BALERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) Bakersfield City Councilman Zach Bashirtash is facing backlash over comments he made about homelessness during a January City Council meeting, prompting public criticism and a renewed debate over how the city should respond to encampments and housing instability.
“I’m enraged that we prioritize homeless degenerates over our children in our community. We’ve wasted millions of dollars on treating a problem that’s not doing anything, all the while our community is crumbling before us,” Bashirtash said.
At Wednesday night’s City Council meeting, members of the public criticized Bashirtash’s rhetoric and pushed back on how the issue is being framed.
Bakersfield councilman draws backlash for remarks on homelessness at meeting (PHOTO: YouTube, City of Bakersfield)
“I don’t think it’s a homelessness crisis. I don’t think that these encampments are a homelessness crisis. I think that is a housing crisis,” one speaker said.
In an interview, Bashirtash said his focus is on expanding jail capacity and holding people accountable for crimes, arguing that enforcement is central to addressing the problem.
“The pursuit that we’ve been going towards, some of us on the council, is creating more jail bed space to hold people who are committing crimes, which is a majority of our homeless population,” Bashirtash said.
The issue of jail capacity has also been raised by Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood.
In a September interview, Youngblood pointed to a lack of available bed space in the county jail as a key challenge when it comes to making arrests.
Bakersfield councilman draws backlash for remarks on homelessness at meeting (PHOTO: KBAK/KBFX)
“We’re able to open max bed and open 350 beds, in 10 days we would be full because we would no longer be releasing those inmates and we would be back where we started,” Youngblood said.
Bashirtash said more funding should be allocated toward providing additional jail bed space.
“We’ve been working on creating jail bed space, and all along we knew that was going to take money, and so when I said we need to stop wasting money, it was we need to stop wasting money on anything except for treating this problem that’s happening in our community,” Bashirtash said.
He also said funding would need to be shifted from other priorities, describing it as a matter of budgeting and resource management.
Bakersfield councilman draws backlash for remarks on homelessness at meeting (PHOTO: KBAK/KBFX
“The money is going to come from us cutting back on other things and also being a good steward of our resources,” Bashirtash said.