The Rev Dr. Rick SchlosserIMPACT’s Recommendation: OPPOSE
RESTRICTS SPENDING BY HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS MEETING SPECIFIED CRITERIA. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
While this proposition speaks in the plural of “health care providers”, it targets one nonprofit: AIDS Healthcare Foundation. One of the proposition’s supporters, Protect Patients Now, specifically says this. One of the current issues in healthcare is whether housing is a health issue. A number of health advocacy organization believe that it is, but only AIDS Healthcare Foundation has the money and resources needed to buy housing as part of a subsidiary mission. AHF also has supported a number of ballot measures over the past few years such as this year’s Proposition 33, to force government to create affordable housing for ultra-low-income groups who are homeless. Proposition 34 is backed by pro real estate groups that fought those ballot measures, and it has become clear that the target of this proposition is only AHF because no other organization has their money or mission. Is it true that AHF has legal problems concerning their use of Medi-Cal funding and very poor track record of maintaining substandard “affordable” housing? Yes. The Los Angeles Times has several articles revealing the Foundation’s legal woes.
The issue for voters, however, is that this is a dangerous use of a ballot measure to politically target ONE entity rather than tackle their possible errors in court. It comes perilously close to making voters complicit in supporting a “bill of attainder”, a political weapon specifically rejected in the US Constitution. Bills of Attainder were ways to politically punish some adversary without using the courts and were rampant in England before the US was founded. This is a misuse of the election ballot process which cannot and must not be normalized.
CA Secretary of State site: Arguments for and against Prop 34: https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/34/index.htm