Home services

Chesa Boudin Criticized, however Nonetheless Says He Fights for San Francisco’s Unhoused Residents

San Francisco AND Chesa Boudin

By Elina Lingappa

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Rory Fleming published an article in The Filter Magazine entitled “Scapegoating of Chesa Boudin Reflects Ugly Attitudes to Unhoused People,” an article that unpacked the dialogue that made up much of the tough-on-crime -Rhetoric powers San Francisco by storm.

“Perhaps nothing triggers some San Francisco residents more than District Attorney Chesa Boudin,” wrote Fleming, “[e]elected on a platform to criminalize poverty and homelessness. “

District Attorney Boudin is in the midst of enormous public scrutiny that many are misdirected, supporters claim.

Last but not least, that effort includes a recall led by Richie Greenberg, a political commentator who has sparked questionable rhetoric about crime rates in San Francisco for the past two years.

More recently, Washington Post reporter Dion Lim falsely accused Boudin of dropping the car theft charges and published a viral article spreading the misinformation.

Amid complaints from public figures like Lim and Greenberg, many San Franciscans have added the city’s large, uninhabited population to their list of complaints about Boudins Office.

Indeed, Boudin has been vocal in favor of decriminalizing the uninhabited since his first campaign for the district attorney.

However, as Fleming reveals in his article, the public rhetoric against Boudin’s policies not only contradicts the progressive image of San Francisco, but also speaks for a long-standing trend in the city’s history.

The housing crisis as it exists now began in the 1980s, according to NPR reporter and Freakonomics producer Greg Rosalsky, who recently wrote an article about this history of California politics affecting the unhodged.

During this time, the federal government cut much of the housing assistance budget as the state of California cut funding for social services and mental health care at the same time. For example, residents who were already in distress found themselves with little to no safety net, and many were left without accommodation, argues Rosalsky.

The problem only worsened in the years to come.

San Francisco passed a rental control bill in 1994, but landlords and homeowners soon found loopholes in the law. The evictions continued and numerous units were withdrawn from the market, further reducing the rental offer.

The infamous cost of living in San Francisco was the nail on the coffin when big tech took off lately.

The city reflected on a 2018 study by Zillow economists that found that the number of uninhabited people is increasing as residents spend more than a third of their income on housing.

In 2018, the Department of Housing and Urban Development found that a family making $ 117,400 in the San Francisco area has “low income” given the average one-bedroom rental in the city is $ 3,700 per month according to Fleming.

Unsurprisingly, as the cost of living has risen, so has the number of displaced and unhodged residents.

The current uninhabited population is now over 8,000 in San Francisco and a staggering 151,000 in the state of California in 2020.

The problem has reached unprecedented proportions.

Sometime in 2018, a UN official, Leilani Farha, even commented on the state of the Bay Area in a report titled “On decent housing as part of the right to a decent standard of” Life.”

“[The situation] represents cruel and inhumane treatment and is a violation of many human rights, including the right to life, housing, health and water hygiene … The right to a safe home is a universal right under international human rights law. A lack of legal certainty can never justify evictions of residents of informal settlements, ”she wrote in her criticism of the Bay Area policy.

“Most of the people on the street live with structural trauma,” she continued, which means that they have lost their jobs, cannot afford an apartment, have been evicted by a landlord. The structural trauma causes deeply personal effects that can lead to a life on the street that triggers drug use.

Despite this story and context, much of the hardship is faced with misunderstanding by many Bay Area residents.

“Unfortunately, apart from its liberal reputation, San Francisco has a strong conservative streak directed against the working class, our uninhabited neighbors and reform of our criminal justice system,” local defense attorney John Hamasaki told Fleming.

In this way, many San Franciscans have taken to blaming the uninhabited populations themselves and calling for more robust policies to combat crime.

When prosecutor Chesa Boudin began speaking publicly about decriminalization, he faced significant setbacks.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, those previously incarcerated are ten times more likely than the general public to be out of housing, and this demographic is disproportionately made up of women, people of color, and those over 45 years of age.

These trends are not surprising given that a criminal record has a massive impact on both employment and housing options for previously incarcerated people, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

To complete the cycle, uninhabited residents are much more likely to come into contact with law enforcement, even with acts as minor as sleeping on the street. This leaves us with what the Prison Policy Initiative calls the “revolving door” of imprisonment, Allianz said.

Most people affected by homelessness have either been displaced, lost their jobs, or are fleeing from an abusive partner, according to studies that found drug abuse and criminal acts out of desperation only occur after most people are trapped in the revolving door – despite much of the right rhetoric about uninhabited people.

While the claim has become popular that people without shelter resist change and help, help is far more inaccessible than is often assumed.

For example, according to The Conversation Magazine, many shelters exclude certain populations, most commonly families, LGBTQ youth, and unhodged people with pets.

The magazine adds: “Laws against tramps are counterproductive because they make it difficult to escape homelessness.” In addition to those directly affected by homelessness, taxpayers also suffer from the consequences.

In 2015 alone, the city of San Francisco paid $ 20.6 million for arrests on quality of life charges, a total of 125 arrests.

Chesa Boudin is not alone; Politicians and prosecutors across the country have recognized the negative effects of tough anti-crime laws.

No one has exemplified this more than Boston District Attorney Rachel Rollins.

According to their campaign website, Rollins has promised to stop prosecuting 15 low-level crimes, including drug possession. Each of these low-level crimes has a disproportionate impact on the non-accommodated population.

Several academic sources have found Rollins’ policies useful, including Anna Harvey of New York University.

Harvey’s research found that defendants who were not charged with lower-level nonviolent offenses faced 65 percent fewer misdemeanor arrests and 75 percent fewer crime arrests than those originally prosecuted in the following years.

Therefore, the rhetoric that Boudin is causing the city to get into turmoil is falling short according to these statistics.

Research has not only shown that alternatives to law enforcement are more beneficial to public safety, but Boudin’s policies are nowhere near as radical as Rollins’.

In fact, according to Fleming, Boudin only pledged to halt drug possession prosecutions in the event of a purported hitchhike, a far cry from the 15 crimes Rollins no longer pursues.

Elina Lingappa is a sophomore at the University of San Francisco with a dual focus on sociology and politics. Originally from Seattle, Washington, she is deeply passionate about criminal justice and educational justice.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button