By: Emily Ao

Recently, Gavin Newsom, governor of California, has been urgently rushing the clearing of homeless camps in the state, specifically in the Los Angeles County area. California, infamously known to be extremely lenient with homelessness, is suddenly changing its direction.

Since July 25th, Newsom started encouraging cities in California to dismantle homeless camps. As a response to this sudden urging, many leaders, mainly in the Los Angeles area, said that they would deal with the looming problem in their own ways.

However, last Thursday, Newsom gave southern California a surprise visit, running errands at the San Diego Zoo. While in the area, he had encountered various homeless encampments.

“People are done. If we don’t deal with this, we don’t deserve to be in office,” Mr. Newsom said while stepping through the mess. He continued to sigh in frustration as he tore through the trash, saying how if they were to lower the homeless rates in the state, they would have to start in Los Angeles, where the homelessness crisis was most prominent.

According to the New York Times, Lindsey P. Horvath, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, says that workers had already relocated some homeless campers from the place Newsom was cleaning into homes. There’s no point in cleaning up cities if housing isn’t provided, she reasons. With the same logic, the immediate evacuation of homeless campers from their sites isn’t a good idea, because they’ll just move into another area instead.

Mayor Karen Bass approaches the situation in a similar fashion. Preferably, the homeless should be offered support and shelter first before threats of arrest or eviction, she suggests. That way, they are still receiving help from the state instead of being removed.

Los Angeles and the state of California as a whole obviously isn’t doing quite well now, but will their countless efforts pay off?