Redding California

Creating Homelessness for Profit

By Patrecia Barrett

In cities all across the country, fortunes are being made by tearing down entire low-income neighborhoods and replacing them with "upper-end" homes, revenue-producing recreational projects, and whatever else will increase the local tax base and fill city coffers. Redding is no exception. In addition to the vast amounts of money made by developers, investors, and property owners in positions of influence, this widespread destruction of housing for the poor has enabled local administrators to "earn" salaries on a level with members of Congress, an example being Redding’s recently retired City Manager, who pulled down an incredible $192,000 a year, with a $148,000 a year pension.

Homes and apartment buildings in the Martin Luther King neighborhood and the Parkview area (which borders the new City Hall) were condemned and demolished when these areas were declared "blighted". According to the Redding Redevelopment Agency, any area with "stagnant property values", "residential overcrowding" (a determination left to the personal judgement of local officials), and "lack of retail and other commercial activity" may be declared blighted – a definition which is indiscriminate and general enough to include many Redding neighborhoods. "Mini-mansions" have now been constructed throughout much of the Parkview area, which represent far more in the way of property taxes for the City than the buildings that originally occupied this land.

A large residential motel on North Market Street, the Casa Blanca, was condemned in 2001 for what the local media termed "code violations in outbuildings". The Casa Blanca was home to a number of elderly and disabled people, including a woman who had just undergone major surgery and who was evicted despite the fact that her doctor provided the City with a statement to the effect that moving her at that time could endanger her life. The Casa Blanca was demolished to make way for gift shops, boutiques, and a three-star hotel to attract tourists to financially troubled Turtle Bay.

Another residential motel, the El Rancho, was also condemned in 2001, and this property is now occupied by an extension of the RABA bus yard. Two disabled people who had been residents of the El Rancho for seven years committed suicide minutes after being told by police that they had only a few hours to vacate the premises. The low-income housing market was nearly non-existent by that time, and the majority of those who were displaced received no concrete help in relocating beyond being given a standard listing of "low-income and affordable housing" which generally had lengthy waiting periods.

A third residential motel, the Roberts, was purchased by a religious-based organization in August of 2002, shortly before it was slated to be shut down by the City, and its rents were nearly doubled (along with the City’s motel tax), placing it beyond the financial reach of most of the elderly and disabled Social Security recipients who were its former tenants.

Shortly after the destruction of much of Redding’s low-income housing began in 2001, the local rental vacancy rate dropped to less than 1 per cent and homelessness more than tripled.

According to a recent census published by the City of Redding and Shasta County Homeless Continuum of Care Council (figures available through their website as of May 3, 2006), there were at least 3,598 homeless individuals in Shasta County during the 12-month period of its survey. Approximately one-third of them were children (the CoC is a group of governmental and private agencies charged with conducting an annual census of the local homeless population on behalf of Shasta County in order to qualify for federal funding).

Proponents of "redevelopment" encountered one major obstacle to the implementation of their plans: how to avert public outrage over making what were predominantly working families, the elderly, and the disabled homeless, with no replacement housing available. They dealt with this situation in the same manner that other cities have successfully stifled opposition – by launching an anti-homeless campaign with a continuing barrage of articles in the local media criminalizing and denigrating the homeless. In addition to the hundreds of such articles the people of Redding have been exposed to over the past five years, no fewer than 18 items of this type appeared during the space of a recent two-month period alone which portrayed the homeless as being criminal, drug-addicted, contemptuous destroyers of property and the public peace who are taking advantage of the "generous" amount of assistance available to the poor and homeless in our area. A number of these articles have been accompanied by large, dramatic photographs designed to frighten or enrage the general public. Nowhere in any of these articles is "redevelopment", the massive exodus of jobs from our area, or the record number of businesses that have declared bankruptcy over the past five years mentioned as a causative factor in relation to homelessness.

According to a CoC census, people with substance abuse problems comprise only about 7 per cent of the homeless population, contradicting the self-serving misconception promoted by local officials that drug and alcohol rehabilitation is all that’s needed to eliminate the major cause of homelessness. The general public has been led to believe that Shasta County’s only homeless shelter, the Rescue Mission, is able to accommodate every homeless person who is "willing" to let go of their addictions and criminal behavior. In a February 21, 2006 article, Jim Dahl, the Executive Director of the Rescue Mission, responded to criticism from people living near the Mission that the homeless were camping in open areas near their homes by saying that "People who end up camping out are just a handful of people who don’t abide by the Mission’s no-alcohol or drug policy, are confrontational, or simply have a hard time with rules". The Mission has a maximum capacity of 170 people, which means that (by CoC estimates) there are at least 3,428 homeless men, women, and children in Shasta County the Mission cannot accommodate on any given night. As accusations increased that the Mission’s very existence was "attracting" homeless people to the area, Jim Dahl proposed in a March 2, 2006 article to "blacklist" anyone found camping out from receiving food, shelter, or any of the other negligible services that are available in Shasta County. This article also coined the extremely inflammatory term "homeless rehabilitation", and suggested that many of the homeless on our streets actually came from somewhere else to take advantage of the "bastion" of services we offer (which are exceedingly limited, even by small-city standards). However, a census conducted by the CoC determined that at least 74 per cent of the homeless in Shasta County have lived here for more than two years. Convincing the public that a good portion of the homeless in our area came from other places is another tactic that has been used successfully in other cities to disclaim responsibility and to enlist public support for a program to "run transients out of town", which was also proposed in the March 2 article. And according to an April 29, 2006 article, this process has already begun in the form of issuing citations of $335 for the first "offense" and $3,000 for the second.

An April 9, 2006 article stated that the City of Redding now has $61 million in its general fund, and that "the City has managed to carve out fat cash reserves" in recent years. The same article informed us that the City has plans to "redevelop" the Lake Boulevard and Buckeye Terrace areas in the same manner as Parkview. This will further elevate the cost of remaining rentals, and has the potential to add thousands of human beings to the already staggering number of homeless in our area. The various organizations associated with the CoC have stated repeatedly at their meetings that lack of affordable housing is a major obstacle to addressing homelessness in Shasta County. Vouchers for subsidized housing through the City of Redding currently take one to three years, while the Shasta County Department of Housing will not venture a time-frame for its waiting list. However, being in possession of a voucher does not guarantee that housing can be found, and it is often the case that these vouchers reach their expiration date without the recipient having found a place to use them.

The following is a partial list of recreational and "beautification" projects the City and County have funded since Redding’s version of "urban removal" began: the "Big League Dreams" Sports Park, the Sundial Bridge, yearly installments of $400,000 each to Turtle Bay (which has been operating in the red since its inception), the renovation of the Cascade Theatre, and the approval of $350,000 to be set aside for the new downtown location of the Riverfront Playhouse. Obviously, funds have and do exist which would allow local government to alleviate a tragic situation it is largely responsible for creating. As a beginning toward that end, the community should demand that the City halt its plans to displace even more low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled until replacement housing is made available.

According to the Coroner’s Office, at least 25 people lost their lives in Shasta County in 2005 as a direct result of being homeless (this "official" figure represents only those among the homeless for whom no relative could be located). The homeless are 3 to 4 times more likely to die prematurely than the general public. A humane argument could be made that the further "beautification" of Redding should be delayed in the interest of seeing that our elderly and disabled neighbors don’t continue to die on our streets from the extreme physical hardships imposed by homelessness, or that hundreds of local children don’t continue to fall hopelessly behind their classmates in school because there is no housing available in which their families can live.

A community forum will be held on November 4, 2006 to explore compassionate and realistic solutions to the homeless crisis in our area. All interested parties are welcomed. Please call (530) 226-0404 for more information.

                                                      http://reddingloavesandfishes.com/