CA must support unhoused people in face of storms

Editorial:

California over the last month. Streets flooded and collapsed, houses leaked and were destroyed by trees, and people died. Much of this could have been solved by policy change in California legislation.

The Olympian sent out a survey (the Storm Form) to CVHS students and has learned about the impacts on 36 CVHS students so far. Of the students that completed the survey, 33 percent reported that they were impacted by the storms.

In the 2020 to 2021 school year, 1 percent of CVHS students were experiencing homelessness – not accounting for housing instability last three years, the homeless population of California has also increased by over 22,500 people to about 172,000, disproportionately impacting Black and Latine people. Housing is a human right, but our society has made the shelter of housing a privilege to be earned.

During some of the harshest days of the storms, San Francisco ran homeless encampment sweeps–as if experiencing homelessness and a storm isn’t hard enough already.

In Berkeley, activists set up a warming tent for residents of

People’s Park who didn’t have other ways of maintaining safety

Valley Library also provided shelter for a few days of the storm. Recognizing the humanity and needs of people the systems have cast out is crucial, especially during times of crisis if not all that when the government isn’t taking necessary action, mutual aid systems are ways citizens can support each other, while still holding the government accountable.

Mutual aid networks, as described by Santa Fe Mutual Aid, are “a network of community volunteers working to support one another, friends, family, &