> Without wishing to return to the Elizabethan Poor Laws, we ought to consider what was lost when the courts discouraged Americans from thinking of “homelessness” in light of the old laws against vagrancy. Ah, so we're back to imprisoning the homeless (at huge expense) rather than providing, say, public toilets or shelter facilities. Not only is the WSJ not learning from history, they don't want to learn from history…
>Ah, so we're back to imprisoning the homeless (at huge expense) rather than providing, say, public toilets or shelter facilities. It's weird to frame it as a "rather" when in fact you need both. You need to have public bathrooms and come down hard on shitting on the street.
That framing is likely based on the assumption that people would rather use a toilet than defecate on the streets, so if there are adequate facilities for them to do so, no further action is needed to encourage that behavior.