The Klamath County Board of Commissioners is working to curb homelessness in the county with a new ordinance that bans camping in public spaces, while Governor Kotek has announced funding for Klamath and Lake County to create housing and more beds for the homeless. But many attribute the growth of homeless in our community to the legalization of drugs in our State three years ago. A pair of studies out of NYU says that the law neither increased overdoses nor did the incidence of violent crime, vagrancy, trespassing, or disorderly conduct since the passing of the law.
Pastor Richard Pfeil of the First Presbyterian Church here in Klamath Falls who works with the homeless says it is not as simple as drug addiction and beds, “The root cause of homelessness is not a mystery, it’s quite well known, the number one cause of homelessness is trauma.”
Ultimately if the study is to be believed, it’s not the drugs that are increasing homelessness, it’s the homeless.
