On May 12, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, demanded that cities throughout the state adopt anti-camping ordinances that would effectively ban public homelessness by requiring unhoused individuals to relocate every 72 hours.
While presented as a humanitarian effort to reduce homelessness, the new policy victimizes California’s growing unhoused population—approximately 187,000 people—by tying funding in Proposition 1 to local laws banning sleeping or camping on public land.
In his announcement, Newsom pushed local governments to adopt the draconian ordinances “without delay.”
Reduces homelessnes via number shuffling, i.e. moving homeless across county lines makes it harder for them to be officially recorded. Like all things neoliberal it is the appearance of wellness but nothing true or substantial. Instead of money going into housing, shelters, rehabilitation, and job programs we spend more money into a police force well drilled into treating human beings like the way one herds cattle.