Quick Take
Santa Cruz’s well-meaning homeless policies are backfiring, drawing more unhoused people than our small city can support and straining local resources, writes Craig James, who grew up here and came back as a retiree after a career in scientific software. James doesn’t believe most unhoused residents are locals and argues that permissive policies attract people from less supportive cities. The resulting burden affects public safety, business and quality of life. James calls for a coordinated state and national strategy, warning that without shared responsibility, Santa Cruz will continue to suffer disproportionate consequences.
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Santa Cruz is a tiny town – 142 cities in California are larger than our 62,956 population, which is a mere one-fifth of 1% of the state. Yet, our well-intentioned homeless advocates are unwittingly trying to solve the state’s homelessness problem. It’s a no-win, all-lose enterprise – as we have seen for decades.
You don’t have to be a historian or sociologist to understand the fundamental flaw in today’s approach: Humans in need flock to food and shelter. Whether the mass migration during the 1930s Dust Bowl, the 2.1 million Irish who left Ireland during the 1840s potato famine, or the thousands of destitute people who have come to Santa Cruz in the past decade, the pattern is the same.
In other words, homelessness can’t be solved by one city; it’s a regional, state and national problem. Any city that tries on its own will suffer the same fate as Santa Cruz: It will be overwhelmed by unhoused people who flock to the resources provided.
In a city as small as Santa Cruz, it quickly becomes absurd.
We are surrounded by a less compassionate state and nation. The direct and predictable result is that we have the second-highest per-capita percentage of unhoused people in the entire United States.
(Note: The 2024 point-in-time count claims that 86% of Santa Cruz’s unhoused population are “locals” who lived here prior to becoming unhoused. I flat-out reject this claim; the question was flawed, and unhoused out-of-town people know that the city’s policies favor locals. Of course they’ll answer that they’re locals. This specious statistic suffers a glaring flaw: the above-mentioned fact that our homeless population is vastly out of proportion to the rest of the state and nation. Furthermore, none of the other nearby cities in Santa Cruz or Monterey counties has the same percentage of unhoused.)
The problem is other cities that don’t do their fair share. There are cities that put their homeless residents on buses to Santa Cruz. Cities that harass their homeless citizens until they leave. Cities that don’t even attempt to help their unhoused residents.
A fundamental error of governance is when politicians make policies about things they can easily measure and ignore societal harms that are subtle and hard to measure. It’s easy to count the homeless population and allocate funds from our tax dollars. We can see that helping the unhoused alleviates their suffering. On the surface, it seems like the only ethical choice. It’s measurable.
But there’s a much bigger consequence of this, one that is difficult or impossible to put a number on. The direct consequence of the city’s policies is huge damage to the quality of life here.
How much fear is created? How much does the city spend cleaning trash, feces and used needles? How much business is lost on Pacific Avenue? How many tourists never come back because of the filth? What price can we put on losing the Riverwalk, now unsafe for families and cyclists? How much business will be lost at World Market, PetSmart and the relocated New Leaf grocery store? How much are businesses losing due to the perpetual homeless encampment on Coral Street? What is the value of losing Pogonip or Arana Gulch to drugs and bike thieves? How many more downtown shoplifters will sprint to the levee and disappear before police can arrive?
It’s easy to count the homeless, but it’s hard to put dollars on the tremendous loss of quality of life in our town.
At the seventh annual Woman to Woman conference in 1981, the featured speaker Jessie Potter, an educator and family counselor, told the crowd, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always gotten.”
That is where we are today.
We want to do our part, to make sure no one goes hungry and that everyone has a safe place to sleep. But we can’t do it alone. We can’t be the oasis that attracts more people in need than we can handle.
It’s time for something new: Instead of funding more and more local programs, Santa Cruz needs to put some of that money to advocating for statewide and national solutions.
- Cities should coordinate so that resources and policies are the same everywhere.
- State law should ban cities from dumping unhoused people in other cities.
- The state should coordinate funding so all cities have equal access to resources to help the unhoused population.
- Cities should not use local funding for homelessness. Instead, the state should insure that the financial burden is distributed fairly across all cities by providing state-level funding to cities.
- Nonprofit organizations to serve the unhoused population should coordinate statewide to ensure that similar services are available everywhere.
- Cities that refuse to comply with statewide programs should be penalized. (Many of these will be the same cities that are giving their unhoused residents free bus passes to Santa Cruz; these cities aren’t doing their fair share.)
We need to recruit other cities, lobby our representatives, and even consider sponsoring a statewide ballot initiative. Spending more money here is futile; in fact, it will make things worse.
We’ve tried that, and other cities are benefiting at our expense.
Yes, this proposal raises many questions, including:
- How would these policies be implemented and enforced?
- Are there similar or partial proposals already in consideration by legislators? Are other cities already considering similar ideas?
- This plan will take some control from cities; will cities still be able to respond to their own unique needs? Do voters want this?
- How will voters be convinced to support it, when many cities currently benefit from the unfair situation?
We will need answers as we debate a new statewide policy to more fairly address homelessness. But one thing is certain – we need to stop the stagnation.
My family moved to Santa Cruz in 1955, when I was 1 year old. Growing up, I was never told, “Don’t go to that part of town, it’s dangerous!” I rode my bike to Branciforte Elementary, Branciforte Junior High (now Middle School) and Harbor High. I cycled and walked downtown, to the beach, through the parks, to the yacht harbor, to Ferrell’s Donuts … anywhere I liked. Never did I encounter a problem.
Santa Cruz had its problems, but lawlessness was not one of them. The world has changed since then; homelessness is a national problem. I get that. But Santa Cruz is bearing an unfair and unnecessary share of the problem, and it’s our own policies that are at the root of it.
Advocating for regional and statewide solutions won’t solve any problems today. But if we start now, maybe five or 10 years down the road, Santa Cruz will start to feel more like the town where I grew up.
We need to help those in need, but we can’t let the rest of the state dump their problems on us.
Craig James, a fifth-generation Californian, grew up in Santa Cruz, attended Cabrillo College, UC Davis and Stanford University, where he studied engineering and computer science. After a 40-year career developing scientific software that took him to Palo Alto, New Orleans, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and San Diego, he retired and returned to his hometown. He and his partner together have six children and six grandchildren. He is currently publishing his third novel.