Thread by @ShellenbergerMD

Calif. Gov. @gavinnewsom says he’s proposing a new system to help with mentally ill homeless people, but he’s not: all he’s proposing to do is throw more money at the same broken system

If he gets his way, Gavin will make the problem worse — as he has done for over 20 years

Over the last year, my colleagues & I have made the case for a new, statewide system, Cal-Psych, to take over psych/addiction care from the counties

Newsom is co-opting the language of Cal-Psych but rejecting the state takeover of care from the counties

californiapeacecoalition.org

I am, on the one hand, happy that our work has forced Gavin to act. It is a sign that our proposal has strong public support.

But he is proposing to do the same thing he has done FOR 20 YEARS, which is to throw more money at the same broken system.

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/why-californ…

In Jan. 2002, as Gavin ran for mayor, he requested & received a report that made clear that cities & counties could not deal with this problem. Said Newsom, “We are spending a substantial sum of money and producing an unequivalent [sic] amount of results”

sfgate.com/news/article/H…

What was Gavin’s solution? Throw more money at the same broken system. At the time, San Fancisco was spending $100M/year on homelessness.

Today, San Francisco is spending $1.1B. And the problem is worse. Much worse.

bariweiss.substack.com/p/slow-motion-…

In 2003, just one year later, Gavin proposed what he described as a new system, "Care Not Cash," to get mentally ill & drug addicted homeless, estimated to be ¾ of all homeless in SF, the help they needed.

But it wasn’t a new system. It was thus doomed to fail.

Many by 2003 knew that Gavin was in over his head. “He’s simply not competent,” said a former Supervisor at the time. She was right.

In 2004, as SF mayor, Gavin announced a “task force” to spend new statewide money on the same county-based system everyone knew was broken.

“I feel very strongly we need to end chronic homelessnes and the only way we can is to address behavioral health”

sfgate.com/health/article…

Back then, as today, the news media hyped Gavin’s pronouncements. “Signs of hope replace despair” trumpeted one headline when Gavin released a “10 year Plan to Abolish Chronic Homelessness.” (Chronically homeless tend to be mentally ill and/or addicts)

sfgate.com/news/article/S…

Two years later, 2006, it was clear to everyone that Gavin had already failed. Even he admitted that he “dropped the ball on that.” The “that” referred to his failure as SF Mayor to deal with mentally ill homeless people.

One year later, Gavin was singing the same tune. He said he was focused on dealing with homeless addicts and the mentally ill.

But there was a change.

Gavin had promised to implement “Laura’s Law” which allows cities to require care for the mentally ill.

But Gavin caved in to ACLU et al and backed off

He blamed “institutional resistance”

In other words, Gavin’s donors and supporters didn’t want to do it. So he didn’t.

In 2010, Gavin proposed to throw yet more money at the broken system without fixing the system.

He said he would use his “moral authority” as lieutenant governor. “I look forward to proving them wrong,” said Gavin, about his critics.

Instead he proved them right.

In 2012, two years later, the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle urged Gavin to do more to implement Laura’s Law.

“We’ve heard politicians give lip service — we’re talking about you, Gavin Newsom — then fail to follow through.”

By 2014, the SF Chron, to its credit, published an article that noted that homelessness had increased.

“There’s a mythology that you can… end homelessness,” said Newsom.

Gavin had given up

Apparently he thinks what happened in Europe is a myth

sfgate.com/bayarea/articl…

Why? Because Newsom was unwilling to confront the interest groups who finance him. He needed them to get elected to another office

But that meant not enforcing laws.

“Despite several laws on the books that Newsom promoted, there’s not much police enforcement of them.”

Again in 2020, Gavin demanded in his state of the union that the state take action to get mentally ill homeless people the care they needed.

latimes.com/homeless-housi…

But instead of creating Cal-Psych, he threw more money at the problem. The result was an explosion of open drug scenes across California

https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1490347295279239172?s=20&t=B1n-q5lzCQeqepALhZQrPg

Why does Gavin *always* fail, when it comes to this issue?

In part because the interest groups that finance him, including George Soros, who gave Gavin $1M, don't want him to

They lie about what happened in Europe

Watch:

https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1491788590489038851?s=20&t=Mzr6j6vke3Go1g2N-9zAMA

But that explanation takes Gavin off the hook.

The real reason Gavin failed, and keeps failing, is because he doesn’t really care.

All Gavin cares about is getting re-elected, or elected to a higher office

ocregister.com/2022/03/03/is-…

Today, Gavin cares more about Democratic primary voters in Iowa than he does about the people of California

Why? Because he wants to be president. Always has.

He may even run in 2024

I defended Gavin as recently as last fall, when I was with@JoeRogan

I said that I thought that Gavin cared about the homeless, but didn’t know what to do.

But now it’s clear he doesn’t know what to do because he doesn’t care.

/END