Well-meaning liberals tend to prefer complexity over simplicity. They justify this preference by arguing that to solve a complex problem, one needs a complex solution. Because they commit so firmly to complexity, however, they continually fall into the same trap: That of not actually having done anything to help solve the problem at hand.

Consider homelessness.

To solve homelessness, all one has to do is read the word itself. If you want homeless people not to be homeless … give them homes. Despite the — admittedly — condescending simplicity of this solution, many policymakers would staunchly object on the grounds that it is simply not politically or economically feasible. They would be much more likely to support a “pragmatic” solution, one that makes superficial improvements but fails to actually do anything to meaningfully impact the problem at hand. Liberals call this “being practical”; those of us on the Left call it “not having a spine.”

In an op-ed on California’s homelessness crisis written for the Los Angeles Times last month, presumably well-meaning, liberal Mayor of Sacramento Darrel Steinberg showed us his missing vertebrae.

Lamenting California’s terrible homelessness crisis, Steinberg writes that, rest assured, he cares deeply about solving it, but that, contrary to the expert opinions of those who actually spend their lives working to end homelessness, “building more permanent housing alone won’t solve [it].”

Steinberg claims that we simply don’t have enough housing for California’s 130,000-plus homeless people. We could build a lot more, he says, if it weren’t for the simple fact that “it will take too long and cost too much.” Because time and money limit how much more housing the city can build, the sensible solution is to instead fund “an infusion of short-term shelters.” Giving homeless people permanent homes is, to Steinberg and other liberal policymakers, just not the right way to approach homelessness. It is much, much more effective to simply house homeless people for a period of time, wait for their housing to “expire,” and then swiftly dispose of them and their belongings.

When Steinberg says that California doesn’t have the money to build more housing, he is being incredibly dishonest. Last year, Jerry Brown directed more than $500 million into fighting homelessness under the Homelessness Emergency Aid Program; and for the past several years, Los Angeles has raised billions of dollars from bonds and sales taxes. Yet homelessness in the state continues to rise. This is due to a very elementary fact: more money doesn’t automatically translate into more housing. If you want to build more housing … you actually have to use that money to build more housing.

This is, obviously, much easier said than done. Numerous communities across the state have been kicking and screaming for time immemorial to prevent the implementation of any sort of homeless services. The residents of Huntington Beach and Orange County have not been shy in the past about expressing their hatred for affordable housing and homeless shelters. (And, presumably, homeless people in general.) Those communities are, unsurprisingly, quite wealthy, and have the ability to marshal crack legal teams to fend off lawsuits from the state. If we want to force rich communities to build more affordable housing and homeless shelters, it’s going to require a much more aggressive approach than slap-on-the-wrist lawsuits.

The most irritating thing about Steinberg’s argument, though, is that it relies on a faulty premise: That we need to build more houses. To the contrary, we don’t even need to build a single room.

That’s because in California, as of right now, there are more than 1.1 million homes sitting completely empty. In the San Francisco metro area alone, there are over 100,000 homes that are sitting unoccupied. In appalling contrast, across all of San Francisco, there are 8,000 homeless people. You could give every homeless person in San Francisco 12 homes each and still have homes left over for everybody else. Across the entire United States, there are 5 empty homes for each homeless person, which doesn’t even take into account the nation’s more than 75,000 unused government buildings. With all of this already-existing housing space, it seems highly irresponsible to suggest that we build even more.

But we should actually be grateful that we do not have to build more housing, as policymakers seem only to have an appetite for “short-term housing.” (“Did you hear? Short-term is actually the new long-term.”)

The mental gymnastics Steinberg performs in this piece to justify short- over long-term housing is quite impressive, so I figured I should explain why short-term housing, in light of Steinberg’s rhetorical prestidigitation, is worse-than-useless.

Increasing short-term housing typically means building more shelters. But many policymakers fail to realize, or simply ignore, that there is a considerable number of homeless people who would rather sleep outside. This is because shelters are overwhelmingly terrible places to live.

Earlier this year, the ACLU conducted an investigation into the horrific conditions at Orange County’s emergency homeless shelters. They interviewed residents who told gut-wrenching stories of disgusting medical neglect and grossly unsanitary living conditions:

‘The showers got bad,’ recalls a former resident. ‘Dirty, trash. It builds up. I saw personal body fluids on the sinks. Either blood or snot. It was so bad that I wouldn’t want to go in them.’

A resident observes, ‘Feces on the walls and the showers. They don’t clean it properly.’

Says another resident, ‘I went nine days without taking a shower, because I don’t want to get sick.’”

On July 7, 2018 … a record-breaking heat wave baked the sidewalks around the Courtyard as the outdoor temperature rose to 107 degrees. Inside, a volunteer measured the temperature with a thermometer purchased especially to record the temperature that day. It registered 96 degrees, as scores of residents sat listlessly on their cots or dragged themselves into line for bottled water.

A woman with an inoperable brain aneurysm gets headaches when the aneurysm bleeds. ‘Two or three times when I had the pain,’ she says, ‘I wanted to go to the hospital. The last time it was 7:00 or 8:00 in the evening. The staff wouldn’t give me ice packs, wouldn’t call 911, and wouldn’t give me a ride [to the hospital] because they said the shuttle drivers were off until 11:00 p.m. I sat there and suffered. I was terrified. I wasn’t allowed to walk out the gate. They will exit you.’

Horror stories like these are by no means limited to a single city, and there are doubtless plenty of other similar instances of neglect and abuse. In Los Angeles, KPCC investigated a couple of the city’s homeless shelters and found that residents frequently had to deal with “bedbugs, rats, foul odors, poor lighting, harassment, lax care in medical wards and,” in one instance, “a ‘chicken incubator’ in a room where homeless people were sleeping.” It shouldn’t be very surprising, then, that at any given time over half of Los Angeles’ homeless shelters are unfilled.

While a shelter may indeed provide a roof and four walls, if it does not make a person feel safe, if it does not make a person feel clean, if it does not give a person a sense of dignity, it cannot possibly be considered permanent nor sustainable housing. (Or any type of housing at all, really.)

To be clear: Short-term housing is not actual housing. Short-term housing merely grants a homeless person a tiny bit of freedom, retreats into the shadows for a bit, and then, upon swiftly reemerging, proceeds to violently uproot their entire life. If homeless people are to be given actual homes, they cannot come with an expiration date.

Others, like Steinberg, beg to differ: Instead of giving homeless people permanent housing so that they feel safe and comfortable when they go to sleep—without having to worry that they will more than likely be thrown onto the street—Steinberg claims that, actually, “we need options beyond permanent housing,” like “high-volume shelters” and “wraparound services.”

Better services and shelters are undoubtedly wonderful things, things that we should certainly advocate for. But they do not do anything to make homeless people any less homeless. (Indeed, shelters are merely glorified storerooms in which homeless people are segregated, kept away from people’s eyes and, more importantly, their consciences.)

Obviously I endorse building more public and affordable housing, as was successfully done to virtually end chronic homelessness in Utah. But, as I say, it is simply unnecessary, and, arguably, a waste of resources. We already have more than enough housing for all of the homeless people in California—nay, the United States—and then some. Despite being quite expensive (a constraint which has, however, never held back California’s prison system), there is nothing beyond the pale about giving out all those homes. Even though Steinberg and other technocratic liberals would have us think otherwise, short-term housing will never solve California’s homelessness crisis. There is only one real solution, and it’s in the damn name.