care
- Lack of adequate retirement support (fixed incomes that can’t keep up)
That’s why most governments struggle with this - it’s not just one problem, it’s a web of them. And honestly, it seems like Newsom would rather sweep it under the rug rather than untangle it.
No, no, no. You've simply listed another layer of symptoms.
What about the root causes of your list of symptoms? The breakdown of family units. The rise of mental illness and addictions, intractable for in-family caregivers. The aging of America, declining fertility rates and general hostility to childbearing. Rising student debts from college and underemployment. Enforcement of suburban living, long commutes, "car culture" when few can actually afford cars. Feminism forcing women into every workplace, whether they want it or not, displacing men and driving down the overall household income.
We could dig further into this, but your central thesis is exactly correct: homelessness is a symptom, and we cannot attack the symptom by rounding up the homeless and insisting that they need homes. Or can we?
I did not expect the serious discussion about homelessness to devolve into a hilarious claim that it's because the women yearn for the kitchens. Thanks for lightening things up!
- More men fending for themselves without a wife or homemaker to prepare meals, clean, shop, care for children at home. Are boys being prepared for this adult reality?
- More women needing to stand on their own two feet, rather than relying on a male protector, breadwinner, supporter at home. Must a woman also fend for herself in the workplace, while she's cooking, cleaning, and raising children at home? That seems inhuman to me.
- In the face of rising addictions and mental illness, divorce is an easy-out and welfare is your safety net, rather than family. So an abused, divorced woman imperils herself and may wind up on the streets. Any man who can't hold down a job and a household is likewise imperiled. At least he doesn't need to worry about child care?
- If women do not yearn for the kitchens then men are certainly displaced from careers and jobs that were once available to them. Can you imagine unemployment literally doubling? If you go from zero women needing to work, to all women needing to work, does this not affect men's status? Must we send women into combat, into coal mines, and onto oil rigs?
> More men fending for themselves without a wife or homemaker to prepare meals, clean, shop, care for children at home. Are boys being prepared for this adult reality?
Men are not entitled to a domestic slave, lmao. It's sad that boys would be coddled to the point that the can't perform basic adult tasks. I was raised in a pretty conservative household and I was cooking, cleaning, shopping, looking after younger kids. This is basic human core competency stuff. Pathetic to put forward a claim that these things the job of one gender.
That's not the goal, but it will be a symptom of successfully solving the problem.
The goal should be for the wages of a minimum wage job (working no more than 40 hours per week) to cover a month's rent on an apartment, with 60% of the wages left over after paying that rent. No more, no less.
Possibly, but not necessarily. Regardless, it's a very poor proxy for measuring success.
mitchbob•5h ago