Kari Lake Lays Out Plan to Keep Phoenix From Becoming San Francisco

Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake has been spreading her message across the state in an effort to expose as many Arizonans as possible to her conservative and populist policies. The America First candidate is in a heated battle against corrupt Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, but she believes her policies are the key to winning in November.

On Friday, she pushed her solutions for the growing homelessness problem, particularly in cities like Phoenix.

Today, I held a Press Conference in Downtown Phoenix to expand on my Homeless Policy.

NOW is the time to address this issue. If our Political Leaders continue to ignore it, we will wake up and Phoenix will look like San Francisco.

FULL POLICY: ⤵️https://t.co/htgcnQ1Yzo pic.twitter.com/NgrGMneIqn

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) August 12, 2022

Homelessness was exploding long before Covid-19 due to horrible policies in California from their Democrat super-majority. When Governor Gavin Newsom was San Francisco Mayor, the city experienced a shift further down the wokeness trail which resulted in a city that has more drug users on the streets than children in public schools. Lake is using the trend in California to remind people that embracing Hobbs is embracing the same policies that are making California residents leave in droves.

Here’s the introduction to her full policy:

Homelessness in Arizona is increasing at a staggering rate. Homeless encampments, drugged-out and deranged individuals, and the extensive damage they are doing to the quality of life in our communities has spread far beyond our biggest cities, even impacting rural and mountain communities like Pine, Payson, and Flagstaff. Government programs and homeless service providers are not making the problem better. Instead, they have essentially given up and are enabling chronic street homelessness, drug use, and mental illness. They ignore the impacts on citizens, families, and communities.

This has to stop. We can have compassion for the homeless, but it cannot be at the expense of everyone else. Nor can we continue to pretend that a large part of the problem isn’t coming from people who are choosing chronic street homelessness as a lifestyle – or that our current system appears dedicated to making that choice easier and more comfortable.

This is just plain wrong. People have a right to walk into a store without being accosted or harassed. Mothers have a right to take their kids to the park and let them play without fear that they’re going to get stuck with a dirty needle. Families have a right to be safe on their streets and in their homes. Citizens deserve protection and safety from the state and cities they pay taxes too.

Right now, they are not.

I don’t accept that this is the way things need to be. We do not need to accept rampant violence, blight, and property crimes. We don’t need to allow homeless encampments destroy our neighborhoods and open spaces. We don’t need to treat people who are making life miserable for everyone around them with kid gloves. It’s time for some tough love.

As Governor, I will give the people who are choosing this drug and alcohol-fueled street lifestyle a choice: get treatment, go to jail, or get going. There are plenty of blue states willing to indulge their destructive behavior. Under my leadership, Arizona won’t be one of them.

We will have compassion for people who need and want help. We will do everything we can to get them off the street and back into society. But we won’t keep doing it on the backs of our citizens.

We’re going to get them off of our streets, one way or another.

I am proposing the most extensive, aggressive and comprehensive approach to addressing homelessness and providing real treatment and support to people who are willing to accept it anywhere in the country. They will have beds, treatment, support, and hope. Those who refuse will find something else entirely: a state that simply isn’t willing to tolerate their abuses any more.

It’s so important for Arizonans to recognize the destructive direction Katie Hobbs wants to take the state. Kari Lake’s policies make sense whether a voter is a Republican, Independent, or Democrat.