In state and local elections, voters across the political spectrum chose candidates who shared their priority for greater public safety and order.
The 2024 election results underscore an important pillar of healthy communities: Safety is the first step to stability and prosperity.
In state and local elections, voters across the political spectrum chose candidates who shared their priority for greater public safety and order.
While the 2024 election represents different things to different voters, it may well be remembered, as my friend Rafael Mangual of the Manhattan Institute put it, as the “anti-crime election.”
In recent years, there has been adivide between elected officials and the public when it comes to crime. As more local leaders have taken relaxed stances to public safety, voters have become increasingly concerned.
With the 2024 election, this crime divide between voters and politicians has narrowed because voters changed their politicians. As Mangual lays out in a greatnew piece in City Journal, voters all over the country rejected soft-on-crime approaches to public safety, including in progressive enclaves like Oakland, CA.
Search Interest by State in Crime
Source: Associated Press, “What election issues are Americans searching on Google?”, October 2024
From Georgia to California, voters reject the “progressive prosecutor” movement
Voters’ frustration with soft-on-crime prosecutors began in 2022 with the recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and continued with the defeat of Portland-area District Attorney Mike Schmidt earlier this year.
For residents favoring law and order and a return to normalcy, another boost came on election day. The biggest news of the day was the defeat of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gasćon.
Gasćon had run on a progressive platform and quickly made good on his promises. He declined to pursue the death penalty in capital murder cases, instructed his office to avoid seeking lengthy sentences in gang and gun cases through available sentence enhancements, and diverted more and more cases from prosecution. Gasćon lost his re-election bid by a margin of 60-40.
Closer to home, in Athens, GA, progressive District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez lost to challenger Kalki Yalamanchili by almost the same margin. In Tampa, FL, incumbent Andrew Warren, suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis over his non-prosecution policies, lost to a law-and-order challenger. In total, of the 25 progressive prosecutors on the ballot this election, 12 either lost or were recalled.
Voters favor local candidates and ballot measures focused on stronger public safety
Voters also showed a pro-public safety bent on election day in their support of ballot initiatives. In California, voters approved an initiative to enhance penalties for repeat drug and theft offenses. Colorado residents overwhelmingly passed a ballot initiative that increases consequences for violent offenses.
Voters in San Francisco elected a mayor who plans toget tough on the drug dealing plaguing the city. Oakland residents also recalled their mayor who, through a mix ofbad policy and benign neglect, had let violent crime spiral.
Americans repeatedly told pollsters ahead of the 2024 election that they were concerned about crime. On November 5, they voted like it. The 2024 election may well be remembered for voters demanding better and reminding elected officials of what every leader should remember—that the first step to a prosperous community is a safe one.
A new city ordinance mandating nightly business closures in the Tenderloin both fails to address the real problem and hampers economic opportunity.
San Francisco’s Tenderloin District is one of the most difficult public-safety environments in the country. Long derided by conservative critics, the concentrated presence of drugs, crime, and homelessness has made the community both unsafe and unappealing.
This led several Tenderloin hotels and residents to file suit in federal court earlier this year, seeking not monetary damages, but attention from local leaders and law enforcement. Now, city officials have given the Tenderloin some policy attention, but rather than punishing criminal behavior, they’re restricting business activity.
As Americans become more skeptical of the American Dream, an important issue to address is the link between poverty and violent crime.
Research has found that violent crime negatively affects property values, employment, and outcomes for childrengoes here.
Providing a safe environment is a core government responsibility, and it’s essential for lowering fear, improving economic mobility, and building healthy communities.
A recent Pew Research Centerpoll examined American attitudes about the attainability of the American dream. Overall, 53% of respondents believed the American dream was still possible.
Responses were remarkably consistent across race and differed only slightly by party affiliation (56% for Republicans, 50% for Democrats).
Age was the factor where more drastic differences of opinion started to emerge. The younger the cohort, the lower the percentage of respondents who felt the American dream was still possible.
Age 65+: 68% believed the American dream was still possible.
Age 50-64: 61% thought the American dream was still possible.
Age 30-49: 43% felt the American dream was still possible.
Age 18-29: Just 39% agreed the American dream was still possible.
Among the youngest groups, a larger percentage—48% of 30 to 49-year-olds and 51% of 18 to 29-year-olds—thought the American dream was once possible but no longer was.
The current attainability of the American dream is subject tomuch debate, not fleshed out here. One factor that deserves more attention is the role of public safety in shaping communities where people have opportunities for a better life for themselves and future generations.
Of all the barriers to opportunity, violence is one of the most vicious because it can single-handedly upend all the building blocks of a flourishing life—family stability, access to quality education, and work opportunities. And a disproportionate amount of this suffering is borne by our poorest and most vulnerable communities.
The impact of crime on children
Future generations have a harder time getting ahead in life.
It’s clear from the data that nearly half of children raised in the poorest households—the bottom 20% of incomes—end up in that bottom 20% as adults. A tremendous number of factors contribute to this cycle of poverty—from the flaws in governmentsafety net programs to theaffordability of housing to improving educationaloptions andoutcomes.
Then there’s the link between poverty and crime. One of the most visceral and heartbreaking things that impacts a child’s upward mobility is growing up in a community with a high rate of violence.
According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, about 3.6 million kidslive in communities their parents deem to be “unsafe.”
The level of violent crime in a countynegatively affects the level of upward economic mobility among individuals raised in low-income families. Opportunities decline because high rates of violence reduce productivity among crime victims, depress economic activity, reduce home values, and drive out residents who can leave.
According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, about 3.6 million kidslive in communities their parents deem to be “unsafe.”
The impact of crime on local economies
Communities become economically unhealthy.
A relationship between poverty and crime also manifests itself in the effects that violence has on employment. Several studies have demonstrated that direct victimization is associated with more unemployment and less productivity at work.
A study of violent trauma patients found apositive association between victimization and unemployment.
Another study found that, following the homicide of a family member, employment went down 27% among surviving family members.
In a sample of parents whose children had been murdered,more than 50% of the parents perceived themselves as nonproductive at their jobs in the four months after the murder.
High rates of violent crime don’t just impact victims. Rising crime has been negatively associated with business activity, resulting in downsizing and discouraging new businesses from entering the marketplace.
Neighborhoods then lose out on opportunities for jobs and affordable access to food, household items, and other essential goods and services.
One large analysis looked at the impact of gun violence on the economic health of neighborhoods in six cities: Baton Rouge, LA; Minneapolis, MN; Oakland, CA; Rochester, NY; San Francisco, CA; and Washington, DC. The findings were remarkably consistent. An increase in gun violence in a census tract reduced the growth rate of new retail and service establishments by 4% in Minneapolis, Oakland, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
In Minneapolis, each additional gun homicide in a census tract in a given year was associated with 80 fewer jobs the next year; in Oakland, a gun homicide was associated with 10 fewer jobs the next year.
“Local and state governments must focus on reducing violent crime, not just as necessary to protect human life but also because doing so is a prerequisite to real economic opportunity in poor communities.”
Josh Crawford, GCO Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives
The impact of crime on neighborhoods
Communities stop becoming places that people want to call home.
Studies have also found that increases in gun violence hurt property values.
In Minneapolis: Each additional gun homicide resulted in a $22,000 decrease in average home values in Minneapolis census tracts.
In Oakland: Each additional gun homicide resulted in a $24,621 decrease in Oakland census tracts.
In Los Angeles:A separate study found that increases in violent crime in a neighborhood in a given year yielded decreases in property values in that neighborhood the following year.
And those who can leave communities with high rates of violence, do. One estimate found that, for every homicide, 70 residents move out of a neighborhood.
Finally, increased violent crime often, justifiably, leads to more incarceration. But communities with higher rates of incarcerated parent-aged men often have weaker social institutions and are more unstable.
To have vibrant communities and flourishing lives, public safety must take priority.
Improving economic conditions and opportunities for any community, but especially low-income neighborhoods, is incredibly difficult without first reducing violence.
One of the most recent examples is the great crime decline of the 1990s, which dramatically improved the most desperate neighborhoods and improved life among their residents.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Decades of policy innovation, evaluation, and replication have taught us how to make communities safer and break the interconnected cycles of poverty and crime.
The most effective methods include:
Focusing law enforcement efforts on criminal street gangs
Punishing violent recidivists appropriately
Reducing the presence of abandoned buildings in crime hot spots
People have a deep need to feel safe and secure in the places where they live, work, and go about their day-to-day lives. Providing a safe environment is government’s first responsibility to its people.
When it comes to public safety, making good policy choices changes lives—not only by reducing physical harm but also by transforming neighborhoods into places where the American Dream can still be found.
There has been a concerning increase in violent crime and homicide rates in California.
Cities like San Francisco and Oakland have been adversely affected by rising crime, leading to economic challenges, a decline in safety perception, and demands for action from various community groups.
Over the years policies and decisions at both the state and local levels are believed to have contributed to the rise in crime. These include changes in sentencing laws, budget reallocations, and the election of progressive district attorneys. However, there is still great potential for political repercussions and the need for innovative solutions to address crime.
A recent headline from the satiricalnews websiteThe Babylon Bee read “California Achieves World’s First Crime Rate Of Zero After Legalizing All Crime.” That piece reads in part:
“This is a great moment for our state,” Governor Gavin Newsom said. “No other state in the nation’s history has successfully brought the crime rate down to nothing. California is once again leading the way! Now, please, for the safety of your loved ones, don’t venture out of your homes at night. Or at least carry an air horn. Whatever. I don’t care.”
Analysts point to the state’s legalization of all criminal acts as the catalyst for reaching a zero crime rate. “It was a bold but revolutionary move,” said Professor Kyle Ray of the California Crime Institute. “California has effectively eliminated all crime from existence simply by making every unlawful or despicable act completely acceptable. Murder, assault, robbery — these are yesterday’s terms. Californians are now truly free to express themselves however they choose. Zero crime!”
Unfortunately, sometimes life comes a little too close to imitating art. In California’s case, de-carceration, de-prosecution, and de-policing has led to a toxic mix that has eroded public safety in the Golden State.
While crime began to crest in many states in 2022, the 2022 Crime in Californiareport shows:
State-wide violent crime was up 6.1% compared to 2021.
Property crime was up 6.2% over the same time period.
The homicide rate increased 23.9% in the five years since 2017.
By contrast, the rates for overall arrests and homicide arrests declined in 2022.
San Francisco and Oakland: California Beacons of Opportunity Turned Cautionary Tales
Two Bay-area cities—San Francisco and Oakland—exemplify California’s public safety decline.
In San Francisco, a destination once regarded as the booming tech hub of the world, rising violent crime, homelessness, and open-air drug markets have led to massive exits from businesses large and small. In fact, the number of fleeing businesses is so large that several media and advocacy groups have developeddatabases of all the companies leaving.
This trend has severely damaged the city’s reputation. A recent Galluppoll found that only 52% of Americans thought San Francisco was safe—down from 70% in 2006. It has also opened San Francisco up to the negative impact that crime has on economic opportunity. As multiple studies have found, violent crime robs communities of job growth and economic mobility—an outcome that tends to hurt disadvantaged communities and low-income residents the most.
Across the Golden Gate Bridge in Oakland, CA, residents have become so tired of unabated violent crime that the local NAACP chapter joined Black religious leaders incalling on city leadership to declare a “state of emergency” over the impact of surging violence on minority communities. They specifically called out “failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police,” as well as the failure to “prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes.”
Bad ideas in Oakland have contributed to a cycle of violence that has trapped low-income residents in places they feel unsafe. The NAACP chapter there is demanding accountability, both of the offenders and of the politicians who placate them. In the first six months of 2023, crime is up 26% overall in Oakland, according to the Oakland Police Department.
How Did California Get Into This Crime Crisis?
How did California get here? A brew of bad policies at the state and local levels over the last decade appears to have finally come to a head.
Beginning in 2011, in response to a lawsuit about prison crowding, the California legislature passed AB 109, “Public Safety Realignment,” which made most property and drug offenses ineligible for state prison sentences and eliminated state parole supervision in most instances in favor of less intensive county options.
Then, in 2014, voters approved Proposition 47, “The Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act,” which made all types of theft under $950 and some drug crimes misdemeanors.
In 2016, voters approved Proposition 57, “The Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016” which created a system of earned early release that applied to many inmates, including those convicted of rape, gang, and gun crimes.
Finally, in 2020, in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 in state prisons, Governor Newsom released more than 10,000 inmates back onto the street, many of whom had violent and serious convictions.
At the local level, both San Francisco and Oakland reduced or repurposed portions of their police department budgets amid calls to “defund” the police. In 2020, San Franciscodiverted $120 million from the police department and sheriff’s office budgets over the next two years. In Oakland, the city councilrepurposed $17 million away from the police department in favor of doubling the budget of a civilian crime prevention entity.
And then there are the elected District Attorneys. In San Francisco, progressive defense attorney Chesa Boudin was elected in 2020, along with a wave of other progressive prosecutors around the country with large financial backing. In addition to not prosecuting a host of lower-level crimes, Boudin quickly announced he wouldnot pursue enhanced penalties for gang members. Crime rose dramatically, and Boudin was recalled in 2022.
Shortly after the Boudin recall, Oakland elected district attorney Pamela Price, whopromised to discontinue use of those same enhanced penalties and favor probation over incarceration. She is currently facing the potential of her ownrecall effort.
“MY SON IS DEFINITELY WORTH THAT FIGHT”
The tragic story of Christian Gwynn who was fatally shot as a result of violence is a wake-up call to the need for change in policies that will reduce urban violence.
“MY SON IS DEFINITELY WORTH THAT FIGHT”
Rising Crime Doesn’t Have to be the New Norm in California—or Anywhere Else
Now there is mounting fear of even greater politicalblowback. But political implications aside, it doesn’t have to be this way.
We recently published our first analysis of a city and state’s public safety infrastructure. While this initial report looks at Atlanta, GA, the implications extend to cities and states across the country. Blue and red cities in blue and red states have been innovating and implementing best practices to reduce crime and violence, and these steps are helping several communities restore safety, hope, and opportunity.
For more on how cities and states can get back on the right track, check out the report and recommendationshere.
Josh Crawford is a native of Massachusetts. He went to Penn State for his undergraduate degree and then finished law school in Boston. After a brief stint in Sacramento, California, working in the county district attorney’s office, Josh moved to Kentucky to help start the Pegasus Institute, a nonpartisan organization designed to promote opportunity. In addition to serving as executive director of the organization, Josh had a special focus on criminal justice policy.
“By focusing on public safety and order, we can restore hope and opportunity to rural communities.”
Key Points
Crime is causing businesses to flee communities already experiencing a lack of opportunity.
As businesses flee high-crime areas, there is a negative impact on the price and availability of goods in underserved communities
Communities will see healthcare and community health impacts from this loss of retailers.
We keep hearing about it: Businesses and retailers fleeing downtown areas—or entire city communities—due to violence, theft, and crime. It happened in Portland, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, but it should be a warning to other cities around the country.
The exodus of companies due to crime creates a downward spiral for communities already experiencing a lack of opportunity.
Limited access and higher prices
When businesses flee a community they take convenience, jobs, and access to goods. The result is a market crisis where demand stays steady while limited access increases the price of goods and incomes stagnate or decrease.
The inability to access goods at reasonable prices is a direct response to the loss of competition. No longer are you able to buy essentials at market value but instead you pay premium prices as supply is constrained. This is no different than what we experienced nationally over the past few years as supply constraints pushed the price of gas, milk, and other essentials higher.
This limitation of access to transportation, clothing, and food will have consequences in other areas of community health and opportunity.
The impact on healthy food options
Take the limited access to food issue. We know that lack of healthy food options in underserved communities is an ongoing problem. Cheaper food options, which are “shelf-stable,” tend to be less healthy. This creates a downward trend of poorer health outcomes like obesity resulting in a rise in healthcare costs. Communities with a lack of affordable healthy food options get stuck in a cycle where they are less healthy, less likely to work, and more dependent on temporary, less-reliable healthcare. When we see stores closing or moving out of a community due to violence, we see smaller businesses that cannot afford to absorb the costs of throwing out healthier foods. The result is that these businesses tend to stock less perishable and more unhealthy items on their shelves.
This means that these communities become more dependent on systems and services to survive long term. Our safety-net programs are designed to be temporary systems that catch people (or even communities) at the point of tragedy to help them get back on their feet. But when opportunity flees, these individuals are left hopeless, looking for what’s next. They become trapped in their circumstance.
“…communities become more dependent on systems and services to survive long term.”
Crime is the true theif
Crime and the unwillingness to address crime robs communities of value. It makes these communities into societal pariahs.
Not only are these communities unable to access adequate goods, they are unable to find local jobs and services. When companies flee an area, they take hundreds of entry to mid-level jobs. In a community that is reliant on these types of job opportunities, it once again means they have no path out of their current situation.
In his study of ethics, Immanuel Kant asserted that “if you steal from him, you steal from yourself.” It’s a philosophical acknowledgment that crime steals from the entire community. It takes livelihood, property, and security away from everyone in the community including the perpetrator because it destabilizes.
While it’s hard for some to have sympathy for a mega-corporation needing to close a store, it is a warning sign to the health of that community. Vibrant communities, which we often speak of here at the Georgia Center for Opportunity, are ones that attract opportunities. They are communities so lively that everyone, even mega-corporations, wants to be a part of them. As we begin to see these companies leave a community it catches headlines, but the real-world impact is much more than a temporary blip in our newsfeed.
We must address crime in communities to keep opportunity open to all.
Key Points
The rise in crime rates and the following fear around such crimes is impacting the stability of many communities.
Studies have repeatedly found that increases in violent crime reduce economic mobility and hamper private sector job growth.
A city can substantially reduce crime by focusing law enforcement, corrections and social service resources on a relatively small number of people.
The rise and fear of crime
Americans are more worried about crime than they have been in decades. A recent poll found that 8 in every 10 Americans say they worry about crime either “a great deal” (53%) or “a fair amount” (27%).
This fear is driving businesses large and small out of cities and neighborhoods with rising crime rates. By abandoning these high-risk locations, these businesses take with them any job opportunities they provide to poorer residents.
Local and state governments must focus on reducing violent crime, not just as necessary to protect human life but also because doing so is a prerequisite to real economic opportunity in poor communities.
Increased concern about crime has followed a sharp increase in violent crime, especially homicides over the last six years. In 2021, 12 major cities saw their deadliest year on record. Chicago had its deadliest year in a quarter century.
In recent comments to the Economic Club of Chicago, McDonald’s President and CEO Chris Kempczinski noted that out-of-control violent crime, homelessness and drug overdoses in Chicago were negatively impacting both McDonalds’ restaurant locations and corporate recruitment to the city. He’s committed to staying in Chicago, but other companies across the country are already closing down retail locations in areas experiencing surges in crime.
Kevin had just climbed out of the prison system only to be faced with another challenge…finding work and seizing opportunity. Kevin’s inspirational drive to overcome his situation and to pursue opportunity reminds us of the need for systems that expand opportunity to all.
Impact on Business
Starbucks announced it would close 16 locations in Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., over safety concerns. Walgreens is closing five stores in San Francisco due to rampant crime. Small businesses from Seattle to Minnesota are citing crime as the reason they’re closing their doors.
While large businesses may not be the most sympathetic victims of the nation’s dramatic increase in violent crime, the people this crime hurts the most continue to be those from the most socially isolated and economically disadvantaged communities.
Studies have repeatedly found that increases in violent crime reduce economic mobility and hamper private sector job growth. One study found that changes in the rates of violent crime substantially impacted the economic mobility of children raised in low-income families. As crime went up during childhood and adolescence, their level of economic mobility went down.
Another study found that increases in violent crime cause existing businesses to downsize and discourage new businesses from entering the marketplace. No amount of economic incentives the government can provide will entice businesses to open in dangerous areas with low-recruitment potential. As a result, increasing crime will reduce the economic opportunities for lower-income residents.
A solution exists
Thankfully, while the problem of violent crime is large, it is not insurmountable. But reversing these trends will require understanding how we got here and what works to reduce crime.
Don’t expect crime to abate with the pandemic. Those who yearn for “pre-pandemic” crime rates ignore that in many cities, these increases began in 2015 when American cities had a more than 10% increase in murder over 2014, and 2016 saw another 8% increase on top of that. Gangs continued to operate unabated during government-ordered lockdowns, and given the retaliatory nature of so much street violence, increased violent crime often begets increased violent crime.
Next, crime, especially serious and violent crime, is concentrated among a very small number of gang members in any given city. Typically, about 0.6% of a city’s population is involved with these kinds of groups, while they’re responsible for 50% of a city’s homicides. It also tends to concentrate around certain areas; about 3% to 5% of specific addresses are responsible for about 50% of a city’s crime.
This means a city — even one plagued by gang violence like Chicago — can substantially reduce crime by focusing law enforcement, corrections and social service resources on a relatively small number of people. Strategies that do so have substantially reduced homicides from Boston, Massachusetts, to Stockton, California.
Failure to do so will only make our poorest neighborhoods poorer. Large and wealthy corporations like Citadel can leave for greener and safer pastures with relative ease. But failure of local and state officials to rein in violent crime will leave those with no means to leave with fewer opportunities to improve their lives.
Key Points
Frankie made an unexpected choice when she turned down a $70,000 a year job opportunity while living in hotel housing.
Oftentimes people on safety net services make rational choices to stay on these services because the system would punish them before they have a firm place to land.
Frankie, in a place of crisis, was unwilling to gamble with a stable choice despite a potentially great job opportunity.
Our safety net services must be reworked to address these “cliffs” and rebuilt to encourage and support the move into the workforce.
The thought of someone turning down a well-paying job to stay on welfare seems absurd. But that’s the exact scenario Frankie Johnson faced. It’s a real world example of the way benefit cliffs hurt people. Thankfully, Frankie found the BETTER WORK program and is on a new path to success.
An unexpected journey in life
Frankie Johnson, a Washington, D.C. native, grew up in a middle-class neighborhood and spent time serving her community. Through her community service work, she connected with many individuals who were victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, job loss, and poverty. By the time she’d reached her teens, Frankie knew she found fulfillment in working alongside others to improve their lives.
At age 14, Frankie became pregnant with her first child, Evelyn. She gave birth just before her 15th birthday. She went on to get an internship through Job Corps, then earn her high school diploma. After graduation, she attended California College of the Arts in San Francisco, where she planned to study photography and 3D installation.
But leaving Evelyn in Maryland with her parents while she studied in California proved to be too difficult a separation for Frankie. She moved to New York instead, which allowed her to see her daughter more often.
At age 18, Frankie married a member of the military who was six years her senior. His deployments and resulting war-related trauma proved to be difficult on the family and the couple’s marriage. For the next six years, they lived in Texas and the Midwest before returning to Maryland. Steadily, the situation with Frankie’s husband deteriorated.
Despite the trouble at home, Frankie was a high achiever, building a career in human resources and working for firms such as Monumental Sports and the Nick Cannon Foundation. She worked as a high-end event planner, where she regularly brushed elbows with celebrities and influencers.
When the family returned to Maryland, Frankie found herself heading up events for women who were victims of domestic violence. Meanwhile, at home, she was living in an abusive environment herself.
“At home, I never knew what was going to become of my peace or if he was going to get triggered,” Frankie says. “I was serving in the community as a social worker. I put on events for women, took them on yacht parties, and tried to boost their self-esteem. No one knew I was suffering so much.”
Finally, the situation in Frankie’s home came to a head, and she fled to Atlanta with her children. Her uncle lived in the city, and she planned to make a fresh start there.
But that fresh start didn’t come quickly or easily.
Seeking safety in Atlanta
Without a job or a place to live, Frankie was forced to seek out government assistance and transitional housing in Gwinnett County for her family.
“This was my first time being on the opposite side of transitional housing and understanding what the women who would talk to me [in the past] were going through,” she says. “It was strange to see the scarce resources, and to see women locked out of their hotels because the projects or community partners ran out of funding.”
Transitional housing in hotels and apartments can cost women $500 or more per week, and according to Frankie, the living conditions are unsafe and unsanitary. Worse, residents got a chilly reception from their case workers when they raised concerns.
“The water makes your skin itchy, and there are roaches coming up out of the sink and the drains,” Frankie says. “We were told we needed to boil our water to use it. It comes [out of the faucets] brown, and we had brown rashes on our bodies.”
While Frankie’s family was living in transitional housing, she experienced relentless prejudice, racism, and ridicule.
“I had people come to my hotel, and ask me if I was a prostitute because my daughter said we were living in a hotel at school,” she says. “Someone from [the Department of Family and Children Services] came to my apartment and asked if I left my children [alone] at nighttime. He asked me if I was a stripper.”
Forced to choose between assistance and higher income
While Frankie was waiting for available childcare and a pathway to affordable housing, she was forced to turn down a job placement that would have paid $70,000 per year. While she needed employment, she also needed the support from the government program. That was her ticket to a home she could afford, but she wouldn’t qualify if she took a new job that raised her income past eligibility requirements.
“I never thought it would come to this,” she says. “I hadn’t prepared financially; I spent through my savings because I was waiting on childcare.”
Frankie found herself trapped on what we call the Benefits Cliff — torn between taking steps toward a more secure future, but ultimately forced into making decisions that trapped her into long-term dependence on government benefits. Individuals and families who make over a certain amount of income per year are automatically struck from the list, and are no longer qualified for affordable housing, food support, or other government assistance.
“They want to see your pay stubs, your bank statements. They want to make sure you’re poor,” Frankie says. “If you have a car, they want to know what kind of car you’re driving and if you have insurance. They want to make sure there’s no possible way you can work a job.”
“If there are no daycare facilities within a 30-mile radius of where you place me in my hotel and I don’t have a car to take my child a city over, I’m not going to be able to get a job,” she added. “Who’s going to watch my child all day?”
Families in these transitional programs often find themselves stuck paying high bills while they await affordable housing. Frankie was forced to pay more than $2,000 per month for the hotel she and her children stayed in. Financially, staying put made no sense, but Frankie held on in hopes that affordable housing would come through.
Leaving transitional housing puts parents at risk of losing their children to CPS, particularly if they’re perceived as living out of their vehicle. On the other hand, getting a higher-paying job disqualifies them from further government and charitable support.
“It’s like a loophole to keep you destitute,” Frankie says.
Dreams for a brighter future
After three months in transitional housing, Frankie was able to connect with BETTER WORK Gwinnett. Her case worker, Luisa, formed a close connection with her, encouraging her and checking in on her as she prepared for a fresh start.
“We lost our jobs during the pandemic,” Frankie says, “and that was the time when we needed encouragement and to find our way again — laugh again. Ms. Lusia provided a lot of that. She called me every day just to check on me.”
After experiencing the frustration, humiliation, and helplessness of transitional housing herself — including witnessing another mother abandon her children when her time at the hotel was up — Frankie wants to help other women in similar circumstances. She hopes to go to law school to provide legal aid to other families who have suffered at the mercy of the system.
“We need to get them their GEDs and diplomas. Start them off as home health aides, CPAs, LPNs, RNs, physician’s assistants, or doctors,” Frankie says, “But no one’s willing to help. They just want to enable their programs to get money for housing us. After that, you’re out on the street like a dog.”
As for Frankie, she’s working with Luisa to get back into the human resources field, and considering a move to a more affordable city in south Alabama.
“I’m not going to sit and wait for anyone to take care of me,” she says. “For the women who don’t have options, I’m going to school to fight for them.”
By now, almost everyone who isn’t a Democratic United States Senator has seen at least one of the five macabre videotapes released by the Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life investigative group. The videos are ubiquitous in social media, so I won’t provide links to them here.
In a recent post, AJC columnist Jay Bookman has provided a nice example of the arguments offered by those who continue to defend Planned Parenthood in the face of these—to say the least—embarrassing revelations. Here are his five points, together with my responses.
1. Nothing in the tapes provides evidence of illegal, let alone criminal, behavior. Planned Parenthood is allowed by law to recover its costs in collecting, preserving and transporting that tissue, and there is no evidence it violated that law. Tellingly, and despite the melodramatic complaints of conservatives, the videos have so far resulted in no criminal investigation or prosecution by state or federal authorities. Yelling and the beating of chests doesn’t alter that basic fact. Fabricated outrage doesn’t change that. Simply put, in legal terms there is no “there” there.
Not so fast, Mr. Bookman. The Planned Parenthood representatives are indeed cagey and circumspect and there is, to be sure, no straightforward smoking gun, but like all bureaucrats, they seem to know that there are expenses and then there are expenses. It may take a lot of trouble to untangle what’s a genuine “cost” and what amounts to a profit over and above costs. That the Department of Justice or a federal prosecutor hasn’t yet commenced an investigation doesn’t mean that the DOJ or a D.A. won’t, though given the track record of this Administration with respect to abortion, I’m not holding my breath. A real federal investigation may have to await a new Administration, or a Congressional investigation that forces the current Attorney General’s hand. So there is nothing at all “telling” about the lack of federal action so far. And if I’m not mistaken, at least twelve states have commenced investigations.
2. The law making such research legal was passed in 1993, and among those voting in favor of that bill was one Mitch McConnell, the same man who now claims that videos documenting what he voted to make legal “absolutely shock the conscience.” Other current GOP senators who backed that ’93 law were Richard Shelby, John McCain, Dan Coats, Chuck Grassley, Thad Cochran and Orrin Hatch, many of whom are now backing a shutdown.
Even if the research is authorized by law, it’s one thing to consider that research in the abstract, another altogether to confront graphically what it means and requires (the dissection of a recognizably human body). Perhaps the law needs to be changed. And even if we decide not to change the law that permits the research, there’s no reason why we have to fund either it or the organization that provides the human organs on which the researchers work.
3. Those receiving the fetal tissue are not ghouls of some sort, and the tissue is not being put to inappropriate or disrespectful use. To the contrary, the tissue is crucial to research into treatments to extend and improve human life, research that would be impossible to conduct without that material. As the New York Times reports, “the National Institutes of Health spent $76 million on research using fetal tissue in 2014 with grants to more than 50 universities, including Columbia, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Yale and the University of California in Berkeley, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.”
While we aren’t necessarily talking about Dr. Josef Mengele here, why must we assume a congruence between the demands of science and “democratic” morality? A careful reading of Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis—the great work on science and politics written by the greatest and most perspicuous thinker on that subject—makes it clear enough for anyone who has eyes to see that there’s a pretty significant disconnect between science and ordinary morality. Curiosity and the ambition to master nature can take one pretty far from what’s decent and respectful. The more powerful science is, the greater mastery of nature it promises us, the more attention we must pay to it and the less we should avert our eyes from its practices. There may be benefits—which, by the way, are at the moment for the most part simply speculative—that aren’t worth the cost.
4. All tissue used in that research is donated by clinic patients, who receive no compensation for doing so. Their sole motive is to help fellow human beings. If we ban the use of such material in research, we accomplish absolutely nothing except to halt that potentially life-saving research. So which is the true “pro-life” position?
As C.S. Lewis argues in The Abolition of Man, there’s a moral cost in treating human beings as meat, or of denying the humanity of a being that is recognizably human. In so doing, we run the palpable risk of dehumanizing ourselves, of numbing our moral sense. Indeed, Lewis’s work ought to be absolutely required reading for anyone who wishes to comment intelligently on these issues.
5. None of the $500 million in federal funding going to Planned Parenthood is used to finance abortions. It is used instead to give low-income women access to contraceptives, maternity care, breast-cancer and ovarian-cancer screenings, and vaccinations against sexually transmitted diseases. If we strip Planned Parenthood of funding for such programs as punishment for the “crime” of following the law and providing tissue for medical research, no other organization has the infrastructure, personnel and training to provide those health-care services. In effect, those women and their children would be the innocent victims of a successful effort to defund Planned Parenthood.
While there may not be a single national organization capable of picking up the slack of PPFA’s arguably overstated non-abortion business, the federal funding that it receives can be put to precisely the same use by a myriad of community health centers and nonprofits in the health, not the abortion, business all over the country. Indeed, the proposed Senate bill preserves every penny of women’s health funding, mandating simply that it go to health clinics, not abortion clinics.
I’ve mentioned two pieces of what I regard as required background reading. Let me close with a third, Dr. Leon Kass’ classic, “The Wisdom of Repugnance”:
Revulsion is not an argument; and some of yesterday’s repugnances are today calmly accepted-though, one must add, not always for the better. In crucial cases, however, repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power fully to articulate it. Can anyone really give an argument fully adequate to the horror which is father-daughter incest (even with consent), or having sex with animals, or mutilating a corpse, or eating human flesh, or even just (just!) raping or murdering another human being? Would anybody’s failure to give full rational justification for his or her revulsion at these practices make that revulsion ethically suspect? Not at all. On the contrary, we are suspicious of those who think that they can rationalize away our horror, say, by trying to explain the enormity of incest with arguments only about the genetic risks of inbreeding.
