Recent articles in the Santa Monica Daily Press have explored several aspects of homelessness in Santa Monica. At present, many of the efforts by governments and concerned citizens address the current problem. But, we need to realize that the homeless of today will soon be joined by a new wave of homeless.
In this article I hope to address primary socioeconomic factors that I see as the potential root causes of homelessness. The whack-a-mole strategy of removing homeless from one encampment, only to have another encampment emerge, is not a solution to the problem, it’s a feature of it.
In an ideal world, we would start with treatment of substance abuse and mental illness in a compassionate setting, with housing integrated with counseling and long-term guidance, for those who need it. Providing housing alone ignores the reality that many homeless can’t function independently given their addiction and mental issues. Next steps should include assistance in seeking employment opportunities, which will ultimately lead to independent living in their own home.
When we criminalize homelessness, we expect the justice system to solve the problems. In truth, criminalization creates a revolving door of arrest, release, and repeat crime. Currently, it is reported that ⅔ of all police arrests in Santa Monica are due to homelessness, for petty criminal activity, violent crimes, or just existing on the streets where they shouldn’t be. Instead of productive citizens in our community, they become an economic burden to not only the police, but also to the paramedics who respond, to the hospitals that treat them, and to the judicial system that adjudicates their criminal behavior.
And let’s not fall into the trap of thinking that having more affordable housing is going to solve the homeless problem-it isn’t. The affordable housing solution is clearly gaslighting by people who should know better.
California with 40+ million people, about 12% of the total US population of 325 million, has 1⁄3 of the total homeless in the nation. We appear to be the destination of choice because of our weather and perhaps because of our benevolent humanitarian efforts that we’ve made to treat homeless. We have more to do, but we’re not alone.
We need to realize that nothing done in Santa Monica will solve the national homeless problem, where many of the solutions face strong opposition elsewhere in the US. This includes such things as higher minimum wages, universal health coverage, full voting rights, less regressive taxation, and the elimination of all racial discrimination and intimidation. There’s a lot of work to be done at the national level, but only until we accept the reality of our current situation will we be able to shut off the pipeline of homelessness. So, let’s dive into the root causes: Racism, Inequality, and Healthcare.
Racism
Perhaps the number one reason for homelessness is racism! It’s hard to argue that racism is not the root cause. Slavery, and the culture that emerged, ensured that racism would create two populations with unequal rights with Blacks lacking standing in the eyes of the Courts. Instead, they were originally considered second class "citizenry" at best, with rights no better than farm animals, bought, sold, and even killed at their owner’s discretion. Furthermore, having children with slave mothers produced new slaves to enrich the slave holder.
The history of Civil Rights has many twists and turns, often with Constitutional Amendments, soon morphing into tragic events. After the Confederacy lost in 1865, there began a period of reconstruction in which the rights of Blacks were expanded: they were now free. As Black voices influenced government actions, the Jim Crow era started where voting rights were restricted by a variety of means, including poll taxes and many literacy tests that excluded most Blacks, and many Whites as well.
Soon, the way to control the Black voices came through fear and intimidation. After the Civil War, there were over 4,000 lynchings of Black people continuing until the 1950s. The obvious intent of lynchings was to intimidate Blacks into accepting their inferior position in the hierarchy of our society. And let’s not forget the current dog whistle of intimidation, the Confederate flag.
So, how does this cause homelessness? Discrimination for Blacks begins at an early age, and it continues as Blacks enter the workforce, where they meet discrimination in hiring. This leads to lower income, poverty and living in areas that are relatively undesirable, with limited healthy food sources, and with education systems that are willfully inadequate and separate but clearly not equal. We end up with de facto segregated communities with few opportunities for work. And if work is available, discrimination in hiring ensures that Blacks retain their second-class status.
To escape from this environment and seek opportunities elsewhere, Blacks often seek hiring by the government, which is by law colorblind, or by joining the military. It is no surprise that people of color represent approximately half of armed forces personnel. With few opportunities for Blacks in rural areas, in areas with little, or no commerce, and in inner cities where many jobs require educated workers this is not surprising. Still, in-spite-of government hiring and military service, the majority of homeless are people of color.
On the national level, we are thankfully seeing changes such as the renaming of all military bases named after Confederate leaders. In 2021, on the heels of the George Floyd protests against police brutality, Congress established the Naming Commission, which aimed to examine the ways in which the US military has continued to commemorate, honor, and memorialize the Confederacy, and provided recommendations to remove and rename all US Department of Defense facilities and memorabilia that commemorate the Confederate States of America, or any person, who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America.
Further, the Arlington National Cemetery made plans for removing and relocating the Arlington Confederate Memorial, a monument placed in the cemetery in 1914 by the Daughters of the Confederacy. This memorial was removed in December 2023.
My personal feeling is that we shouldn’t cancel the culture and expunge our memory of the Confederacy, but instead place all the monuments and symbols in museums so that we can understand our history and not repeat it. We should forgive, but never forget.
Inequality
One of the measures of inequality used by economists is the Gini coefficient which calculates the amount of inequality throughout a society. The US is a clear outlier with some of the greatest disparities in incomes, which parallels the levels of wealth. What’s worse is the trickle-down of government funding at the state level, where many states provide incredible benefits for businesses while under-spending for housing, education, healthcare and creating opportunities for all.
According to US data from 2022, the average median income is $74,600. For the White non-Hispanic population, the median income is $81,100. For Hispanic workers, the median income is $62,800, whereas for Blacks the income is $52,900. Are the disparities due to education levels, or something else?
So where does the US stand regarding wealth inequality? In 2023, the top 10% of the population had 69% of total wealth, whereas the bottom 50% had 2.5%. In 1989, the top 10% held 60%. The reality is that half of Americans have too few financial resources to weather financial setbacks, like losing one’s job or becoming ill, and then amassing medical debts resulting in bankruptcy, and perhaps even losing one’s home and becoming homeless.
Many countries in northern Europe have both low inequality and significantly higher happiness than other societies in the world. The social safety net is much stronger, and everyone feels they are getting a fair shake. In many of these countries higher education is free to all. We need to level the playing field in education and expand available opportunities. Given what we are doing in the US, it seems like we don’t want everyone to be happy.
Unionization of workers and increases in minimum wages have been vehemently opposed for decades by conservative governments which seems to prefer having a second class of citizens who will work for lower wages. As fast-food workers in some states won the right for improved wages through unionization or public pressure, some state governments have overruled this action by preventing such increases in wages for food workers. In essence, they’re perpetuating inequality.
Healthcare
The lack of appropriate healthcare is another cause of homelessness today. For example, the State of California closed many of its mental institutions in the 1980s and attempts to create sustainable local clinics never materialized. So today we are faced with mentally ill homeless people on the streets committing crimes. Many have schizophrenia with delusional thinking, or PTSD with paranoia, none of which is successfully treatable on the streets.
Once incarcerated for their crimes, they seldom receive the kind of care they need, and inevitably return to the streets unable to be productive members of society. We saved the cost of mental health facilities and traded it for the cost of crime and many ruined lives. In the absence of mental health treatment, the cost of lost opportunities for the homeless is staggering.
The war on drugs, often referred to as the "second Jim Crow", had unintended consequences. Its professed aim was to stop drug use within inner cities, often imprisoning people for victimless crimes, such as marijuana possession. According to the DEA and Federal government, marijuana is a Schedule I drug supposedly without medical benefit. Not true. Scientific research today empirically shows that marijuana does have medical benefits.
Once released, former inmates often have no skills, little education or money. If they’ve been convicted of a felony, the vast majority cannot vote. They do not receive housing support, and they have difficulty in finding work. In essence, the punitive system engenders homelessness even though the released person completed their sentence for the crimes they committed.
Even though we have Medicare, Medicaid (Medical in California), and Obamacare, we don’t have universal healthcare for all. It is estimated that a third of the people in California have some form of medical debt. And medical debt is often the number one cause for people to declare bankruptcy and subsequently lose their home. Why is this? From a recent personal experience, an MRI was billed at $2,730, of which Medicare and my supplemental insurance paid $236 and my co-pay was $20. For an uninsured patient, they would receive a $2,730 bill.
What’s worse is that our healthcare system in the US costs an estimated 17% of GDP, significantly more costly than all the other developed countries in the OECD, where the average cost of healthcare is in the 10% to 12% of GDP range. In our $27.4 trillion GDP economy (2023), the cost penalty is massive: a five-percentage point penalty (17% versus 12%) is equivalent to an astounding $1.4 trillion.
While the US compares well with other countries in the OECD for longevity, we need to understand that we basically have two separate populations in the US regarding healthcare: those who have some form of health insurance, such as through an employer, or through government-run systems, and those who don’t. In many states in the US, the state governments have rejected Obamacare and the Medicaid option that would come with it.
Hence, we clearly see that institutionalized racism and inequality in education, employment, and legislation created a situation in the US where we produce and perpetuate homelessness. We need to do better and fix this.
Roger Swanson
