Protect the Unhoused Myths vs. Facts
Myth 1: Putting people in homeless shelters or interim housing like hotels would solve the housing crisis.
Interim housing and shelter move people indoors temporarily, but they are not a housing solution. Unhoused people can become stuck in shelters and interim housing for extended periods of time, or they return to living on the streets. This cycle is costly and does little to help people out of houselessness.
Permanent housing that meets the international human rights law standards, must be affordable, habitable, accessible, located near work, schooling and other services, have essential amenities, and be culturally appropriate. Temporary shelter, including hotel rooms, does not meet this definition.
Myth 2: Criminalization is a solution to homelessness.
Criminalization offers no solution. Criminalization is a costly, ineffective, and temporary solution that undermines more lasting ones, like developing affordable housing. Jailing people and saddling them with criminal records makes it more difficult for them to find work and housing. It is not a solution to force someone to move when they have nowhere else to go.
Myth 3: Encampments are created with the intention to camp in public spaces.
A large percentage of unhoused people come together to form communities of differing sizes called “encampments.” Police enforce laws against “camping” in public spaces. This terminology is misleading and can feed into the public perception that people are unhoused because of their own choices. Camping is associated with a recreational activity–choosing to spend time outdoors.
Unhoused people rarely chose to live outdoors. While it might feel more appropriate to restrict a person’s ability to “camp,” it is unfair and cruel to restrict their ability to exist. People in these communities are not “camping” as a recreational choice, they are existing or surviving outdoors.
Myth 4: Sweeps/Cleanups are only conducted to remove waste and hazardous materials.
Sweeps/Cleanups at encampments are designed to remove waste and hazardous materials. However, a substantial portion of cleanups amount to wholesale destruction of encampments, confiscation of property and destruction of property, including clothing, bedding, tents, medications, personal papers, family mementos, and other personal items. Sweeps inflict tremendous harm on people and often do not provide effective sanitation.
In recent years, city policy has shifted away from arrests and citations and instead emphasized sanitation sweeps. Unlike citations that require a court process, the sweeps punish people immediately, on the spot. This approach to enforcement has become the primary tool for making unhoused people disappear from public view. Sweeps may also amount to encampment “clearances” when they result in permanently removing unhoused communities from a particular location.
Myth 5: Everyone living on the street is addicted to drugs or mentally ill.
People living on the street are more likely to experience addiction or a mental illness than the general population – but by no means do these two conditions affect everyone.
Newly released data from Los Angeles County found similar results — 24% of people surveyed during this year’s point-in-time count reported having a serious mental illness, and 27% reported a substance use disorder.
Myth 6: People who are houseless don’t work, and don’t want to work.
Some people who don’t have a home still hold down one or more jobs, while others are trying to find work.
Many unhoused people report barriers to working or finding work, including: their age, a disability, lack of transportation to and from a job, a criminal record, and the amount of time they spent trying to find food, water and shelter, while also safeguarding their belongings on the street.
But even if people are working, they aren’t making enough to afford rent. Fast food workers, for example, make a median wage of $17.32 an hour in California, but they’d need to make more than twice that to rent a one-bedroom home, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Myth 7: People who are unhoused don’t want shelter or housing, it’s a choice.
City leaders will sometimes label unhoused residents as “service-resistant” if they refuse to accept shelter or other services. But outreach workers say the reality is much more complicated.
Data suggests that when people are offered shelter that meets their needs, they are likely to accept it. Cities and counties throughout California opened hotels and motels for unhoused residents during the COVID-19 pandemic, through California’s Project Roomkey program. It was a novel idea at the time – offering private rooms as shelter for unhoused residents, instead of the traditional barracks-style model. And it was widely used, according to a recent statewide analysis of the program.
Read more from “You Have to Move” and “6 myths about homelessness in California”