Housing Advocates Respond To 'Crackdown' On California Homelessness, 'Internment Camps'

[appalachiablue]

Last edited Thu Sep 12, 2019, 04:57 AM - Edit history (1)

'Internment Camps for the Homeless': Housing Advocates Horrified by Trump Push for 'Crackdown' on California Homelessness. "Further efforts to criminalize or otherwise harm people experiencing homelessness are unconscionable." Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, Sept. 11, 2019.

Following reports that President Donald Trump is pushing for a "major crackdown" on homelessness in California that could include destroying existing encampments and moving homeless people into government-backed facilities, state lawmakers and progressive housing advocates said the administration's proposed steps are cruel, politically motivated, and would do nothing to address the very real crisis Trump has exacerbated.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Trump ordered White House officials to begin work on a "sweeping effort" to address the homelessness crisis in California. As part of the new initiative, Trump administration officials from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Justice Department visited California this week for meetings and tours.

"Among the ideas under consideration are razing existing tent camps for the homeless, creating new temporary facilities, and refurbishing existing government facilities," the Post reported, citing officials familiar with the effort. "Housing experts say homelessness in California has risen alongside housing and rental prices," the Post noted. "That problem has been exacerbated by cuts to federal support for housing programs."



- A pedestrian walks by homeless tents on the sidewalk in downtown Los Angeles, May, 2019.

Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said the early stages of Trump's effort, as well as his past policy moves, demonstrate that the White House is "clearly not acting in good faith to end homelessness." "They've proposed drastically shrinking or eliminating federal programs that keep the lowest-income people affordably housed; tripling rents for the lowest-income subsidized residents and raising rents for all others; evicting 100,000 people, including 55,000 American children, from subsidized housing; and allowing homeless shelters to discriminate and refuse shelter to transgender and other LGBTQ people," said Yentel.

"The solution to homelessness is affordable homes," Yentel added, "not further criminalization, punishing poor people for their poverty, sweeping people experiencing homelessness into increasingly unsafe areas, or warehousing people in untenable and unsustainable conditions." Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, told USA Today that Trump's plan would effectively create "internment camps for people experiencing homelessness," a fear that was echoed on social media...

More, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/11/internment-camps-homeless-housing-advocates-horrified-trump-push-crackdown

[virgogal]

1. Trump should just ignore the problem,I guess.Better to let

the Governor handle it in a more humane manner.

[atreides1]

2. Uh huh

What exactly do you think Trump has planned for the homeless?

[appalachiablue]

3. A serious, visible problem that's grown for years. From the article:

>"Nathan Click, spokesman for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, said the state is "ready to talk" if Trump is "willing to put serious solutions, with real investment, on the table."

"He could start by ending his plans to cut food stamps, gut healthcare for low-income people, and scare immigrant families from accessing government services," said Click."

[missingthebigdog]

4. Care to expand on this comment?

I’m not quite sure how to take it.

[shraby]

7. I think someone should read the history of WWII.

Including the surprises we had at the end of the war, what happened to "undesirables" according to hitler.
I refuse to capitalize any republicans or Nazis.

[airmid]

5. Sounds like they are ready to move on to warehousing this country's

governments idea of undesirables as Stephen Miller would term them. These people are not subtle. I don't understand how people can be so blind to the realities of what's happening.

[CDerekGo]

6. Let's be honest

Who in the world do you think will BENEFIT from these Internment Camps? Same folks as the Internment Camps for the Immigrants along the Southern Border where we, the TAXPAYERS are being charged $775.00 a day to house each and every Immigrant. Those same Immigrants who have no beds to sleep on, no showers to clean themselves with, no soap, no toothbrushes, no toothpaste, yet taxpayers are paying more per person than High-Dollar Hotels charge for a High-Rise Luxury Hotel Room?

Someone is getting rich off of this, and I'm betting a certain hairplug himmler has his tiny hands in the till.