To solve homelessness, we have to be precise in applying the goals of “housing first” and “affordable housing” to street dwellers’ grim situations. What we call homeless encampments are also open-air drug markets, some on a large scale. It’s reported that many homeless people are schizophrenic, and that many schizophrenic people do not believe they have the condition and self-medicate with intoxicants instead of taking prescribed medications.

Many focus on the rights of the campers and minimize the camps’ corrosive public effects: fires, blight, crime, addiction, mental anguish, and poverty. I understand that people debate which came first: homelessness and poverty followed by drug use and mental illness, or vice-versa. But either way, we cannot continue this way. Currently, unhoused people brain-damaged by drugs or otherwise seriously mentally ill can only be asked to accept treatment along with a type of housing, and if they refuse, as many do, they’re neither treated nor housed, because state law makes it almost impossible to require them to do what both they and the rest of the community needs. This must change.

Incumbents in Sacramento have proposed legislation that weaken our state’s criminal laws. For example, they tried to reduce the penalty for certain injury-causing muggings to the minor crime of petty theft. They also tried to all but eliminate extra prison time that currently must be served when a felon uses a gun in a serious crime, including to kill someone with it. I will oppose such mistakes. We also need to tackle serious traffic violations like street racing and speeding.

Energy costs are too high, water is becoming scarcer, and the electrical grid can’t keep up with demand. We must improve our energy and water infrastructures.

In-state refinery capacity is no longer sufficient for consumer demand.

And California has walled itself off from the global petroleum products market by a series of regulations.

This is why gasoline prices yo-yo up and down.

California legislators want to implement a Canadian-style single-payer health-care system. As someone familiar with the Canadian system and its long waiting lists and other forms of rationing, I believe this is a bad id

The current healthcare system isn’t perfect, but with employer-provided insurance, Obamacare and Covered California we have made a lot of progress. At last report, 94% of Californians had health insurance. Let’s collaborate to make healthcare coverage even better.