The Homeless Problem - Is it the Symptom or the Disease?

The Homeless problem seems to be growing and growing (as are the negative impacts thereof). I think it’s worth reflecting not simply on the current problem and its consequences, but perhaps the cause (i.e., is the homeless problem the symptom or the disease). Here are two excerpts from my book on that topic… 

…San Francisco spent $2 billion between 2004 and 2014 for construction housing that comes with drug and alcohol counselors.  What positive impact did this massive budget have on San Francisco’s homeless problem? The homeless population grew 17 percent in two years.  When hearing of a homeless individual, a good suburb-dwelling middle class American may envision an typical person living in their car simply in between jobs – think again.  The west coast homeless problem is most well known for the public defecation.  In fact, San Francisco receives 80 calls per day reporting human feces in streets and public thoroughfares.  That’s 29,000 poop calls per year.[i] 

The west coast of the United States is currently experiencing a severe and growing homeless problem- and it has everything to do with the decriminalization of drugs and scaling back of law enforcement.  Unable to blame the problem on capitalist policies during a booming economy and record low unemployment, the homeless problem was first described as a “housing crisis.”  But the current state of California, Washington, and Oregon homelessness is not your garden variety homeless problem.  The west coast homeless problem is represented first and foremost by the discarded drug syringes, mountainous trash generation, and even homeless people defecating on the sidewalk.  Ultimately, the media accurately encapsulated the current homeless problem as a crisis resultant from severe psychosis and drug addiction.  While at least the discussion related to what to do about the current population of severely mentally ill and drug addicted, no one seemed to ask just why the west coast had an exploding population of drug addicts and severely mentally ill people (with much overlap between the two).

Let’s review just what we’ve outlined in this chapter so far:

1.   In the late 1990’s, the west coast legalized marijuana and both the use rates and potency of marijuana increased.  Smoking a west coast joint in 2020 is the equivalent of smoking seven 1995 joints and over ten 1970’s joints.

2.   A panel of the largest concentration of Nobel Prize winning scientists unequivocally concluded that marijuana use increases the risk of schizophrenia and psychoses – the higher the use, the greater the risk.

3.   Virtually all scientific experts have concluded that marijuana use greatly increases the occurrence of other substance abuse disorders.

4.   During a thriving economy, the west coast experienced a visible and crisis-level increase in homelessness characterized by severe psychosis and drug addiction. 

It is maddening that no one seems to even slightly ponder what has caused this increase in severe psychosis and drug addiction.  Is it plausible that scores of people were taking a dump in the street for generations completely unnoticed or that public defecation was as much a part of the 1980’s as the Cold War, acid washed jeans, and break dancing? Or is it more likely that the levels of drug addiction and psychosis have recently dramatically increased due to some new external cause.  The science of epidemiology tells us If X causes Y, then more X would cause more Y.  To plug our facts into the formula, If marijuana use causes drug addiction and psychosis, more marijuana use would cause more drug addiction and psychosis.  In a way, we are not really talking rocket science – but simple pattern recognition that epitomizes the intelligence of mankind.  The most primitive animal either stops doing things that cause harm or the animal is destined to extinction.  A dose of primal intelligence just may do our nation some good.[ii]

[i] Brian Surber, Injustice for All: The (Familiar) Fallacies of Criminal Justice Reform (True Blue Publishing, LLC, 2021), p. 54.

[ii] Surber, pp. 97-98.