The Power of Local Politics

We knew things would be bad after Grants Pass, the SCOTUS decision that affirmed a jurisdiction’s right to make sleeping in public places illegal, even when the people trying to sleep have nowhere else to go. We have already seen new bans pass and introduced from Iowa to Minnesota and multiple states are seeking judicial reviews of past injunctions. Every state in the union is racing to engage in cruelty and inhumanity on a massive scale.

In California, the most populous state in the nation and thus the state with the largest homelessness problem by far, San Francisco mayor London Breed announced that “the time for compassion is over” and that the city will start making “very aggressive” moves against the unhoused. She also threw in that “housing is not the answer”, but apparently, incarceration is.

For the governor’s part, Gavin Newsom issued an executive order demanding that California cities “address homeless encampments” i.e. tear them down and, presumably, arrest the inhabitants. After all, there is a massive, crushing housing shortage in California and the state is hundreds of thousands of shelter beds short. So if not to jail, where will they go?

If this all seems hopeless, it’s not. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, a group of five women who independently rule a county with the economy of a medium sized country, decided that compassion is not dead in LA County. Two days ago, they voted unanimously that jails will not be used to hold unhoused people.

“We’re not going to go to a race to the bottom,” said Supervisor Hilda Solis, the motion’s co-author. “We’re not going to turn our backs. We’re not going to use our jails to somehow incarcerate and criminalize people who are on the street.”

Lindsey Horvath added:

…what we’re being clear about is that we are not criminalizing poverty or homelessness.”

Project ID Action Fund endorsed and supported three out of five of the current Board members and this is why.

There is power in local office.

Every year, in every election, we are looking for candidates like this- brave, ethical voices who will do what is right, even when it is against the trend. The fight to protect the unhoused, to treat them with dignity and make sure that they get the IDs they need to restart their lives is in the hands of elected officials at all levels, and we’ll keep fighting to get the best ones in office.

As we head into November, will you help us support the candidates who will make real change?

Kat

Let's elected leaders who care