Recently, California Gov. Gavin Newsom granted $130.7 million for local governments addressing homelessness, including clearing encampments. It comes in the wake of a June Supreme Court ruling that gave cities full authority to implement and enforce policies that would allow them to clear encampments as they see fit. In early August, Newsom was even filmed removing homeless people’s belongings from public view in Mission Hills in Los Angeles County. The governor is seen at one point grabbing and tossing random items into a pile, and at another, dragging a cart filled with various items including a large blanket. Those must have belonged to someone. What has that person used for cover at night in the two months since? I wonder whether the governor asked himself the same question.
I am now a primary care doctor, and during my training years, I took care of homeless people who arrived at the hospital’s doors for various reasons: a drug overdose, an infected wound, new unexplainable chest pain. These things also happened to people who were not homeless.
