Formerly Berkeley Food & Housing Project
Statement on Governor Newsom’s July 25, 2024 Executive Order
August 2024
At Insight Housing, we are committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of unhoused people on their journey to being sustainably housed in our communities – and Governor Newsom’s recent Executive Order doesn’t change our Housing First approach.
Insight Housing has been and will continue to commit to evidence-based best practices grounded in understanding those unhoused, as our neighbors, our sons, daughters, brothers and sisters and fellow human beings. We meet people where they are at, provide our best housing opportunities, and continue to work on creating more housing options – which is a fundamental solution to assisting our unhoused neighbors with sustainable, permanent housing. We believe housing is a human right, and we must use evidence-based strategies collaboratively, equitably, humanely, and in a trauma-informed way.
Building a future where our fellow residents are housed and stable is built upon trust, commitment and sustainable solutions. As Jonathan Russell, Director of Alameda County Health, Housing and Homelessness Services notes in his recent statement on this Executive Order, “the July 25th executive order from Governor Newsom adds another layer of complexity that is not without risk of causing additional harm. But if we work together, we can continue to achieve successful outcomes.”
The National Alliance to End Homelessness recently noted, “The Alliance expressed frustration that this approach sets communities up to fail. It forces a far too insufficient timeline for encampment closures that will overburden local providers who are already chronically overstretched. Furthermore, it will disrupt outreach and services to people currently being served and divert resources from their active efforts to rehouse California’s unsheltered population. It will also push unsheltered people into localities that lack the infrastructure to address this issue, erode their trust in the state’s services, and overburden law enforcement with a directive that they lack the tools or training to properly address.
Moreover, this Executive Order will disproportionately affect Black, Brown, and Indigenous people, who are already overrepresented in California’s homeless population: a result of historically entrenched implicit bias in public assistance systems and other institutions. Despite making up only 7 percent of the state’s population, Black Californians constitute more than a quarter of the state’s homeless population. The extent to which law enforcement is used to execute this directive will only accelerate the devastating overrepresentation of Black Americans in the criminal legal system and make it far more difficult for those with justice system involvement to secure housing or employment.”
Insight Housing joins the aforementioned organizations and others focusing on evidence-based, equitable, and cost-effective strategies that achieve the outcome we all seek – our fellow community members being sustainably housed, not temporarily displaced.
Calleene Egan
CEO, Insight Housing