Response to UCSF’s California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness

California : August 26th, 2023

After reviewing the California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness (CASPEH) conducted by the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, CPC strongly advises lawmakers against crafting public policy based on the study’s findings alone.

CASPEH contains significant shortcomings in its research approach and conclusions. These include:

●      CASPEH’s claim to “provide an accurate picture of the homelessness crisis” is overstated, given the inherent limitations of its research.[i] Disappointingly, the authors assert definitively that “migration is a myth” based on methodologically weak statistics.[ii]

●      While it spends a considerable amount of time on the need for affordable housing in California, CASPEH does little to advance the discussion and lacks the rigor of other recent benchmark studies.[iii] Strikingly, CASPEH fails to investigate why California’s policies favoring permanent housing over shelter have failed so many, even though some of these issues (including high mortality rate among tenants) relate to behavioral health, the authors’ domain of expertise.

●      Likewise, CASPEH fails to emphasize behavioral health as a preventative measure to homelessness, even though the study explores many areas where mental health and substance use treatment could have mitigated social and economic conditions that led to homelessness. How might the trajectory of respondents’ lives have been different, had they gotten earlier access to behavioral health care at providers like UCSF?

Read CPC’s full Response here.

[i] Kushel, M., Moore, T., et al. (2023). Toward a New Understanding: The California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness. UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, 11.

[ii] UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative (2023), X, https://twitter.com/ucsfbhhi/status/1683881296194572289.

[iii] Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (2022), “Homelessness in California: Causes and Policy Considerations”.

Past Event:  

Mothers to Protest Open Drug Use at SF Linkage Center

San Francisco :: 8 a.m. :: February 5th, 2022

On Saturday, February 5th at 8 a.m., mothers of children affected directly by the drug deaths crisis will protest in front of the recently opened Linkage Center at United Nations Plaza, which is inappropriately combining rehab services with open air drug use and dealing. They are members of the group Mothers Against Drug Deaths and are demanding the closure of the portion of the Linkage Center where supervised drug use is taking place. 

Defenders of supervised consumption sites say the Linkage Center’s strategy is based on policies from Europe. But no country that has successfully solved the drug crisis combines areas designated for rehabilitation services with areas for drug consumption. And safe consumption sites have only been shown to work in countries which also employ a suite of police and health care interventions for their chronic drug use population. The California Peace Coalition, which Mothers Against Drug Deaths belongs to, put out a statement on a proposal for supervised consumption sites in October 2021.

“It's like having an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in an open bar,” said Michelle Leopold, who lost her 18-year-old son Trevor to fentanyl poisoning in 2019 after he struggled with addiction for several years.

“Would you hand a suicidal person a loaded gun?” asked Gina McDonald, whose 23-year-old daughter is fighting heroin addiction. Gina herself has been in recovery from addiction for many years.

The protesters have a simple message: allowing open air drug use at the Linkage Center is totally inappropriate and must stop immediately. Open drug use at any site that is supposed to “link” people to treatment only causes further harm and continued use. Mayor Breed needs a better strategy if she is serious about solving the humanitarian crisis on our streets. All press are invited to attend the protest.

###

Mothers Against Drug Deaths is a group of mothers who have lost children to fentanyl or whose children are currently struggling with addiction. MADD believes that all open air drug scenes in San Francisco and across California should be shut down using a combination of social services and law enforcement. 

California Peace Coalition is composed of groups that represent parents of children at risk of imminent death from fentanyl, parents of children killed by fentanyl, recovering addicts, and concerned citizens.

Past Event:

Protest Against Drug Deaths

San Francisco :: 11:30 a.m. :: December 1st, 2021

Parents whose children are addicted to fentanyl and other hard drugs in the Tenderloin will protest drug deaths at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, December 1st, in downtown San Francisco, at Turk and Hyde. They will be joined by other members of the new statewide California Peace Coalition, and all members of the public are welcome to attend the protest.

Participants are attending to protest the state’s inability to arrest addicts for nuisance crimes under Prop 47. They believe that, for some of their children, arrest is the only path to abstinence, and that mandatory drug treatment should be offered as an alternative to jail time. Additionally, they demand that San Francisco police and prosecutors arrest and charge the drug dealers who currently operate with impunity in the Tenderloin. 

In 2020, 712 people died of drug overdoses and poisonings in San Francisco alone. The California Peace Coalition believes harm reduction initiatives like safe consumption sites and the widespread use of Narcan can’t solve the problem and haven’t been able to do so. 

The Coalition is a nonpartisan group of parents of children at risk of dying from illicit deadly drugs, parents of children killed by fentanyl, recovering addicts, and community leaders who are fighting to close drug death markets. They are demanding that lawmakers shut down deadly  drug markets, establish universal psychiatric care for all Californians, and move from a Housing First to a Shelter First policy to end unsheltered homelessness.

The Coalition protested dangerous drug dealing in San Francisco in June, in Venice Beach and on Snapchat in July, and at the Capitol in Sacramento in August. 

The group has sent an open letter to the people of California, and to California lawmakers, describing the problem and the solutions to it. 

**Please note that this event was originally a “Die-In” against drug deaths and included civil disobedience, but the California Peace Coalition has changed the event to simply be a protest with no “Die-In” component or civil disobedience. Despite the change in tactics, the CPC’s message remains the same.

Launch Event:

California Peace Coalition

Sacramento :: August 16, 2021

“Without Vision, the People Perish”

People are dying because California’s leaders are failing to act.

At 10am on August 16, we announced the creation of the California Peace Coalition, which includes parents of children who died from drugs, loved ones of current addicts, former addicts, and concerned community members. Our members are united by a shared vision for California that takes the steps needed to end drug deaths, untreated mental illness, and homelessness.

Our members told their stories to attendees and media about how drug addiction, mental illness, and homelessness have affected them and reiterated their support for policies that California needs to enact: using police and social services to end open drug scenes, universal psychiatric care, and a right to shelter.