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US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

bbc.com

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Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

#91

Post by EPWN3D »

notaustinpowers wrote: post #14
wilg wrote: post #5

Dumb decision, but we really just gotta build more homes mainly. A good overview of why this is the best solution to homelessness: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-...

There are enough vacant homes in the US to give every homeless person 25 homes. That is not the root cause of the problem.

And who's going to rent their property to every homeless person? You? I'm unclear on what the volume of available housing has to do with this. That housing is owned by people who are free to rent it or not rent it as they see fit. Are you saying that the federal government should just confiscate it so it can be given to homeless people free of charge? Or that those owners should be forced to sign leases with homeless people? Who gets to decide which homeless people get which vacant houses?

And a large chunk of the homeless population are drug addicts with serious mental health problems. All the free housing in the world isn't going to help them. So what does an owner forced to rent his property to a homeless person do if that person trashes the place, doesn't pay rent, causes problems in the neighborhood, etc.? Evict them? That just means that some other homeowner is compelled to be a landlord for this person (in your system).

Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

#92

Post by rufus_foreman »

coolspot wrote: post #24

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.

The Grant's Pass law provides repeat homeless campers with shelter and keeps them off the streets for up to 30 days per offense.

That's expensive, of course, so cities will have the incentive to do what the city of Chico did when it provided an outdoor shelter facility for the homeless. A district court refused to allow Chico to enforce it's ban on camping even though it had that facility, because it was an outdoor facility not an indoor one. This ruling gives cities the ability to say "you can camp here, not there".

Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

#93

Post by tsimionescu »

_heimdall wrote: post #61
delecti wrote: post #17

Earlier 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?

It doesn't technically make being poor illegal. The sad truth is that plenty of people will living on the streets may now be breaking the law simply by having nowhere else to go, but that shit will roll up hill eventually. Courts and jails don't have the capacity to deal with charging everyone in that situation. Either cops will avoid arresting people for it or cities will eventually have to dramatically expand housi…

Something can be illegal even if cops are not resting everyone who does it. That's the worse situation in fact, when it becomes the sole discretion of individual police officers who to punish.

Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

#94

Post by legitster »

*Correction: the cities can ban camps.

It would still be a violation to ban "homeless" camps, and the decision was very clear that homelessness is a protected status, but just because you have a protected status does not mean you get to break laws that do not target you.

"Under the city’s laws, it makes no difference whether the charged defendant is homeless, a backpacker on vacation passing through town, or a student who abandons his dorm room to camp out in protest on the lawn of a municipal building."

Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

#95

Post by engineer_22 »

notaustinpowers wrote: post #75
engineer_22 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One city banned camping in public, it was challenged, SC said "yep, that's a fair law". After this decision other cities may also ban camping, while some cities may welcome public camping. The SC is leaving it to the lowest level of government to decide for themselves, upholding a democratic principle.

IDK man, I think arresting people for just existing in public who have nowhere else to go is a morally reprehensible act and has no right existing in a form of government that should operate under the best interest of it's citizens. But that's just me I guess.

No problem, go to your municipal meetings and let them know you are in favor of allowing camping in public spaces in your municipality. If you vote in your local elections your representatives may also have similar opinions to yours. Talk to your friends and neighbors to ask how they feel about it too, maybe they agree.

Democracy.

Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

#96

Post by Terr_ »

Terr_ wrote: post #26
wilg wrote: post #5

Dumb decision, but we really just gotta build more homes mainly. A good overview of why this is the best solution to homelessness: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-...

> Dumb decision Well, what's the alternative? Do you believe all local laws such as "FooBar park closes at dusk" are federally unconstitutional , and that actually enforcing any of them is "cruel and unusual punishment" against people who desire to camp there overnight? Remember: It's perfectly possible to say that certain situations are unlawful/unjust/immoral for other reasons, it's not like "I think it violates th…

P.S.: To reiterate, exactly what do you think the "not dumb" result should have been? What sentence of words could the Supreme Court have responded with that would satisfy you while (A) not wildly overstepping their own powers and (B) not upending centuries of other law considered good and (C) not creating massive new problems and loopholes?

Here's a quick "unit test" to apply: Could I steal and eat all the food I want with total impunity, provided I am careful to ensure my wallet is always empty so that paying for it in that moment is never an option?

Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

#97

Post by SeanAnderson »

I don't really understand how it could be any other way.

If you envision a hypothetical city which has too many unhoused persons relative to the city's financial ability to support those people - then what? The unhoused just die in the street unable to be moved somewhere that has sufficient resources to support them?

I get that there's a lot more nuance to this problem and that the ruling can be abused/used to enforce NIMBYism/jail the unhoused, but, fundamentally, cities have to have the ability to move citizens because the city is aware of its own financial ability to provide support, but the citizens within are allowed to be uninformed.

Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

#98

Post by legitster »

nimbius wrote: post #45

I 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…

> Faced with the ability to legally incarcerate nearly 600,000 people, states likely won't hesitate to do just that without a second thought.

Prisoners cost ~ $40k a year annually in taxes. It's actually cheaper to house them - so I don't think states are going to be gung-ho about doing either.

Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

#99

Post by jeffbee »

notaustinpowers wrote: post #42
jeffbee wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Great, if only 9% of vacant homes are what a normal person would think of as a vacant home, we can still give every homeless person 2 homes each! 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…

Construction hasn't returned to pre-2007 levels. That right there seems to be the nut of your misunderstanding.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pDWf

Re: US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

#100

Post by legitster »

wilg wrote: post #5

Dumb decision, but we really just gotta build more homes mainly. A good overview of why this is the best solution to homelessness: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-...

In the last 30 years, we have lost ~1,000,000 SRO apartments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-room_occupancy

In that time homelessness has grown to 600,000. It's a pretty obvious correlation.

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