41–50 of 291 posts
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Why is it a dumb decision?
It makes it, not just de facto, but de jure illegal to be poor. If someone can't afford a home, where are they meant to go? Just fuck off and die?
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There are enough vacant homes in the US to give every homeless person 25 homes. That is not the root cause of the problem.
There are not. The census definition of "vacant" clung to by people pushing this viewpoint includes uninhabitable construction sites that happen to have the doors and windows installed, homes that have already been rented or sold but the new occupant hasn't moved in yet, homes of deceased people still in estate probate, homes being repaired between tenants, and many others. Only about 9% of census-vacant homes are wh…
The issue has never been housing inventory in an effort to making housing more affordable. If the past 4 years have shown us anything it's that even with skyrocketing interest rates and new construction matching pre-2007 levels, homes are still 40% more expensive than they were in 2020.
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It makes it, not just de facto, but de jure illegal to be poor. If someone can't afford a home, where are they meant to go? Just fuck off and die?
What about going to a homeless shelter, or to a municipality that does allow homeless encampments?
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Jail?
So we're set on expending resources. If we're going to spend the resources to incarcerate these folks, would not the resources be better spent (with much better potential RoI, no less) on assisting persons in obtaining living situations?
I don’t love this decision. But the endgame to homeless encampments in parks is parks being defunded and sold to developers.
Most homeless are elderly and mentally Ill. The solutions are institutionalization and retirement housing/pensions but no state did this after Reagan and instead made homelessness an issue to ignore.
Faced with the ability to legally incarcerate nearly 600,000 people, states likely won't hesitate to do just that without a second thought.
For a country that prides itself on freedom and liberty, having the largest prison population in the world is surely a damning indictment of the conviction.
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There are enough vacant homes in the US to give every homeless person 25 homes. That is not the root cause of the problem.
A bunch of cheap land or vacant homes 3000 miles away aren't going to solve the homeless problem in your city, or any other major urban area. Ultimately people stay where they want to stay, for a variety of reasons.
Homeless need shelter and help. It is inhumane that we let them rot on the streets. City dwellers need safe and clean streets and public transportation. Kids should be able to walk to school by themselves. These two things don’t need to be in conflict.
> It is inhumane that we let them rot on the streets Agree. But is it cruel and unusual? The court says no.
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Jail?
So we're set on expending resources. If we're going to spend the resources to incarcerate these folks, would not the resources be better spent (with much better potential RoI, no less) on assisting persons in obtaining living situations?
Good!
So you fine them and arrest them... then what?
"A 2019 article in The New York Times reported that many bus ticket recipients were missing, unreachable, in jail, or homeless within a month after leaving San Francisco, and one out of eight returned to the city within a year.[2]"
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_homeless_relocation_pr...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/us/homeless-busing-seattl...
Homeless need shelter and help. It is inhumane that we let them rot on the streets. City dwellers need safe and clean streets and public transportation. Kids should be able to walk to school by themselves. These two things don’t need to be in conflict.
> It is inhumane that we let them rot on the streets Agree. But is it cruel and unusual? The court says no.