[dupe]
Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40820994
US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps
81–90 of 291 posts
Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
>Ultimately people stay where they want to stay, for a variety of reasons. With the majority of homeless, the reason would be easier access to illicit substances.
Only 26% of homeless people abuse drugs, find a new stereotype.
Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about going to a homeless shelter, or to a municipality that does allow homeless encampments?
What if just all municipalities forbid homeless encampments? The result of this will be a race to the bottom, as more and more municipalities ban homeless camps, the negative effects will concentrate on fewer and fewer municipalities, making the issue worse and worse. This will in turn drive them to forbid camps as well.
This seems like a slippery-slope argument.
Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a vacuous argument. The vacant homes are largely either temporary (moving out before prepping to sell) or in the wrong places (no jobs). The homeless need more homes where they live and work (or seek work).
Have you seen the housing market in the past few years? Skyrocketing interest rates and construction levels not seen since before 2007, all which (to any economist who passed ECON 101 would say would lower housing costs) and homes are still 40% more expensive than they were in 2020.
> construction levels not seen since before 2007
Now plot post-War housing stock against population. We have more houses than ancient Egypt ergo supply and demand is fake isn’t an argument.
Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps
#85> Plaintiffs insist the Court should extend Robinson to prohibit the enforcement of laws that proscribe certain acts that are in some sense “involuntary,” because some homeless individuals cannot help but do what the law forbids. The Ninth Circuit pursued this line of thinking below and in Martin, but this Court already rejected it in Powell v. Texas. In Powell, the Court confronted a defendant who had been convicted under a Texas statute making it a crime to “get drunk or be found in a state of intoxication in any public place.” Like the plaintiffs here, Powell argued that his drunkenness was an “involuntary” byproduct of his status as an alcoholic. The Court did not agree that Texas’s law effectively criminalized Powell’s status as an alcoholic... This case is no different.
If you told me this quote was from an Onion article, I'd say "well obviously."
Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I know you're not actually asking for answer but the US spends trillions of dollars a year supporting homeless and otherwise disadvantaged people. There are public programs that exist solely to provide these people the help they need. In most cities something like half the homeless refuse free shelter.
> the US spends trillions of dollars a year supporting homeless and otherwise
No it doesn't
Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
What do you tell the families who scrimped, saved, and generally busted ass to be able to afford their homes?
If they don't have compassion and understanding for someone who is at the lowest point of their life because it's "unfair" then I'm not particularly interested in talking to them.
Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about going to a homeless shelter, or to a municipality that does allow homeless encampments?
What if just all municipalities forbid homeless encampments? The result of this will be a race to the bottom, as more and more municipalities ban homeless camps, the negative effects will concentrate on fewer and fewer municipalities, making the issue worse and worse. This will in turn drive them to forbid camps as well.
Of course, eventually that will lead to a growing number of people just giving up and either accumulating tickets they will never be able to pay or actively draining city money by spending every other day in jail (which also happens to be temperature-controlled and have free food).
Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps
#89What's that story where they solved the problem of poor people stepping on the property of landowners, by giving them helium balloon grants?
Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps
#90I feel like the outcome of this is unilaterally bad. 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 i…
> states likely won't hesitate to do just that
Especially those that have for-profit prison system - which in some cases have state legislators as investors/stakeholders.