California spends billions rebuilding burned towns. The case for calling it quits: The state should turn back before becoming the enemy
San Francisco, California. In the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge, a once-popular tourist town of 3,500 now known as a ghost town, squatters in plastic tents, with dogs and chickens roosting in the ruins.
These tents have a purpose: the remains of burned-out houses, like the one where the author lived for more than a decade: the ruins of a Victorian seaside town called Point Reyes Station.
In the last 10 years, Point Reyes has gone from a community to an island of homelessness.
The city has given out 5,000 grants to help bring people back, and now they’re having to dole out another $1.5 million to rebuild.
But this time, the homeless aren’t asking for cash, they’re asking for help getting back on their feet.
The city’s own plan, an ad hoc plan that has already taken a month to develop, requires that one percent of the funds be spent on a variety of support services – not unlike the current state of California’s housing and shelter system.
It’s a far cry from a system that had already allowed the homeless to live for as little as a few days, and for whom the homeless shelter system was not a safe haven.
And today, nearly three years after the fires, California is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on rebuilding the state’s burned towns.
‘This has come to an end for me’: How the San Francisco Bay Area saved one of the most notorious fires Read more
If this is supposed to be a story about homelessness and whether the state should save one of America’s most notorious fires, its ending shows that there’s a bigger story here.
The truth is, this