“I wish I had a house.
I’d keep my life in there.”
Most of us reading this have a home where we keep our lives. There is food in the refrigerator and warm water for taking a shower. There is toothpaste for brushing our teeth, and a toilet and toilet paper. There are clean clothes and a door that locks.
As the song lyrics imply, we all want a home. We fill it with the things we need and the people we love. Our homes become our lives.
Homelessness is something I’ve cared deeply about for many years. If you’ve ever participated in the annual Point in Time Count of our homeless neighbors, which I’ve done for a decade, you get a small glimpse into the lives of homeless people. Living on the streets denies people their basic human dignity. It robs them of their ability to be one of us.
As Pope Francis said, “We can find no social or moral justification, no justification, no justification whatsoever, for lack of housing.”
Providing housing for everyone is our moral imperative. So how do we make that happen?
Last month the City Council unanimously adopted a Community Action Plan on Homelessness. It correctly highlights the need for better data and transparency, the importance of regional collaboration, and encourages evidence-based approaches like Housing First. What’s missing from this plan, however, is the ultimate objective: Our goal must be to end chronic homelessness.
Other cities have done it and San Diego can, too. We can’t sidestep this problem, any more than we can walk around people living on the street and go back to our own lives.
We must first recognize it as an issue that defines who we are as a city. A city that allows thousands of people to live on the streets is one that is not living up to its potential or responsibilities. Jagged rocks under freeways to move homeless people away from major events and criminalizing homelessness aren’t the acts of a city that sees homelessness through the lens of human suffering and empathy for those less fortunate.
This is why, as mayor, I will move homelessness services into the Office of the Mayor within my first 100 days of office. I will personally ensure we make progress on this issue every single day and are investing in best practices like Housing First. This approach eliminates requirements that become barriers to housing and provides the services that homeless people need in addition to housing. It’s common sense that the fastest way to end the condition of homelessness is to give someone a home. We all need a place to keep our lives.
I also intend to demand radical transparency and ability for homeless service providers receiving public money to provide these services. Those who are not delivering the results we expect to see will be defunded and we will reinvest those funds in programs that are working.
Comion and empathy shouldn’t be unique to the city of San Diego. San Diego County is sitting on tens of millions of dollars in Mental Health Services Act funding at the same time that 43% of our homeless are challenged with mental health issues. The county of San Diego must step up to the plate to fulfill its obligation to provide mental health services to keep people housed. In recent weeks, the county has shown some promising actions on this front. As mayor of the largest city in the county, I intend to make sure the county takes up this mantle for the long term.
Fundamentally, San Diego cannot call itself “America’s Finest City,” or even a truly great city, when people are living and dying on our streets. We saw the effects of this inaction by local government in the hepatitis outbreak of 2017 that infected 592 people and took the lives of 20, most of them our neighbors living on the street. I authored legislation on the state level to ensure this doesn’t happen again. We can and must other cities across the nation that are ending chronic homelessness by implementing proven strategies rather than band-aids and half measures.
I want to be mayor of a city that believes it is our moral imperative to lift up the very weakest among us and considers housing a basic human right. We all deserve a place to put our lives. As your mayor, I will dedicate every day of my term in office to ensuring that we all have one.
Gloria represents the 78th Assembly District in the California Legislature. A former San Diego City Council member, City Council president and interim mayor, he is a candidate for San Diego mayor. Website: toddgloria.com
