The worst thing about this is it is extremely unlikely to help with homelessness, but it will almost certainly earn big bucks for lawyers involved in the homeless industrial complex. The level of perverse corruption here is phenomenal.
S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered
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Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered
#22Screw that, clean the homeless up. Can’t believe we have let the problem get so bad.
Well, the problem there is that simply being homeless isn't a crime (which I will say seems to me to be reasonable - the alternative is things like the Victorian Poorhouses). Throwing trash all over the place (since there are no public trash services to speak of in most cities, and homeless people don't have service from trash haulers) is a crime, but if they were issued citations, they couldn't pay, and still don't…
> but if they were issued citations, they couldn't pay, and still don't have any way to get rid of their trash... I would think that using public money to haul away trash would have a pretty good return on investment for everyone concerned.
One of the points of the justice system is to ensure that people are sufficiently disincentivized from doing things that society has decided shouldnt be done. We shouldnt consider it a good investment to enable bad behavior.
Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered
#23"The ultimate goal of the lawsuit is to push the city to instead spend billions on affordable housing to provide shelter for everyone and fix its homelessness crisis, which the lawsuit says is a result of decades of failed policies and underinvestment."
..
"Mayor London Breed has touted her effort to expand shelter beds and permanent supportive housing. Still, officials estimate 20,000 people will be homeless in San Francisco over the course of this year and demand can’t keep up despite the city having 13,299 supportive housing units and 3,571 shelter spots as of last week."
Demand, it says.
Here's the problem with homeless advocates and their goals: they're idealistic and absolute. What percentage of homeless people are locals? Maybe 50 percent or less? We live in a country of over 320 million people and porous-by-law borders between 49 other states. What do you think would happen to a place that would create supportive housing structure, have the most liberal laws on public drug use and property crimes, with volunteers on stand-by to provide needles and medical attention as needed.
It's all a bit perplexing to me that people keep touting "housing shortages." I live surrounded by homeless people. They're not homeless because rents are high, they're homeless because of a slew of other psychological and addiction issues. And almost no one was born in the city that they're homeless in.
Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered
#24'Unsheltered' is a propaganda word and a fig leaf for the very sad reality that we have a chronic opioid and meth crisis which tips many people over into serious mental illness. Giving these individuals expensive housing is not going to solve anything. California is a magnet for substance abuse casualties and as then SF mayor Newsom found at the end of his grandiose plan to 'end homelessness' ever more people arrived…
Why is this comment getting downvoted? I understand in progressive circles this statement maybe controversial, but I've always admired hacker news for being slightly more sensible when it comes to shunning people for statements that are not politically correct.
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Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered
#25'Unsheltered' is a propaganda word and a fig leaf for the very sad reality that we have a chronic opioid and meth crisis which tips many people over into serious mental illness. Giving these individuals expensive housing is not going to solve anything. California is a magnet for substance abuse casualties and as then SF mayor Newsom found at the end of his grandiose plan to 'end homelessness' ever more people arrived…
>> Giving these individuals expensive housing is not going to solve anything.
They tried this in Minneapolis during COVID to try and get a bunch of homeless people off the street in a nearby hotel that had been emptied due to COVID.
It didn't turn out very well:
A report of a drug overdose led to the eviction Tuesday of more than 200 homeless people from a hotel in south Minneapolis that had become a refuge during protests that erupted in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in police custody.
But some residents at the hotel said conditions had begun to spin out of control in recent days, with people injecting heroin and methamphetamine in the hallways, and fights breaking out at night. Volunteers became overwhelmed.
“It started out well, then descended into chaos,” said Jennie Taylor, who had a room on the second floor. “People got the message that this was a place where you could use drugs freely and that attracted the wrong crowd.”
https://www.startribune.com/homeless-evicted-from-former-mpl...
Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered
#26The worst thing about this is it is extremely unlikely to help with homelessness, but it will almost certainly earn big bucks for lawyers involved in the homeless industrial complex. The level of perverse corruption here is phenomenal.
> homeless industrial complex
First time I’m hearing of such a complex that sounds oxymoronic. How big is this complex? Who are the players? How do they make so much money to become a complex industry?
Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered
#27'Unsheltered' is a propaganda word and a fig leaf for the very sad reality that we have a chronic opioid and meth crisis which tips many people over into serious mental illness. Giving these individuals expensive housing is not going to solve anything. California is a magnet for substance abuse casualties and as then SF mayor Newsom found at the end of his grandiose plan to 'end homelessness' ever more people arrived…
Why is this comment getting downvoted? I understand in progressive circles this statement maybe controversial, but I've always admired hacker news for being slightly more sensible when it comes to shunning people for statements that are not politically correct.
It is getting downvoted because "sweeps" are a showy way for the cops to look like they are part of the solution. Don't buy in to copaganda. More police is a high-cost, unaccountable, self-perpetuating approach demonstrated for decades not to work.
In conservative Utah, they know their housing-first approach works. It isn't 100% effective, but it is more effective than police-based approaches.
Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered
#28> The lawsuit alleges that the city violates state and federal laws, its own policies and homeless individuals’ rights by “punishing residents who have nowhere to go,” They have shelter beds available. People need to stop repeating falsehoods from activists and well-meaning people who keep saying this. Some homeless people prefer not to use them for a variety of reasons -- usually because shelters tend to be drug- an…
> officials estimate 20,000 people will be homeless in San Francisco over the course of this year and demand can’t keep up despite the city having 13,299 supportive housing units and 3,571 shelter spots as of last week.
Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered
#29'Unsheltered' is a propaganda word and a fig leaf for the very sad reality that we have a chronic opioid and meth crisis which tips many people over into serious mental illness. Giving these individuals expensive housing is not going to solve anything. California is a magnet for substance abuse casualties and as then SF mayor Newsom found at the end of his grandiose plan to 'end homelessness' ever more people arrived…
Why is this comment getting downvoted? I understand in progressive circles this statement maybe controversial, but I've always admired hacker news for being slightly more sensible when it comes to shunning people for statements that are not politically correct.
See HN’s guidelines on commenting on voting:
Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered
#30Screw that, clean the homeless up. Can’t believe we have let the problem get so bad.
> clean the homeless up I'm curious - what do you imagine that looks like?
https://nypost.com/2022/09/13/latino-sfpd-cop-branded-racist... : This smells like Cartel involvement at high levels of government.