People Are Obviously Open To The Idea That We Need To Throw The Bastards Out

A weekend topic starting with the Los Angeles Times. “What does a small, solidly Republican city in Oregon have in common with California’s largest liberal enclaves? All breathed a sigh of relief this year thanks to the far-right U.S. Supreme Court. The court’s conservative bloc ruled in favor of the city of Grants Pass, Ore., in June, overturning a key lower court ruling on homelessness and clearing the way for local governments to crack down on sleeping in public spaces regardless of the availability of housing or shelter. From San Diego to San Francisco, state and local workers began disassembling makeshift shelters and camps and displacing the homeless people living in them. In some of California’s liberal enclaves, homeless encampments have become full-blown tent cities. Scenes of squalor, drug use and petty crime have spawned a subculture of gonzo-style documentary videos racking up hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. San Francisco and Los Angeles have the most prominent crises.”

The Stockton Record in California. “In a unanimous vote, Stockton City Council declared a local emergency on homelessness and toughened the city’s ordinance that bans camping on public spaces. Stockton’s strategy to address homelessness will boil down to three main components: ‘cleanups, diversion, and enforcement, in that order,’ City Manager Harry Black told councilmembers before the decision at the Nov. 19 meeting. The camping ban on any public property that is ‘not specifically designated for camping’ was added to the city’s existing critical infrastructure ordinance. Additionally, police officers are now allowed to ban unhoused residents from all city parks for a period of 30 days. Unhoused residents may be banned if they are issued two or more citations within a one-year period for camping at any city park. The emergency declaration — Stockton’s third regarding homelessness since 2018 — grants Black the authority ‘to take whatever actions are necessary and appropriate’ to address the issue.”

The Brooklyn Reader. “New York City Mayor Eric Adams emphasized the need for state lawmakers to pass legislation so the city can place people with mental illness into involuntary psychiatric care. The call came after Ramon Rivera, 51, fatally stabbed three people in Manhattan last week, about a month after Rivera’s release from jail for good behavior. ‘I’ve been demonized, actually, when we say that people should not live on the streets,’ said Adams. ‘People who need help don’t know they need help when they’re in that state.'”

From WBUR. “Eight months into their stay at a Stoughton shelter, Frantz and Heroína Edouard were scrambling to find an apartment. They’d been eager to leave their cramped hotel room and establish roots in Massachusetts. But their search for housing was becoming desperate. The Edouards and their two daughters are a Haitian-Dominican family. They made the harrowing journey to the United States from Brazil last year, arriving in Boston after learning about help for migrants. But before long, the welcome mat began to wear thin. But the Edouards had someone watching out for them — a man Heroína calls their ‘guardian angel’ — who was willing to look as long as necessary to find them housing.”

“The program, called HomeBASE, is the state’s main housing solution for people exiting shelters, whether they’re locals or recent arrivals. Families pay 30% of their income toward rent and can get $30,000 in subsidies over two years — with a possible third-year extension. By the end of the summer, Heroína and Ana were still waiting for work papers. Frantz spent his days searching for a new job, stressed out about supporting his family and paying the bills that would soon come. ‘The worry I have now is that neither one of us is working,’ he said. ‘I have experience doing many different kinds of jobs, but I don’t get any offers.’ But a new reality would emerge this fall, when voters decided to return Donald Trump to the White House. His administration could upend policies, like asylum and Temporary Protected Status, that have allowed many Haitian migrants to enter and legally stay in the country.”

Colorado Politics. “A recent audit of Denver’s Office of Housing Stability revealed gaps in security and fiscal accountability within Mayor Mike Johnston’s campaign to provide shelter to homeless people. Auditors noted that the city’s housing department — known as HOST — suffers from ‘poor organization’ and could not provide documentation for tens of millions of dollars in shelter-related spending. Denver’s case is not unique. Last week, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority endured a scathing audit, also citing ‘lax accounting procedures’ and the ‘failure to reclaim millions of dollars in cash advances to contractors,’ according to a story in the Los Angeles Times. Like Denver, Los Angeles said many of its problems ‘occurred during a period of rapid growth in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic when it was under intense pressure to establish services to save lives.'”

“Some 43,000 immigrants have come to Denver since December 2022. A review of travel spending by the city indicated that about half of them have stayed in Denver. Meanwhile, funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, which allocated $350 billion in emergency dollars to local governments at the height of the pandemic, are set to expire in 2025. The federal dollars provided key funding for Johnston’s efforts to ramp up the infrastructure for his shelter initiatives.”

El Paso Matters in Texas. “The county’s Migrant Support Services Center will close as soon as year’s end as it anticipates no longer getting upfront Federal Emergency Management Agency funding under the new presidential administration. The El Paso County Commissioners Court on Monday voted to end its contracts for migrant support services, including its lease for a building on Montana Avenue and for staffing by the Providencia Group, among others. The center facilitates travel coordination for asylum seekers directly released by the U.S. Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

“‘We want to make sure we don’t expose the county to any financial liability that we do not get reimbursed for,’ the county’s Chief Administrator Betsy Keller said. ‘We are now going into a time where we would be required to put funding out and ask the federal government to reimburse us – and that is our concern – is that we would not be reimbursed.'”

Thunder Bay News Watch in Canada. “Elevate NWO is severing its contract with the District of Thunder Bay Social Services Administration Board in order to freely advocate its unhoused clients. ‘Last week, my staff found the fourth dead body of the year in a homeless encampment,’ said Holly Gauvin, executive director of Elevate NWO. ‘This isn’t OK anymore,’ said Gauvin. ‘So we want answers. We want them from the province.’ Her biggest concern is with a lack of investment in social housing. ‘The best that I am able to do is throw a tent around somebody,’ said Gauvin. ‘And that is not acceptable as a long term solution.'”

Midland Today in Canada. “Community Legal Clinic of York Region executive director Jeff Schlemmer is working on the frontlines of the legal battle on homelessness and encampments. Working with colleagues, Schlemmer has been taking on fights across the province, from Barrie to Timmins, where there is controversy over homeless camp evictions. Significantly more housing from the province is needed, Schlemmer said, other than a few dozen units of social housing every once in a while. ‘Those are all just kind of drops in the pan, of course, in relation to the size of the problem and the fact that it (homelessness) continues to grow at 200 per cent per year with no end in sight,’ he said, later adding, ‘Homelessness is with us to stay in large numbers. Where are they going to live? Emergency shelters, the de-facto plan, the frustration of the government is some of them don’t want to live in emergency shelters. That’s why they’re in encampments.'”

North Bay Nugget in Canada. “If you’re homeless and not from North Bay, you’re going to get sent back to where you came from. Mark King, chairman of District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board, said the message is being made very clear at the cold weather centre. ‘This is a district service; it’s not designed for drop-offs from Kingston or London,’ he told the Nugget. ‘We have enough to look after here. We’re just trying to control the flow of people, but I’m extremely glad that’s the angle that’s being taken. Social service agencies have called to see if they could place someone here. Individuals who are sent when there is no capacity — they will be sent back where he/she has come from.'”

CBC News in Canada. “Picture this: groceries feel more expensive than ever. You can’t afford a house but rent is soaring, too. Saving for retirement feels like a pipe dream. But despite the bleak outlook, the economy is actually doing alright. Welcome to the ‘vibecession,’ a term that refers to a disconnect between economic data and how consumers feel. The word got a boost this week after Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland used it when talking about the federal government’s GST holiday. But Kyla Scanlon, an economist and author of In This Economy? who coined the term, is glad the word is catching on — says Freeland’s use of it isn’t quite right. ‘When you just say, ‘Hey, everybody … just feel a little bit better. It’ll be OK,’ like, it just doesn’t work,’ Scanlon told Day 6 host Brent Bambury.”

“Jim Stanford, economist and director with the research organization Centre for Future Work adds that negative economic outlooks can have big political impacts — and the U.S. election was a prime example. ‘So there was no vibecession in consumer spending in the U.S., but there was an angry mood. And in the end that ended up being politically quite important,’ Stanford said. Exit polls showed that 70 per cent of people who voted for Trump said the economy was doing poorly, while only seven per cent of people who voted for Harris said the same. Scanlon agrees — the Democrats’ approach to point to the U.S.’s overall optimistic economic picture while avoiding negative perceptions was a big failure. ‘[They] risked the entire election. Harris lost,’ Scanlon said.”

“Stanford hopes that a better, less politicized understanding of where people’s negative feelings are coming from might help people see that governments aren’t entirely to blame for economic factors. ‘People are obviously open to the idea that we need to ‘throw the bastards out,’ said Stanford. ‘It absolutely will not solve everything. Housing will still be very expensive and inequality will still be very high.'”

Agence France-Presse. “Icelanders voted Saturday in a legislative election after the collapse of a fraught coalition prompted a snap poll where the economy has been a top concern. ‘I feel we need change,’ 48-year-old film producer Grimar Jonsson, told AFP in Reykjavik on Friday. Jonsson said he hoped to see a change of government and ‘getting rid of so-called old-fashioned political parties.’ The coalition of Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson’s Independence Party, the Left-Green Movement and the centre-right Progressive Party was divided on a range of issues but broke down over the handling of migrants and asylum seekers.”

From Reuters. “Iceland holds a snap election on Saturday with voters likely to topple the ruling coalition in their quest to escape a cost-of-living crisis. Polls indicate the ruling coalition of the Left-Green Movement, the conservative Independence Party, and the center-right Progressive Party, in power for the last seven years, is likely to be unseated. ‘We’ve had the same coalition for seven years, and there seems to be a desire now for new people in government,’ said Stefania Oskarsdottir, a political scientist at the University of Iceland.”

From PA Media. “The number of people in emergency homeless accommodation across Ireland has reached a new record high of 14,966, according to the latest figures from the Department of Housing. The figures came halfway through voting in the General Election and show the continuation of a near-consistent rise in recent years, which has repeatedly set new records. Homelessness – and the delivery of housing more generally – was a key focus of the election campaign, with parties offering radically different solutions to Ireland’s housing crisis. Sinn Fein housing spokesman Eoin O Broin said his party had a comprehensive plan to tackle homelessness. He added: ‘The latest rise in homeless numbers confirms why we need a change of Government.'”

The Associated Press. “An exit poll in Ireland’s parliamentary election released late Friday suggests the three biggest parties have won roughly equal shares and the country is headed for another coalition government. The result will show whether Ireland bucks the global trend of incumbents being ousted by disgruntled voters after years of pandemic, international instability and a cost-of-living pressures. Tangled up with the housing issue is immigration, a fairly recent challenge to a country long defined by emigration. Recent arrivals include more than 100,000 Ukrainians displaced by war and thousands of people fleeing poverty and conflict in the Middle East and Africa.”

“This country of 5.4 million has struggled to house all the asylum-seekers, leading to tent camps and makeshift accommodation centers that have attracted tension and protests. A stabbing attack on children outside a Dublin school a year ago, in which an Algerian man has been charged, sparked the worst rioting Ireland had seen in decades.”

“Unlike many European countries, Ireland does not have a significant far-right party, but far-right voices on social media seek to drum up hostility to migrants, and anti-immigrant independent candidates are hoping for election in several districts. The issue appears to be hitting support for Sinn Fein, as working-class supporters bristled at its pro-immigration policies.”