Bramson: What does quality of life really mean when we’re all suffering?

While it might seem unprecedented, we’ve been here before.

The economy wobbles, markets panic and policymakers start sharpening their red pens. Budgets shrink. Programs are cut. And the people who always seem to take the hardest hits — the ones living on the edge — get shoved even further into the margins.

Now, with federal safety net programs under threat, a possible recession looming and local governments bracing for painful deficits, we’re watching the cracks widen again. And if we’re not careful, we’ll do what we’ve always done in times of fiscal stress: push poverty out of sight to make ourselves feel like we’ve solved it.

In Silicon Valley, that means ramping up so-called “quality of life” enforcement — penalizing unhoused and low-income residents for things like sleeping in public, loitering or simply existing in a space deemed uncomfortable to the housed. It’s a cycle we know well: poverty becomes a public nuisance, enforcement becomes the response and the people who need help the most get arrested, fined or isolated.

Over the years, these laws haven’t been about improving quality of life, either. They’re about making poor people go somewhere else. 

But the stakes are rising.

With local budgets under pressure, the temptation is strong to scale back supportive services and ramp up enforcement instead. It’s faster. It plays better politically. And on the surface, it looks like action. But the deeper reality is this: every dollar we spend sweeping encampments or processing citations for the unhoused is a dollar not spent on housing, mental health support or food security.

And those trade-offs add up fast.

Just ask anyone who’s tried to navigate housing instability in this region. The waitlists are long. The rents are brutal. And the services, even when available, are too often underfunded. Now imagine trying to climb out of that hole with a misdemeanor on your record, or hundreds of dollars in fines you can’t pay. That’s not a pathway out — it’s a trap door.

Meanwhile, the root causes of homelessness — skyrocketing housing costs, stagnant wages and historic inequities — go unaddressed. We attack the symptom and ignore the disease.

This isn’t just a policy failure. It’s a moral one.

When we punish people for being poor, we’re not enforcing order — we’re enforcing inequality. We’re choosing to invest in containment over compassion, optics over outcomes.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Communities across the country have shown that a different path is possible: one that centers housing and shelter, funds upstream supports and treats poverty not as a crime but as a solvable challenge. We’ve seen it work here, too. Permanent supportive housing. Cash assistance programs. Culturally responsive outreach. These are real solutions with real data behind them.

What we need now is the political courage to double down — not retreat — on the investments that lift people up, even in hard times.

Especially in hard times.

Because what kind of community do we want to be when resources are scarce? One that turns on its most vulnerable? Or one that finds new ways to hold each other up?

We’re at a crossroads. Federal cuts may be coming. Local dollars may get tighter. But let’s be clear-eyed about the cost of the choices ahead. If we default to what we already know doesn’t work, we’re not just hurting the people on our streets — we’re hurting our collective future.

This is the moment to resist the urge to punish and choose, instead, to protect.

To lead with equity. To invest in dignity. And to remember that quality of life should belong to all of us — not just the lucky few.

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.