Californians are tired and angry about the seemingly intractable, unsheltered, street homelessness crisis.
After serving in elected office for 12 years, I have been frustrated by the many boxes that we’ve put around ourselves as policymakers that somehow justify allowing people to suffer, degrade and ultimately die in front of us, while our public spaces become living spaces for other humans.
It’s a terrible reality for everyone. In the last decade more than 50,000 people died nationwide after living on the streets. This is unacceptable.
Now, for the first time in years, there is growing recognition that we can end unsheltered homelessness, if we expand our concept of acceptable housing to be broader than someone’s forever home. There are a number of interim solutions between living unsheltered on the street and permanent housing.
One proven scalable solution for building interim supportive housing is using temporarily vacant land and modular, relocatable cabins. These are not the “shelters” of the past. These are quick-build, clean, safe, modest housing units that provide shelter from the elements and have social workers on site.
Read more here.