I don't understand how local governments could possibly lack the authority to remove people from public spaces.
You can argue all you want about the impact of different policies but at the core of the issue is whether or not local governments are allowed to remove people from public spaces.
If they lack that power they fundamentally lack the authority to govern in that area.
But where do homeless people go if removed from public spaces?
If homeless can be removed from any public space, and, obviously, can't legally occupy private spaces then that implies being homeless is a criminal activity since there is no space where it can legally happen.
I suppose you're proposing prison, but it seems the question as to "whether or not being homeless is a crime" is a least worth a legal discussion.
How about: if a shelter exists in the area, and it has free beds, you can't camp in a public park?
We have tons of beds here in Boulder shelters(except on the coldest nights when it fills up), but people choose to sleep in parks because you aren't allowed to smoke meth in the shelters.
That's exactly the issue being debated, or have have you not read the first paragraph?:
> the Supreme Court will decide whether it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment to fine, ticket, or jail someone for sleeping outside on public property if they have nowhere else to go.
The point being argued is "if you don't have adequate shelters, then you can't remove people from public spaces". If you do have shelters and these people have other options than, yes, you can force them from public spaces into community provided shelters.
That seems like the best compromise to me. Punishing people who truly have no other option rubs me the wrong way. But I'm fine with going after people who do have other options but choose to be a public nuisance, and at the same time such a policy incentivizes the local government actually making sure other options are available.
People with homes also have the option of not whining about homeless people, will they rise to the occasion and seize that opportunity? As is usually the case there's lots of blame to go around, and most everyone expects peak performance from others, but not of themselves and their ingroup.
And what if the "unavailable options" are unavailable, because of the unavailability of ahem medication options. In other words, if a shelter is availabe, but they get kicked out for drug use?
Same with agression, animals, unacceptable collections (either hoarding, or something like a collection of knives), ...?
Are we going to "outlaw" homeless people with a dog?
What does it mean to go after them? You can't exactly fine somebody who doesn't have any money or an address. And our jails are crowded enough without throwing hundreds or thousands more people in there. I read somewhere that it costs around $50k/year to keep somebody imprisoned in the US. Jailing the homeless would get very expensive, very fast.
Drugs are of course the easy example, but there are plenty of less clear problems. What if the shelter wants to force homeless people to give up their dog before sheltering them? Do you just send those animals to the pound and then euthanize them? That’s what usually happens, the situation for animals is even more dire than for the homeless.
For most places, it makes sense that there needs to be shelter spaces available in order to relocate a person.
But in reality, there are certain homeless meccas that are much more attractive to homeless people, where the local government cannot reasonably be expected to house all of the homeless people that are imported from elsewhere. In these cases, I am amenable to the idea that you can remove them from public places / and/or export them back out to remove obstructions to public life, but I acknowledge it's very difficult to determine where this idea is reasonable and prevent it from being abused by local governments that are not so disproportionately affected by this problem.
> there could be some public space where it is legal to be homeless.
Of course! And that's precisely what this case is about. It's not saying that city governments should never remove people from public spaces. It's saying if you don't have a space where it is legal to be homeless, only then can you not legally remove homeless people from public spaces.
That is literally what Slab City is. The land belongs to the CA Teachers Union, so it comes down to who will allow for their land to be used for perpetual squatting?
I don't mind homeless people sleeping under a bridge, but they shouldn't be allowed to camp everywhere. If you aren't even allowed to park for 3 hours in a location, why should a homeless person be allowed to camp there indefinitely and throw needles that are difficult to prove are yours?
Again, the case (and I) am arguing in agreement with you.
The point being debated is not about saying homeless can do as they please. It's very specifically arguing you need to give the homeless some place where they can camp out or other wise live.
If you had a city that designated all areas under bridges as legal for homeless occupation, then yes those cities would be allowed to remove the homeless from other areas.
The entire point of this case boils down to "do homeless people have a right to exist" not "can homeless people sleep on my kids playground if they want". The point being argued that cities have some obligation to take care of their homeless populations and if they refuse to, then they are essentially giving up control of their public spaces. Want a nice downtown? Great, give the homeless sleeping on the streets there some place else to go and yes you can force them to leave.
Being allowed to camp somewhere is a privilege and not a right. The problem with designating a place where homeless people have a right to camp means that it's substantially more difficult to take action if that area becomes a breeding ground for crime. I suppose that it would be cruel if homeless people actually aren't allowed to camp anywhere, but I believe that in practice, if they're not disruptive, a city isn't going to waste tax dollars on sending them to jail.
> I believe that in practice, if they're not disruptive, a city isn't going to waste tax dollars on sending them to jail.
I've read about that happening many times. People need rights, not depend on the goodwill of local government and hope; that's why we have a Constitution with limited government and don't depend on the goodwill of a monarch. You wouldn't accept that for your home - they can kick you out any time, but why would they?
The core problem is that Grant’s Pass is being asked to shoulder the homeless burden for the region. They are not being provided with any means of help, and their ability to remove those who cause an excessive burden is being taken away.
Look at Grant’s Pass on Google maps. It’s a small mountain town that looks like it has a low tax base in the best of times. If, at enormous cost to their tax base, adequate shelter is built, the only result will be more homeless who gravitate to their tiny town because its better than anywhere else in the region.
The problem and solutions are regional. Who should really be being sued is the state of Oregon or the federal government, but that is much more difficult to do.
If the ruling goes against Grant’s Pass, the result will be even more off-the-books policies to harass and intimidate the homeless until they move to the next town over, because every small town will see them not as human beings but as a potentially immense local tax liability that has to be moved before someone notices.
Littering is illegal, but nobody is going to conduct a DNA test to confirm whether the feces or needles next to this homeless guy's camp is really theirs. The presumption of innocence is overall a good thing, but this also means that the only legal means to enforce things like not disposing needles on the streets is by selectively enforcing homelessness on bad actors.
I've seen many, many campsites of unhoused people. Like housed people's domiciles and yards, some are neat, some are messier. I don't see many specific problems.
I think the parent comment's characterization is a myth, in part because it maps so neatly to the common prejudices of people who are unfamiliar with unhoused people - especially that they are somehow so horrifyingly filthy, to the point of being subhuman, an object of their outrage - and not with the reality of it, including the real problems.
> feces
That's a red flag for me. People commonly play it as a trump card against unhoused people - again, that subhumanity and outrage. It clearly is chosen to press that emotional button, to bypass the listener's reason and compassion. We are probably well-evolved to have a disgust reaction to feces.
I've never seen it; I'm not sure how people so afraid of unhoused people have seen it so much. And how the heck did you know if it's from a dog or a person? What are the distinguishing characteristics? Did you examine it closely? I've seen city officials report it, but in limited experience: I've passed by encampments that were clean and neat, and then soon after read in the news that the city cleared the encampment due to the old 'feces and needles'. The reporting never checks the facts.
By far the feces I see most in regard to unhoused people is bull feces in textual form. That's easier to recognize!
Just to say I kinda like you differenciating between unhoused and homeless. I've homeless for two years while studying software engineering, the set of problem I've encountered is not the same as the set of problem unhoused people face.
It is indeed rare... because cities are typically allowed to arrest the people who do so. It's only in cities dominated by the idea the homeless are helpless victims who can do no wrong where you see needles and feces, like SF.
> If you aren't even allowed to park for 3 hours in a location, why should a homeless person be allowed to camp there indefinitely
Losing your parking spot is a minor commercial inconvenience to someone with (I assume) other resources; losing their campsite, especially without alternatives, costs an unhoused person their home and their shelter from the elements.
I'm not even sure what we're discussing - these people need shelter and homes, of course. Park regulations are secondary.
Not all unhoused people litter. One person is not guilty of or responsible for what someone else does. You are not responsible for what I do and vice-versa.
This may sound dismissive but at some level the homeless people need to figure out where they should go. A overarching truth off all attempts to give people aid is that you can't make people change when they don't want to. Therapy doesn't help people who aren't invested in it. Rehab doesn't help people who like using drugs. Anger management courses don't help people who find threats of violence give them what they want.
Our society gets to make laws and I think laws that prevent people from turning a public space into their permanent camp site aren't unreasonable. My problem is I want to use my library and I'm going to try to solve that problem. I don't know how to solve their problem - but I'm not going to accept that I need to solve it before I get my library back.
So far as I can tell a lot of the homeless are not dumb.
My thesis is that part of the issue is the ruinous empathy that is given to people who ultimately have no plans of getting better, or those who can't take care of themselves and need society to step in with a loving but firm hand. It's the constant giving without expecting anything in return, only exacerbating the free-rider problem that many will take advantage of, in the name of empathy.
I agree and I think a lot of 'solutions' are going to fail until the people involved acknowledge that kindness and empathy aren't enough. By most accounts there are a lot of homeless people who are living pretty comfortably as far as they're concerned.
If I want my library back ( I do ) than I need to find a way to make living in front of it less comfortable for them.
I think it's the opposite, the ruinous callousness that sees able bodied homeless sleeping on the street and thinking they're a problem that needs to be eliminated. Instead of thinking why is an able bodied man or woman not be able to afford to sleep indoors.
That's because everybody has given up on ever seeing SF allow more construction. It'll be easier for Elon to setup a colony on Mars and ship people there than to get SF politicians and NIMBYs to loosen their grip.
SF is it's own special. Having lived their for a large portion of my life it's big issue is the lack of mass transit. That's due to Federal car centric infrastructure policies, prop 13 that causes muni's to favor commercial development over residential, and a incompetent short sighted politicians.
Problem is housing is a problem all over. Which is more due to the international cabal of capitalist slumlords that run things. Those guys love using the financial system to bid up prices of existing real estate vs building new stuff.
> But where do homeless people go if removed from public spaces?
Public spaces where theyre not bothering anyone obviously. If you sleep somewhere where no one is bothered then you wont be bothered. If you sleep in a park people want to use the police will be called on you.
Is this the world you wish to live in? Where the greatest concern is not for the provisioning of housing for all but instead the punishment of those who have no other options available?
Nobody wants to live in that world, including the homeless people in that picture.
But the homeless populations are symptoms of larger problem in the society. Simply making homelessness illegal is a far worse world. Those people in the picture will still exist, they'll just be contained in a prison. If, through some unexpected hardship, you found yourself without a home would you consider yourself a criminal worthy of punishment? Or do you consider the fact that you have housing some moral choice you are making in the same way you choose not to steal?
The fundamental argument being debated is: if you don't want homeless people in your public space, you need to give them some other option if you are going to force them out of those spaces.
There is no "but" here. Can you suggest a solution that hasn't been tried over and over again for the past 20 years (at least?) Your suggestions have resulted in more homelessness and worse conditions for the homeless.
So can you be clear: you believe prison is a superior solution? Because that's the solution you are proposing. I just want you to say clearly that you believe homelessness is a crime and homeless populations should be housed in prisons. Btw this was also tried before in Industrial England, this is essentially what "debtors prisons" referenced in a Christmas Carol are.
Yes, per the case itself: cities are responsible for creating public spaces that where homelessness is allow. It can be shelters or spaces where tent cities are legally allowed.
The case is not arguing that homeless people should be able to sleep anywhere, it's saying that if you don't provide a legal space for them to live, then you can't remove them from public spaces.
Again if you don't believe homeless should have a place to exist, then you do believe they should be in prison? Can you just clarify this is what you mean.
State democracy and capitalism. Local electorates are primarily wealthier people with time on their hands, so they overwhelmingly prioritize fighting crime and promoting local commerce, which are efforts that homeless populations are seen as undermining. The result is that punishing homelessness gets politicians re-elected.
as long as people wish governing powers to include that ability, that's the way. you find that most (all?) jurisdictions include provisions to remove people from public spaces.
I guess it would incentivize local governments to decrease housing costs build more housing by removing their ability to sweep the problem under the rug.
I don’t understand how local governments lack the authority to provide affordable housing, or housing for the homeless. Some citizens are land owners, but all citizens are stakeholders.
Local electorates are primarily wealthier people with time on their hands, so they overwhelmingly prioritize fighting crime and promoting local commerce, which are efforts that homeless populations are seen as undermining. The result is that punishing homelessness gets politicians re-elected.
That is technically true, but it doesn't matter in practice. Local electorates are primarily wealthier people with time on their hands (tax payers), so they overwhelmingly prioritize local commerce, which usually involves fighting crime and attracting mpney, which is an effort that homeless populations are seen as undermining. The result is that punishing homelessness gets politicians re-elected.
IMO a large part of the problem, as always, is NIMBYism amplified with lack of proper law enforcement. If you try to build a shelter everyone around it will do everything they can to prevent it. Which I understand because a large part of the homeless population and for sure the most visible one, now just meth and fentanyl and need money to support that habit. Open drug use and catch and release policing is a bad combination and nothing anyone wants near their home. At the same time I hear nothing but terrible things about being inside a shelter which also seems to be a anarcho nightmare of theft and frequent sexual abuse and violence. All these things need to be fixed and some of it is a chicken/egg problem.
Ordering someone to return to their home is one thing. The question is more complicated when the person does not have a private residence. “Removing” someone from one spot doesn’t make them cease to exist- they have to then be put somewhere else.
Certainly local governments aren’t depositing them onto private property, so the only options are other public property (including jail).
I don’t follow why this practice being placed off limits for Constitutional reasons would cause local government to somehow lose its authority to govern. In our system, local governments can’t do plenty of things to their citizens, even in public spaces. Their ability to govern nevertheless remains intact.
Where is the line? When is it homelessness, when loitering, when walking? This will be used to prevent demonstrations, remove other unwanted people or just punish some outgroup.
Fundamental right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. If you're going to insist that every person must have a roof over their head, and there aren't enough roofs to go around, it doesn't take away that most fundamental right. A just government does not revoke a person's life nor liberty for failing to attain the unattainable.
Local governments shouldn’t be allowed to remove people from public spaces for any reason. There must be a justification, the people must be violating a law.
The core of this issue is not about “whether or not local governments are allowed to remove people from public spaces”, it’s “under what scenarios are local governments allowed to remove people from public spaces”. Even if they rule in favor of Johnson, there will still be many scenarios that allow a government to remove people from public spaces.
> I don't understand how local governments could possibly lack the authority to remove people from public spaces.
We seem to forget these days that we (very thankfully) have rights and live in a free country that recognizes them. People are free individuals, at liberty to do as they please unless there is some strong reason to stop them that is also constitutional, lawful, and follows due process. 'I don't like them' and 'they look/smell/talk funny' aren't sufficient reasons.
I don't see how local government has the authority to remove someone from public space except in very limited circumstances. Public space is not the property of local government. You have a right to do what you want there.
>I don't understand how local governments could possibly lack the authority to remove people from public spaces.
I have the fundamental human right of movement. I'm allowed to go wherever is 'public', sidewalks, parks, etc.
Government also cant seize my property. For example a tent. Hence the inability for government to violate the homeless' civil rights.
Now I go further, what seems quite obvious to me is that it's government's fault for homelessness. Not just local, but combination of government failure.
Politicians whose failures are on display with homelessness are really hoping they could tyrannically violate people's civil rights to attempt to hide their own failures.
I have very conflicted feelings about this. Homelessness is an epidemic, and it can be easy to fall into and hard to escape from. I want to be a compassionate person.
On the other hand, the walking trails and parks in my community are dangerous and polluted as a result of all the homeless camps. There is a bike trail from that goes right from my subdivision to the local library, and my kids can’t use it because it’s physically blocked by a homeless camp. They’re noisy, and they leave broken glass and condoms all over the place.
What are our options as a society? My community offers all sorts of aid programs, but the campers mostly don’t seem to use them. Jailing the homeless seems immoral, unethical, and also impractical. How can we crack this nut?
Not like the homeless who are blocking a bike trail were working anyway. The options are have them not work near you are away from you, I think its obvious what most people would choose.
They have, and the reality is that it's simply wrong that such services exist. It's a delusion. People want to believe such services exist, and in practice they have limits of 30 or 60 days in the very best of cases.
How does one distinguish between asking homeless people, and asking them seriously?
I think the distinction between "Doing X" and "Doing X seriously" may be a lot more important than people realize.
> and the reality is that it's simply wrong that such services exist.
I agree with the general direction of your sentiments, but it is technically true that more than zero services exist, thus "services exist" is a true statement - pretty clever eh? Imagine if the whole world ran on tricks like this!
It seems obvious to me that society should prioritize the future generations. Kids should be able to use libraries and parks, especially those from poorer neighborhoods. Families should be able to take their kids out for walks and not have to worry about dodging needles and other biohazards on the ground. There are always tradeoffs, but if some group in society has to make sacrifices it shouldn't be the kids.
The issue in front of the SCOTUS is “Whether the enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.”
I can not afford a place in Manhattan. In order for me to have a home, I had to be willing to live far away from there and do what I can to develop my marketable skills to hold a good job. Now, I am not at all suggesting that currently homeless folks have the same talents and opportunities as myself and have to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Yet, they also have to be willing to move to an affordable area, address their mental health and substance abuse problems and contribute as much as they can to their own upkeep - maybe do some basic agricultural work like pulling out weeds, maybe help cook meals for themselves and others in the same situation from provided ingredients.
Nobody is getting me a place to stay in most expensive area of a big city just because I can't afford an apartment there. If my close friend or relative fell on hard times, I might be willing to help them a bit, but only if they take care of their problems and make an effort to partially support themselves to whatever degree they are able to. There is no way I am helping strangers more than my own family.
As for having nowhere to go, US is big and sparse enough to give people homesteads to live off the land if that's what they choose to do. And in fact, supporting oneself with fishing/hunting/gathering seems to be common in Alaska and I have no disagreement with people who support themselves this way, whatever you feel is your best option. But public spaces in big cities are there for specific public uses, not homesteading.
That's something that always smelled funny about dumping thousands of people into downtown San Francisco. Sure, the services are bountiful and the people running the city are willing to go further (maybe only performatively, one could argue) than just about any city on Earth to accommodate the homeless over the needs of the locals.
But then, say you recover from addiction or a mental health crisis, what are you going to do in SF of all places? There are no jobs for you. Sane, hard-working, non-addicted locals can barely afford to live there. Teachers, firefighters, and nurses already have to drive an hour from out of town to get to their jobs. Is there a senior ML engineer role waiting for you once you stop screaming your heart out in the middle of Market St?
What is the plan, short of relapsing right away? There are no jobs for you, there is not enough affordable housing, you're surrounded by thousands of addicts in the Mecca of unpoliced 24/7 drug markets. That's one hell of a recipe.
ML engineers don't clean streets, pick up the garbage, serve food, stock fridges, repair buildings, deliver goods, make the trains run on time, etc., etc. What are you talking about?
incredibly unlikely that post-homeless people are going to get a job that requires DoT background checks and licensing. Becoming a train engineer is an ordeal even for healthy people, let alone recovering ones, it’s an incredibly desirable and gatekept position.
the handling of percived “frothers” came up when that guy stole a train and did the rounds… and that’s just how they treat normal people who like trains. How do you think the brotherhood is going to react to someone who was shooting meth 6 months ago?
I think that’s a common problem in this discourse, people love to be like “well they should just… drive a train!” and just have no idea how difficult it is to actually do some of these things anymore. Let alone for someone at the bottom without credentials or doors opened to them. Same for prisoners/convicts, which afaik is a way people frequently end up homeless.
I don’t want a homeless camp next door either… but at the end of the day if you don’t provide a route out, then you are going to just create a permanent underclass, and they will end up somewhere or other.
As a society it is very clear that we just expect them to suicide and save us the mental anguish of pulling the trigger ourselves. You don’t have to leave, but you can’t stay here. Where? Not my problem, see you in the ditch in a week. And the only solution anyone in the US will consider is just busing them to California.
Given the housing overstock, we can literally just house everyone and call it a day. Doesn’t have to be projects either - if your residential-zoned house stands empty for more than a year, make it eligible for eminent domain and hold a lottery to take 1% of them and house people. That does take money, of course, but that can be levied on long-term unoccupied properties too. Solve multiple birds with one stone, make speculators pay to solve the problem they cause by buying their long-term-unoccupied houses with their own money.
“What can be done that hasn’t been tried over and over” lots of stuff, actually. Eminent domain is an incredibly broad power, the state can take your home and give it to a developer to make a shopping mall or gas station if they want. Local jurisdictions have essentially unlimited power unless otherwise constrained by their state. Just people get the vapors when it’s being used to help the homeless and not to develop a shopping mall.
Let's first have trains in the first place, California seems utterly incapable of doing what even most developing countries manage to do with no fuss. Then trains can be part of the solution, where people can live in affordable places and commute to where they can make better money. Having recently homeless directly work on trains is beside the point and likely unrealistic.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 162 ms ] threadYou can argue all you want about the impact of different policies but at the core of the issue is whether or not local governments are allowed to remove people from public spaces.
If they lack that power they fundamentally lack the authority to govern in that area.
If homeless can be removed from any public space, and, obviously, can't legally occupy private spaces then that implies being homeless is a criminal activity since there is no space where it can legally happen.
I suppose you're proposing prison, but it seems the question as to "whether or not being homeless is a crime" is a least worth a legal discussion.
We have tons of beds here in Boulder shelters(except on the coldest nights when it fills up), but people choose to sleep in parks because you aren't allowed to smoke meth in the shelters.
> the Supreme Court will decide whether it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment to fine, ticket, or jail someone for sleeping outside on public property if they have nowhere else to go.
The point being argued is "if you don't have adequate shelters, then you can't remove people from public spaces". If you do have shelters and these people have other options than, yes, you can force them from public spaces into community provided shelters.
> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article
And no, it's not exactly the issue being debated. The issue debated is whether people can camp if there is no shelter space.
In my post, I mention the scenario that there is shelter space, but the people who are camping cannot use it based on their behavior.
Same with agression, animals, unacceptable collections (either hoarding, or something like a collection of knives), ...?
Are we going to "outlaw" homeless people with a dog?
But in reality, there are certain homeless meccas that are much more attractive to homeless people, where the local government cannot reasonably be expected to house all of the homeless people that are imported from elsewhere. In these cases, I am amenable to the idea that you can remove them from public places / and/or export them back out to remove obstructions to public life, but I acknowledge it's very difficult to determine where this idea is reasonable and prevent it from being abused by local governments that are not so disproportionately affected by this problem.
The issues are that cities may be concerned about liability in that space and where you could put that space without angering some residents.
Additionally, a lot of homeless people would probably rather have their own space so they would reject a city sanctioned location for homeless people.
Unfortunately, it seems like an unlikely solution.
Of course! And that's precisely what this case is about. It's not saying that city governments should never remove people from public spaces. It's saying if you don't have a space where it is legal to be homeless, only then can you not legally remove homeless people from public spaces.
The point being debated is not about saying homeless can do as they please. It's very specifically arguing you need to give the homeless some place where they can camp out or other wise live.
If you had a city that designated all areas under bridges as legal for homeless occupation, then yes those cities would be allowed to remove the homeless from other areas.
The entire point of this case boils down to "do homeless people have a right to exist" not "can homeless people sleep on my kids playground if they want". The point being argued that cities have some obligation to take care of their homeless populations and if they refuse to, then they are essentially giving up control of their public spaces. Want a nice downtown? Great, give the homeless sleeping on the streets there some place else to go and yes you can force them to leave.
I've read about that happening many times. People need rights, not depend on the goodwill of local government and hope; that's why we have a Constitution with limited government and don't depend on the goodwill of a monarch. You wouldn't accept that for your home - they can kick you out any time, but why would they?
Look at Grant’s Pass on Google maps. It’s a small mountain town that looks like it has a low tax base in the best of times. If, at enormous cost to their tax base, adequate shelter is built, the only result will be more homeless who gravitate to their tiny town because its better than anywhere else in the region.
The problem and solutions are regional. Who should really be being sued is the state of Oregon or the federal government, but that is much more difficult to do.
If the ruling goes against Grant’s Pass, the result will be even more off-the-books policies to harass and intimidate the homeless until they move to the next town over, because every small town will see them not as human beings but as a potentially immense local tax liability that has to be moved before someone notices.
Littering is already illegal, and without parking time limits in certain places you would not be able to park there in the first place.
I've seen many, many campsites of unhoused people. Like housed people's domiciles and yards, some are neat, some are messier. I don't see many specific problems.
I think the parent comment's characterization is a myth, in part because it maps so neatly to the common prejudices of people who are unfamiliar with unhoused people - especially that they are somehow so horrifyingly filthy, to the point of being subhuman, an object of their outrage - and not with the reality of it, including the real problems.
> feces
That's a red flag for me. People commonly play it as a trump card against unhoused people - again, that subhumanity and outrage. It clearly is chosen to press that emotional button, to bypass the listener's reason and compassion. We are probably well-evolved to have a disgust reaction to feces.
I've never seen it; I'm not sure how people so afraid of unhoused people have seen it so much. And how the heck did you know if it's from a dog or a person? What are the distinguishing characteristics? Did you examine it closely? I've seen city officials report it, but in limited experience: I've passed by encampments that were clean and neat, and then soon after read in the news that the city cleared the encampment due to the old 'feces and needles'. The reporting never checks the facts.
By far the feces I see most in regard to unhoused people is bull feces in textual form. That's easier to recognize!
It is indeed rare... because cities are typically allowed to arrest the people who do so. It's only in cities dominated by the idea the homeless are helpless victims who can do no wrong where you see needles and feces, like SF.
How do the cities identify this evil criminal? (The jokes write themselves.)
> cities dominated by the idea the homeless are helpless victims who can do no wrong where you see needles and feces, like SF.
Hmm .. the goalposts shift. What cities do you mean and what specific policies?
Losing your parking spot is a minor commercial inconvenience to someone with (I assume) other resources; losing their campsite, especially without alternatives, costs an unhoused person their home and their shelter from the elements.
I'm not even sure what we're discussing - these people need shelter and homes, of course. Park regulations are secondary.
Not all unhoused people litter. One person is not guilty of or responsible for what someone else does. You are not responsible for what I do and vice-versa.
Our society gets to make laws and I think laws that prevent people from turning a public space into their permanent camp site aren't unreasonable. My problem is I want to use my library and I'm going to try to solve that problem. I don't know how to solve their problem - but I'm not going to accept that I need to solve it before I get my library back.
So far as I can tell a lot of the homeless are not dumb.
If I want my library back ( I do ) than I need to find a way to make living in front of it less comfortable for them.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/permit-home-building-...
Problem is housing is a problem all over. Which is more due to the international cabal of capitalist slumlords that run things. Those guys love using the financial system to bid up prices of existing real estate vs building new stuff.
Which it has been in many places and still might be in some. But this has to be combined with some kind of program for them to exist legally.
Public spaces where theyre not bothering anyone obviously. If you sleep somewhere where no one is bothered then you wont be bothered. If you sleep in a park people want to use the police will be called on you.
https://archive.is/H6GVE
But the homeless populations are symptoms of larger problem in the society. Simply making homelessness illegal is a far worse world. Those people in the picture will still exist, they'll just be contained in a prison. If, through some unexpected hardship, you found yourself without a home would you consider yourself a criminal worthy of punishment? Or do you consider the fact that you have housing some moral choice you are making in the same way you choose not to steal?
The fundamental argument being debated is: if you don't want homeless people in your public space, you need to give them some other option if you are going to force them out of those spaces.
The case is not arguing that homeless people should be able to sleep anywhere, it's saying that if you don't provide a legal space for them to live, then you can't remove them from public spaces.
Again if you don't believe homeless should have a place to exist, then you do believe they should be in prison? Can you just clarify this is what you mean.
https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni...
It's wild going to a place like Australia and seeing how differently the police and others treat homeless folks there, in short, with compassion.
We're just obsessed with car culture, militarized police, and "individualism".
(TLDR non market housing)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_taxes_in_the_United_State...
I don’t follow why this practice being placed off limits for Constitutional reasons would cause local government to somehow lose its authority to govern. In our system, local governments can’t do plenty of things to their citizens, even in public spaces. Their ability to govern nevertheless remains intact.
The core of this issue is not about “whether or not local governments are allowed to remove people from public spaces”, it’s “under what scenarios are local governments allowed to remove people from public spaces”. Even if they rule in favor of Johnson, there will still be many scenarios that allow a government to remove people from public spaces.
We seem to forget these days that we (very thankfully) have rights and live in a free country that recognizes them. People are free individuals, at liberty to do as they please unless there is some strong reason to stop them that is also constitutional, lawful, and follows due process. 'I don't like them' and 'they look/smell/talk funny' aren't sufficient reasons.
I don't see how local government has the authority to remove someone from public space except in very limited circumstances. Public space is not the property of local government. You have a right to do what you want there.
Yes it is?
> You have a right to do what you want there.
No you absolutely do not have the right to do whatever you want just because its owned by the government.
I have the fundamental human right of movement. I'm allowed to go wherever is 'public', sidewalks, parks, etc.
Government also cant seize my property. For example a tent. Hence the inability for government to violate the homeless' civil rights.
Now I go further, what seems quite obvious to me is that it's government's fault for homelessness. Not just local, but combination of government failure.
Politicians whose failures are on display with homelessness are really hoping they could tyrannically violate people's civil rights to attempt to hide their own failures.
On the other hand, the walking trails and parks in my community are dangerous and polluted as a result of all the homeless camps. There is a bike trail from that goes right from my subdivision to the local library, and my kids can’t use it because it’s physically blocked by a homeless camp. They’re noisy, and they leave broken glass and condoms all over the place.
What are our options as a society? My community offers all sorts of aid programs, but the campers mostly don’t seem to use them. Jailing the homeless seems immoral, unethical, and also impractical. How can we crack this nut?
I think the distinction between "Doing X" and "Doing X seriously" may be a lot more important than people realize.
> and the reality is that it's simply wrong that such services exist.
I agree with the general direction of your sentiments, but it is technically true that more than zero services exist, thus "services exist" is a true statement - pretty clever eh? Imagine if the whole world ran on tricks like this!
For a detailed analysis of what both sides are arguing, see the SCOTUS blog: https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/04/supreme-court-to-hear-cas...
Note that the 8th amendment bars excessive fines (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_Unit...) so one can argue that tent encampment dwellers should be fined, just not at the current high amount.
Nobody is getting me a place to stay in most expensive area of a big city just because I can't afford an apartment there. If my close friend or relative fell on hard times, I might be willing to help them a bit, but only if they take care of their problems and make an effort to partially support themselves to whatever degree they are able to. There is no way I am helping strangers more than my own family.
As for having nowhere to go, US is big and sparse enough to give people homesteads to live off the land if that's what they choose to do. And in fact, supporting oneself with fishing/hunting/gathering seems to be common in Alaska and I have no disagreement with people who support themselves this way, whatever you feel is your best option. But public spaces in big cities are there for specific public uses, not homesteading.
But then, say you recover from addiction or a mental health crisis, what are you going to do in SF of all places? There are no jobs for you. Sane, hard-working, non-addicted locals can barely afford to live there. Teachers, firefighters, and nurses already have to drive an hour from out of town to get to their jobs. Is there a senior ML engineer role waiting for you once you stop screaming your heart out in the middle of Market St?
What is the plan, short of relapsing right away? There are no jobs for you, there is not enough affordable housing, you're surrounded by thousands of addicts in the Mecca of unpoliced 24/7 drug markets. That's one hell of a recipe.
incredibly unlikely that post-homeless people are going to get a job that requires DoT background checks and licensing. Becoming a train engineer is an ordeal even for healthy people, let alone recovering ones, it’s an incredibly desirable and gatekept position.
the handling of percived “frothers” came up when that guy stole a train and did the rounds… and that’s just how they treat normal people who like trains. How do you think the brotherhood is going to react to someone who was shooting meth 6 months ago?
I think that’s a common problem in this discourse, people love to be like “well they should just… drive a train!” and just have no idea how difficult it is to actually do some of these things anymore. Let alone for someone at the bottom without credentials or doors opened to them. Same for prisoners/convicts, which afaik is a way people frequently end up homeless.
I don’t want a homeless camp next door either… but at the end of the day if you don’t provide a route out, then you are going to just create a permanent underclass, and they will end up somewhere or other.
As a society it is very clear that we just expect them to suicide and save us the mental anguish of pulling the trigger ourselves. You don’t have to leave, but you can’t stay here. Where? Not my problem, see you in the ditch in a week. And the only solution anyone in the US will consider is just busing them to California.
Given the housing overstock, we can literally just house everyone and call it a day. Doesn’t have to be projects either - if your residential-zoned house stands empty for more than a year, make it eligible for eminent domain and hold a lottery to take 1% of them and house people. That does take money, of course, but that can be levied on long-term unoccupied properties too. Solve multiple birds with one stone, make speculators pay to solve the problem they cause by buying their long-term-unoccupied houses with their own money.
“What can be done that hasn’t been tried over and over” lots of stuff, actually. Eminent domain is an incredibly broad power, the state can take your home and give it to a developer to make a shopping mall or gas station if they want. Local jurisdictions have essentially unlimited power unless otherwise constrained by their state. Just people get the vapors when it’s being used to help the homeless and not to develop a shopping mall.
I simply agree with you about housing policy. There is no excuse for not housing people. The US is a pathetic failure of a society.