My governor: A simpleton with simple answers

Only a simpleton would look at a crowded city sidewalk and decide that if we gave these people homes they would not be homeless.

The solution rules out acknowledgment these homeless people failed, yes failed, to avoid using a freeway overpass as a roof and a concrete sidewalk as a floor.

If one studies the behavior of the street people, patterns emerge. There is a lot of drunkenness. Drug abuse is rampant. Both are nasty, expensive habits that consume not only monetary resources, but one’s ability to focus and to work.

Why not do something to change the underlying causes and guide the stabilized person toward providing his or her own housing? Doing the hard work to solve a tragic problem is not the simpleton way.

And California government is led by the crown prince of simpletons, Gavin Newsom. Newsom has his own addictions. He cannot function without seeing his sneering face on or in the media. He lives and breathes publicity. And he knows everything about everything.

Newsom is up to his elbows in nearly $300 billion in the state’s general fund. Just last month, the Newsom administrators of Project Homekey acknowledged they had no idea what happened to $24 billion allocated to house the homeless. One project developer could not account for $121 million. The state’s excuse for its failure to track the money was to assert that no one told them to do so. “Oh gee, golly gosh, we don’t have a clue.”

Newsom was having none of that, so on Sept. 19 the governor responded to the Project Homekey scandal.

“SAN FRANCISCO – Governor Gavin Newsom today signed a new bipartisan legislative package to strengthen California’s laws addressing the housing and homelessness crisis. The laws represent a comprehensive effort to streamline housing production, and hold localities accountable to state housing law.”

From his press release we learn, “Governor Newsom also announced the release of new program guidance for up to $2.2 billion in funding through Proposition 1 to build permanent supportive housing for veterans and other individuals with mental health and/or substance use disorder challenges who are at risk for or experiencing homelessness. The program, known as Homekey+, will extend the successful Homekey model by emphasizing the acquisition and rehabilitation of existing buildings or other project types that can be quickly converted or constructed into permanent affordable housing.”

The reference to “holding localities accountable to state housing law” has special significance. Newsom has used the homeless population as an excuse to destroy local city and county zoning and general planning law.

Those laws protect the character of neighborhoods and communities, or at least that was the original intent. Early in September he released several press notifications, one bragging his administration has successfully blocked attempts by the City of Norwalk to regulate housing envisioned by Homekey. Expect Brentwood, Bel Air, San Marino and La Canada Flintridge, Marin County and El Dorado Hills to abandon their efforts to maintain the character of their residential neighborhoods through local control. The state of California now rules where the homeless will be housed, and the Newsom goal is 7,000 homes or housing units for the street people.

California has a long history of public housing projects, and without exception those projects became the focal point of social collapse. Building upon those failed social welfare experiments, Newsom is about to do it again.

Newsom said efforts by Norwalk to control its general plan were “unfathomable.” And another press office decried, “In response to the city of Norwalk’s recently adopted ordinance banning the establishment of new homeless shelters and other housing, the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) issued the city a Notice of Violation. The notice warns the city of impending legal action if the city does not reverse its policy.”

So, the homeless “problem” is being used a catalyst to strong-arm municipal government and create housing “equity” so we all can share rampant crime, sloth and social collapse.

Supporting his lust for power, Gavin Newcom is really excited about his 30×30 plan. His goal is to have the state own 30% of the California landmass and 30% of the coastline by the year 2030. Each of those existing five-acre Malibu estates probably would sustain apartments for 500 homeless. Wouldn’t you rather be homeless in Malibu than homeless in the Mojave Desert?

Currently, the state owns only 3% of California’s 163,693 square miles. The feds own 52%. So boosting that state ownership to 30% is a land grab of astounding proportion, and yet the topic is not high on the list of media interests. The math is simple. Three percent of 163,693 square miles would amount to 4,910 square miles of state-owned territory today. To boost that to 30% would bring the state ownership to 49,108 square miles, not counting the expanse along the coastline.

To give some perspective to Newsom’s demand for state land ownership, the state’s share of land in California would be greater than the total landmass in each of 18 states. With existing homes for sale reaching a million dollars each, how does more government control solve these problems? If you ask how, you will be told it is to save the planet. God’s plan was faulty, and Gavin Newsom is going to set God’s plan right.