If you see “tent neighborhoods” from here on out, it’s because those you voted for want them to continue.
Cities OK’d to start clearing out homeless camps
- Thread starter UberCougars
- Start date
Where's this from? I've seen cities even on the west side clear out homeless camps already...so I'm not sure this is news.
I accidentally missed that SCOTUS decision. What was that decision. I assume it's probably the case that was brought to SCOTUS by a city or person, on about the homeless issue, whether cities had right or not to criminalized homeless, by clearing homeless out by ticketing, jailing, etc, homeless that sit, sleep on PUBLIC property, like public sidewalks, public streets, etc. I assume SCOTUS WRONGFULLY, in a split decision, probably ruled that cities do have right to ticket, jail, clear out homeless, etc.
Just read that one too. Both sides raise good points. The majority is correct, citing people for camping on public property does not in itself target the homeless, and cannot be considered cruel and unusual. However, the dissenters are also correct that the ordinances were created specifically to address the homeless camping on public property.
Reading the notes, it appears that SCOTUS was ruling only on the legitimacy of citations under the ordinances. A plaintiff who was challenging the ordinances themselves died before the lower court ruled, so that portion of the case is not before the court. If another plaintiff brings that challenge, using the logic referred to in the decision, they might strike down the ordinances themselves, thereby negating the citations.
In general, though, I agree with the sentiment that it’s really not up to the court to tell municipalities how to handle their homeless issues. This decision doesn’t really provide a solution for anyone, and cities forcing homeless people to move from park to park doesn’t solve any problems either.
I have sort of an asshole attitude about the "homeless". When I lived in Olympia for a couple of years (thank gawd no longer), there was a big encampment basically downtown and the news interviewed a bunch of them. These 2 young women, probably early 20's, said that they loved the lifestyle and had no desire to do/go anywhere else. You F-ing kidding me?
My solution is this, and always has been. OK homeless. We will clean you up, try to help you find a job, or at least put you to work picking up trash or whatever. We can build very spartan (toilet, shower, bed, fridge, hotplate) but functional housing that your menial work can help pay for. You don't want that? Fine. We will put you in basically a prison compound in say, rural Central Washington, still make you do something work-wise, and feed you.
Polluting our parks, neighborhoods, streets, parking lots, underpasses and alleys? NO. F-that. Many of these people don't want to rise up from it. They are happy to pan handle and live under an overpass, shitting Gawd knows where. This just needs to be exterminated.
Idaho will clear the bums out. Idiot states like WA, OR, CA will likely interpret their state constitutions as providing more protections from cruel and unusual punishment.....and the billion dollar homeless industry will continue with no resolution.
Typical Olympia/west side idea - let’s take our problem and dump it east of the mountains.
(Joking…sort of)
To your plan I’ll add some additional institutions. We had far less homeless on the streets when we were still allowed to lock up the junkies and the loonies. Bring back the asylum. If you’re a nut job, we’ll get you off the street and see if we can fix or medicate you. If we can, go back and rejoin society. If we can’t, welcome to your new home.
Also add a drug/alcohol treatment center and dry people out. I like a place like McNeil island for this - somewhere where it’s really hard for anyone to smuggle shit in for them. Same deal - dry out, get your mind right, then go back to normal life. Stay clean.
In both cases, when you’re released, we gave you a second chance. If you backslide and end up returning…your 2nd visit becomes punitive. We’ll still clean you up and dry you out, but then you’re going to be forced to be useful. You’re going to spend a year on a DOC labor crew, picking up trash, cleaning rest areas, harvesting crops, pulling weeds, etc. You’ll do it in whatever part of the state we need you, and your new bedroom will have bars.
Well, Washington has been working on decriminalizing criminality for a long time. Within the next decade or so, I expect Olympia will change the RCW so there will only be 4 crimes: being white, being male, being straight, or being a cop.
