Trust The Real Experts: A Former Homeless Addict’s Solution to Homelessness And Addiction
With ten years of hardcore drug addiction under my belt, and I mean “sleeping with a metal pipe between my legs on Skid Row” hardcore, I was disheartened by some of the radical policies that sprung up since I got sober in 2018.
During my tenure of debauchery, the state mostly enabled my addiction, but nothing in comparison to what the addicts of today are going through. Unsurprisingly, opioid-related overdose deaths in California have tripled since I last stuck a needle in my arm. Even worse, the state’s homeless population has grown to over 170,000 despite spending 17.5 billion dollars to combat it between 2018-2022.
They’re spending more than ever to eradicate homelessness and addiction, yet the more they spend, the worse both homelessness and drug usage get. Either those in charge are completely inept, or it’s a controlled demolition of the “undesirables”, but either way, billions of dollars have been laundered out of the coffers into the homeless-industrial complex.
I was mostly allowed to break the law with impunity and slowly die in the public square from 2011-2018, but I was lucky enough to finally get locked up for long enough to withdraw from heroin fully. I did six months in LA County Jail for defending myself against a mugger (Apparently self-defense is the only way to actually do some jail time in California nowadays).
Despite gaining back my mental faculties and realizing drugs were destroying my life, breaking the physical addiction in jail was only enough to temporarily stop. However, the seed was planted. Going to a long-term, non-profit rehab after jail was where I learned how to actually stay stopped. From developing a healthy sense of community to getting connected with a decent-paying carpentry gig, I finally gained a sense of self-worth. And now I’m sober and thriving for almost six years.
Mandating repeat offenders to long-term, comprehensive treatment and job training is the direction we need to go if we’re going to get ourselves out of this mess. And for the homeless that have permanent and severe mental illness, we’re simply going to have to house them in supportive housing indefinitely.
This is the compassionate way forward. For those who are homeless solely as a result of financial misfortune and have no issues with addiction or mental illness (a minority), the free housing we’ve already built should be reserved for them only. As we’ve learned in San Francisco, free, no-strings-attached housing for a fentanyl addict is just an oversized coffin.
As we’ve seen over the last few years, the path to helping these people that we see living under overpasses and having mental breakdowns in back alleys isn’t handing out free crack pipes. And for the ones that are homeless and addicted to drugs (nearly half of the homeless in SF self-report addiction, but the real number is likely higher) the only lasting solution is helping them onto the path of recovery.
Through decriminalizing all antisocial behavior, increasing cash welfare to $687 a month, handing out free paraphernalia, doubling the Department Of Homelessness’s annual budget to a whopping 1.2 billion dollars over 4 years, and providing studio apartments for fentanyl addicts to die in, the city of San Francisco has seen an unprecedented rise in overdose deaths and basically no change in their inflated homeless population. The failure of radical harm reduction in this city couldn’t be more abundantly clear, and given that a bill tying receipt of welfare benefits to drug testing passed earlier this month, the voters have gotten the message.
My upcoming book Crooked Smile is filled with many hilarious and dark tales from my time homeless in the Tenderloin and on Skid Row, but more importantly, it documents what public policies hurt my chances at ever escaping. In addition, I outline a detailed plan of how we can best alleviate both the addiction and homeless crises on a national level. From recapping growing up in a crackhouse to waking up on Skid Row missing a body part, Crooked Smile is a thorough examination of addiction and homelessness from a first-person perspective. And given the recent magnitude of both epidemics, the subject matter is (unfortunately) significant to most urban-dwelling Americans. Pre-order available on Amazon at the link below:
"Crooked Smile" by Jared Klickstein
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Jared, they don't want our help. When our county was putting together a committee for homelessness and drug addiction. I thought that this was right up my alley since I was a recovering addict who was homeless throughout most of my addiction. How wrong. They didn't want people who lived that life and escaped it they wanted people with titles, because people with titles brings in the money. So I walked out of the sham committee and went about doing the street ministry that helped me escape the abyss.
Thanks Jared. I’m looking forward to the book!
I’m in Denver, where our elected officials look wistfully at every CA and SF policy and can’t implement them fast enough. Not surprisingly, we’re seeing the exact same results. My own state house rep believes addict and enabling are “outdated terms” and our Harm Reduction center thinks its methods are “not the opposite of Recovery, it is just the more patient and sustainable route.” (To what? A slow suffering death?) All of our leadership at best ignores and at worst insists abstinence-based recovery doesn’t work. It’s a slap in the face.
If a book tour is part of your promotion plan, I hope you make a stop in Denver. I’m one of many local who follow you on X who would help spread the word and show up to hear you speak. Thank you for what you’re doing!