Assemblyman Ammiano argues that AB5 will save the state money by reducing the amount in court fees and the cost of jailing the homeless that the state covers.
On the other hand, Assemblman Wagner argues that the bill will undermine local elected officials and open the state and local governments up to class action lawsuits without alleviating homelessness.
Argument In Favor
Homeless Bill of Rights: Why Legislators Should Vote Yes
By Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, Author of AB 5
I believe helping people who are homeless is our moral and civic duty – part of the social contract.
I know not everyone feels that way, though, so let’s talk about how we can save public money by passing AB 5 – The Homeless Person’s Bill of Rights and Fairness Act. After all, this site is Budget Watchdogs.
Yes, I said it would save money – perhaps more than $1.5 billion a year, according to researchers from UC Berkeley School of Law.
Under current practices, law enforcement in most jurisdictions will cite or arrest people who are homeless for a variety of activities like sitting on a sidewalk or falling asleep on a bench. In some cases, including San Francisco, ordinances have been devised specifically to target the homeless who, by definition, have no other place to sit or sleep. My bill would curb that practice.
Why? Simply put: This criminal approach to homelessness is expensive and it’s not working. We have seen no evidence that anyone was ever ticketed into getting a job or any proof that arrests produce housing – except jail housing at a ridiculous cost to the taxpayers.
The costs of handing out tickets to people who are homeless aren’t that much. The Berkeley researchers calculated those costs conservatively and figured they were only about $2.4-$3 million a year statewide.
It’s after the tickets that things get more expensive. Police may have to appear in court to testify – though many citations are thrown out – and court costs themselves are estimated to reach $17 million.
But the whopper expense is jailing homeless people. The Berkeley researchers looked at seven counties, including San Francisco. In my city, they found 311 homeless people in jail on a single night. Multiplying that by $107.54 (the nightly cost of each inmate), they found San Francisco was spending more than $12 million a year to jail the homeless.
Because homeless populations are so hard to count, the estimated cost to incarcerate homeless people across the state could range from a low of $310 million to $1.7 billion a year.
And it doesn’t solve anything. In fact, a homeless person who has been arrested or jailed will find it harder, not easier, to secure a job or permanent housing because of that record. That leaves them to rely upon public resources for additional time. The only effect that officials can realistically expect is that homeless people will try to hide better, or move to other cities where the cycle can be repeated.
Is there another possibility? Of course. In Los Angeles, a 2009 pilot study with about 100 people who were homeless put roughly half of them into supported housing and treated the rest the standard way. The actual cost difference for public services was staggering: the housed people cost an average of $605 per month, while the comparable population on the street cost the taxpayers an average of $2,897 per month. That’s right, helping the homeless costs less than busting them.
We need to stop spending money on turning the day-to-day activities of people on the street into crimes. That money would have much greater benefit to us as a society if it were spent on positive things. That’s why my bill does not only ask for an end to the criminalization of homelessness. It also calls for the establishment of public hygiene centers accessible to people who are homeless. Yes, this may cost something, but there are innovative approaches. Already, a start-up company in San Francisco is looking to turn decommissioned buses into mobile shower facilities. Hygiene centers and public restrooms (which once were much more common) would go a long way to alleviating the fears of unhealthy activities that many opponents of this bill have complained about.
As I said at the open, I think there are basic, humane reasons to support AB 5. It’s hard enough to live on the streets without legal harassment. But once you look beyond the rhetoric targeting homeless people, you will see decriminalization makes dollars, and it makes sense.
Argument Against
The Legislature Should Reject the So-Called Homeless Bill of Rights
By Assemblyman Donald P. Wagner
As originally drafted, the so-called “Homeless Bill of Rights” was sufficiently broad and ham handed enough that even the reliably liberal Sacramento Bee editorialized against it. To his credit, however, the bill’s author, Tom Ammiano, met with opponents, including me, and truly worked hard to craft a better bill. After significant amendments, the bill is much better. But it is still not good.
The California Chamber of Commerce labels the bill a “Job Killer.” It imposes a one size fits all Sacramento based solution on a particularly local problem while forcing our local cities and counties to spend potentially huge sums of money. It enables the homeless lifestyle and it requires law enforcement to turn its back to some of our disabled veterans – those most deserving of our compassion and attention. I hope my colleagues in the legislature have the wisdom and compassion to reject this bill.
In the Judiciary Committee hearing where the Homeless Bill of Rights was considered, the author stated the purpose of the bill, at least in part, was to “alleviate homelessness.” Unfortunately, it does not do so. Instead, the Homeless Bill of Rights will drive a wedge between cities and counties, blow government budgets around the state, and increase the pain and isolation that the homeless already experience.
Under the proposed law, Sacramento’s heavy handed rulemaking will usurp the efforts of local elected officials throughout the state to alleviate homelessness. For instance, the homeless problems in the hot inland or rural parts of the state are not the same as in beach or more temperate communities. But local elected officials – those closest to the problem and closest to the people – are denied a free hand to address the problem locally. Sacramento thinks it knows best but it just does not.
Under the proposed law cities will be required to spend large sums on various facilities and programs, or permit legions of the mentally ill homeless to live in their parks unless counties meet certain benchmarks. But the cities cannot require the counties to spend the necessary dollars to meet those benchmarks. This disconnect between services and spending is crazy, but there it is in the Homeless Bill of Rights.
Also under the proposed law, with its new private rights of action, plaintiffs’ class action lawyers will have marvelous new opportunities to sue public agencies and pocket millions of taxpayer dollars for themselves. Not a dollar necessarily will go to providing new homes for the homeless. Moreover, and quite strangely, the Homeless Bill of Rights explicitly says that the homeless – even if the government takes all necessary steps to provide shelter and spends millions on the problem – may still decline admittance to a facility and remain on the streets.
Indeed, perhaps that is the biggest flaw in the Homeless Bill of Rights: It won’t alleviate homelessness. In fact, it virtually commands local governments and police agencies to ignore the homeless. We see veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and the mentally ill wandering our streets muttering to themselves, and are instructed by the Homeless Bill of Rights to ignore them. Government is instructed to turn a blind eye to the homeless, at the risk of hordes of “civil rights” lawyers, on the prowl for a single misstep, descending on them and rampaging through the public treasury. That is not a compassionate response to homelessness. It is not right that we turn a blind eye to the problems of our most vulnerable.
However well intentioned, that is precisely what the Homeless Bill of Rights does. It should be rejected by the legislature.