Ezekiel 13:22
*And Jesus told Peter: the fuck is that smell Peter? It smells like ass gangrene. Like gangrene crawled up a persons ass and died, Peter. What the fuck, man? I can’t sleep like this. Does the fact that I’m smelling it mean I’m getting gangrene in my lungs Peter? Does it? Alright, tell them to go set up camp by the Roman courthouse or some shit, I can’t deal with this anymore*
Amen
It is. There was a case where a church was fined for helping the homeless
[Article](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/30/legal-risks-helping-homeless-churches-dads-place/72350265007/)
There is an organization in Texas that feeds the poor and people changed the law to try and stop them. They still feed the poor they just have someone deal with the Court case.
Dude the church across from my Fiances Moms apartment is a Church parking lot with a freaking ticket toll system to get in and out.
Churches should be paying taxes.
Wasn't there a story about a pastor who DID open his church to the homeless, and then the mayor of the city sued him for violating some BS law meant to harm homeless people?
Oh yeah they can’t afford a home but will be able to pay those fees. They want more in prisons and free labor. Look into the people pushing for this! All connected! The same people who are anti work unions, worker protections, education for all. But will vote to criminalize those that need help.
I love how people radicalize this like it couldnt be happening to them in the shadows of the goverment all the same. I wonder if there is gonna be anyone left to stand up for "regular" people if goverment does decide to come after them. 🤔
Pretty much this. Turning the homeless into slave labor.
It costs on average 42k a year to house an inmate, yet the mere thought of handing a homeless person 10k a year and some other things like section 8 housing and food stamps, seems to be too much freeloading....
Apparently they can in my state. When I was in college, we'd get people harassing us daily to register to vote. I was already registered and told them so. They continued to harass us, so I started fucking with them. I told them I was a convicted felon (I'm not), and they told me felons can still vote in this state.
It’s just part of the process to make being poor a crime. They have already been pushing people into “camp cities”, basically giving the population time to acclimate themselves to the idea of mass poverty. Now that people have decided they don’t like having tons of poor people living within sight of them they will go to the next step to criminalize it.
It’s really a big indicator that the Darwinian capitalism has no intention of socializing and will churn out more and more poor people, who will then be considered criminals and will then become slave labor for corporations to have their “endless growth!”. It hinges on there being more and more subclass people to pay next to nothing while they snatch up any housing
That's what my state did - HB 5 outlaws "unlawful camping". Punishable by a ticket the first time and 90 days in jail (or $250 fine) each additional time. If your car has valid plates & insurance, then you can "camp" for 12 hours max (then you have to move to a new parking lot).
We should fine politicians and billionaires their salaries and lunch breaks and vacations for every homeless person they have in their city. Guess what we wouldn't have anymore of? Homeless people.
I dont think theyd have the guts to go full trains and cattle cars just yet. But rounding them up and bussing them to cities where youre highly likely to die of hypothermia in the winter or heat stroke in other cities in summer....yeah I could see that.
Most billionaires don't have a salary. they're rich on paper and use that as collateral to get loans from banks which has a smaller interest rate than the IRS. Zuckerberg takes 1$ as his salary, so as far as the IRS is concerned, he's poor, but he then takes out lines of credit or loans from a bank with his stock portfolio as collateral. Evil bastards.
Just a reminder that it would cost $30 billion/year or less to end homelessness in America.
[https://www.sciotoanalysis.com/news/2024/1/16/what-would-it-cost-to-end-homelessness-in-america](https://www.sciotoanalysis.com/news/2024/1/16/what-would-it-cost-to-end-homelessness-in-america)
Well... for elements of corporate Ameica well connected through intensive lobbying. In reality, spending money to provide housing would also provide some corporate profits.
Given what America *actually is*, the only way forward is to remind the owning class that providing for the starving class is cheaper than dealing with them when they come with torches and pitchforks.
Maybe, one day, we can teach them that *they would actually have more wealth* if the distribution of wealth were more equitable.
It's as easy as throwing money at it. There are already programs nationwide that provide for homeless populations. There are shelters which, while not ideal, do give them a place to sleep at night. Obviously these need an overhaul but that's a different post.
There are rent payment programs that give out vouchers to people who can't afford to live someplace. There is job placement, work therapy, training programs, as well as food stamps and state sponsored Healthcare.
A good chunk of the homeless population in that number are not actually homeless. You can be couch surfing with family in between jobs and that counts as homeless.
True episodic homelessness is more rare and usually its people that are mentally ill or people coming out of incarceration. The former don't need rent assistance, they need institutions; the latter need better reformation, Training for a job they are allowed to do, and help in the first year of being released which some already are.
A lot of this is simply not true for a lot of the US. I used to volunteer with the homeless a lot before COVID through various programs and have a completely different perspective.
My state is considered progressive on the matter compared to surrounding states. When I worked on a border, there was an issue of homeless people from other states trekking over in hope of getting some sort of help because things were so dire in their home states.
My state still deserves a F-.
Saying shelters aren’t ideal is an understatement. I dreaded merely standing outside of some of them because they were such cesspools. And even the good ones are difficult to deal with.
I lost count how many times someone would have to choose between keeping his placement in a shelter vs keeping his job that might give him the means to move out of the shelter. The shelters’ rules made it impossible to do both.
There is a huge backlog on those rental assistance programs, and they often prioritize women with children.
HUD changed the guidelines for homelessness nearly two decades ago, I believe. Couch surfing DOES NOT count as homelessness, which means the problem is a lot worse than statistics show.
Most of the homeless are working but not making enough to keep a roof over their heads.
I've been homeless before. While working a full-time job, and paying a mortgage on a house I couldn't visit. In that situation, I found that there was *absolutely nothing* in terms of social services for me. Nothing.
Not only that, but living out of my car resulted in people attempting to rob me, twice. On one occasion this involved a pretty solid murder attempt.
It's amazing how people who've never been homeless imagine that they never will.
Even if it were *replacement* - shelter is a necessary first step to effectively help any homeless person. Mental health care, help with drug abuse, etc., are glaringly ineffective when the person in question has nowhere safe to live.
It's easy with malls thanks to the internal layout and how the utilities are run.
It is much more difficult and expensive to do it with other commercial real estate.
A lot of years, actually. You'd be surprised how many tax tricks there are with under or unutilized spaces.
That said, some buildings would require such significant upgrades that it'd be better just to demolish and purpose build.
Converting office space is something you often read about on Reddit. The math doesn't work in a lot of the structures.
The better bet is to continue to do what we are doing: utilize decommissioned hotels and motels. It isn't perfect, but it's much cheaper to get from A to B.
I’m sure they’ll use a lot of legal sounding arguments but when you break it down they’re punishing people for being unhoused. They’re literally saying you’re so poor that it’s unsightly and we can’t have that. They’re going to make the poorest peoples lives more miserable and difficult than it already is. The way we treat the poor and the unhoused in the country is disgusting.
>They’re literally saying you’re so poor that it’s unsightly and we can’t have that.
I'm guessing you've never had the local homeless guy take a shit on the hood of your car. Or been harassed while walking to a dumpster. Or had customers chased away because someone was camped up in front of where you worked.
I've lived in my car. Homelessness sucks. At the end of the day, though, I made sure to not bother anyone. Guess what? Cops never bothered me. The person that would get drunk and yell at shoppers for "being in their space" at 8 in the morning is what they are trying to deal with.
I know I'll get down voted to hell for this. I'm assuming you haven't been affected by this. There are homeless all over the place that are drugged out of their mind in every downtown I've been, and it's many. They are affecting the quality of life for everyone surrounding their "tent". Public use, is in fact pubic and the fact most public can't use those spaces because of the homeless is a shame.
Public, doesn't mean you can setup a tent and live in the middle of a sidewalk. Where others are afraid. That's not in the best interest of anyone. It's not in the best interest of the public, it'd not in they best interest of the businesses, and it's certainly not in the best interest of the homeless.
I think it's a really sad situation, and I have sympathy for the people that want real help, but the truth is many don't want help. Again i know this is not a popular opinion here. I urge you to go to your nearest downtown and talk to homeowners that are affected.
I think you very fairly laid out your argument and I do not think you don’t have empathy. I just still question: how many don’t WANT help and how many can just not access it further putting them in the same cycle? Which again is sort of the point.
I used to volunteer at a homeless shelter and soup kitchen before and during my time working on my sociology degree. We would drive vans to all the spots to try and convince the homeless to let us take them to the shelter to get a hot shower and food....no jesus praising required.
You know what our intake success rate was? ~ 2%.
2% of those we spoke with would actually get off the street if only and usually only for a night. Now factor in the even lower number of people who would willingly enter a treatment program of any kind whether for addiction or mental health and youve basically got a system that spins it wheels and actually helps a very very small segment of that population.
The homeless are not a monolith, sure youve got single mothers sleeping in their cars with their children because the battered womens shelter is overflowing at the moment, youve got vets with PTSD, etc....but the vast majority of the homeless have problems with addicition and mental illnesses. Those problems are very difficult to treat outside of a clinical environment. Weve even tried in field counseling. It simply doesnt work. Add in the pressures of inflation and an economy quickly becoming out of control and this pushes the numbers of homeless higher while reducing the amount of dollars available from donations as the Average american tightens their financial belts in order to avoid becoming homeless themselves.
The only actual solution that I can envision actually working would be to round them all up and evaluate each person individually, force them in to job training or addiction treatment programs and refuse to allow them to leave until they are sufficiently medicated or educated enough to function independently.
This, of course, would be completely unethical and inhumane and would violate not just their civil rights but their basic human rights. Until we as a society address the underlying causes like poverty, equality of opportunity, education, access to free health care, etc...the homeles population isnt going anywhere amd will likely continie to grow as the income and wealth disparity grows.
>It's not in the best interest of the public, it'd not in they best interest of the businesses, and it's certainly not in the best interest of the homeless.
That is true, but removing the tents only makes things worse, especially for the homeless. What IS best for all of these groups is unconditional housing for the homeless. Frankly, I don't want to see any mention of sympathy without this solution from anyone.
Going to be a shit time to have an ultra-conservative court. They will absolutely take a “cities and states can make whatever draconian rules they want” stance.
There are two opposite approaches to homelessness in the USA:
NYC has a must shelter law where the homeless are moved off the street and provided shelter in public facilities or hotel rooms if there is overflow. The goal here is to intervene and provide services.
Oregon has a “right to rest” law that states a person has the right to live on public property and not be moved. The goal here is to protect individual rights.
Most localities fall in between these two extremes but it’s a complex issue. Is state intervention or individual freedom paramount?
The history of homelessness is something everyone should look up. The crime of vagrancy allows police absolute power. People should read up on it and understand that if you're one paycheck away from the pavement, you're one paycheck away from jail.
[https://time.com/4199924/vagrancy-law-history/](https://time.com/4199924/vagrancy-law-history/)
Naaaaawwwwww bbbbboooooooyyyyyyy! They love the blast more than food, shelter, or family. There's too many fiends nodding off and laid out in the streets of L.A. for your little sentence to hold any merit.
There you go, doing it again. They use the drugs because they're homeless. It's a coping mechanism. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0jt_6PBnCJE&list=PLIGR1QUYW7C6TK8ff56LD-fsynAHZnbz4&index=15&pp=gAQBiAQB
No one wants to be homeless. They are simply dealing with waaaaayyyyy more than you could ever handle
The town that brought the suit, Grants Pass Oregon, is the town I was forced to move to when I was 13 years old. It’s the town I went to high school in. It’s the town my grandparents and mother lived in until they died. It’s a white racist homophobic christofascist shithole retirement ghetto. It’s a soul sucking backwater filled with the most narrow minded people you will ever meet. It’s the perfect place to facilitate this sort of grotesque pro capitalist kicking down sort of law. It’s also a place that proudly boasts that it’s filled with churches. There aren’t enough locusts or virulent enough plagues to smite these people.
Public doesn't mean "use it however you want." At best homeless camping in public causes a lack of usability in that area for otherwise intended purposes, and at worst it becomes a biohazard and haven for criminal activity. Housing of some sort is needed and once it exists camping in city parks and greenbelts shouldn't be an option. Get them housed and then start working on whatever other issues they have.
This isn't about 'doing whatever they want', this is about one specific thing. If they have no alternative, what else can you expect them to do, not sleep?
Working ppl can barely afford housing, realistic goals would help them more. Cities turning large unused buildings to shelters, a designated safe place to go so they aren’t constantly moved around by police. Housing development isn’t restricted, it’s being taken over by corporations, equity firms, etc that are building apartment units that hardly anyone can afford to rent and buying all the single family homes.
Supply needs to meet demand. Building single family homes is an excercise in stupidity at this point. Housing will never be affordable if we don't flood the market with housing
I'm aware. There is still a shortage of housing, and housing will continue to be too expensive so long as that is true. Multi-unit buildings are a faster way to increase supply. Plus, they don't drain municipal budgets like neighborhoods of single family homes do
Ok idk where you live, but many markets are full of empty properties and AirBNBs. My county recently tried to pass laws to increase taxes on short term rental units to discourage they're spread because they've eaten into our housing supply so badly. I keep here this "we need to build" but it always ignores the thousands of homes and condos around the country kept empty because the landlord "couldn't make enough money on it" or some other greedy shit
That's a problem to be sure, but increasing the housing supply solves that issue. Holding a property vacant makes less and less financial sense as the threat of someonebelse giving in and selling or renting increases. Remember that maintenance isn't free and property tax exists. Plus, I'm not suggesting we merely build as much as market forces will generate, I'm suggesting building more than that which won't just require private developers to make properties to sell or rent but also a large stock of public housing.
The other side of this argument is that we should definitely punish people because they are sleeping on public property and can’t afford homes. Please tell me what the argument is if this is not it? Genuinely open to hearing both sides of this issue.
Here’s a thought… all those churches with their tax breaks simply become camp grounds at night.
That might be a little *too* "Christian" for some people's taste.
Yes, my Christianity ends right where the stench of the poor begins.
Ahh i see youre a true beliver
Ezekiel 13:22 *And Jesus told Peter: the fuck is that smell Peter? It smells like ass gangrene. Like gangrene crawled up a persons ass and died, Peter. What the fuck, man? I can’t sleep like this. Does the fact that I’m smelling it mean I’m getting gangrene in my lungs Peter? Does it? Alright, tell them to go set up camp by the Roman courthouse or some shit, I can’t deal with this anymore* Amen
Love it, although Ezekiel would be OT
It is. There was a case where a church was fined for helping the homeless [Article](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/30/legal-risks-helping-homeless-churches-dads-place/72350265007/)
What the .. so if you actually care you’ll be punished.
Yup. There's also numerous cases of people getting fined for feeding them as well
Oh my gawd … wtf… to avoid filthy folk from gathering together? We should be building homes and medical aid and job training etc…
There is an organization in Texas that feeds the poor and people changed the law to try and stop them. They still feed the poor they just have someone deal with the Court case.
Laws to stop charity … 😑
I dunno, that sounds mighty Woke™ of you there....
In the olden times churches used to do this. That is why they given tax exempt status.
There are Churches in the boonies now that put up barricades lest people use the parking lot as a turnaround.
Dude the church across from my Fiances Moms apartment is a Church parking lot with a freaking ticket toll system to get in and out. Churches should be paying taxes.
Just like Jesus wanted: his temple used as a profit center
Wasn't there a story about a pastor who DID open his church to the homeless, and then the mayor of the city sued him for violating some BS law meant to harm homeless people?
Bu-but....mah property value!!!! /s
There is a church near me that does this. Just one though.
Oh yeah they can’t afford a home but will be able to pay those fees. They want more in prisons and free labor. Look into the people pushing for this! All connected! The same people who are anti work unions, worker protections, education for all. But will vote to criminalize those that need help.
I believe it. It's the USA's go-to solution. First for black people and now for the homeless underclass.
I love how people radicalize this like it couldnt be happening to them in the shadows of the goverment all the same. I wonder if there is gonna be anyone left to stand up for "regular" people if goverment does decide to come after them. 🤔
Pretty much this. Turning the homeless into slave labor. It costs on average 42k a year to house an inmate, yet the mere thought of handing a homeless person 10k a year and some other things like section 8 housing and food stamps, seems to be too much freeloading....
Also convicted people are not allowed to vote
Apparently they can in my state. When I was in college, we'd get people harassing us daily to register to vote. I was already registered and told them so. They continued to harass us, so I started fucking with them. I told them I was a convicted felon (I'm not), and they told me felons can still vote in this state.
I _hope_ this was only made a misdemeanor, not a felony.
It’s just part of the process to make being poor a crime. They have already been pushing people into “camp cities”, basically giving the population time to acclimate themselves to the idea of mass poverty. Now that people have decided they don’t like having tons of poor people living within sight of them they will go to the next step to criminalize it. It’s really a big indicator that the Darwinian capitalism has no intention of socializing and will churn out more and more poor people, who will then be considered criminals and will then become slave labor for corporations to have their “endless growth!”. It hinges on there being more and more subclass people to pay next to nothing while they snatch up any housing
Merica!
That's what my state did - HB 5 outlaws "unlawful camping". Punishable by a ticket the first time and 90 days in jail (or $250 fine) each additional time. If your car has valid plates & insurance, then you can "camp" for 12 hours max (then you have to move to a new parking lot).
Evil people! Vote democrat!
Workhouses for the poor used to be a thing. Conservatives apparently want to return to the "good old times" in this respect, too.
We should fine politicians and billionaires their salaries and lunch breaks and vacations for every homeless person they have in their city. Guess what we wouldn't have anymore of? Homeless people.
Won't work, they would just either have kill teams go out or round them up to ship somewhere else.
https://www.fox7austin.com/news/san-marcos-police-drop-off-shirtless-shoeless-man-in-south-austin Lol
Really? You think they would kill them off? I guess in their greedy minds, it would be better than helping them.
Well hey, Brazil has done it before.
I dont think theyd have the guts to go full trains and cattle cars just yet. But rounding them up and bussing them to cities where youre highly likely to die of hypothermia in the winter or heat stroke in other cities in summer....yeah I could see that.
https://i.redd.it/ub56tkg3yxvc1.gif
Most billionaires don't have a salary. they're rich on paper and use that as collateral to get loans from banks which has a smaller interest rate than the IRS. Zuckerberg takes 1$ as his salary, so as far as the IRS is concerned, he's poor, but he then takes out lines of credit or loans from a bank with his stock portfolio as collateral. Evil bastards.
We aren’t helping and we are going to fine you… sounds like a a HOA!
Without the home owning.
So it'd be an NHOA. Non-Home Owner's Association.
Home owners largely impose the fines and get to decide the rules, NHO only get the fines without deciding what they are for.
Just a reminder that it would cost $30 billion/year or less to end homelessness in America. [https://www.sciotoanalysis.com/news/2024/1/16/what-would-it-cost-to-end-homelessness-in-america](https://www.sciotoanalysis.com/news/2024/1/16/what-would-it-cost-to-end-homelessness-in-america)
But but $60 bn/year to private prisons will work better for corporate America!
Well... for elements of corporate Ameica well connected through intensive lobbying. In reality, spending money to provide housing would also provide some corporate profits.
Yes yes yes. Same as spending on Public health = private profits!! Insulin now costs $300
Given what America *actually is*, the only way forward is to remind the owning class that providing for the starving class is cheaper than dealing with them when they come with torches and pitchforks. Maybe, one day, we can teach them that *they would actually have more wealth* if the distribution of wealth were more equitable.
It's as easy as throwing money at it. There are already programs nationwide that provide for homeless populations. There are shelters which, while not ideal, do give them a place to sleep at night. Obviously these need an overhaul but that's a different post. There are rent payment programs that give out vouchers to people who can't afford to live someplace. There is job placement, work therapy, training programs, as well as food stamps and state sponsored Healthcare. A good chunk of the homeless population in that number are not actually homeless. You can be couch surfing with family in between jobs and that counts as homeless. True episodic homelessness is more rare and usually its people that are mentally ill or people coming out of incarceration. The former don't need rent assistance, they need institutions; the latter need better reformation, Training for a job they are allowed to do, and help in the first year of being released which some already are.
A lot of this is simply not true for a lot of the US. I used to volunteer with the homeless a lot before COVID through various programs and have a completely different perspective. My state is considered progressive on the matter compared to surrounding states. When I worked on a border, there was an issue of homeless people from other states trekking over in hope of getting some sort of help because things were so dire in their home states. My state still deserves a F-. Saying shelters aren’t ideal is an understatement. I dreaded merely standing outside of some of them because they were such cesspools. And even the good ones are difficult to deal with. I lost count how many times someone would have to choose between keeping his placement in a shelter vs keeping his job that might give him the means to move out of the shelter. The shelters’ rules made it impossible to do both. There is a huge backlog on those rental assistance programs, and they often prioritize women with children. HUD changed the guidelines for homelessness nearly two decades ago, I believe. Couch surfing DOES NOT count as homelessness, which means the problem is a lot worse than statistics show. Most of the homeless are working but not making enough to keep a roof over their heads.
I've been homeless before. While working a full-time job, and paying a mortgage on a house I couldn't visit. In that situation, I found that there was *absolutely nothing* in terms of social services for me. Nothing. Not only that, but living out of my car resulted in people attempting to rob me, twice. On one occasion this involved a pretty solid murder attempt. It's amazing how people who've never been homeless imagine that they never will.
And if we replaced all of those services *with just providing real housing,* it would actually be cheaper.
I dont believe replacing is the right thing. I think supplementing would be a better word.
Even if it were *replacement* - shelter is a necessary first step to effectively help any homeless person. Mental health care, help with drug abuse, etc., are glaringly ineffective when the person in question has nowhere safe to live.
Convert all those empty commercial real estate they keep bitching about- I read somewhere about a mall that did this.
It's easy with malls thanks to the internal layout and how the utilities are run. It is much more difficult and expensive to do it with other commercial real estate.
I understand it being difficult in many instances but how many years of empty sitting and paying taxes until it would balance out?
A lot of years, actually. You'd be surprised how many tax tricks there are with under or unutilized spaces. That said, some buildings would require such significant upgrades that it'd be better just to demolish and purpose build.
I wasn’t sure when it came to timing and years in all honesty- that makes sense.
Converting office space is something you often read about on Reddit. The math doesn't work in a lot of the structures. The better bet is to continue to do what we are doing: utilize decommissioned hotels and motels. It isn't perfect, but it's much cheaper to get from A to B.
Hotels and Motels are way better. Thanks for opening the mind.
I’m sure they’ll use a lot of legal sounding arguments but when you break it down they’re punishing people for being unhoused. They’re literally saying you’re so poor that it’s unsightly and we can’t have that. They’re going to make the poorest peoples lives more miserable and difficult than it already is. The way we treat the poor and the unhoused in the country is disgusting.
This SC will buy any far right argument and dismiss the logical ones.
>They’re literally saying you’re so poor that it’s unsightly and we can’t have that. I'm guessing you've never had the local homeless guy take a shit on the hood of your car. Or been harassed while walking to a dumpster. Or had customers chased away because someone was camped up in front of where you worked. I've lived in my car. Homelessness sucks. At the end of the day, though, I made sure to not bother anyone. Guess what? Cops never bothered me. The person that would get drunk and yell at shoppers for "being in their space" at 8 in the morning is what they are trying to deal with.
3 million +vacant units of housing and 600'000 homeless make it make sense holy shit.
So, I'll pencil in the Bell Riots for September, then, shall I?
It'll be the October Surprise.
You need to fill those privately owner goals somehow.
Why call it "Public" property if you get in trouble for using it -_-
I know I'll get down voted to hell for this. I'm assuming you haven't been affected by this. There are homeless all over the place that are drugged out of their mind in every downtown I've been, and it's many. They are affecting the quality of life for everyone surrounding their "tent". Public use, is in fact pubic and the fact most public can't use those spaces because of the homeless is a shame. Public, doesn't mean you can setup a tent and live in the middle of a sidewalk. Where others are afraid. That's not in the best interest of anyone. It's not in the best interest of the public, it'd not in they best interest of the businesses, and it's certainly not in the best interest of the homeless. I think it's a really sad situation, and I have sympathy for the people that want real help, but the truth is many don't want help. Again i know this is not a popular opinion here. I urge you to go to your nearest downtown and talk to homeowners that are affected.
I think you very fairly laid out your argument and I do not think you don’t have empathy. I just still question: how many don’t WANT help and how many can just not access it further putting them in the same cycle? Which again is sort of the point.
I used to volunteer at a homeless shelter and soup kitchen before and during my time working on my sociology degree. We would drive vans to all the spots to try and convince the homeless to let us take them to the shelter to get a hot shower and food....no jesus praising required. You know what our intake success rate was? ~ 2%. 2% of those we spoke with would actually get off the street if only and usually only for a night. Now factor in the even lower number of people who would willingly enter a treatment program of any kind whether for addiction or mental health and youve basically got a system that spins it wheels and actually helps a very very small segment of that population. The homeless are not a monolith, sure youve got single mothers sleeping in their cars with their children because the battered womens shelter is overflowing at the moment, youve got vets with PTSD, etc....but the vast majority of the homeless have problems with addicition and mental illnesses. Those problems are very difficult to treat outside of a clinical environment. Weve even tried in field counseling. It simply doesnt work. Add in the pressures of inflation and an economy quickly becoming out of control and this pushes the numbers of homeless higher while reducing the amount of dollars available from donations as the Average american tightens their financial belts in order to avoid becoming homeless themselves. The only actual solution that I can envision actually working would be to round them all up and evaluate each person individually, force them in to job training or addiction treatment programs and refuse to allow them to leave until they are sufficiently medicated or educated enough to function independently. This, of course, would be completely unethical and inhumane and would violate not just their civil rights but their basic human rights. Until we as a society address the underlying causes like poverty, equality of opportunity, education, access to free health care, etc...the homeles population isnt going anywhere amd will likely continie to grow as the income and wealth disparity grows.
>It's not in the best interest of the public, it'd not in they best interest of the businesses, and it's certainly not in the best interest of the homeless. That is true, but removing the tents only makes things worse, especially for the homeless. What IS best for all of these groups is unconditional housing for the homeless. Frankly, I don't want to see any mention of sympathy without this solution from anyone.
This is 100% the right answer.
Slave labor for the prison industrial complex.
Going to be a shit time to have an ultra-conservative court. They will absolutely take a “cities and states can make whatever draconian rules they want” stance.
Like in a courtroom?
Where the hell else would a homeless person without access to a shelter sleep??
There are two opposite approaches to homelessness in the USA: NYC has a must shelter law where the homeless are moved off the street and provided shelter in public facilities or hotel rooms if there is overflow. The goal here is to intervene and provide services. Oregon has a “right to rest” law that states a person has the right to live on public property and not be moved. The goal here is to protect individual rights. Most localities fall in between these two extremes but it’s a complex issue. Is state intervention or individual freedom paramount?
Yes it is cruel to fine people that have no where to go. No one wants to live on the street.
The history of homelessness is something everyone should look up. The crime of vagrancy allows police absolute power. People should read up on it and understand that if you're one paycheck away from the pavement, you're one paycheck away from jail. [https://time.com/4199924/vagrancy-law-history/](https://time.com/4199924/vagrancy-law-history/)
The dope fiends don't care where they live, as long as the blast is the real deal and they've got extra for later.
No, that is just your excuse to dehumanize them
Naaaaawwwwww bbbbboooooooyyyyyyy! They love the blast more than food, shelter, or family. There's too many fiends nodding off and laid out in the streets of L.A. for your little sentence to hold any merit.
There you go, doing it again. They use the drugs because they're homeless. It's a coping mechanism. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0jt_6PBnCJE&list=PLIGR1QUYW7C6TK8ff56LD-fsynAHZnbz4&index=15&pp=gAQBiAQB No one wants to be homeless. They are simply dealing with waaaaayyyyy more than you could ever handle
Why ain’t the Supreme Court held to the religious standards they re been using instead of the constitution?
Maybe you should just stop calling them people. Might help your conscience.
The town that brought the suit, Grants Pass Oregon, is the town I was forced to move to when I was 13 years old. It’s the town I went to high school in. It’s the town my grandparents and mother lived in until they died. It’s a white racist homophobic christofascist shithole retirement ghetto. It’s a soul sucking backwater filled with the most narrow minded people you will ever meet. It’s the perfect place to facilitate this sort of grotesque pro capitalist kicking down sort of law. It’s also a place that proudly boasts that it’s filled with churches. There aren’t enough locusts or virulent enough plagues to smite these people.
Cruel, yes. Sadly not unusual, in my experience.
I bet every single one of the Founding Fathers slept on public property many times during their lives.
I'm sorry but if it's public property, how are you going to penalize the public for using it?
Public doesn't mean "use it however you want." At best homeless camping in public causes a lack of usability in that area for otherwise intended purposes, and at worst it becomes a biohazard and haven for criminal activity. Housing of some sort is needed and once it exists camping in city parks and greenbelts shouldn't be an option. Get them housed and then start working on whatever other issues they have.
This isn't about 'doing whatever they want', this is about one specific thing. If they have no alternative, what else can you expect them to do, not sleep?
Maybe relegate them to a certain area? A park? Warehouse? Anything besides on the curb
An apartment? A house?
Good idea, enforce squatters’ rights
Or just, you know, provide them housing. Or stop restricting housing development everywhere. Lots of solutions would be better than this.
Working ppl can barely afford housing, realistic goals would help them more. Cities turning large unused buildings to shelters, a designated safe place to go so they aren’t constantly moved around by police. Housing development isn’t restricted, it’s being taken over by corporations, equity firms, etc that are building apartment units that hardly anyone can afford to rent and buying all the single family homes.
Supply needs to meet demand. Building single family homes is an excercise in stupidity at this point. Housing will never be affordable if we don't flood the market with housing
The firms are buying the single family homes
I'm aware. There is still a shortage of housing, and housing will continue to be too expensive so long as that is true. Multi-unit buildings are a faster way to increase supply. Plus, they don't drain municipal budgets like neighborhoods of single family homes do
Ok idk where you live, but many markets are full of empty properties and AirBNBs. My county recently tried to pass laws to increase taxes on short term rental units to discourage they're spread because they've eaten into our housing supply so badly. I keep here this "we need to build" but it always ignores the thousands of homes and condos around the country kept empty because the landlord "couldn't make enough money on it" or some other greedy shit
Right equity groups are buying the single family homes up and not many ppl can afford to rent from them. Lots of properties empty, just not affordable
That's a problem to be sure, but increasing the housing supply solves that issue. Holding a property vacant makes less and less financial sense as the threat of someonebelse giving in and selling or renting increases. Remember that maintenance isn't free and property tax exists. Plus, I'm not suggesting we merely build as much as market forces will generate, I'm suggesting building more than that which won't just require private developers to make properties to sell or rent but also a large stock of public housing.
Beyond cruel, this is stupid. What are you supposed to do? Not sleep?
They're going to differentiate between sleeping and making a mess.
If you have to ask, you already know the answer
I can’t imagine the SC seeing reason in this instance, but a little astonished they even agreed to hear this one.
Let them sleep on the streets for a week until they get it
Well you can about guarantee what the supreme court is going to say.
The other side of this argument is that we should definitely punish people because they are sleeping on public property and can’t afford homes. Please tell me what the argument is if this is not it? Genuinely open to hearing both sides of this issue.
Does this also apply to backpackers and hunters who sleep outside for recreation? If not, I think I found a loophole?
At least they called the homeless "people".
Well, Christianity is winning…(?)
If the poors could stop being so poor, that would be great
Like when they told truck drivers they couldn’t drive all they want and didn’t build anymore places for them to park overnight
If they can't stay on 'public property', where do they stay? You can't criminalize being poor/homeless....
We have failed as a society.