Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Federal Subsidies, Which Trump Has Forgotten About, Could Help Reduce Homelessness; No Single Reason Exists For Sleeping On The Street. So There's No Single Solution.
The Atlantic: What Trump Once Understood About Homelessness
Donald Trump has long understood that he can leverage homelessness to motivate people. In the early 1980s, the developer was desperate to get tenants out of a building he owned in Manhattan so that he could tear it down and build a new one. The tenants were not obliging, so Trump tried a series of moves to force them to vacate—including offering to house homeless New Yorkers in the building, hoping revulsion would scare the tenants out. (David A. Graham, 9/19)
CNN: Homelessness Is Reaching An Emergency Level In Los Angeles
Los Angeles is enduring a crisis of homelessness. We are in the eye of an economic storm -- fighting the forces of high rents, stagnant wages, and a deficit of a half million units of affordable housing -- that is pushing thousands from housed to homeless. And its cost, the moral expense to us as a community and region, deserves a statewide declaration of a State of Emergency. This year's count revealed that at any given point in time, there are more than 58,900 Angeleños experiencing homelessness; many are families sleeping in places not meant for human habitation. It is a frightening illustration of the challenges we face that many from afar may not easily comprehend -- for every 133 people our service providers house every day, 150 more people become newly homeless. (Mark Ridley-Thomas, 9/18)
Los Angeles Times: Why A One-Size Solution To L.A.'s Homelessness Crisis Is Destined To Fail
Homelessness is the Rorschach test of humanitarian crises: We all see what we want to see. Some identify the core problem as the lack of affordable housing or inadequate rent control laws. Others fault the lack of quality treatment for people struggling with mental illness, addiction, rampant economic inequality or the plague of mass incarceration. As someone who spends his days providing services to our homeless neighbors, I can tell you every one of those things plays a role. There are as many reasons for homelessness as there are people sleeping on sidewalks. And that means we need a wide range of approaches to solving the problem, aimed at addressing the needs of individuals. We simply can’t force all homeless people into a relatively narrow set of solutions. (Kevin Murray, 9/19)
San Francisco Chronicle: President Trump Is Both Right And Wrong About California Homelessness
President Trump has discovered the shameful situation that is homelessness in California. Last week, his administration announced it was considering unilateral action to dismantle tent encampments and remove homeless people from the streets of California cities.On Monday, his Council of Economic Advisers released a 40-page report that painted a grim picture of homelessness in California, noting correctly that our state has just 12% of the nation’s population but about half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless people. (9/18)
