This letter was penned on July 25, 2025, as a response to the Executive Order titled Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets. Featured in Monterey County NOW Newsletter.
It’s already hard to fathom. Waking up one day, leaving your home for the last time, taking with you only the possessions and important papers that you can carry with you, either in your vehicle or harder yet, on your person. Now you must find a safe place to park your car or hide when you sleep; go hungry or find inexpensive places to get food; identify a public restroom for necessities; navigate an often-hostile environment.
That already seems unbearable. Now with the latest Executive Order advancing efforts to criminalize homelessness, you could be arrested and institutionalized just for being poor. It’s both unfathomable and fundamentally inhumane.
At Gathering for Women – Monterey, we have seen a rapid increase in the number of homeless and housing-insecure women who rely on our services. Over the past six years, GFW has served an average of 400 unique women per year. As I write these words on July 25, we have already seen more than 300 in the first seven months of 2025 – nearly a 50% increase in new guests from last time this year. Three hundred women, some with children, struggling to survive on the streets of one of the wealthiest communities in the US. Increases in rent and food costs, job loss, divorce, domestic violence, unanticipated medical expenses – even just one of these can tip the balance for our neighbors and put them out on the street.
It is easier to categorize the homeless as “them” than to realize most of us are just one bad day away from crisis but painting a picture that all homeless are addicts or mentally ill who should be thrown in some sort of detention center, as the new Executive Order does, is just one more way to dehumanize those among us. It doesn’t account for the single mother who is about to lose her house because she can no longer pay her mortgage, or the lifelong Monterey Peninsula resident whose pension no longer covers her rent, or the domestic violence survivor who sleeps in her car.
Contrary to common belief, the majority of homeless people do not have a substance abuse issue. In fact, the national, state, and even Monterey County average of homeless individuals who have a substance use disorder is around 40%. While this is certainly higher than the percentage of housed individuals struggling with addiction, it is by no means “all” – or even half! Some studies have also concluded that, of the 40% who are struggling, half of them only started using substances (or increased their use to the level of addiction) after they became homeless, as a coping mechanism. Nor do they all have a mental illness. The most recent Coalition of Homeless Service Providers Point-in-Time count indicated that only 25% of homeless in Monterey County indicated having a psychiatric or emotional condition, and in fact, 61% sited financial issues including job loss and addiction as their primary cause of homelessness.
One of our guests told me yesterday that “The least we can do is be kind.” How is it that so many in our society appear to have forgotten how to be kind? Empathy is not a weakness; it is the foundation of community.
Over half of GFW guests are over 50 years old. The oldest guest we have served so far was 92. A guest who was evicted due to the sale of her the house she rented told us “I am a 65-year-old disabled senior without a vehicle, alone… I really had some issues to find a place to eat, dress, shower, sleep safely, and find my own apartment out of the cold weather and danger.” Thanks to GFW, this guest found her way out of homelessness and is now in her own home. But what will happen to the next 65-year-old who cannot afford her rising rent? Or the next senior citizen whose Medicare-allotted days in assisted living have run out?
You can’t punish people out of poverty. This Executive Order will make the journey out of homelessness even harder or even legally impossible. In this new environment, it’s going to be more important than ever to press your elected officials to take action to support rather than punish the less fortunate in our community.
Staci Alziebler-Perkins is the executive director of Gathering for Women – Monterey. She and her husband have been renters on the Peninsula, who like millions of Americans, wonder each year if the next rent increase may be the one that prices them out of their home.
How can you help?
If you are interested in supporting GFW’s work, you can do so by:
- Contacting your elected officials both state and local to express support for your neighbors experiencing homelessness
- Supporting local efforts to build more affordable housing
- Supporting local homelessness prevention efforts like rental assistance and financial education programs
- Volunteering your time and talents to local homeless service providers
- Donating clothing or personal care items, or making a monetary contribution to your local homeless service providers
- Becoming an ambassador and telling everyone you know about your favorite non-profit and what we are doing to help!
If you are ready to be part of the solution, you can find ways to get involved at GFW on our website, or contact us at info@gatheringforwomen.org.
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