I’m a blue state mayor and the future of homelessness scares me

The short life of the Ghost of Christmas Present ended at midnight on Wednesday, and the children began counting down to the appearance of his brother, one year from now.

This Christmas, like every Christmas, I read Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” There is a scene, immediately after the departure of Marley’s ghost, in which Scrooge sees disembodied spirits, condemned to roam the earth. These ghosts plead and plead, unseen and unheard, s the poor, the homeless and the disenfranchised. What they regret is their inability to help – a tragic irony, since they had the opportunity to act while they were alive, but now without physical bodies they can do nothing.

This got me thinking about homelessness. Is it the same thing? As mayor of El Cajon, California, I was an outspoken critic of the state’s handling of the homeless crisis. I wondered, “Could it be that, like Scrooge, I was forging my own heavy chain every time I criticized voucher programs, lawlessness, and housing first policies?” I wondered: If I had been given the same gift that Scrooge was given, what revelations would my hauntings reveal?

DR. PHIL WITNESSES TENSION OF A HOMELESS ARGUMENT DURING AN UNDERGROUND TOUR WITH MAYOR ADAMS

The Ghost of Christmas Past, which reminds me of the 1970s, would show me a California largely devoid of homelessness. Back then, California was a relative paradise, marked by a sense of law and order.

Future homelessness in California will only get worse if we don’t change policy. FILE: The city of Berkeley, California has been sued by several companies for failing to remove homeless encampments. (SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA ALAMEDA COUNTY)

But didn’t Christ say, “The poor will always be with us?” I know the 1970s were full of poor people – I was one of them. Almost everyone I knew was poor. Still, we could walk downtown without bumping into homeless people. Crime existed, but the police were empowered to protect communities. Beaches were places of beauty, not camps filled with filth and despair.

Why? What has changed? In my view, it was a conscious decision to make homelessness a viable option—financially subsidizing the homeless lifestyle, repealing laws that kept communities safe and clean, normalizing addiction, and destigmatizing vagrancy (to use 1970s-era language). In my imagination, the spirit would not judge, but let me draw my own conclusions.

Would the Spirit of Christmas present show me dark, dangerous camps, full of rape, violence and hopelessness? I believe it would. But would the blame fall on those trapped in this hell or on the politicians? Would you show me the backroom deals and development contracts that keep the homeless industrial complex going – a system where a select few profit from $25 billion in lost funding while the problem only gets worse, leaving NGOs begging for more?

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Would the ghost look at the wretched and say, “Don’t blame me for this misery. This is the work of man”? Would he point to the people dying on the sidewalks and say, “I see an empty tent. If this policy is not changed, this will be their fate?” Would you show me the Christmas tables where people laugh, shake their heads and lament the self-destruction of California?

The last ghost, like Scrooge’s, will be the one I fear the most. He would show me a California where the cities are uninhabitable and the inhabitants are scattered across the country as refugees. He would reveal the lawlessness of anarchy on the streets, where sexual assaults and overdose deaths are predictable and accepted outcomes. It would show closed retail stores, flooded hospitals and public spaces rendered unsafe. He would lead me to the ruins of my birthplace. And with his skeletal hand, he could quietly point to places like Haiti, warning of what lies ahead.

My Christmas wish is that the real recipients of such persecution are the political decision makers responsible for this crisis. May they wake up on Christmas morning with a new vision and vitality—one that prioritizes the well-being of all Californians over greed and failed ideologies.

If I were Dickens, I’d write an ending where the homeless industrial complex is dismantled and replaced with efficient solutions. Most importantly, I would write a happy ending for those trapped in homelessness and addiction—not by enabling them, but by enforcing laws that prevent street life while providing, and sometimes demanding, appropriate treatment. I would see municipalities get the tools back to clean up their cities and reverse the policies that have made California increasingly unlivable.

Why? What has changed? In my opinion, it was a conscious decision to make homelessness a viable option—financially subsidizing the homeless lifestyle, repealing laws that kept communities safe and clean, normalizing addiction, and destigmatizing (to use 1970s language) vagrancy.

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Thinking about it, I see a disconnect between the poor and homeless of Victorian England and the crisis we face today. In 1843, there was no safety net and options were few. I believe that Dickens’s poor would have accepted modern shelters, work opportunities and rehabilitation programs – not because they were better people, but because the harsh conditions demanded it. “Are there no poor? Are there no workhouses? Many would rather die than go there,” they said. This was their grim reality.

Today, however, our obligation to the poor and homeless must be matched by their obligation to participate in their own recovery. The real Scrooge in this story is the political class that imposed a failed social experiment on Californians – a failure by any measure. May we all see the truth so that we may proclaim, “God bless us, all.”