Ideally this would be coming from the legislature, but I'd rather a judge do it if no one else will.
"Ideally this would be coming from the legislature" You mean legally?
The US is a common law country: legal judgments are one of the three pillars of common law, along with legs®s and common practice (things that have always been that have been neither established nor prohibited by either of the other two pillars).
IANAL. IANAA, but I have lived all my life in a common law country, FWIW.
I'll never understand how the American system of government is meant to work. You've got a legislature that typically fails to legislate, an executive that sometimes does the legislature's job, and a judiciary that can randomly step in and write both laws and decrees as long as someone brings the case before them. I hasten to note that many of everyone's favorite decisions came out of this process, so it seems to wor…
The Federalist Papers give a really good overview.
Note that they spent many years analyzing the failure modes of previous republics, and attempting to design a system resistant to those failure modes.
I mean, we're still on our first republic (at least at the moment), while France is on its fifth, so obviously they did something right.
> Carter ordered the City and County to provide offers of shelter within 90 days to all unaccompanied women and children in Skid Row; within 120 days shelter for all families there; and within 180 days shelter for everyone there. Further, he required them to offer housing and treatment services to all individuals within Skid Row who are in need of services from the Department of Mental Health or the Department of Pub…
> Generally speaking, courts have ruled that individual residents do not have a right to demand aid from their government. However, there is one important exception: when the government was an active, willing, and knowing participant in creating the conditions that lead to the need for aid. This is known as the “state-created-danger” doctrine. Judge Carter invokes this as the primary justification for his sweeping or…
> when the government was an active, willing, and knowing participant in creating the conditions that lead to the need for aid. This is known as the “state-created-danger” doctrine.
The state-created-danger doctrine does not mean any of those [1,2]. The law is about direct physical harm by the inaction of individual officers, not any vague policy implications. This judge's interpretation of the law is as crazy as his ideology.
A key thing to keep in mind is that the US is one of the oldest among modern democracies, and the Constitution and the way the government was structured was entirely novel at the time. Other countries then had the mistakes of the US to learn from when implementing their own democratic systems.
We also have to note that the current implementation in not the way it was designed.
Quite a lot of that also comes down to bad timing: the system was designed for a mostly-agrarian population with a relatively small urban class and inherent logistical limitations on maximum population density, and then the Industrial Revolution came along and upended literally everyone's expectations about how population centers, the economy, wealth distribution, etc would continue to work for the foreseeable future.
Well, you could quote the next paragraph as well: > when the government was an active, willing, and knowing participant in creating the conditions that lead to the need for aid. This is known as the “state-created-danger” doctrine. Judge Carter invokes this as the primary justification for his sweeping order
Doesn't that also apply to every problem in society?
Yeah. This is this judge's over broadening interpretation of the law. If his logic follows, a judge can define any flaw in the society as a state created danger and the judge can create grand plans to fix any societal issues. Lol.
What on earth? In SF homelessness is caused by the lack of housing. Mental illness is courtesy the Reagan era dismantling of mental health services in CA, and is over-represented for sure. However, the driving factor for homelessness in SF, is the fact that there is no where for people to live. Thats part of why eviction is so stupidly hard in SF. Once you become homeless it is functionally impossible to get out.
Its not caused by lack of housing, the people on the street are incapable of supporting themselves much less maintaining a dwelling - have you ever been here? Our homeless are mostly drug-seeking tourists who are from elsewhere. The Reagan canard is also just that; The Supreme court ruling sought by the ACLU during the Carter administration is why people are out on the street, the govt can't legally commit people lik…
"Roughly 34 percent of the homeless in San Francisco are homeless due to direct economic factors, such as evictions and job losses. Another 12 percent became homeless when they lost the safety net of family or friends."
"About 15 percent are due to drug addiction or substance abuse."
"Ideally this would be coming from the legislature" You mean legally?
The US is a common law country: legal judgments are one of the three pillars of common law, along with legs®s and common practice (things that have always been that have been neither established nor prohibited by either of the other two pillars). IANAL. IANAA, but I have lived all my life in a common law country, FWIW.
If you say that in court you will be called a Sovereign Citizen and told to shut up (ask me how I know...). Even though we are a common law country, the judicial rulings are supposed to be based on statute, regulations, case law, and customs. It seems this ruling takes it further than that. It seems the only basis is the government caused harm doctrine and the application in this case seems contrary to other cases/issues. The courts are required to take other doctrines into account too. For example, if these policies are enacted by elected representatives, then the court would have to find that the aggrieved people were guaranteed those treatment services, shelter, or to be released somewhere else by right in order to overcome that will of the people doctrine. I think that's a hard sell since the legislature hasn't (to my knowledge) cemented that as rights in these circumstances.
We also have to note that the current implementation in not the way it was designed.
Quite a lot of that also comes down to bad timing: the system was designed for a mostly-agrarian population with a relatively small urban class and inherent logistical limitations on maximum population density, and then the Industrial Revolution came along and upended literally everyone's expectations about how population centers, the economy, wealth distribution, etc would continue to work for the foreseeable future…
It's seems that just about any system of government has issues with citizen/subject contentment or efficiency once becomes large and diverse.
I agree that representation is lacking. I can't get an intelligent response from my reps, if I even get a response at all.