On September 13, State Representative Matt Gress (LD4), chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Budgetary Funding Formulas, held a hearing that dealt with the issue of homeless housing in Scottsdale. Two other members of that subcommittee were also present, Rep. Quang Nguyen (LD1) and Rep. Judy Schwiebert (LD2).
In many ways, this was a typical committee hearing, with politicians on both sides defending their positions. It is not clear whether the committee made any real progress during the hearing itself however, there was one extremely important difference between this hearing and others like it. Rep. Gress promised, and more than adequately delivered, a rare opportunity for regular members of the public to provide input. In fact, about 15 individuals were allowed to speak for 2 minutes each, to express their concerns and offer solutions. Public comments comprised a whole 1/3 of the time used by this hearing.
One resident, identified as Jeff Caldwell, called out Rep. Judy Schwiebert for her voting record and accused her of hypocrisy when she invoked teachers as being potentially homeless because of low pay.
“I live in Mrs. Schwiebert’s district and I just want to say you are being a hypocrite when you come here and say..,” Caldwell began before being interrupted by Gress, who asked him to refrain from personal attacks.
“Sir, I think I would rather not attack members,” said Gress.
“So, okay,” began Caldwell again, “so, we have representatives here who voted against giving raises to teachers but then are using teachers as an example of people going into being homeless and I think that is very disingenuous. I’m very sorry about that, but to another point, our homelessness issue is addressed with the Housing First policy in the State of Arizona. The Arizona Department of Housing was created in 2002. At the federal level they started implementing these policies 25 years ago. Homelessness has drastically increased over the course of the last 25 years. So, the policies that are being implemented are actually, in my opinion, leading to more homelessness issues. Senator Catherine Miranda actually shared an article on her Twitter account a few weeks ago, and it states that the University of California San Francisco released a study and it found that 80 percent of California’s homeless populations includes people who are addicted to drugs. So we are looking at a drug issue. A mental health issue. We are looking at people losing their jobs as well, but we are dealing with this issue from the wrong angle. We do need to get these people help. We need to make sure that they have the resources necessary in order to become one with the community again. Thank you for your time.”
The testimony heard on proposed solutions to Scottsdale’s homeless problem suggests that there are two main problem areas to resolve.
First, the housing first approach has been tried for years in many major cities with dismal results. Many believed this was a dangerous path for Scottsdale to follow, especially since there is little or no vetting of participants and there is no follow-up to determine the long-term success of the program.
Second, the city’s plan to use local hotels to house the homeless will create an unwise co-mingling of paying guests with non-paying homeless people. People who spend the kind of money necessary to vacation in Scottsdale are not likely to be happy sharing facilities with homeless people, especially since there is so little vetting of the homeless involved.
Observers noted that at least Nguyen and Gress wanted the state legislature to be very careful when funding these kinds of programs to make sure they do not follow the same failed path as many of those that have been tried in other major cities.