Bramson: Primaries are over — back to the real work of helping people in need

The ballots have been cast. The campaign mailers are finally slowing down. The California primary election is behind us.

That means it is time to get back to the real work of helping people who need it the most.

Not that the work ever stopped, of course. Every day, outreach workers meet people living outside who need help. Service providers connect families to housing. Affordable housing developers struggle through financing challenges. Local governments wrestle with impossible budgets and impossible expectations. The work continues regardless of election calendars.

But if the past several months are any indication, we are heading into another long season where homelessness will once again be a central political talking point. If recent headlines and campaign messaging are any guide, voters can expect a steady stream of troubling images, alarming anecdotes and increasingly heated rhetoric between now and November.

That reality is frustrating.

Not because homelessness isn’t a serious issue. It absolutely is. The suffering experienced by people living without stable housing deserves our attention and demands our action. Communities have every right to expect progress and accountability. Residents deserve safe, welcoming public spaces.

What is frustrating is how often the conversation becomes disconnected from solutions.

Too much of the recent news cycle has focused on images designed to provoke outrage rather than understanding. We see photos of encampments but hear little about the housing shortage that created them. We hear stories about visible street homelessness but far less about the thousands of families one paycheck away from losing their housing. We spend hours debating symbolism while the practical work of reducing homelessness receives only passing attention.

The result is a conversation that generates a great deal of heat and very little light.

Unfortunately, there is little reason to believe that dynamic will change before November. Elections reward attention. Attention often follows conflict. Homelessness remains one of the most visible and emotionally charged issues facing California communities, making it a natural target for political messaging.

We should recognize that reality without surrendering to it.

While campaigns and commentators continue their arguments, there are far more productive places for our collective energy. We could spend more time asking which housing developments are ready to move forward and what barriers remain in their way. We could focus on expanding effective prevention programs that keep people housed before they ever experience homelessness. We could support efforts to improve behavioral health systems, strengthen outreach services and increase pathways into treatment and recovery. We could examine which local partnerships are producing measurable results and how those successes can be replicated elsewhere.

We could hold ourselves accountable for outcomes rather than headlines.

Most importantly, we must remember that homelessness is not a political abstraction. It is a human condition experienced by our neighbors, coworkers, family members, veterans, seniors and young people aging out of foster care. The people at the center of this issue deserve more than becoming props in an endless political debate.

California has made meaningful investments in recent years. Some have produced encouraging results. Others have fallen short. Honest evaluation is essential. So is urgency. But neither urgency nor accountability requires us to abandon nuance, compassion or common sense.

As election season intensifies, there will be no shortage of people telling us who to blame. There will be plenty of opportunities to become distracted by outrage and division. There will be countless headlines competing for our attention.

The challenge for all of us is to stay focused on the work itself.

The primary election is over. The cameras may remain fixed on homelessness for months to come. The political arguments will continue. But while others campaign, communities still need housing built, services delivered, partnerships strengthened and lives changed.

That’s where the real work happens. And that’s where our energy belongs.

San José Spotlight columnist Ray Bramson is the chief operating officer at Destination: Home, a nonprofit that works to end homelessness in Silicon Valley. His columns appear every second Monday of the month. Contact Ray at [email protected] or follow @rbramson on X.