(TNS) For years, Democratic leaders in California worsened the state’s homeless problem by enacting policies that actually encouraged and expanded it.
And now, they’ve created a potential pandemic disaster.
As coronavirus sweeps across the state, Left-wing Gov. Gavin Newsom and his Democrat super-majority in the state legislature are faced with the potential that as many as 60,000 homeless people could contract the coronavirus, according to models.
And as many as 20 percent of these folks, most of whom aren’t in the best of health as it is, could require hospitalization — which will strain the system to the breaking point.
Guess now isn’t a great time to be offering free health care to illegal aliens, huh?
“Over the next eight-week period, we have modeled that of the 108,000 unsheltered Californians that are out on the streets, if you had an attack rate of about 56%, you’re looking at 60-plus thousand individuals that may have COVID-19,” Newsom said in a Facebook address to the state, as reported by IJR.
“That creates a deep point of anxiety for the existing population but moreover for our healthcare delivery system, our capacity to move people in and out of the shelters safely without contacting other people and putting them at risk as well.”
As IJR adds:
California, the nation’s most populous state, has also been among the hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak, with 598 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, a 21% increase over the day before. At least 17 fatalities have been reported in California.
The governor said he had issued an executive order authorizing the distribution of an $100 million to cities and counties across California to blunt the impact of the respiratory illness on the homeless, and had acquired 1,300 trailers to use as temporary housing.
Another executive order directed that $50 million be used to convert motels and hotels into shelters where homeless people could be isolated if they caught the virus. …
Meanwhile, IJR noted further:
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the state’s largest city was making a new push to identify homeless people considered most vulnerable to the virus, including the elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions.
The Democratic mayor said that up to 6,000 of those potential coronavirus victims would be given beds in city recreational centers.
Patients suspected of carrying the virus would be isolated in emergency trailers, a move paid for by tapping into state funds made available by the governor.
So, if the state has ‘acquired’ 1,300 trailers to house homeless people, that must mean officials have somewhere to put them — right?
Which begs the question: If this has always been a ‘solution’ to getting homeless people off city streets, why wasn’t it rolled out a long time ago?
Of course, this could all be too little, too late. As more and more coronavirus patients are diagnosed, the virus could already be sweeping through the state’s homeless population.
But in fact, this was always a problem that could have been solved long ago, were it not for Left-wing political lunacy.
