New City Plan Would Force Elderly Residents to Pay for Tiny House ‘Micro-Communities’ Despite Having Nowhere Else to Go
The Sacramento City Council is proposing that homeless elderly people be charged to live in temporary tiny house villages. Effectively, they intend to charge rent to people who are homeless because they cannot afford rent.
Because of their age, this specific demographic is an easy target for deceptive tactics. They are more vulnerable to health conditions, slip-and-falls, and mental disabilities that are driven by the natural process of passing time. This puts them in an elevated position for vulnerability and need, namely, the need to get off the streets.
Notedly, the move comes at a time when city leaders are also aggressively enforcing anti-camping policies that criminalize homeless people for engaging in life-sustaining activities. These laws disproportionately impact elderly populations.
Proposed Micro-Community Sites for Seniors Would Generate More Than Half a Million Dollars in Annual Revenue … for the City
The cost of living is skyrocketing in the US. Tragically, the poorer you are, and the older you are, the more it’s going to cost you. City planners are proudly presenting a plan to rake in more than half a million dollars in what they call “savings,” and you’ll never guess where they’ll get it from. The answer is elderly homeless people.
“I am a senior citizen, 70+, and the apartments here are outrageous in price,” explained Felisa, an LA-based unsheltered homeless woman who agreed to be interviewed by Invisible People.
She spoke graciously about living in a van because she could not even afford senior housing on her paltry Social Security income. For a woman like Felisa, one of Sacramento’s emerging micro-communities looks like an excellent solution, even if only a temporary one. But upon further scrutiny, it’s not a viable option.
According to the Sacramento Bee, the city council is considering constructing these communities for senior citizens enduring homelessness with some necessary amenities, but there’s a catch. It would cost money to live there.
You read that right. The city wants to charge homeless senior citizens to live in micro-housing units. They claim the charges will offset operating costs, but omit a critical detail. These tiny house villages are not a permanent solution, nor do they feature permanent opportunities for residency. They are, in effect, just emergency shelters with a hefty rental price tag. Shelter is a constitutionally legislated human right, so it should be free. This is an expensive shelter being deceptively marketed as affordable housing.
The goal of these spaces, according to those constructing them, is to help people eventually transition into permanent homes. It’s important to point out that this transition from temporary to permanent shelter rarely happens, and boasts a “success rate” so meager it’s statistically insignificant. This is because there aren’t any permanent, affordable homes to transition into. The national shortage is a deficit of more than 7 million housing units, and it is growing. But that’s not the only flaw in the design.
In a recent email exchange with Invisible People reporters, housing policy expert and tenant rights attorney Leah Goodridge explained why charging homeless seniors to live in emergency shelters reinforces harmful, inaccurate views about the homeless crisis.
“I think charging homeless people rent to stay in a homeless shelter harkens back to one startling reality: many political leaders still believe homelessness is caused by individual foibles like money mismanagement or drug use,” said Attorney Goodridge. “But housing affordability is the cause of homelessness. Homeless people are without homes because they’re exorbitantly expensive, not because they’re buying $5 lattes.”
Part of the Plan Includes Charging Unsheltered Seniors to Live Outside
Three of these communities would feature tiny homes on sprawling lots of land. Temporary placement here would mean 24-hour surveillance, some shared amenities and communal spaces, and 40 tiny houses. But this is not the only construction being proposed. Part 4 of the plan involves outdoor “safe sleeping” sites set to be located in District 4. This means the city plans to charge homeless seniors to sleep outside in government-sanctioned camps.
The pattern here is diabolical. First, the legislation shifted toward criminalizing homelessness and rewarding the corporate entities that are making housing unaffordable. Now, in phase two, there is a push to charge vulnerable communities, taking the last of their measly earnings and funneling it back into the system that is working against them. The inevitable conclusion will be a revolving door of homelessness and a market that profits from other people’s pain.
Violence Increases When Cruelty Becomes the Point of Policy
Attorney Goodridge says we can’t ignore the connection between cruel policies like Sacramento’s and cruel treatment like the violent acts we are seeing increase against our unhoused neighbors.
“The hostility towards homeless people has rapidly increased in the last 5 years,” Goodridge explained. “We’re seeing the real effect in how many homeless people are killed each year—many of these aren’t random arguments that started in the street, but people seeking out any unhoused person to end their life. We can’t divorce that from cruel policies like these, which imply that homeless people are a burden on society and must therefore fork up whatever little money they have that they still can’t survive on just to receive government help.”
Trickle-down economics doesn’t translate financially, but what we do see is a shift in public opinion and hostility whenever punitive policies become the norm. Hence, the thing that tends to trickle from the top down is the stigma used to perpetuate poverty.
As the blame for homelessness is passed on to the people enduring it rather than the people and corporations causing it, the frustration fuels violent attacks. Hate crimes, including stabbing, shooting, beheading, arson, and physical assault against homeless people, are not only more abundant than they were five years ago, but they are also more aggressive. Currently, nearly half of these attacks have led to fatal outcomes.
People are Dying on the Streets. Your Local Representatives Wish to Profit from Their Pain.
Again and again, city councils, city leaders, mayors, municipalities, and people in positions of power vote for corporate interests over community goals. We don’t need any more “innovative” temporary “solutions” featuring smoke and mirror concepts and Band-Aid fixes that apply blame and pressure to victims of the housing crisis. It is time to address the crippling nationwide shortage by making housing a human right for all.