California gubernatorial hopeful Caitlyn Jenner has made it eminently clear that it’s possible to be transgender and a jerk at the same time. I was completely taken by surprise by this fact because I have known many transgender folks over the years and virtually none of them were jerks.

But Jenner has broken with the crowd on that one, this time by saying homeless people should be herded onto “open fields” because they are “destroying” business, Newsweek reports.

“They’re destroying Venice Beach. They’re destroying all the businesses down there,” she said in an interview on Inside California Politics on TV channel KRON 4. “They don’t need to be there. The crime rate… it’s mostly homeless-on-homeless murders. We can’t have that in our streets.”

That sounds an awful lot like she’s saying “it’s okay if they commit violence against each other as long as they do it where we can’t see it.” Or something like that.

Jenner, a Republican, is a former Olympic athlete, tossed her hat in the political ring last April to challenge Gavin Newsom (D), California’s current governor as a recall campaign got underway. While her campaign has received plenty of attention, recent polling suggests Newsom may not have much to worry about and stands a good chance in the looming recall election.

In the interview, Jenner asserted that California needs to “clean up these places.” She maintained that the state needs “to provide some place for those people to go, whether it’s an open field out in some place, or if you notice at the veterans’ facility, there’s these big open fields and a lot of places there.”

Venice Beach’s local government has implemented a program that provides housing services to the homeless community living near the city’s famous boardwalk. According to a report last week by news channel KTLA 5, a six-week program was offering services and housing to the area’s roughly 200 homeless people living there.

“We will offer what works: housing, with counseling, or mental health services, substance abuse recovery services and anything else needed to successfully transition people into housing,” Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin told the news station.

More than 161,000 homeless people were living in California as of January 2020, according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in May. That’s a seven percent increase over 2019. The jump was especially significant for Los Angeles County, where the percentage rose by 13 percent from 2019 to 2020, and 66,000 individuals residing there.

A poll conducted in May by the Public Policy Institute also revealed that only 40 percent of the state’s voters support the idea of a recall election against Newsom. And 57 percent say they oppose the recall — meaning that Newsom stands a good chance of fighting off political opponents.

Quite obviously assuming Jenner is compassionate because she’s transgender is obviously a wrong idea, and her suggestion that we toss homeless people into “open fields” accurately highlights this. Providing the homeless community with the appropriate shelter gives them the means to seek a better life.

Jenner stands a chance of losing and let’s hope she does.

New – Caitlyn Jenner says she’s tired of biking to Venice Beach and seeing homeless people destroying it. pic.twitter.com/Blt5FCiwZf

— HRC’s Cake (@BidenHarrisBro) July 1, 2021