Green candidate says Monique DeSpain not equipped with information on homelessness

Presenter: The Green Party candidate for Oregon’s 4th Congressional District says his opponent, Monique DeSpain, just isn’t equipped to address homelessness.  Justin Filip: 

Justin Filip (Pacific Green Party, CD4 candidate): I consider myself a homeless advocate, because this issue touches all parts of the district, not just Eugene. 

So, yeah, I’m just trying to listen and learn. And I mean, I’ve studied it, you know, as a student in the university and then on my own after that—listening to the experts, listening to the people that have studied this, trying to figure out what works, case studies of what they’re doing in other places and other countries.

I’m interested in real solutions and criminalizing homelessness is not a real solution. I’m interested in getting at the root cause of why people end up on the streets, and trying to see if we can do more and be more proactive, to address all of the different variables involved.

Presenter: Justin praised homeless advocate Jetty Etty and said one of her recent videos in Washington Jefferson Park with Monique was revealing. Green Party CD4 candidate Justin Filip:

Justin Filip (Pacific Green Party, CD4 candidate): Jetty asked Monique in the park if people that use substances deserve to be housed. And Monique DeSpain sort of hemmed and hawed about that.

And I know a lot of people that might slant conservative believe that people don’t deserve these things if they’re using drugs. But they never have an answer to what to do with those people other than to punish them, other than to put them in jail. But people aren’t going to be able to help themselves if they don’t have housing first.

So I’m all about gaming it out. Like, ‘Let’s think about: Then what? And then what? And then what happens?’

So, okay, you’re not going to offer any help to people that can’t pass a drug test. Let’s game this out. What do you do with them? You just put them all in jail? We already have more people in jail than any other country on the face of the earth. We can’t jail everybody.

So, again, I’m interested in realistic solutions. I’m interested in listening to the people that have studied these issues in depth, and I’m interested in listening to the people that have experienced this themselves. Too often I feel like these people are left out of the conversation. I want to center the opinion of people who have studied the issue, and people who have experienced it. 

I want to believe that Monique does care. When you haven’t really studied the issue, I guess maybe just criminalizing it sounds like a good answer. She probably means well, and it’s a big issue. I just don’t think that she’s equipped with the information that will allow her to see what the real solutions are.

Studies have shown that a housing-first approach can be successful in providing long-term stability for people in their lives, and I’m interested in real solutions.

Like this idea of drug testing and whatnot. I haven’t seen a church ask someone to pee in a cup before they give them a meal, right? When I work for the Egan Warming Center, it’s low barrier to entry. We’re not interested to see if people are clean before we give them a shelter for the evening in the winter. So why do we expect our government to do that?

And if people read the literature, the studies, they would know that a lot of addiction happens after people end up on the street as sort of a coping mechanism, right? So if you didn’t have substance abuse issues or mental health issues, living on the streets might have you developing those issues, because of what it means to live on the street. It’s hard.

And I feel like a lot of those people feel like that social contract is broken, you know? No one really cares about them, so why should they care about anything? You know, that’s how our society sort of devolves. 

Presenter: Justin said in his first 100 days, he would introduce a bill to house all of the unhoused in America.

Justin Filip (Pacific Green Party, CD4 candidate): You know, the fastest-growing segment of the unhoused population, from what I understand, is people reaching retirement age. So the seniors in our community who, because of wealth inequality in our country, are having a hard time securing enough savings to keep themselves housed.

I was out in Myrtle Point. I went out to the Coos County Fair to talk to residents there just to see what they care about, in general. I went to the Veterans Affairs table and I asked the Veterans Affairs people and the first, he’s like, ‘I’m just speaking for myself, but,’ he’s like, ‘I think we need to do more for surviving spouses because those people are also at risk.’ 

He told me a story of a woman whose spouse is serving our country. And she’s now homeless. So there’s lots of things. It’s not what gets typically talked about, but there’s a lot of ways people end up out there, and mental health and drug addiction, that’s not always the main driving factor. 

I don’t think criminalization is a real solution. I mean, you’re just kicking the can down the road. You can put these people in jail. You can punish them, you can fine them, but at the end of the day, they’re still unhoused.

So you’ve done really nothing to address the root cause of the issue. All you’ve done is make it harder for that person to survive. I don’t know how they’re going to pay fines when they can’t really afford to house themselves, obviously.

There’s a cost that comes with all of that too, right? I mean, we talk about, ‘We can’t afford to house people’ or ‘We can’t afford to provide services for people.’ But I mean, we pay police to harass people who don’t have homes; the court system; there’s a cost that comes with the criminalization of homelessness.

And one of my bold plans is to introduce legislation to house every person in the United States. People are going to probably have a knee-jerk reaction to that and say, ‘How are you going to do that, Justin?’

Well, HUD, the Housing & Urban Development, the government body there, they estimate that that’s going to cost roughly $10 billion a year. Maybe a little bit more up front to set it up, but that’s roughly what they’re expecting.

I know these numbers are very abstract to a lot of people. Once the numbers get that big, people just kind of glaze over. But $10 billion is like 1% of what we spend on the military. It’s what we spend on war and killing people and dropping bombs on other countries. 

In that context, $10 billion is really not that much, and it’s a worthwhile investment because it’s something that affects the whole community, not just the people living on the streets. 

There’s better things that can be done. It’s just we need the political will, people with the political will to do it.

So yeah, my first 100 days, I’m going to introduce that legislation because I believe that this is an enormous issue and one that really doesn’t get talked about a lot because these people don’t have advocates. Not in government anyway.

I mean, Val Hoyle, in her time in Congress, I didn’t see her do much on this issue. Last time I ran against her, in 2024, she requested I think $28 million in appropriations to bring back to spend in this district. And there wasn’t really one penny there to address this issue. 

There was a little bit of money for workforce housing, like out on the coast, but that’s not what we’re talking about. The housing issue is complex. There’s renters rights, there’s housing affordability, there’s workforce housing, but then there’s just the people that are living on the streets. 

And I think it’s a collective moral failure of our country that we allow that to happen when we’re supposedly the wealthiest nation on earth. Our priorities are all askew.

So when I talk about these things, they might sound radical to people, but I think it only sounds radical because our priorities are so radically out of whack right now that it’s going to take a radical readjustment to get things back to where they really should be, where the government is actually serving the people, serving the interests of the people.

I don’t think these illegal wars serve our interests. Those wars just serve the interests of the ruling class, the 1% who profits from these wars, certainly not us, as we can see gas prices being driven up, cost of living continues to go up. 

The people I talk to, they’re concerned about gas prices, they’re concerned about cost of living, they’re concerned about inflation and they should be. The reality is it’s not good. The reality is that it costs more and more to make ends meet these days.

And it’s not how it’s always been in this country, right? I mean, my parents’ generation, they could afford college and not be saddled with college debt for their entire life. I’m still paying my student loans. Their houses were affordable. Family vacations were affordable, all on one income, even working-class jobs.

You know, studies have been done by professors from Princeton and Northwestern and they say Congress literally doesn’t care what you think. Public opinion has no statistical correlation with the actions of our elected officials and the policies that are put in place by our government.

If it just so happens to coincide with the interests of the ruling class, great. That’s when it happens. But otherwise, really the only people they’re listening to is the ‘donor class.’ And so, this is why we talk about systemic change because all of these issues trace back to the corporate capture of our government, and it’s not serving us.

And the unhoused is a downstream effect of that. The militarism and the imperialism of how we use our military is a downstream effect of that. The inflation, etc.  I believe the homeless issue is the biggest moral issue domestically of our time. We need to take care of each other.

I hear a lot like, ‘Well, that’s what the church is for,’ or whatever. But like the church is just a community, right? In essence, a congregation is a small community. And why not just broaden that to our entire community? Why not have all of us collectively pool our resources to help one another? Some people would call that socialism. I call it just kind of doing the right thing. It just seems to me like it makes sense.

I mean, I think I have a different idea of what American values are than some people. To me, an American value is not like, ‘I got mine, you know, good luck, you’re on your own.’ That’s not an American value to me.

We need to look out for one another and you see us do it, right? When things get really tough, people look out for each other. Those folks on the street look out for each other.

But the rest of the time, this individualistic mindset that’s very prevalent in this country, it’s got to go. I mean, we have to care about the collective because we all have a vested interest in it.

And that’s why we’ve taken on this Green Party project, setting the example for the kind of left unity I believe that we need. A great way to get involved in the party is to get involved in the campaign because this is how we build people power. The website is Justin4Congress.com with the number ‘4.’ So Justin4Congress dot com. And sign up to volunteer.

Spread the word, talk to your friends. I was a psychology major and I’m very interested in what makes people tick. One of the things that I’ve come to realize is that online debates rarely change someone’s mind. 

But what will change someone’s mind is face to face interactions with someone that they know and trust. That’s who they will listen to. So talk to your friends. Talk to your family. This is how change is going to happen.

We’re not going to outspend the two major party candidates. We’re doing battle against two very powerful organizations in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party that have lots of money behind them. But what we have is people. And what we have is each other. And we really need to come together and unite against those powerful interests.

So if you don’t have a chapter in your area, let’s talk about starting a chapter. I can connect you with other registered Greens in your area.

If you want to say that you oppose these two major parties, it’s not enough to just be a nonaffiliated voter. Register as a Green. That will send a message to the ruling class that there’s a lot of us that feel this way, and it will help ensure that you have Greens to vote for on the ballot, because part of the criteria for us maintaining our ballot access is having a certain number of registered members.

So if you’re not already registered Green, I encourage you to do that. You can still vote however you want. Just because you register Green doesn’t mean you have to vote for Green any more than just because you registered a Democrat means you have to vote for a Democrat.

But it does help us send a message that there’s a lot of us unhappy with the status quo.

If you think there’s things that this campaign should be amplifying and using its platform to do that, I’m happy to listen. We’re building a disability rights platform with the help of some folks well versed in that issue. I’m always trying to learn more.

So, if you have things that you think would help us build a better platform on these issues, please share it. I would love to have a conversation with you. Send me an email, Justin4Congress@gmail.com.

Presenter: Justin Filip, campaigning against Val Hoyle and Monique DeSpain in Oregon’s 4th Congressional District. He says Monique DeSpain isn’t equipped with knowledge on the homelessness issue, and that in his first 100 days, he would introduce legislation to house everyone in America.