CA Needs Both Sober Living & More Housing for Addicts on the Streets
CA Needs Both Sober Living & More Housing for Addicts on the Streets
SHP's Keith Humphreys argues that California’s problem isn’t that it offers housing first to recovering addicts — which is desperately needed — but that it offers nothing else.
"Every reasonable person agrees that addiction is a prevalent challenge among the homeless population, whether they base that judgment on scientific research or on the experience of walking the streets of California communities," SHP's Keith Humphreys writes in this San Francisco Chronicle commentary. "But there is a sharp disagreement about how to respond to this reality, one that touches on familiar debates about drug use, human rights and the true definition of compassion."
"Since 2016, California has gone all-in on one side of this debate by requiring all tax dollars used for housing to endorse a “housing first” model. This places homeless people into permanent supportive housing immediately and with no preconditions. The use of alcohol and other drugs is not a barrier to entry or to continually live in a supportive residential setting. Proponents believe that imposing conditions would not be compassionate and would violate individual rights.
"There is evidence that the housing first model helps individuals with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia stay stably housed, which is a good thing. That said, individual evaluations and a research review by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences found no evidence that it reduces substance use. In the fentanyl era, the consequences of this shortcoming for the state’s residents are stark: three people die from drug overdoses every week in supportive housing in San Francisco alone. It would be hard to cast such an appalling outcome as the consequence of a compassionate response or a triumph for human rights.