COTS Chief Mike Johnson says Sonoma County Must Do More
In a recent article in the Sonoma County Press Democrat, COTS' CEO Mike Johnson shared his history of being homeless and how COTS helped him. Mike addressed obstacles to helping people experiencing homelessness:
“If anything, the NIMBYism is a bigger issue than the money.” He’s seen the proposals to construct housing for low-income people often are met by fierce neighborhood opposition.
Twenty-five years after he landed on the streets and then found his way to COTS, Johnson concluded that the fundamental problem in dealing with homelessness is this:
“We have not yet decided that it is unacceptable to have people living on the street.”
He perceives that by and large, Americans are not willing to commit the money and effort necessary to provide substantial assistance to those who’ve lost their homes. An ideology of rugged individualism causes people to offer the homeless some degree of assistance but also insist that they pull themselves up by the bootstrap.
That suffices in some situations, he said, “but it doesn’t work if you don’t have any bootstraps.”
He finds it a simple truth that many of the people living on the streets will not escape them without a great dose of help rebuilding their lives and moving onto a path to a home.
Johnson is convinced that the best thing that can happen immediately in Sonoma County is for the nonprofits, philanthropists and public agencies that now serve homeless people in a largely piecemeal, uncoordinated way to “put aside our competitive nature” and genuinely work together to share best practices and streamline efforts.
Mike is collaborating with other community leaders to do just that.