City leaders often tie homelessness to drugs and crime, but they never mention housing. This approach conveniently removes the blame from the people causing the crisis: the politicians themselves.
Spewing hate from the podium has serious legislative consequences as this tactic coerces voters into favoring policies that deepen the homeless crisis, and it also alleviates the pressure to create more affordable homes. This, in turn, exacerbates the housing crisis, which is the leading cause of homelessness to begin with. The vicious cycle continues. Rinse and repeat.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Paints an Inaccurate Portrait of Homeless People
In early February 2024, Florida Governor DeSantis opened a discussion about homelessness.
“We cannot allow any city in Florida to become like San Francisco, where homelessness, drugs, and crime have decimated the quality of life, hurt the economy, and eroded freedom,” he adamantly declared.
This statement, while brief, is a shining example of how the word homeless is intentionally interjected into sentences that reference drugs and crime as if these three things are synonymous with each other, which is certainly not the case. The statement also conveniently evades the topic of affordable housing, even though the lack of affordable housing is the primary cause of the homeless crisis. At this point, you might be pondering the purpose of DeSantis’ statement. But if you review the entire speech, his point is pretty straightforward.
“In Florida, we will continue to enact policies that promote accountability and community safety, unlike in California where they are promoting dangerous policies that harm their communities and economy,” he continued.
This statement is equally problematic. The policies DeSantis wants to enact do not promote accountability. They redistribute it to the unhoused community.
According to The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s latest stats, Florida is short a whopping 435,879 affordable housing units. This means that 82% of extremely low-income renter households live under the threat of severe rent burden, which is defined as paying more than half of their salary on rent.
This puts a sizable portion of the state’s population, approximately 583,625 households, at risk of becoming homeless on any given night. Yet, the legislation being proposed here is not a government mandate to create and maintain more affordable homes. It is another bill that prioritizes arresting homeless people for engaging in life-sustaining activities in public. Where is the accountability in this?
Furthermore, the statement suggests that this legislation differs from the ineffective laws being passed in California, which is another fallacy.
California also features ineffective anti-camping legislation. Under section 41.18 of the Municipal Code, which went into effect on September 3, 2021, it is illegal for unhoused people to be caught sitting, standing, camping, lying down, or even storing personal property in public spaces. These same features were listed as part of Gov. DeSantis’ criminalization proposal.
What was it about Florida’s policy that was supposed to be different from what California is doing? There is nothing new or novel here. It is the same approach we’ve seen in California and nationwide.
Similar statements have been made in New York City, where Mayor Eric Adams boldly claimed he felt unsafe on the city’s subway system due to the mere presence of homeless individuals. And again in Hawaii, where High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Director Gary Yabuta blatantly linked homelessness to both crime and drug use.
The issue here is not only what’s being said but what is going unsaid.
Drugs and criminal activity are growing nationwide concerns that sometimes intersect with homelessness. However, the main reason we have so much homelessness in the US is simple math… We are short more than 7.3 million affordable homes nationwide. If people in powerful positions were being honest, at the very least, the word housing would also appear in these public statements. It rarely, if ever, does.
Making Communities Less Safe One Dishonest Statement at a Time
“We know that the primary cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing,” said Eric Tars, the Senior Policy Director for The National Homelessness Law Center.
In a brief discussion with Invisible People, Director Tars explained how drug addiction is a separate issue and should be treated as such.
“We know that America had problems with drug addiction long before the housing crisis, and people had drug addiction, but they were housed,” he said. “When people are housed, you don’t have these spillover effects of needles and other things in the community.”
“So, if your interest is actually in reducing those collateral consequences of homelessness combined with addiction issues, then the answer is always going to be affordable housing,” Tars continued. “If you can combine that with adequate, voluntary rehab services, that would be ideal. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough services in our communities to meet the needs of the people, which makes it even more ridiculous to criminalize anyone for being addicted to drugs. Many are trying to end their addictions, but they don’t have the services available to them that they need to achieve that goal.”
Addressing Homelessness Must Start with Housing. Alert Your Local Lawmakers.
The tactic of throwing words like crime and drugs into sentences that also touch on the topic of homelessness creates a false equivalency that can reshape public opinion. If the root cause of homelessness – a lack of affordable housing – was interjected every time the subject of homelessness was mentioned, voters would associate homelessness with housing, and they would favor policies that address the housing crisis.
On the other hand, if the word housing gets strung into sentences that link it to drugs and crime, the general public will associate homelessness with criminality and favor legislation that criminalizes the unhoused community.
Shaping public opinion through dishonest rhetoric will not end homelessness. Alert your local lawmakers today.
