if you want to frame this around healthcare, you are right.
if you are concerned about tent camps, criminal enforcement, etc, mayors have a lot of power.
I follow the mayors in both Seattle and LA, having once lived in each city.
Each of the last several mayors in each city has attempted to remove tent camps, and increase law enforcement of the homeless.
Every single one of them has failed to do anything but move the tents from one neighborhood to another.
This goes back maybe 15 years in each city, and has nothing to do with the political leanings of the mayors, which have ranged from socialist to center right.
Its a big game of shuffle the corner with the tents on it.
In Argentina, you have the mechanism of Villas- that is, free, unregulated building of housing for the poor by the poor. No building codes, no loans, no inspections, no tear downs or evictions.
This goes back to the 1930s, when the first Villa was created during the depression behind the Retiro station.
40,000 people live in Villa 31.
Thats 4 times the homeless population of Seattle, who are not allowed to build a shack, much less an entire neighborhood.
If any mayor in the US allowed the homeless to build a Villa, the tents would be gone.
But real estate interests, State and Federal laws, and other things completely outside of the power of mayors prevent this from happening.
Slums are the historic stepping stone between homelessness and decent housing.
They are the safety valve that allows cities to accomdate the poor and grow.
The fact that the US doesnt allow them is the single largest reason we see people using the streets of every major US city as a bathroom, bedroom, and drug marketplace.
