California’s homeless crisis is driving its governor insane. That’s the only explanation for Gavin Newsom’s “holistic” solution to the housing shortage.
Building additional residences is old-fashioned. What’s needed is a broad-based solution that imagines the state out of its crisis. And the more inventive the fantasy, the more Newsom apparently likes it.
Doctors should be able to write prescriptions for housing the same way they do for insulin or antibiotics.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) February 21, 2020
That is so hip. Why didn’t anyone else ever think of that? Probably because it’s so far off the plane of reality that there are few who are so afflicted.
We need to start targeting social determinants of health. We need to start treating brain health like we do physical health.
What’s more fundamental to a person’s well being than a roof over their head?
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) February 21, 2020
Yes. And let’s get the CDC to treat gun violence as a “public health problem.” That’ll stop people from shooting at each other, fer sure.
Newsom’s tweets reiterated a point he made during his State of the State address on Wednesday. He explained that California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal, an agency working to revamp the state’s healthcare program Medi-Cal, asked the state’s legislature for $695 million to invest in a holistic healthcare program that includes housing for mentally ill patients.
“The deeper truth is that our healthcare system has been designed to treat some of our parts, not the sumof our parts. That must change,” Newsom said. “This landmark proposal calls for leveraging Medi-Cal as a tool to help California’s most vulnerable residents: the homeless, our children, and people cycling in and out of the criminal justice system.”
Half a billion dollars for this? A “holistic” healthcare program that will allow doctors to “prescribe” a house to live in? No one denies that “brain health” is connected to physical health. But maybe there’s a little bit more to ensuring the psychological well-being of a human than simply dumping them in a house somewhere and telling them to experience the “holistic” way the state is tackling mental health and the housing crisis.
Of course, there are physical problems associated with homelessness as well, including addiction.
The city of San Francisco recently announced a program that will provide tents for homeless people experiencing psychosis due to the use of methamphetamines. In 2017, nearly half of all psychiatric patients in San Francisco General Hospital were in on meth-related issues. The city hoped that the tent program would free up hospital space for other people needing psychiatric care.
Newsom’s funding for housing for mentally ill people is part of his $222 billion budget proposal for the state.
The state’s homeless people don’t need fantasy solutions. They need a place to live. Wishing housing into existence by waving a magic wand and allowing doctors to write a prescription for homelessness sounds so…so…California.
Perhaps Newsom could ask the wiccans to conjure up the new housing.
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