The Truth About Homelessness in California—with Mayor Bill Wells

[00:00:00] thanks for being here today my name is kevin conover i’m the host here on educate for life radio we’re

[00:00:05] broadcasting down in southern california san diego k praise 12 10 a.m and there

[00:00:11] if you haven’t heard this is brand new news here the recall for gavin newsom is

[00:00:16] officially set for september 14th that’s a huge deal and uh there’s all kinds of

[00:00:22] you know uh people upset in california a lot of it has to do with what’s happened during covid with the amount of

[00:00:29] businesses that are leaving california with a lot of the increase in homelessness which is what we’re going to be talking about

[00:00:34] today and uh this is a biblical issue it’s a it’s an apologetics issue which is a defense of a biblical world view

[00:00:40] meaning uh meaning the bible actually talks about homelessness it talks about poverty it talks about money and the use of money it talks

[00:00:46] about how government should be responding to to uh poverty and these sorts of issues and i just wanted to read off some of

[00:00:53] the stats these are recent california has seen an increase of two point two percent in

[00:00:58] homelessness from 2007 to 2020. uh there was an increase of six point eight percent from

[00:01:04] 2019 to 2020 and the 2020 annual homeless assessment report found that california accounted

[00:01:10] for more than half of all unsheltered people in the country this is nine times the number of

[00:01:16] unsheltered people in the state with the next highest number so no other

[00:01:22] state comes even close to what california has regarding regarding homeless nearly a

[00:01:28] third of all homeless unaccompanied youth nationally live in california

[00:01:33] california also has the highest number of snap recipients snapping supplement supplemental nutrition assistance program

[00:01:40] uh formerly known as the food stamp program three million seven hundred and eighty nine thousand

[00:01:46] uh recipients of food stamps for every one hundred thousand california residents ten thousand two

[00:01:52] hundred receive welfare benefits that’s as of 2019 um so you’re talking just over 10

[00:01:57] percent of californians receive some sort of welfare benefits

[00:02:02] this this just came out in sacramento in la we’re dealing with massive amounts of

[00:02:08] homelessness um down here in southern california we’re dealing with homelessness situations you see stories all the time about the

[00:02:14] encampment encampments in san francisco you you see people uh talking about what’s happening on the streets they can’t run

[00:02:21] their businesses there’s people sleeping outside of businesses and and uh there’s there’s trash

[00:02:26] everywhere it’s a huge issue the mayor of sacramento on wednesday uh announced a plan to legally obligate

[00:02:32] california’s capital city to house its growing homeless population so the the mayor of sacramento actually

[00:02:39] said darrell steinberg actually said people are becoming homeless faster than we can get the help they need

[00:02:46] we want to guarantee a right to housing an obligation for homeless people to accept shelter when it is offered so

[00:02:52] basically he’s mandating um that housing is provided and that that the

[00:02:57] homeless people take the housing uh this is interesting because this is uh you know doesn’t sound like

[00:03:03] freedom or the ability to you know make your own decisions here in los angeles this has become a huge

[00:03:08] issue they just recently on july just as of today um it says here that

[00:03:15] they passed a new restriction restrictions on encampments near homeless shelters

[00:03:20] daycare centers and an array of other public facilities um now there’s there’s lots of arguments lots of people are complaining about

[00:03:26] this they’re saying you’re criminalizing homelessness but the la council uh city council voted

[00:03:31] 13-2 to start um enforcing laws against people

[00:03:36] being outside of things like building entrances driveways libraries parks elementary schools around fire hydrants

[00:03:43] and of course it’s like well yeah that seems like common sense but uh we’ve gone rapidly in a bad

[00:03:50] direction here uh in regards to homelessness and and so um before i introduce our guest uh

[00:03:58] i wanted to read a scripture because it’s interesting to me again the biblical’s perspective on this issue but this is from

[00:04:06] um let’s see here this is from deuteronomy it’s chapter 15

[00:04:12] it says however there need be no poor people among you for in the land the lord your god is giving you to possess is your

[00:04:18] inheritance he will richly bless you if only you fully obey the lord your god and you’re careful to follow all these

[00:04:24] commands i am giving you today for the lord your god will bless you as he has promised and you will lend to many nations but

[00:04:30] will borrow from none and my guest today is mayor bill wells uh and bill thank you so much for for being

[00:04:37] on the program today this is an issue that i mean you personally are dealing with as the mayor of el cajon it’s a huge

[00:04:43] issue um it’s it’s it it’s almost the foremost issue that people are concerned about in

[00:04:48] california and you also have a background with working with homeless as well um so uh thank you for being here

[00:04:57] well you’re welcome uh first off you’re absolutely right there probably is no larger issue nothing that we as a council think

[00:05:04] about more and i think that’s probably the same for every city council in california if not america

[00:05:10] um i take a very different approach to this and i think a lot of it has to do with the fact that

[00:05:15] i’m not coming at it purely from a political perspective i am spent my entire life working

[00:05:22] in mental health i have a bsn and a doctor of psychology and i spent a lot

[00:05:27] of my years working in emergency rooms doing psychiatric evaluations which meant i i saw all the people that the police

[00:05:35] and the paramedics and the walk-ins from the streets came in and i worked in

[00:05:42] an inner city er so a lot of my clients a lot of the people that i i dealt with in a clinical

[00:05:48] setting were homeless people and that really opened my eyes to what homelessness is

[00:05:54] really about and what i can tell you is that none of the issues that politicians are bringing up about

[00:06:01] homeless have any bearing on the truth it’s

[00:06:07] caused by a myriad of things but all different than what the average average

[00:06:13] politicians are saying it’s about especially the more left-leaning politicians who seem to have a

[00:06:19] a political investment in perpetuating homelessness so i’m happy to answer any questions

[00:06:24] regarding that explain those things but i yeah and and i do have a question about that i mean um you know that’s an interesting

[00:06:31] statement you made that it seems like the you know politicians on the left have an interest

[00:06:36] in um actually increasing homelessness and uh you know it does seem like that i

[00:06:43] mean um you hate to impugn the motives of somebody but at the same time you wonder

[00:06:48] you know it’s a it’s a continual increase i mean that the stats are clear it’s not going away

[00:06:54] uh so you wonder you know what what in the world is going on is this a is this an impossible problem to solve and

[00:07:00] are we just you know going to be um just hopeless in this situation or is

[00:07:05] there actually a solution that that can be provided but it’s just being ignored okay so your your question being um why would

[00:07:12] uh left-wing politicians be pushing to increase homelessness yeah it just seems like i mean

[00:07:19] very strange that uh you would you would want to do that i mean um what what’s going on there well i i

[00:07:25] can’t honestly say i know what their motives are i i mean it does seem like perhaps there’s a rush

[00:07:31] on the democrat party to be rushing to who can be the most progressive who can be the most left-wing

[00:07:37] uh because i think they see their political futures as embracing that i i think that’s a mistake but that’s

[00:07:42] another discussion and when you say that bill when you say um you know rushing towards the left and

[00:07:49] are are you arguing about like you know people are arguing the rights of the homeless meaning

[00:07:55] the right to you know be out on the street or be where they want to be is that what you’re referring to well

[00:08:01] not only that just the rights of the homeless but passing a myriad of laws that really

[00:08:07] if you looked at it from the outside you would say that must be to try to encourage people to become homeless

[00:08:12] not to just protect their rights you know i think there’s a distinction there um if you look at the laws in california

[00:08:19] and just in the last few years we have seen the prisons being emptied out which

[00:08:24] means a lot more homeless people we have seen it impossible to book anybody we can’t arrest anybody for

[00:08:29] almost anything we can’t arrest anybody for a theft you can steal up to 950 dollars where the

[00:08:35] merchandise from a store now without being arrested you can only get a ticket and

[00:08:40] you can uh steal a car you better you better be careful what you tell people on the air here they’re going there’s going to be a believe me believe

[00:08:46] me the the criminal element in in california knows this yeah and and the homeless people know this against

[00:08:54] you can’t you can’t be arrested for assaulting somebody unless it’s with a gun or or a really violent assault but if i punch

[00:09:00] you in the face i can’t be arrested for that if i break into your car and steal your car i can’t be arrested for that

[00:09:06] if i sell you drugs i can’t be arrested for that if i buy drugs from you i can’t be arrested if i’m using drugs

[00:09:11] on the street i can’t be arrested for that if i’m urinating in public or defecating in public or sleeping in somebody’s doorway or

[00:09:19] breaking their windows i can’t be arrested for any of those things and these are all so what is a police

[00:09:24] officer supposed to do i mean do they come up and just have a talk with you and then let you go

[00:09:29] or whatever they come up and say kevin you you stole 949 with a merchandise so i can’t arrest

[00:09:35] you but i’m going to give you a ticket what’s your name and you say well it’s it’s john smith and i said you have any um

[00:09:41] id john and he said no i said okay well here’s your ticket you know make sure you show up at court and

[00:09:48] you of course you just throw it in the trash can and all of this has been um codified by

[00:09:55] the one party rule in california is this coming down from sacramento or

[00:10:00] is this uh okay yeah it comes down from sacramento um of course the uh

[00:10:06] funding has been cut from the jail so they don’t want to book anybody they’ve been told they’re not supposed to book anybody i mean

[00:10:13] it’s not so bad in san diego but in l.a they won’t e the d.a won’t even prosecute people for

[00:10:18] most crimes it’s lawlessness and you know the cynical person and i think i am a

[00:10:25] cynical person uh says that it is an overarching plan to try to destroy the fabric of american

[00:10:31] life so that they can rebuild it in a communistic marxist image but and so how do you how do you

[00:10:38] get from from uh not allowing anybody to be uh you know pro you know arrested or or put in

[00:10:45] prison or whatever the case how do you get from there to a a you know communist uh tyrannical

[00:10:50] government or orientation well yeah i mean it’s just it’s just a step by step if you if you look at we’re going to get

[00:10:57] all over the place but if you start looking at critical race theory defunding the police um

[00:11:04] marxism in in general the the whole black lives matter movement all of this in my opinion is designed to

[00:11:11] to tear apart the fabric of what we used to call normal american life and i think that that there’s a

[00:11:16] segment in our population that feels very offended by the concept of life the way it used to be and they

[00:11:22] think that the the only way to to combat these quote unquote systematic problems systematic racism systematic

[00:11:30] injustice uh inequalities is to tear the tear the nation down to its studs and

[00:11:37] rebuild it in in a new light yeah and this that believe me this is nothing new

[00:11:43] this is what what happened in bolshevik russia this is what happened in nazi germany

[00:11:48] this is what happened with the people’s cultural revolution in china and the french revolution in the uh late

[00:11:56] 18th century so this these uh these impetuses have been

[00:12:02] with us for quite a long time have been tried many many times yeah it’s interesting because um the

[00:12:08] article on the los angeles time talking about the council members who are trying to

[00:12:14] uh apply some you know rule of law to the homelessness situation instead of just having people with encampments all

[00:12:20] over the all over the place um actually three of the groups that were

[00:12:25] opposing uh having more laws you know regarding homelessness were a

[00:12:31] group called the ground game los angeles black lives matter los angeles and the l.a chapter of the

[00:12:36] democratic socialists of america um which which are all groups on the

[00:12:42] extreme left and what’s becoming uh normalized left uh that are arguing for socialism which

[00:12:50] ultimately um is the next step right before communism um but but uh so

[00:12:57] so what is the solution in in your regard you know when you look at the homelessness situation that we’re dealing with and

[00:13:03] uh we you know there’s homeless in el cajon where you’re the mayor too and this is an issue that you have to wrestle with um you know what is this

[00:13:10] what is the solution to situations like these well first off all these things i talked about are

[00:13:16] secondary to the main problem of homelessness and i think that if if you were to make me uh you know

[00:13:22] president of the united states or even better king of the united states for for a little while to and said bill

[00:13:28] you’ve got to solve this problem yeah the first thing i would say and by the way i’m not advocating that i i’m

[00:13:33] kidding i’m going to make it king wells this is a hypothetical situation okay um the the first thing i would say

[00:13:41] is that until if we’re going to attack this problem we have to understand what it is um what

[00:13:46] they what do they tell us is the reason for homelessness people are what they’re down on their luck they’ve lost their jobs because of covid

[00:13:53] um they lost their jobs because of the bad economy they housing is too expensive yeah that’s a

[00:13:59] big one people saying uh rents are up and uh people can’t buy homes and uh people can’t get paid

[00:14:05] enough money um everybody but everybody buys this and

[00:14:10] accepts this as as truth and the reason they do is because they don’t know anything about it they’ve never

[00:14:16] worked talked to a cop talked to an er doctor talked to me has worked in in

[00:14:22] er doing psychiatric evaluations talk to somebody who’s running a homeless shelter they’ll tell you what the problem is

[00:14:28] homelessness it is 99.9 drug and alcohol abuse the people that

[00:14:34] are on the streets i’m gonna say something controversial but i i to my soul i believe it the people that are on the

[00:14:41] streets are choosing to be on the streets because they want to do drugs and alcohol we know every single homeless person in

[00:14:48] el cajon we’ve offered each one of those people probably a dozen times chances to get off the streets and get a

[00:14:54] bed there are beds available for people who are willing to get off the streets but they say no

[00:15:00] because i want to continue to do math i want to continue to do heroin i want to be able to live my life the

[00:15:05] way i want to live i don’t want anybody telling me how to live it so as long as one

[00:15:12] people are arguing that poverty is causing homelessness but the real truth is that drug and

[00:15:17] alcohol abuse is causing homelessness then we’re never going to even get close to solving the problem

[00:15:23] so yeah we have to find some kind of consensus so it’s interesting when i when i i

[00:15:30] wrote an article about this recently and and the world exploded on me because all these people who

[00:15:35] don’t know anything about it screamed and yelled at what a bigot i was calling people drug addicts

[00:15:41] and it’s not me calling people drug guys i’m just i’ve talked to 10 000 homeless people in my

[00:15:47] lifetime and i’ve asked them can i get you off the street and they they tell me the same thing they tell the cops no i want to use

[00:15:54] drugs yeah so that’s really interesting because um i i was doing some research on this and

[00:16:00] there was a united states conference of mayors they they asked 25 mayors the top reasons for homelessness in our

[00:16:06] regions and the far majority just like you said said that substance abuse was the primary reason

[00:16:12] um for homelessness and uh so i mean uh the evidence all you know

[00:16:19] supports everything you’re saying there um but what if what if a person were to say well yeah bill but

[00:16:25] the reason they want to do drugs is because they’re addicted to the drugs and they can’t get off the drugs so

[00:16:30] ultimately what originally started as something that was their their voluntary

[00:16:35] decision to do drugs has now become an involuntary decision where they are um addicted to

[00:16:41] something that is now controlling them to the extent where they’d rather live homeless than then

[00:16:47] get housing but be forced not to be able to take the drugs anymore well look i i have compassion for for

[00:16:53] being addicted to drugs and alcohol i come from a very addicted irish family who every

[00:16:59] man in my family died of alcoholism except for me and i have a lot of compassion for

[00:17:04] people that can’t stop using drugs and alcohol and it’s a real thing um it’s a hard thing but

[00:17:10] the answer is not to give up and fuel that addiction by giving them benefits and giving them money and

[00:17:16] giving them a free pass and say sleepwear needless to do whatever you want that’s not that’s not going to help anybody

[00:17:23] you know the analogy i use would be if your teenage daughter came to you and i know you have daughters and so if

[00:17:31] you’re teaching out of dangers [Laughter] so say your teenage daughter came to you and said uh dad

[00:17:37] i i don’t want to live the normal life anymore and you don’t have to pay my college all i want you to do is give me a

[00:17:43] thousand bucks a month let me do whatever i want i’m going to prostitute myself i’m going to i’m going to sleep on the streets i’m going to use drugs and i’m

[00:17:49] going to stop by once in a while and take a shower and use the laundry but i’m not going to ask you for anything just you know your your

[00:17:56] obligation to me is done and you said well that sounds like a pretty good good deal let’s you know yeah

[00:18:02] yeah that’s a great analogy um because nobody will do that but as a society we’ve done that we’ve said oh you’re

[00:18:09] addicted to drugs okay well here’s ssi here’s you know 1200 bucks a month ssi oh here’s food stamps oh here’s a free uh

[00:18:18] insurance card so you go to a psychiatric hospital anytime you feel like getting off the streets and telling your suicidal you can get

[00:18:23] get off the streets for a few days and we ask no question oh we’ll never punish you and we’ll never send you to jail and

[00:18:29] we’ll never hold you responsible and if you destroy property that’s okay and if anybody ever says anything bad

[00:18:35] about you will will excoriate them in the public square because they weren’t sensitive to you

[00:18:40] that that is not a kind and compassionate loving christian way for one group of people to

[00:18:47] treat another group of people that is cruel and so i’m taking the the tact

[00:18:52] that far be it from saying that putting restrictions and limits upon people’s behavior

[00:18:57] is a cruel and evil thing it’s cruel and evil not to put limits on people’s behaviors

[00:19:03] cruel and evil not to hold people some standards and say you can live better i

[00:19:08] will help you yeah we’ll help you get to where you need to go but you’ve got to put the effort in

[00:19:13] yeah that’s fantastic i love that analogy that you gave there i mean that makes total sense when you when you put it in

[00:19:19] those terms and i love the definition i heard of liberty um you know life

[00:19:24] life liberty and the pursuit of happiness you know in our declaration and liberty the

[00:19:30] freedom to do good um the freedom to be uh free from

[00:19:35] evil and really that’s what the bible talks about it talks about how sin

[00:19:40] uh gets its clause in you and then you actually are no longer free to do what is the right thing to do you’re not free

[00:19:46] anymore because now you you are trapped by your vices and so um what the california government

[00:19:52] and what people on the left tend to do is actually enable people um to get trapped in these horrible

[00:19:58] vices and these horrible situations um so you know is this something that

[00:20:03] has been because because it wasn’t always like this it wasn’t always you know our position that okay we need

[00:20:09] to give people you know free food we need to give them free this free that in order to show compassion towards them

[00:20:17] uh a lot of people held your view before where hey you know what we need to do is we need to help these people do what they can’t do

[00:20:24] which is prevent them from being able to have the opportunity to take these drugs and to do these drugs and to provide penalties

[00:20:31] has this been a sudden change is this uh uh over the past you know how many years

[00:20:37] has this taken place i think it’s it’s been a gradual change with the acceleration being over the past seven eight years

[00:20:44] it was it was probably six years ago that we started seeing the alliance share of the really

[00:20:50] outlandish laws that were protecting homelessness and protecting the right to be homeless

[00:20:55] and to kind of celebrate homelessness that was probably six seven years that we’ve we’ve seen these really flourishing

[00:21:02] before that though there was a loud drum beat of of people that were kind of calling out for the same thing

[00:21:08] saying that we should be celebrating people’s diverse rights to be homeless and to

[00:21:14] choose a different path um so um you said you’re a little bit cynical when it comes to these

[00:21:20] issues uh you know um so do you see that’s a pretty short amount of time that that such radical change has taken

[00:21:27] place seven to eight years well i’m sorry to interrupt you but haven’t we seen

[00:21:32] massive changes at every front of society in the past three to five years i mean just oh yeah

[00:21:38] the country’s not recognizable to what it was five years ago um yeah and i think it started a long

[00:21:43] time ago i was doing some research on the impact of uh marriage on homelessness

[00:21:48] and uh there’s no doubt about it that uh when you have strong marriages and lots of married couples

[00:21:54] you have a decrease in poverty you have a decrease in um homelessness and all these sorts of

[00:22:00] issues and uh california legalized no fault divorce all the way back in 1970. so these are we are just seeing all of a

[00:22:07] sudden this birthing of all these horrible horrible decisions it’s funny i was a kid um so i was six in 1968

[00:22:16] and i remember the summer of love and i remember it because um i had grown up in a world that you

[00:22:22] didn’t grow up in which was kind of the post 1950s gray flannel suit get your hair cut once a week

[00:22:28] mom wears a dress and bakes cookies kind of america and i really liked that it it it felt

[00:22:36] safe to me and then all of a sudden i i’m you know going to the beach and going to the

[00:22:41] airports i’m seeing these these people this kind of lawless

[00:22:46] what i thought were like filthy people just running rampant and asking my dad you

[00:22:53] know what what is this he says oh you know those are hippies son and i knew right that much that’s the

[00:23:01] day i became a conservative i i said i don’t even know what it was yeah i said i said i

[00:23:06] i don’t like that i’m not going to live that way i’m not going to do that and so um i really look back on

[00:23:14] in the genesis of all of the anarchy that we’re living with today started in 1968 i

[00:23:21] to me that’s the that was the tipping point yeah yeah no doubt about it um so so um

[00:23:28] in that regard you know obviously people aren’t happy i mean if this is one of the crucial issues on people’s minds in california

[00:23:35] that they’re fed up with all that’s happening um you know there’s there’s a and and the the recall

[00:23:41] actually is happening i mean it’s it’s it’s gonna be on the ballot and and uh you know

[00:23:46] god willing he newsom is to be recalled um but but the

[00:23:52] question is so so that being the case um do you think there’s hope moving forward as far as um you know

[00:23:58] are people going enough is enough and uh let’s let’s have a move in another direction well i think there’s always hope um i

[00:24:04] think we’re we’re at a dark time right now but i prophesized uh several years ago

[00:24:10] that we were not going to get out of this until um the the policies that we know are

[00:24:16] dangerous that these far left policies that are destroying america and destroying lives

[00:24:21] really seep into the consciousness of people and they see their cities become like bangladesh they

[00:24:27] they see their tax you know pretty soon we’re going to have seven dollar gallon gasoline

[00:24:33] with gas taxes and mileage taxes add on to that um

[00:24:40] we’re seeing people unwilling to go to work because they’re getting so much government money we can’t we can’t operate our businesses we’re seeing

[00:24:47] america completely fall apart it’s going to get worse and i always felt that it wasn’t going to be until regular

[00:24:54] people could not buy food and could not safely walk in their neighborhoods and could not

[00:24:59] live the life they wanted to live and especially they look at their children and say my kids are never going to have it as

[00:25:05] good as i had it because of government policies that at that point there would be a a

[00:25:11] backlash and god forbid that it’s a violent backlash but that’s a possibility

[00:25:16] but i i think that there is a good chance that there will be an electoral backlash and i i think it’s going to come sooner than

[00:25:22] we think i i believe that we’re going to see a huge shift in the midterm

[00:25:27] elections and then after that i think we’ll regain the second in the presidency two years later

[00:25:33] i love it well that’s good news and along those same lines you actually um are working um you actually have mike

[00:25:39] pompeo coming into town um who who directed the cia under donald

[00:25:45] trump um and you guys are getting together to talk about judeo-christian values tell

[00:25:50] us a little bit about what’s going on there yeah so i got to take my political hat off and become just me

[00:25:56] and the christian me and a couple years ago when i was running

[00:26:01] for congress i i made friends with um some gentlemen that were in the san diego jewish community one of them

[00:26:08] was named eli ben moshe and the other one was uh brian blocker and they started the

[00:26:14] organization called shield of david which was to protect israeli rights and educate people about the truth of israel

[00:26:21] that that it’s not an apartheid state that it’s not a a occupying force that

[00:26:26] that is a bastion of freedom in the middle east and a fair and honest place to live

[00:26:32] and um we have been talking and i have been pushing them saying that it’s

[00:26:38] really important that because jews and christians share the same values and we are under

[00:26:45] assault um in america and throughout the world for those christian judicial values we need to work together we can’t be on

[00:26:51] in two separate camps so we’re going to have a rally on july

[00:26:57] 25th in el cajon at the prescott promenade and we’re going to bring jews and

[00:27:02] christians together for uh christian and jewish values judeo-christian values

[00:27:08] and to celebrate that and celebrate the unity and subway israel and mike pompeo is going to be one of

[00:27:14] the the guest speakers which is really fantastic and it’s not going to be a political rally he’s not going to talk

[00:27:19] about politics he’s going to talk about the importance of israel and the need to

[00:27:25] protect israel as a nation they need to fight back against anti-semitism and christian

[00:27:31] persecution and so anybody who wants to come i i

[00:27:36] really encourage them to come on sunday afternoon on july 25th to el cajon

[00:27:43] okay fantastic that’s awesome so um yeah you know it’s really i was just

[00:27:48] reading that that tragedy over in florida with the uh condos that fell down and uh just a horrible uh horrible

[00:27:56] situation and uh one of the things i noticed was uh [Music]

[00:28:01] uh state of israel actually sent over help from the jewish military the israeli

[00:28:07] military uh in order to help with that situation help clean up and and do all that i just thought that was

[00:28:13] so incredible that they they did that you don’t hear about uh many countries coming and sending help over to help america it’s usually

[00:28:19] america sending aid to other countries but i thought that was just really cool and uh i i totally agree i think all

[00:28:27] americans should see israel israel’s a friend but all christians should really have a deep and abiding

[00:28:33] connection with israel yeah absolutely absolutely so um you know back to the homelessness issue i’m just

[00:28:39] curious and you know in the meantime you know we’re dealing with this issue where you’ve got all these restrictions that sacramento is putting on you

[00:28:46] in order to be able to deal with the homeless situation makes it makes it a very difficult situation to actually deal with

[00:28:51] um so in your mind under the current restrictions um what advice would you give to other

[00:28:58] other mayors and other cities as they’re trying to you know wrestle with these issues are you finding any solutions

[00:29:03] uh outside of you know being able to do it within these these restrictions yes and no

[00:29:11] um you’re going to get me in trouble but i’ll just be honest i mean um i don’t want to get

[00:29:16] you in trouble bill the way we’ve approached an el cajon is um having a two-pronged

[00:29:22] approach a lot of enforcement which is contrary to what um the political tide

[00:29:28] is in california but we also offer a lot of um treatment we probably got more treatment

[00:29:35] dollars being spent per capita alcohol than any other city that i’ve ever heard of in california we’ve got the east county

[00:29:41] transitional living center we’ve got a lot lots of money being spent on giving

[00:29:46] people the opportunity to get off the streets but we don’t allow tents on our streets and people say oh i see tents and

[00:29:53] alcohol well they pop up like it’s like whack-a-mole yeah and you know but we get we clean

[00:29:59] them off um we clean out the gutters we we take thousands of tons of of

[00:30:04] debris out of the sewer system because people live down there and we don’t allow that to happen we

[00:30:10] don’t allow sleeping bags on the streets we don’t allow people to sleep in our parks or our schools um and i’m under constant threat from

[00:30:19] the aclu and from grand jury uh saying we need to re

[00:30:25] loosen up and be more uh opening up to people quote unquote experiencing

[00:30:31] homelessness and i’m i’m uh committed to standing

[00:30:37] against that kind of uh silliness i i people are not experiencing homeless

[00:30:42] they’re choosing homelessness and i i’m more than happy to help anybody who wants to

[00:30:48] to uh get cleanest over and get off the streets uh you’ll find you’ve come to alcohol we’ll

[00:30:53] get you a bed we’ll get you treatment but you’re not gonna be able to have a tent city here that’s awesome

[00:30:59] so i would encourage other mayors just to do the same thing you just stand up to it take the heat get beaten up but uh

[00:31:06] do what you have to do to protect your citizens that’s fantastic um you know i i wanted to read this

[00:31:13] quick article here on a church up in riverside who stepped in and tried to help out

[00:31:19] also it says the grove community church and riverside work to complete the first

[00:31:25] city of riverside’s love your neighbor campaign it allows houses of worship to care for the housing needs of homeless people on church campuses

[00:31:31] it’s the first project of its kind in the region and they go on to describe how they built these homeless shelters um and they

[00:31:38] they’re able to stay there for a few months to get back on their feet uh they get all kinds of help with with

[00:31:44] uh job training and everything all these sorts of things and they said it’s you know it’s starting to

[00:31:50] make a difference and they receive christian counseling they’re able to deal with addiction

[00:31:55] uh lots of things like this and and so um from that perspective i just wanted to

[00:32:00] hear what you had to say um what’s your what’s your response to something like that a church is doing

[00:32:06] something like that is that a is that a move in the right direction or are there unforeseen consequences that they’re not anticipating yeah they could

[00:32:12] be a double-edged sword um i you know on his face obviously that’s a part of what the christian church

[00:32:18] should be doing it should be helping people that are in need of help but again it

[00:32:24] takes me back to the same concept if we think that the problem is poverty

[00:32:29] if we think the problem is housing we think the problem is blankets or food or or showers

[00:32:37] and then we provide all those things to solve that problem and yet it does nothing to solve the problem only

[00:32:43] perpetuates the problem we have to step back and say wait a second maybe we’re wrong maybe we are looking at this through the

[00:32:51] wrong lens um so i totally agree with offering any kind of treatment for

[00:32:59] addict addiction but other than that i’m not very encouraging of churches

[00:33:04] doing that churches can really cause a lot of problems they they they go into the parks and

[00:33:11] they serve sandwiches and give blankets and food now what do we have we have

[00:33:16] kids that want to play in the park they can’t play in the park now because the homeless camp out there now because they they that’s the place where they get all

[00:33:22] their free stuff um parks are not for homeless people parks are for kids and families

[00:33:28] and and i stand by that and yeah exactly and i think i i totally think you’re right and i think that’s where your experience is so

[00:33:35] valuable is that a lot of people they just don’t know the the uh unforeseen consequences to what they’re doing

[00:33:40] and uh so you’ve got to comment a very thoughtful approach i mean you do a misdiagnosis here and uh just like you said you know if if

[00:33:47] a person walks into the doctor’s office and they’ve got a broken leg and a doctor says well we’re gonna

[00:33:53] fix your arm well you you just made it the problem worse you didn’t do anything and so i think that’s a lot of what we’re

[00:33:59] seeing here is uh you know the bleeding heart but but uh the misplaced uh actions so um

[00:34:04] i think that’s great what you’re doing well um bill i wanted to just uh thank you for being on the program today

[00:34:11] uh it’s a huge blessing and uh i just uh everybody should be praying for you

[00:34:16] because you are on the the very front lines of dealing with all this craziness that

[00:34:21] were especially in california um but again for those of you listening i want to just emphasize

[00:34:27] it’s a rally for christians and jews judeo-christian values mike pompeo is going to be there former director of the cia under trump july

[00:34:33] 25th uh again he like like uh mayor wells said it’s not a political rally

[00:34:39] it’s more a celebration of um judeo-christian values and uh just an encouraging time to get

[00:34:44] together and encourage jews and christians to work together that’ll be at the prescott promenade in el cajon

[00:34:50] on sunday at 3 p.m july 25th please check that out get out there and

[00:34:56] uh get involved i think more and more people are getting involved and recognize the importance of getting getting involved and i’m optimistic

[00:35:03] about the future despite what we’re dealing with um and just keep praying for california and keep praying for um you know people

[00:35:11] to wake up and really get to know christ ultimately um it’s really about moving towards god so

[00:35:17] would it be okay if i gave my email address absolutely yeah go for it just in case anybody wants to

[00:35:22] call and yell at me for my horrible ideas about how cruel i am b wells

[00:35:29] at cityofalcahone.us and uh i’m happy to talk to you if you

[00:35:34] have uh ideas about how to make it better or thoughts on how i’m wrong or how i’m right i’m happy to discuss it with you

[00:35:41] because i think that’s that’s how we really get to the right solution as we start really talking about these problems not just letting

[00:35:46] other people handle it amen amen uh so uh thanks for listening today thanks for being here

[00:35:52] i hope you enjoyed the program we’ll be back again next week uh we’ve got guests hundreds of interviews all over um youtube and and uh

[00:36:00] up on facebook that are people who have uh been touched by god and have been

[00:36:05] encouraged and are walking with god and then ultimately god’s using them to bless others and to love others

[00:36:11] and that’s what it’s all about ultimately so please check out my website educate4life.org

[00:36:16] and all kinds of useful resources there that can help you and be a blessing to you and those around you

[00:36:22] god bless you and we’ll see you next week bye

[00:36:44] you