I recently moved to California. Before i moved, people asked me “why are you moving there, its so bad?”. Now that I’m here, i understand it less. The state is beautiful. There is so much to do.
I know the cost of living is high, and people think the gun control laws are ridiculous (I actually think they are reasonable, for the most part). There is a guy I work with here that says “the policies are dumb” but can’t give me a solid answer on what is so bad about it.
So, what is it that California does (policy-wise) that people hate so much?
As a very left leaning individual who does not like California my reasons basically come down to all the benign neglect of the homeless (leaving people to rot in the streets with their fentanyl addictions isn’t progressive, assholes) the militant oppositions to building housing anywhere (progress is being made but it’s like pulling teeth) and the huge focus on performative laws that effect 0 actual change.
… Notably these are all problems in other states too. Most of them just use police to lock them up instead. Not better.
But California rubs me the wrong way because they act smug about it.
California also has more homeless than other states… Reasonable weather and they don’t get thrown in jail? Homeless people migrate here for those reasons.
I also wish we did a better job… It’s not that California doesn’t spend money on the problem… It’s just the money we have spent has been ineffective. If we could get more housing first options maybe it would be better? It sucks though to go downtown sometimes.
California is also the dumping ground for Republican states who ship their homeless and refugees out of state. Every one of them does it so they can claim there is no homeless crisis.
The amount of Californians who blame everywhere else doesn’t help.
90% of the homeless in California were there when they lost their houses. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_California
And the problem is y’all refuse to build housing or shelters. 2/3rds of them are unsheltered. Housing costs are why they’re homeless.
NYC has the other concentration of the homeless (and a lot of problems with the housing market as well) but at least 90% of the population has shelter.
I don’t disagree. We should be building low income housing and we should approach homelessness with housing first.
I love affordable housing but I’ll settle for market rate.
It’s a national problem but it’s definitely more pronounced the more a place has grown, and Cali just keeps growing.
They don’t always lock them up. Sometimes they put them on a bus to California.
That represents such a miniscule population that it’s not really worth talking about.
90% of your homeless population is home(less)-grown.
In the context of this discussion about attitudes towards CA, the fact that CA is held to a higher standard than other states is worth talking about.