It Could Happen Here - How Liberal Mayors Lie About Unhoused People

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

James talks to experts and advocates for San Diego’s unhoused population about how the city allows so many people to die on its streets and the dangers of California’s upcoming CARE court legislation. Follow on Twitter: @homelessnessSD @cutecooper2 @objkshn @thesolution619See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, this is It Could Happen Here, and today it's me, James, and I'm joined by four of my friends here in San Diego, and we are talking about San Diego's lying mayor and how he likes to punch down on poor people, even though he promised he

wouldn't. So joining me today, I'm going to ask you guys to all introduce yourselves, explain a little bit about what relevant background you have in the area, and then we'll get into it because there's a lot to talk about. So Mandy, would you like to go first? Hi, I'm Mandy. i'm a homeless advocate i mostly do um on the ground work mutual aid um and then i advocate for them as much as i can almost city municipalities um and just organize that way great and colleen you can go next that's okay yeah my name is colleen cusack i'm a criminal defense attorney and i uh represent uh approximately 50 homeless persons pro bono right now

who are cited with the crimes of survival such as encroachment and overnight camping so i can challenge cause and have them decode unconstitutional. Michael McConnell, I'm an advocate for people who are living unsheltered or homeless. And I've been working on this for about 13 years. First part, working within the system as a philanthropist, advocate, volunteer, former vice chair of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless. I'm a founding, was a founding member of a local philanthropy group called Funders Together to End Homelessness San Diego. I have participated on quite a few initiatives, such as Blitz Week, where we housed about 100 people in three days. 25 Cities Initiative, where we worked on ending veteran and chronic homelessness,

created the region's first by-name list for veterans, worked on a lot of HUD-mandated COC, Continuum of Care initiatives, such as how we score projects to get homelessness funding, long communicated with our endless elected official, Todd Gloria, who's now mayor, who's made so many promises over the years and so many claims on homelessness,

people just doubt almost everything he says about homelessness at this point, rightfully so. And probably most known for my on-the-ground advocacy now, where I do a lot of encampment support, work with, of course, unsheltered people, film the police around encampment sweeps and enforcement of laws that target homeless people and continue that till this day. Nice. Yeah. You're doing a lot of work on the street. It's great to see. And then Levi, last but not least.

Indeed. Hi, you guys. I'm Levi Giaflioni with Homeful Solutions. I have lived experience in being homeless. I also work with a group of advocates called Lived Experience Advisors here in San Diego. We try to hold them accountable and keep them honest. And we're also able to advocate for a lot of what these people need in the recovery process, just beyond like housing, which is the main thing We know that the homeless problem is a real estate crisis. And then I also work as a housing navigator downtown. So I work with a caseload of about 200 clients, about 60 or 70 of them, I would say have SMIs. And I'm down really in like kind of one of the main areas of town that, you know, we have a

lot of these people living outdoors. So I'm at kind of the front lines of it every day when it comes to people needing to get a shelter bed. I'm the one that they cry to, you know, when they think that it's a, you know, when they don't understand that it's the system that's broken, I'm the one that they get yelled at, that gets yelled at, but they think I'm not doing enough. And so it's really interesting to be able to see all sides of it and see the promises that get made. And I literally have clients come in and say, oh, hey, look, everything's going to be fine because the mayor just said this week he's opening a new shelter. And I'm like, all right, let's do the math. That's a 40 bed shelter, right? And there's 8,000 homeless people in the county. So, you know, and so, yeah, I have to kind of break down that. It's a good responsibility, I guess, to break down the system to my clients so that they can

understand how broken it is, as well as, you know, me being able to teach some patients to get them through the process too. So, and yeah, that's me. Yeah, that's good. Thank you. So, yeah, I want to get into how broken the system is because it consistently, I think like every time, like I like to ride my bike around a lot. I'm always riding around town. Often I'll run into people who are in distress, right? Especially when we ride past the hospital,

which is something we can get into. And they'll be like, oh, just call up. Well, you sort them out with a shelter bed. And then they'll have this horrible moment of realization when they're like, oh shit, like there's nowhere for this person to go. So let's talk a little bit about Todd Gloria, right? Todd Gloria is our mayor he's a democrat

he ran on a very progressive platform generally uh and what he's done has been extremely reactionary um so i wanted to start just by reading some todd tweets uh todd's a poster um perhaps not not as much of a poster as rachel Rachel laying his, I guess, communications manager. I think she has the soul of a poster and will attack people working like Michael to help people, which is distressing to see. But I wanted to, I wanted to talk a little bit about Todd.

So I've got a few quotes here. June 22nd, 2019. Yes. I will be the first to enforce the law against those sheltered or unsheltered who break any law but I will not use our codes to harass and criminalize sick and poor people that's number one uh August 22nd 2018 what if we chose to take the resources we used to criminalize the homeless anded them to building housing instead what if todd um january 24th 2019 uh and he's tagged michael in this one maybe right but the sad fact is that this doesn't just happen

before the pitt that's the point in time count of unhoused people it happens all the time it's unfair to the unsheltered and to sgpd my goal is to end chronic homelessness. The only way to do this is with permanent supportive housing, not criminalization. You're right, but that's not what you did. Californians of all political views know our homelessness crisis is a serious problem. More housing and services, not criminalization. It's past time to tackle this problem. I could keep going with these things, but I won't because I think folks get the picture. So Todd's talked a lot about how we don't need to criminalize poverty, how we don't need to criminalize living on the street, and then has proceeded to criminalize living on the street. So maybe we can just start with these sweeps that have happened pretty much consistently, I think, since Todd took office.

that have happened pretty much consistently, I think, since Todd took office. And people might be familiar with a little bit. They may have seen some of the bikes being thrown away. Michael had a video of that, which had how many views now? Oh, gosh, I don't know, a million or more. Yeah, a lot of people have seen that. But perhaps one of you would like to describe exactly how a sweep goes down. There's sometimes a process of posting notices, but you don't have to post notices because people are encroaching.

What's the justification for it, and what does that look like for people on the ground? February 14th of this year is when Todd Gloria started his sweep enforcement. It was unspoken, but during COVID, they were just killing people with COVID instead of by police. Although the police were doing their own thing. So the police do at the sweeps is they use a series of unconstitutional ordinances, city ordinances only existing in the city of San Diego. And these unconstitutional ordinances taken together make it illegal for anybody to exist in public space. So you, me, our mothers, our children, anybody in public space can be ticketed for these violations because they're so overbroad. For example, standing on a sidewalk, just being there on a sidewalk will be enough to get you a citation issued if you can't prove you

have a house to live in. These laws, like I said, they're written over broad. They apply to everyone, but the police use their discretion to only use them against poor persons. The Vehicle Habitation Ordinance lists a series of items that if they're found in your car, police could use those to arrest you. And those items include things like food, water, trash. So everybody with food, water, or trash, it doesn't have to be all three, just one of them,

could be subjected to being arrested, have their comfort, have their children taken to shelter, having their children taken to CPS, and all because the city wants to come after poor people with ordinances. So here's the fun. These ordinances can be charged either as misdemeanors or infractions. Mayor Gloria announced a progressive ordinance scheme, which means on day one, say Monday of the week, the individual is issued a warning. On day two, the individual is issued a infraction citation. That infraction citation gives them a day to appear months down the road to contest the case.

But the very next day, they can be issued a misdemeanor citation. That misdemeanor citation also has a date months down the road for resolution. And then day four, they can be arrested and taken into custody, all without ever having a day in court. all without ever having a day in court. The citations, if they're issued to people in Midway or downtown San Diego, direct them to appear in Claremont Mesa, just about 12 miles away. These are individuals that have mobility issues. They can't get to and from court.

They can't really get to and from the end of the street very well without police threatening to take away their property. Court won't allow them to bring their property in with them. The buses won't allow them to bring their property on the buses. So they have to make a choice. Do they risk losing all the remaining property that they have in the world to go to court to defend against the charge that they really don't have the adequate evidence. The police can cite either as a misdemeanor infraction, but when they cite as an infraction, that individual doesn't get an appointed attorney nor a jury trial.

And so the punishment, the issuance of the citation becomes the punishment process. We're just trying to get to court and take care of your responsibilities becomes a chore, even if later it's dismissed. We found out through public records requests that 100% of the misdemeanors that are being cited are 100% of them are being dismissed. So people aren't getting their attempt, their opportunity to defend themselves in court, they're all being dismissed. And so if the city was, was serious about believing that these individuals were committing criminal offenses, then they wouldn't be dismissing them after 100% of them after they were issued. 100% of them after they were issued.

So Colleen is talking about the laws or the codes that are used during enforcement sweeps of people out here on the street. So the police go out and use these codes and municipal codes to write people tickets and eventually take them to jail. That's just one kind of sweep. That's the enforcement sweeps. There's also cleanup sweeps or abatement sweeps. We call them homeless encampment sweeps or homeless community sweeps, where per settlement with past lawsuits, the city has to post three-hour, 72-hour notices in areas. Then they come out with the police and environmental services and cleanup crews, and they'll throw away all your belongings if you're not there. So that's another kind of sweep. So there's actually two kinds of sweeps. There's these cleanup sweeps where they throw away your belongings.

And then there's the enforcement sweeps where they just go out with sometimes, oh gosh, Colleen, we've probably seen as many as 15, maybe 15-plus police go out to ticket people in a particular homeless community. And just put them through the ringer with all these citations that colleen went through yeah um and then uh perhaps levi you're familiar with the system right i think uh maybe the the idea here is that the police are supposed to offer them shelter right uh if they ask for shelter they're supposed to offer it to them can you just explain about how that shelter can be extremely difficult or impossible for people to access yeah absolutely and then i'll tell you kind of some of the consequences that um people face even uh or as a result of this but um so uh basically like let me paint the picture

for you so um our location is a drop-in center we We don't have any housing here on site. And so the clients will typically, there's a line out the gate when we get here at eight o'clock in the morning. At eight o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock, all I do is shelter referrals. So that's everybody that's coming in the door that wants to get a shelter bed for that night, that night, right?

We're doing this at eight o'clock in the morning. And oftentimes I will get one or two. Some days I don't get anyone into shelter because by 9 o'clock, all of those beds are full. And that's what they report back to me as the service provider, right? Is at 9 o'clock in the morning, there's no more shelter beds. morning, there's no more shelter beds. And on top of that, too, the other thing to mention, too, is like, you know, the police are supposed to offer them shelter, but we have like some kind of like conglomerates as far as organizations go in the shelter space. So if a client is for some

reason not allowed to go back to that shelter, that's one pretty much forever. And B, it could be something like behavior, like they got anxiety and yelled at somebody, right? Or it could be someone who can't complete their ADLs as they call it, or like an incontinence issue. So there's times where a doctor will say, yes, it is sanitary and medically necessary for you to use this little, uh, bottle or whatever. Um, but then the shelter will then kick them out and not let them return for that kind of thing. So by nine o'clock, the shelter beds are full. Um, in the beginning, uh, when the Padres first started playing, they were doing their

sweeps real early. Um, now they're doing their sweeps. Um, after the time that I'm being told as a service provider that the shelters are already full. And on top of that, our shelter system, you can't stay there during the day, right? So some of these people that they're taking their stuff and throwing it away are actually in shelter. You know, they just had to take their belongings with them back to the streets where everyone can see them every day and, and, you know, all that. But, um, recently I had a client who we had spent like a month and a half trying to get him in the

shelter every single day. And it wasn't going through. Finally, we got him in the shelter and, um, a ticket for encroachment had come up that you know was not paid and he didn't go to court so even though he was in shelter in the middle of the day the police officers stopped him they arrested him for his warrant he was in there all weekend and he lost his shelter bed jesus yeah so let's um perhaps you or mandy could explain then like some of the things because yeah under the guise of i guess a cleanup or abatement or whatever you want to call it like often they're actively stripping people of the things that they need to access shelter to access housing to transport themselves around right and so just one of you want to take on like what this means

well they'll you know they do it under the guise of we're gonna you know we're cleaning up the area um but they will drag entire tents full of people's belongings and put them in the compactor they won't go through them they never look oftentimes there's medication in their ids paperwork things that you know people have to have to survive. You know, people can't get housing if they don't have identification. It's really difficult for them to get identification living on the streets. You know, it's a process and that process sets outreach workers back. So, you know, you've got an outreach worker who may have gotten a voucher, got them an ID, and, you know, they've taken their, it's called a BSVDAT, where they're entered into the housing

system, and they're waiting a housing match, and then their ID and everything gets thrown away. So, then the outreach worker has to take time to go back and help them get another ID when they could be helping, you know, someone else get set up to maybe get into housing. You know, they don't look through the things. This causes so much trauma for these folks. I've seen, so a lot of times with sweeps, sometimes I say they'll allow people to gather their things and move them and then they'll sweep the area. I've seen times when they have had people gather their things, they move their things and then the police surround their things while people are standing there and they place their things in front of them while they are begging for their

things and they will not let them have them and they will put them in the trash compactor in front of them and it's i mean the only way that you can view that is it's just punishment like you're not you know you're out here you're poor we don't have any options for you but we're going to do this to deter you because we just don't want to see you here yeah i like i remember i was talking to someone downtown a couple of weeks ago uh when i stopped to give some folks some water and like uh this person was saying like this is the shit i chose to bring with me like i i didn't you know it's not like i could take everything and these are the things that i wanted to keep because they were special to me and yet now now they're being trashed indeed in 2018 i think 2018 a person was thrown in uh one of those bin lorries right yeah like inside their tent

um just fucking unbelievable um so yeah we've established that these sweeps are cruel we've established that there's not really anywhere for people to go, right? They don't provide a lasting solution to homelessness. They just move people around and make it harder for them. So one of the things that we do in San Diego is that we have this thing called a point-in-time count, right? And I think there have been some fairly credible suggestions that the sweeps were increased in certain areas around the point in time count.

So is what if you want to explain what that count like is and does? Yeah. So the point in time count really only captures like one night out of the year people experiencing homelessness. There was a couple of obstacles even in that process this year. It was particularly really cold that night. There were some tech glitches that should have been worked out way more in advance. But that really only pictures like takes capture of one night. The data I like to often refer to because it just feels more realistic to me is our TFH states that in any given year, there's 30,000 people seeking assistance for homelessness. So whereas our point in time count shows one night, there is data being collected all year round.

So at the point in time count, you have a lot of volunteers go out very early in the morning. They have them count the population, try to do some interviews with them real quick. The interviews are very personal. You know, it's not necessarily something somebody wants to wake up and answer at 5am. But we found some people people that were uh you know willing to talk um but that's that's the point in time count in a nutshell okay and then like what's uh i know that downtown i think the downtown partnership collects their own data right because the data we have is very unreliable what's our best guess at people like maybe in the city who are unsheltered at at this time i believe it's over 1500 unsheltered homelessness meaning that they're not in a shelter or you know some kind of program okay and just and that's just in downtown san diego not the whole county

okay yeah yeah so downtown san diego for people not familiar is a pretty small part of a very large county right and with i think san diego has the highest like ratio of average income to property prices anywhere in the country now if i recall correctly it's incredibly unaffordable um so this has led uh unfortunately but probably pretty predictably to a number of deaths on our streets. Right. And for for last week, if I recall correctly, or four in a seven day period this August, as it's hot, it's it's hot for San Diego right now. and despite this, we've seen this just, like, incredibly callous response from the city, I guess, where, like, we've seen Todd, for instance, Todd Gloria, who's our mayor,

giving a speech in front of a shelter where somebody's remains were taken away a few hours before and not mentioning that someone had just passed away in that place. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to talk to people about the gap between rhetoric and reality, because if you were only learning about this from the city and Todd's Twitter account, you'd think that it was fine, right? Because he's posting about these new shelter beds. But perhaps you can explain how, at best, that's a drop in the ocean, and at worst, it's a distraction from a problem that's getting worse. problem that's getting worse? I think that, you know, there's the reality that they want the public to see, and then there's the reality that's happening. And I think that they're failing so badly at getting people into services because many of the services just don't fit people's needs.

So they want to paint this picture that all the unsheltered people that are out in their tents living on the street or living in their vehicles are service resistant. And I hear that all the time. You know, we asked them, they don't want services. It's not that people don't want services. Many of these people have tried some of the service centers in San Diego and the barriers are extremely high. You know, the check-in time and check-out time can be difficult for people that are working. They'll separate families. So, you know, sometimes they'll tell you, oh, you can go in together if you're husband and wife or if you're partners, and then you get to the shelters and they say, I'm sorry, you can't be together because we don't have family space. So you have to go to a men's shelter and you'd have to go to a women's shelter. They'll also

do that with, say a mother has a 16 year old son and she needs to go into a shelter and there's not a family shelter. She cannot take her son into a women's shelter with her. He has to go into a men's shelter. So, you know, then, you know, people with their pets, their only source of like love and acceptance, you know, a lot of places won't take pets. A lot of places take people if they're using substances. So we've got all these boundaries that are keeping people on the streets and no one's talking about that. And no one's talking about the fact that some of, not all of them, but some of the service providers are profiting off of these poor people because they represent state and federal dollars. So you've got shelters that are run horribly. And, you know, the more people that come in, they just want to cycle them through because

that gives them money and that pays their CEO and all of their family members that are, you know, working for the nonprofit. And these people, because they're unsheltered, they don't feel they have a voice. They don't feel they can speak up because of retaliation. So they're just constantly abused. And then you've got the city who's saying, look at all these fantastic things we're doing, which couldn't be farther from the truth. And then they constantly use the narrative that folks are service resistant, And then they constantly use the narrative that folks are service resistant, when in reality, the services that are out there are too few and too difficult. And just they're not meeting people where they're at. And they're just setting people up to fail every time.

Yeah, that's well said. Another thing I want to get into with the shelter specifically is these congregate shelters right and what in the in the context of an ongoing pandemic that maybe is transitioning into another pandemic can you explain what what's a congregate shelter right it's a long word but it's it's uh what does it mean and how are those dangerous especially for medically compromised or older people living on the street our bulk of our shelter system here in san diego in the city of San Diego, is congregate shelter, meaning people are just placed in one big room or in some cases, big circus type tents. We have a few of those where people are sleeping in cots literally three feet apart. So you can imagine how horrible that is for the spread of disease. That's why we've had some very large outbreaks of COVID in our in our shelter system.

And they're frequently closed to new intakes. I think it's really important also to let folks know that. Like you said, if you if you look at Mayor Gloria's Twitter or social media feed, you think they're doing everything they can and there's all these resources. You think they're doing everything they can and there's all these resources. But on any given day, there may be a few dozen shelter beds available for literally thousands and thousands of people that are sleeping on our streets at night. And the only reason there's a few dozen shelter beds is because they've kicked some people out that day for breaking some minor rules. Most people who leave shelter go back to the street. So shelter is not a very good pathway to anything. Roughly one in seven people who leaves a city of San Diego shelter go to a permanent housing solution. That's a very, very low. In fact, under Mayor Gloria, I've seen some of the lowest success rates of our system than I've ever seen in my 13 years of working on this. Our system is actually working worse than it was before Todd Gloria took over.

So he has done very, very little. And most of what he's done has been mostly performative, adding some shelter beds here and there. Very little on the housing front. In fact, he's left tens of millions of dollars on the table that he hasn't applied for. a California funding stream called Project Roomkey that would have allowed him to rent hotel rooms, mostly on the government dime, on our taxpayer dime, to get people off the street. He actually refused to do that. He has refused to open safe camp areas where people could go and camp and get off of the sidewalks. where people could go and camp and get off of the sidewalks.

Many of us and others in the community have pushed for real solutions and for him to utilize these funding sources, and he's absolutely refused to do it. Meanwhile, like we stated earlier, he has deployed the police, garbage trucks, and everybody else to go out there and make people's lives miserable. So he's just been an absolute failure on this issue. And at the same time, he's been the one who's given the most lip service to solutions for this. It is absolutely incredible Absolutely incredible. What a disaster he has been for not only for the unsheltered community, but for San Diego. I began saying that he is San Diego's worst enemy. And I just can't believe as somebody who supported him, supported him in his election, urged people to vote for him. You can imagine how hoodwinked I was. I just can't believe that this guy has been so horrible

for our city. And every indication is that he's going to continue being, he's going to continue running the idiot into the ground and letting people die on our streets at record numbers correct me if i'm wrong but but didn't uh when he came out of the gate didn't gloria estimate how many um people he was going to house under his term and didn't he lowball it didn't he lower the number than than in previous years yeah. That was some kind of a, was that a state or a federal government goal that he set? And he actually set a goal of housing people that was less than we had done in the previous year. So his big stretch was to actually house fewer people.

I don't even know if he's even getting there. I mean, this guy is unbelievable, the kind of nonsense that he is pulling on the citizens of our city. It is unbelievable. so much in pr and he's got these folks who who are just good at spinning this this nonsense to make it sound good and because he gets a lot of media attention he has a big obviously a big pulpit to to spew this nonsense from he he's he's able to get a lot of people to believe it. Now on homelessness, anybody who has a decent set of eyes is basically calling bullshit. Yeah.

I don't know a whole lot of people anymore who think we're doing very well on this issue. And so I think he's going to have a harder and harder time convincing people that he's worthy of re-election or certainly worthy of a higher office at some point, which is all he seems to care about. Yeah. And can I add some more? So he's personally to blame. He has personal involvement of getting rid of 10,000 SROs, single rental units that that if we had those today minus our 8 000 homeless people we would not have homelessness yes so units that he was required to replace and never replaced them that's his fault um i call him a monster i i was uh you know coven falconer criminalized

but he was a republican we expected it of him and he didn't tell a promise less he was going to end criminalization to get our vote um one of the reasons that are probably the only the main reason that that gloria didn't didn't put funding into project room key um was because the city is in this unique position of owning and operating the nonprofit that runs the convention center so when covet hit they were looking at the nonprofit going belly up because they couldn't put any events in there and having to lay off all their staff so instead of putting people in hotels where they'd be safe they put them in a convention center where they'd be exposed to covet and would die but the city funded convent um non-profit would be funded so um that's just heinous and 132

million dollars is what todd gloria got the city to to pay out on a settlement on ash street it's his boondoggle he cost us that he convinced city council to invest all this money to slide donor money to his to slide city money to his donors. What is that street for the listeners who aren't familiar with our real estate griff scene? So, James, if you were going to go buy a house right now, you would think it is important that you get a property inspection, correct? Yes. Yeah. Would you think it would be important to Google or seek out documents that

may inform you of asbestos prior to your purchase? Yeah. I'd want to know that. Yeah. So these are two of the opportunities that they missed when they entered this deal with the 101 Ash Street. So they basically had a middleman, Sestera, come in and purchase the property and then lease to own it back to the city. At no time was an inspection done. The asbestos was, people were aware of it, but there was no studies done on what the impact was going to be and all that. So now we've got ourselves sunk into this deal that is estimated to cost taxpayers $202 million, right? So I punched some of the maths, okay?

Yeah. And if you assume one year's rent is $24,000, right? Yeah. $202 million divided by $24,000, right? Yeah. 20, uh, 202 million divided by $24,000 is more than 8,000 people that this taxpayer money, you know, and it's always, it's just, and it's in a cycle and it's, it's not only the cycle there, but it's also the cycle of, we don't have enough police. So they're bringing in more police when we don't have the housing and then the police that we do have are working overtime to pick up shopping carts and throw away tents you know so yeah so the ash street deal there's plenty to google on it but it is it is uh like historically going to go down

in san diego's screw-ups for sure yeah it's a giant monument to grift go ahead colleen but we don't have any police is also more gaslighting we have plenty of police when i started practicing law 30 years ago two police officers would show up at the scene now at least six police officers show up every single time we have an over blight of of police and uh we could afford to lay off two thirds. Agreed. Yeah. But instead, we just built a childcare center for them. Right. Yeah. Let's piggyback on that real quick about the police.

One thing that I think they also push the narrative that, you know, there's this hot team, the homeless outreach team, that the police, they never take water. They never really take anything. And they search for unsheltered people and they have these pop-up events and they rarely get any traffic to these things. And people often wonder why. We cannot expect unsheltered people to trust and accept help from the same people that criminalize them, terrorize them, harass them, and throw their things away. So, you know, adding more police to deal with homelessness is just also a waste of money. It causes more trauma to the unsheltered people, and it's completely unnecessary. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora, An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America.

From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows

as part of My Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we're talking about this duality between what's said and what exists on the street, right? And it's very apparent. People on the internet love to be wrong about George Orwell. But I think like the one time recently where I felt that like Orwell would be a useful thing to deploy is the idea of a care court.

Like, which is the thing that todd's been very strong on the gavin newsom's post right uh courts in my opinion don't care about people it's not their role uh so can someone explain what a care court is and why it's relevant in this setting so the framework of this is you have a bunch of um liberals in gloria and uh gavin Newsom's ear saying, we have to end homelessness. And the politicians are saying, oh, well, we can't end homelessness because they're all mentally ill drug users. So that's the first premise that we're working with, and they're not.

10% use drugs and have mental illness to a debilitating extent in the homeless population. And the drug use parallels the rate of drug use in the house community. We don't take houses away from drug users who are housed and make them get sober before we return their houses to them. So requiring that they be sober before we get a house is asked backwards. We have to get them into housing first. Now the care court is set up just to pass more money to their donors. That's all it's set up to do. It's not going to ease anything. It's going to set up a situation where a person is considered gravely disabled, then they can be put into a conservatorship and gravely disabled is defined as unable to

provide shelter for oneself. So essentially, everybody who is poor is now gravely disabled, and the rich who got them in this position can make all the decisions for them. I'm very who got them in this position can make all the decisions for them i'm very passionate about this because it's it's cruel and it's it's it's it's essentially the return of all the institutionalization that was set set turned off the whole reason that you know reagan got every get everybody released from the prisons because of the mental illness but he never paid there was never any payment into community mental health services so um now they want to return them to the institutionalization after never providing any street a sufficient street um services for them and that's that's just uh cruel yeah and so with um the whole care court, there's like a few very large holes in it. One is that it does not mention that there is any housing stipulation at all.

So it does not say that the conservator must provide them shelter. The check in guidelines are once every 30 days, which is about like the same time period that we have them check in with their case managers is at least once every 30 days. And they also try to tell it like, well, it could be temporary, right? Like once they get better, then they'll be off the conservatorship. And what that says to me is it's like, okay, you force them into treatment. And then once they get kicked out of treatment, you say, okay, they're healed. And then, you know, they're back away from their services. And I've had clients who thought maybe a conservatorship is right for me. I've had clients like begging where they're like, I just can't do stuff right. Like, you know, and I had one client specifically asked me to be her conservator. And I care about her so much. and I care about her so much. And if I thought that her having a conservator would really benefit her, then absolutely. But as of right now, there's no difference

in whether a conservator can get somebody shelter better than me as a service provider or if they can get them into a treatment program better than a service provider. Now, Colleen was talking about how only 10% of our homeless population has a drug addiction, but in San Diego County as a whole, 15% of San Diegans have a substance use issue, right? My 10% was debilitating, a debilitating. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Good to clarify. But so that being

said, 15% is way more than our homeless population. Those aren't the only ones with substance use. But if you are on Medi-Cal, right, if you're low income and low income in San Diego, is anyone making less than $76,000 per year, which is a lot more people than they realize. If you are low income. um can i skip up bumping just because i if you're low income but i have some memes here i want to point some facts on the care court care court to address houselessness but of its 65 million dollar budget zero will go to housing and zero will go to mental health services that's shocking zero to mental health services or housing care court will weaponize its unchecked power and worsen the historical violence against black and brown communities and care court claims to address mental health ability disabilities but allows a judge to rob anyone they find unfit of autonomy over their health home and life yeah and i did remember my thoughts. So, um, like the people on Medi-Cal, um, they're, as far as detox facility goes, like we already know fentanyl is in everything now,

even if somebody thinks they're getting Coke or, or whatever they think it is, typically there is fentanyl in it. So, um, anyone who does wish to go through a detox, um, it's impossible to get them beds. Like I have clients who come in, they're like, please, I know, I know, I got to get work this out of my life. And I'm going to try, can you get me into detox, and we'll spend the whole day, you know, and there's one. And like, all these people are competing for maybe one bed at the detox facility. So if it was like, we had the infrastructure set up and we had this awesome mental health care and we had these awesome like street medics and street therapy and we had,

okay. And everyone in the conservatorship is going to be housed at this place. Like then, then maybe, but like this whole thing is just, it's, it's a load of crap. So. Well, Levi, if we had, if we had all those things, if we had a good system that had good substance use treatment, good mental health care, and housing, we wouldn't have all these folks on the street. Amen. And so it's kind of interesting that they're creating something to solve an issue that they don't have the infrastructure to solve. But I think it's important to note that a care court is a conservatorship, but we already have conservatorship laws on the books.

Conservatorship laws, they're very strict. It's a very high threshold to get somebody conserved currently for good reason. You're taking away somebody's civil, you're taking away somebody's rights to make their own decisions is what a conservatorship is. But for some folks that are gravely disabled and impaired, uh, it is the best thing to do. It's for, you know, for very few people, but the city attorneys and the people in the hospitals, the workers, they don't want to go through it because it is very difficult and challenging. And oftentimes, the judge will deny it because that's how important it is for people to have these civil rights so sometimes you even have to do it multiple times with somebody who probably you know who may actually need it and i speak from firsthand experience of helping people you know go through

this process and try to you know and and trying to get a conservatorship on somebody who just really, really needs it. Care court would lower that threshold so much. I doubt it's legal. I'm sure it's going to get challenged in court. It is such a dangerous leap against our civil liberties, our civil rights, that I just am going to find it incredible if judges allow this to move forward when it's challenged. But the main point is that people need help. They need care, not court. And if we would provide the care, which our elected officials don't want to do, I think this is just a cop-out on their part. I think this is the elected official saying, we have failed, so we'll just punt it to the courts and let them take ownership and control of this, which in effect, the courts are just kicking it

to the counties because the county is our behavioral health provider who's going to have to provide these services and be responsible for these folks. I think this is going to be such a train wreck. But the one thing it is illuminating is that our behavioral health system is so broken, so dysfunctional that they would even be trying to do this. I think it's basically an indictment of our system. But care court's not going to fix anything. And I think it's setting people up for failure.

I've talked to some families who are who are really uh now these are house folks who have uh seriously mentally ill loved ones. And maybe it works better for that segment of the population because they have somebody. They have a loved one as an advocate to make sure that the care is the focus. But for unsheltered folks, they're going to be abused and used by this system. Maybe warehoused, who knows?

They're going to end up worse off in my opinion. And so I, for one, am against it as it's written and certainly fear that the implementation of it is going to be a travesty that I just can't imagine. I can't imagine that this so-called liberal state would try to trample the rights of people like this. would try to trample the rights of people like this. And, oh boy, I tell you, there is so much dangerous about this that, I mean, we could have a whole show talking about this and maybe, and I'm sure there will be a lot of talk

about this down the road. Yeah, yeah, I think they will. All right, so what I want to do is focus a little bit to finish up here on some solutions. So the things that a lot of you guys are doing right now to provide people with help, to provide people with the basic necessities of living a dignified existence

and how the state could do better, right? What housing first solutions look like? What solutions are informed by evidence rather than just informed by sort of cruelty and the desire to do better, right? Like what housing first solutions look like, what solutions are informed by evidence rather just informed by sort of cruelty and the desire to brush the problem aside. What do those look like? Well, I think you have to, you know, you can't expect people to get well living on the street.

So you've got to get them inside. And congregate shelters, we've already talked about why those are so problematic on so many levels. There is a model in San Diego that's being used by a nonprofit where right now it's only for elderly individuals. It's called Housing for the Homeless. And they put unsheltered elderly folks in hotel rooms. And it's had tremendous success.

For some reason, it cannot get funding, city or county funding. But getting these people off the street and out of survival mode is first and foremost. And then you've got them in a stable place so that services can find them when they need them. They can get the health care they need. They can get mental health services. You know, we need to bolster our rehab and addiction services. We also need more harm reduction. You know, it can take you one to three weeks to get in just to detox at McAllister, which is the only detox center in San Diego, south of Encinitas. And detox is separate from sober living. So you may detox and then it may be another one to three week wait to get into sober living,

which is just enough time to get turned back out on the streets and relax again. And after that, even there's no housing at the end of the tunnel. So, you know, really the biggest thing that we're missing is housing. And then everything else trickles down from there. You know, just building these relationships with people so that they can can trust that you're on their side and you're not going to lie to them, give them empty promises or use them in some way to monetize them for yourself is one of the biggest things that I've found of importance for me as an on the ground outreach worker and doing mutual aid. Most of the time, these people just don't have water. You know, they're thirsty. They're hungry.

And that's what poverty looks like. So I think we've, you know, we've got to get these people inside immediately. And then we start deploying the resources to them to help them recover from the trauma of being on the street, or, you know, whatever trauma led them to be in that situation. I think people often forget that a lot of folks on the street, there's the foster to the streets pipeline, there's the jail to the streets pipeline. So many people don't end up on the streets because they have family to help them.

And a lot of these folks on the streets, they don't have any family members. So, you know, as a community, we need to step up and be their family. So that's great. And I think, I think we have to understand that the homeless service system, and I'm going to talk about some of the good things that are happening, because I think that's, it's important for people to know there's a ton of stuff happening, both grassroots all the way up. But it's important to understand that the homeless service system can only do so much. As Mandy was talking about, these pipelines that feed homelessness, people are becoming homelessness. I've never seen so

many new people out here on the street in my work. I'm on the street some part, well, a lot of the every day. And I'm seeing more new people than I've ever seen in my last 13 years. And there's all these feeder systems. It's child welfare, it's foster care, it's criminal justice, it's the education system. You can name it. It's the healthcare system. All these things are feeding homelessness. It's how we've commoditized housing. I mean, I can go on and on talking about what's feeding homelessness. It's how we've commoditized housing. I mean, I can go on and on talking about what's feeding homelessness. It's the lack of safety nets. It's the lack of good mental health care and substance use care. So homeless services cannot control these things up above,

these systems, these billion-dollar systems that are failing people and feeding homelessness. What homeless services system is, and I like to say they've got a lot of mission creep going on here because, ideally, they really should be focused on getting people into housing and out of homelessness. But they've become this big system that is really getting very costly to feed, and it's very inefficient and ineffective. But we know what solves homelessness. Housing and services solve homelessness, period. And it works. We see when these new quality projects like Zephyr or Trinity Place, these housing, they're not projects, they're housing. They're housing with services. So we call them projects, but they're just like any other apartment building, really, except they have supportive services for folks. And they work extremely well. They have a 95% plus success rate of keeping folks housed, even folks who have some,

who are disabled and have some significant issues. And it helps provide that self-sufficiency by providing a deep rental subsidy and supportive services for folks who aren't ever going to be able to take care of their own rent totally themselves. There is no free housing. Everybody who gets these units pays 30% of their income, whether it's disability income, social security, retirement, whatever, they're paying some money. It's not free housing. People are helping themselves. And that's really important to say. And they're participating in services. But once you're in housing, your participation in services

rates go up because people want to continue to keep doing better and stay in the housing. These things are being built. They're being built as we speak, but at a snail's pace. And that's the things that I fault our elected leadership for is they're nibbling around the edges. So has Todd Gloria done some good things? A few, but they're so small and he blows them up to like he's solving something and he's not.

Has the county done some good things? Yeah. They've actually done more good things than I've ever seen them do, but it's still not anywhere close to the pace that we need. They've opened up some mental health crisis centers that are actually walk-in centers. They put together some mental health crisis teams that respond to a small percentage of cases of when you call 911. But it is helping. All of these things help, but what really needs to be done is the things that we know work need to be taken to scale. But we have to also understand the challenges of that. We can't just fault the elected officials for some things they don't have control over.

As we all know, it's a hard time hiring people. So we need a lot more staff that work with, that are providing mental health services and substance use services. But we won't get there. And this is where the elected officials have a lot of fault is they've really not put a priority on this issue. And this is where there's the biggest disconnect. On one hand, you have Todd Gloria constantly saying how this is his number one issue. On the other hand, his actions don't show that. I'm a big believer in bicycle safety and safe roads and things like that. But he seems to put more importance on a bike lane than he does solving homelessness.

And they're both important. But we have 500 people dying on our streets because they're homeless. That's, you know, he needs to put he needs to back up, his talk with action, just like, you know, they're, they're expanding some bike lanes. And I think that's great. Uh, I think they need to do it a lot smarter because some of them don't seem to be that safe to me, but, uh, that's a whole nother show too. Yeah.

That's a, yeah. I shouldn't be involved in, but, but, uh, they don't seem to be very strategic to me and they just don't seem to be very, they don't seem to be very strategic to me. And they just don't seem to be very, they don't seem to care. They seem to be more interested in hoodwinking the public so they can get their next job. We need people who care, mostly that care about people, but also care about spending our money efficiently and effectively. But some of the grassroots stuff, like I say, getting people into hotel rooms and then getting into housing is a good pathway. The county opened a small shelter. I think it's 44 beds or so.

It's the first small shelter that they opened that's really more tailored toward people with substance use and mental health needs. It has a great uptake rate. And the feedback from people on the streets is good. So here we have something that the county did that was good. We need a lot more of them. But instead, they're opening another jumbo tent. So these things are very frustrating to folks like myself and Mandy, Colleen, the different people, the people who are actually on the ground working that are trying to get people into the assistance. We know what,

we know the things that people will go into, including substance use help. But whenever you try to get somebody in it and you're told there's a three-week waiting list, you lose that person. told there's a three-week waiting list, you lose that person. They want to go. They want to go now. You got to be responsive to the person's motivation in that moment to get the help. And it's heartbreaking for people like Mandy and me who are out there on the street and people are crying out for this help. And it's just bullshit when these folks, whether it's the police or the mayor, say that there's the people don't want help. It's really disgusting because when you're on the street like we are and people are pleading for this help and we can't help them because it's not available. We call bullshit on the rhetoric that comes out of these people's mouths. We know the people. We see their faces.

Those tears are real. That pleading for help is real. And we can actually help them if we do what's right. And so we could talk all day about some of the good things, too, that the grassroots people like Mandy are out there just on the ground. We're not paid to do this. None of us here on this call except for Levi. Levi works within the system. And thank goodness for him. The last thing I want to say, and I'm always remiss if I don't remember to say this, but I always want to send a shout out.

I'm always remiss if I don't remember to say this, but I always want to send a shout out. This is not the fault of the hardworking people on the street, whether you're paid or not. I just want to say thanks to all of the folks who take on this job, paid or not, to go out and help people firsthand and try to do the best with this shitty system that they're given. So there's a lot of people who take very little pay. They do this because they care or the volunteers who do it because they care to help people. And there's a lot of folks out there really trying hard to help folks. And they are helping people one by one by one and we need the support we need we have to have the support of of the todd glorious and the nathan fletcher's of the world and the gavin newsom's to do the right thing and and to keep funding what works and to quit doing what doesn't and so um i think it's just important to round out by saying that.

Yeah, I think that's very good. All right. So all of you are out helping people. I see it all the time on your social media. Where can people find you and how can they support what you're doing? If it's getting people tents, getting people water, that kind of thing. Should we start with, let's just go down the list. I'll start with um uh let's just go down the list i'll start with mandy um i usually um kind of bum off of michael for funding

um because uh most of everything i do um i pay for myself um so you know, if he has, he does a GoFundMe and then, you know, he'll be like, Hey, I got GoFundMe money. And, you know, I meet him and he like loads up my car and off I go. You know, people can, can find me on Twitter. I think I'm cute Cooper too. I'm very passionate. So, you know, it's like, be careful what you look at on my feed. You know, I just, I love these people and I want to see them because they're all people. I want to see them get the help. And one thing that Michael taught me in the very beginning of this, because, you know, I started this maybe about two, three years ago. One thing that Michael said to me that resonated with me, because, you know, I was out doing these,

you know, like, I call them parades now, which are like liberal marches, you know, yelling at buildings where no one's in and, you know, then going home and feeling good about what I did. going home and feeling good about what I did. And he said, you know, Mandy, he said, every single social justice issue that everyone fights for, Black Lives Matter, immigration, disability, you know, all of these things come together, you know, LGBTQIA plus, all of those people are overrepresented in the homeless population. And so it shakes down to that. And so I thought, you know, my mind was like blown. And I was like, Oh, my God, you know, I'm out here marching for people. And the most marginalized of them are living on the street. And there's very little help for those people because unfortunately, whatever marginalized group you come from, when you become homeless, that overtakes all of them.

And there is a huge public hatred for unsheltered people. And it is bipartisan across the board. So we all just need to realize that this is, you know, this is a societal failure and a social justice issue. And I hope that, you know, more people will get up and go to the ground and start talking to your unsheltered neighbors, try to build a relationship with them, reach out to their humanity. And if you just do it with one person, if each of us just did it with one person, it would make such a difference. Even if you can't get them in housing or you don't have a lot of money, literally just treating them like a human being means so much to these folks. Yeah, that's very important.

Kelly, what would you like to say? Where can people find you? How can they help? That was just like how to find us, right? I know. I thought it was great. I welcome it. Sorry.

No, I thought it was really good. Everybody should have a Mandy. I thought it was really good. Everybody should have a Mandy. My name is Colleen Cusack, C-U-S-A-C-K. You can Google me and find me. I am in searchable in the attorney directory. My number is 619-823-4630. And my email address is C, another C-U-S-A-C-K dot policy at gmail.com.

And I'm on Twitter at symbol OBJKSHN, which stands for objection. Great. Thank you. All right, Michael. So I, like Mandy, I've just funded my work myself also, except for about, oh gosh, I don't know, a month or two ago, I was out on the street filming some sweeps, watching the police and the environmental service workers throw away people's tents. And I and I and I said, well, I'm going to go get those people some new tents. And the police officer told me, go ahead. We can throw them out faster than you can give them out.

And I tweeted about that. And, you know, I think it really, you know, struck a chord with people. So I've had people offer to help before, but I've just had this real outpouring of offerings to help lately. So for the first time ever, I set up a GoFundMe. And in the first day, I just said, you know, this is just to help support encampments that are impacted by the sweeps or whatever's needed and to support other grassroots people like Mandy who are out there. And I think I raised about $3,000 in the first day. And I was like, wow, that it really was touching because, you know, I didn about $3,000 in the first day. And I was like, wow, it really was touching because I didn't even hardly, I just put it out on Twitter, I think.

And I haven't promoted it much since, but I think we're up to $6,000 or $7,000. Why aren't we shopping? And I use that every day. I don't worry you. I'm retired, so I get to do this uh all day long people like mandy they have a job they're doing this as a second job that's unpaid so um so what i do is is is is help uh is to buy stuff i help other, I funnel money to other organizations. Uh, I also, uh, promote vetted, uh, go fund me's of other people on my social media sites. So I really would appreciate you following me on Twitter. It's at homelessness SD at homelessness SD

on Facebook. It's homelessness, new San san diego on on instagram it's the same and on youtube it's i think it's homelessness new san diego on youtube i just started a youtube page well actually i started a long time ago but i just started posting stuff on there so i have a lot of followers it's a pretty active conversation especially on twitter yeah i get the mayor's people lashing out at me attacking me because they don't like me calling them out um i get you know i i get haters on there too i let them voice their opinion uh i let the conversation flow um but what i do is you're what and i i do warn you that especially on, it's heart-wrenching stuff.

So I'm out here on the ground. I'm seeing people die. I'm seeing horrible stuff. And I'm sharing it with you because I think people deserve to know the truth. Elected officials like Mayor Todd Gloria, they don't want you to know the truth. But I'm going to bring it to you. I work every day to bring you the truth that's going on out here on the street. And it's ugly. But it's also, I also see some amazing stuff. I also see some amazing heartwarming stuff, people helping people. So it's everything. But it's a roller coaster ride, folks. So, you know, just be prepared. And from there, you can find my GoFundMe. But most of all, you can get educated on the issue. Make up your own mind. Don't just listen

to the bullshit that's spewed out of City Hall. See it on the ground for yourself. I take people out with me. I do a lot of work with the media, but just join the conversation. Join the conversation, learn, donate if you want to, learn where you can donate your time to other people. Yeah. Message me. You can come with me. Yeah. Yeah. we're just real people out there doing you know doing stuff and i worked within the system trying to i went to all these meetings i i spent a whole ton of money within the within the mainstream system which i'll never do again because it's a black hole. So I mostly promote grassroots stuff now. And we're just out there doing it and doing what we can in a very difficult situation. But join the conversation and see what's going on. And thanks, James. I appreciate all your support over the years, both amplifying our messages, getting messages out on social media and just for everything that you do

on social justice issues and safety issues. So, and hold them accountable on the bike stuff. Yeah, absolutely will do. That's another episode. I will plug Levi on Levi's behalf because Levi had to jump off

to sort out an emergency, but it's Homeful Solutions, which on Twitter is at the solution 619 uh and you can find them there uh and levi can help folks if they are in san diego access services um so yeah that's been us today please do follow these people please get out and try and be a good neighbor to the unhoused community wherever you are feel free to reach out to any of us if you need some help or advice on how to do that or want to come out here in san diego all right thank you very much everyone appreciate you taking some of your afternoon You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right.

An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.