Three Times More Homeless Die Under "Housing First" than "Shelter First" Policies, Data Show
It's time to shut down the open drug scenes
Over the last year I have been making a highly public argument against California Governor Gavin Newsom’s “Housing First” approach to homelessness. By diverting funding from homeless shelters to homeless housing, and not enforcing laws against public camping, Housing First advocates have inadvertently increased deaths from drug overdoses, homicides, traffic accidents, and other causes, I have argued.





Housing First advocates, including Newsom, have responded that shelters are not a solution to homelessness, and that it’s wrong to make people sleep in them.

Now, new mortality data released by the cities of New York and Los Angeles, first reported on by USA Today, strongly support the argument for New York’s Shelter First approach and against California’s Housing First approach.
USA Today yesterday published an analysis which found that three times more homeless people died in Los Angeles than in New York City between mid-2020 and 2021, despite the fact that there were 14,237 fewer homeless in LA than NYC.
“Los Angeles saw 1,988 homeless people die from April 2020 to the end of March 2021,” notes USA Today. “In a similar period – July 2020 to the end of June 2021 – 640 people died in New York, about a third of what L.A. saw.”
The reason for the difference is obvious: New York has built sufficient shelter for its homeless population whereas L.A., following “Housing First” dogma, has not. Instead, L.A. has, like San Francisco under Newsom’s leadership, diverted money from building shelters to building an inadequate supply of very expensive housing.
And by allowing open drug scenes — “homeless encampments” — to grow, by not enforcing laws against illegal public camping, Newsom and other progressive leaders are not only creating urban disorder, they are inadvertently killing homeless people.
Of the 1,988 homeless deaths in Los Angeles between April 2020 and March 2021, 715 were drug-related, 104 were from homicides, and 150 were from traffic injuries. Deaths from drugs, homicide, and traffic increased 78%, 49%, and 33%, respectively, from the prior year.
Of the 640 homeless deaths in New York over a similar period, 237 were drug-related, 22 were from homicides, and just six from traffic injuries. Deaths from drugs increased 81%, but deaths from homicides and accidents did not increase significantly.
The data thus make clear that while shelter is not absolute protection from overdose, homicide, or traffic injuries, sleeping outside poses significantly larger risks than sleeping indoors.
People sleeping outdoors are also far more likely to be raped. The percentage of unsheltered homeless women who report being sexually assaulted approaches 100 percent, according to the L.A. County Sheriff.





Nearly 100 percent of the unsheltered homeless women that my colleague Leighton Woodhouse and I have interviewed said they have been raped multiple times.

The new data should put an end to the debate over whether California should continue with its dogmatic Housing First policy.
It’s time to shut down the open drug scenes, a.k.a., “homeless encampments.” They are ruining California’s cities, and killing homeless people.
I've said it before and i'll say it again: modern liberalism fails because it is first and foremost about the social, emotional, career and psychological needs of the Compassion Givers and only secondarily about the real needs or results for the Compassion Receivers. So it is very successful at making modern liberals feel good, kind, righteous, holier-than-thou (and certainly much holier than their blood enemies, the Deplorables), but otherwise an obvious total failure.
My wife and I are just now filling out our ballots for Michael!
THANK YOU!!!! The idea that we shouldn't "make" people sleep in shelters is laughable. I have begged, pleaded, and grovelled trying to get shelters to ALLOW vulnerable women to sleep in them.
The same people who claim to "care" so much about homeless women are trying to stop incarcerating rapists - they make the asinine claim that sex offenders have very low recidivism rates.
No, they do NOT have low recidivism rates, they have low arrest, prosecution, and conviction rates. When they prey upon homeless women, the arrest rate is virtually zero.
I always check the sex offender registry and warn homeless women about which men among them have been convicted of rape.
When I confronted one homeless man about his previous incarceration for rape and attempted murder, he rolled his eyes and grumbled, "Yeah, I thought I killed the bitch."
This man is allowed to move freely among the population of homeless women, many of whom "disappear" on a regular basis and have no one to look for them.
Thank You for bringing a voice of reason and actual compassion to this issue.