After getting lambasted on homelessness, Fresno leaders bicker with each other | Opinion

You didn’t need 20/20 vision to see the juxtaposition on display Thursday at Fresno City Hall.

Better hope city leaders can see it as well. Because they don’t come off looking all that great.

Concluding the first Fresno City Council meeting of 2023 was a vaguely noticed item about homelessness and affordable housing sponsored by Councilmembers Miguel Arias, Luis Chavez and Annalisa Perea. Including whether the problem warrants a state of emergency declaration.

Unfortunately, the discussion was undermined by a squabble between those councilmembers and City Manager Georgeanne White. She was annoyed over being left in the dark and having to learn about their proposal by reading The Bee’s story the night before.

It was impossible (at least for me) not to contrast that scene from the one that took place 90 minutes earlier, in the same room.

Opinion

When, during public comment, homeless advocates and several unhoused Fresno residents took turns lambasting council members and city officials about a camp along Weber Avenue that was torn down hours before by the Homeless Assistance Response Team.

Leaving those people exposed to the elements during one of the wettest storm cycles in years.

With her voice nearly cracking, a woman named Gloria spoke about how she and her brother suddenly became homeless, unable to cobble together enough money to rent an apartment. And how the tent they were living in was torn down that very morning.

“We have no place to go,” she pleaded. “I am scared.”

‘It was hard to get that tent’

A woman named Crystal, clutching a dog against her chest, also described having her tent taken away by HART while bristling against common stigmas faced by the homeless.

“It was hard to get that tent without committing a crime,” she said.

Other speakers described horrific living conditions in the motel rooms converted into homeless shelters purchased by the city with state and federal funds. One ripped into Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer for the lack of any tangible progress on a tiny home village, even though millions have been set aside.

A veteran of many public meetings, I know that speakers tend to tell their truths but rarely the whole one. Except there’s a difference between theatrics, or those who like to hear themselves talk, and real people expressing real pain.

This was unquestionably the latter.

I was watching the proceedings on CMAC, which has its primary camera facing the speaker’s podium and away from the dais. Meaning the faces of those sitting up there were out of my sight.

While it’s easy to denigrate council members and city officials as uncaring individuals, that’s actually a false characterization. They do care. So I’m not picturing them sitting stone-faced and callous as Fresno residents described getting their tents confiscated and possessions soaked.

Nevertheless, I didn’t hear any utterances of sympathy. Our normally loquacious electeds were silent. Nor did any of them, at least in public view, ask city staff for an explanation as to why homeless camps are being torn down during a storm. Especially when there’s no available shelter space for those folks to go.

(I tried to get answers to those questions as well. City officials were not immediately forthcoming.)

Homeless less visible, still present

After making an initial dent in homelessness by removing camps from along the freeways and purchasing nine motels for emergency shelters and permanent housing, Fresno’s pace of progress has slowed.

The city’s homeless population may be less visible, but their numbers remain plentiful. As next month’s annual count by the Fresno-Madera Continuum of Care will surely reveal.

There was no good reason for the council threesome — Arias, Chavez and Perea — to sponsor such a vague agenda item with zero explanation, talking points or staff report. That’s bad policy making. (And, technically, only the mayor has the authority to declare emergencies.)

However, I think some of that stems out of frustration. As does White and Dyer’s reaction. Everyone in local government is feeling the pressure. Not just to put a roof over the city’s homeless, but to spur construction of affordable housing so more residents don’t end up that way.

In Arias’ case, he’s also sick of his district bearing the brunt of the problem. Why are most of the homeless, and virtually all the services, in District 3? If that’s the case, why not use the convention center as a shelter space? Preposterous as that might sound.

Fresno City Council meetings are the proper setting for elected officials and city department heads to have 10,000-foot-level discussions about policy changes that could alleviate the homeless crisis. Thursday’s was a good and necessary one.

However, they also provide a street-level sounding board from those stuck living on them. And after listening to real people describe their real ordeals in such harrowing detail, a little sympathy from those same policy makers shouldn’t be too much to ask. Anything is better than silence.

If local government operated properly and humanely, each of the unhoused individuals that spoke during public comment would be approached by someone from the city and offered services as soon as they left the council chambers.

Perhaps the question we should be asking is: Why weren’t they?