US cities can now punish homelessness. Will it help or hurt a crisis?
US cities can now punish homelessness. Will it help or hurt a crisis?
Experts argue arresting the homeless will make a crisis worse - but cities face mounting pressure to take quick action.
The high court’s ruling is already having a ripple effect on cities across the country, which have been emboldened to take harsher measures to clear out homeless camps that have grown in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Many US cities have been wrestling with how to combat the growing crisis. The issue has been at the heart of recent election cycles on the West Coast, where officials have poured record amounts of money into creating shelters and building affordable housing.
Leaders face mounting pressure as long-term solutions - from housing and shelters to voluntary treatment services and eviction help - take time.
“It’s not easy and it will take a time to put into place solutions that work, so there’s a little bit of political theatre going on here," Scout Katovich, an attorney who focuses on these issues for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told the BBC.
"Politicians want to be able to say they’re doing something,”
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Jesus. How could locking up homeless folk make things better? The headline is bad, and the article is not informative.
They have to fill the prisons since a bunch are getting out from old cannabis charges.
It puts more people in prison, making private prisons' income better. This kind of shit is never about helping anyone but the lobbyists.
And then prisons rent out these people's labor to corpos for slave wages. It's a win-win.
Not just private prisons but also public prisons. More inmates means bigger budgets and more power.
Is it not obvious? You put them to work. US prisons are slave camps
I can only speak to Portland, but entirely too many people here refuse shelter for a variety of reasons, #1 being they can't bring their drugs and alcohol with them.
What this does is strongly encourage people to accept the help when offered.
You know what actually strongly ecourages people to accept help? Housing-first policies.
Yeah, because that works out so well...
that anecdote sure does contradict statistical evidence! if it doesn't work perfectly the first time it's not worth doing
Wow, one person was the victim of a crime therefore housing isn't the solution to homelessness.
No, what this actually does is simply provide more slaves for the prison labor market.
What this does is strongly encourage people to accept the help when offered.
Because people have the FREEDOM to choose.
I would think that fundamental right would be fucking obvious.
When they're doing fentanyl and pissing and shitting in the streets they've abdicated personal freedom.
Then deal with the drug problem. But I'll tell you right now that most homeless people do not have the money or time to do drugs unless they're homeless because of drugs. The majority of homeless people work as many hours as they can and are constantly trying to become not homeless.
Oh, we are NOW. Finally! It took a repeal of our drug legalization law first. That was when the problems started:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Oregon_Ballot_Measure_110
Yeah they did that policy completely backwards. The Portugal experiment works, but you have to actually do what they did and Oregon did none of the follow up work the Portuguese did.
But you shouldn't be punishing homeless people for that, at best it's some sort of venn diagram and critics want to make it look like a circle.
Oregon's problem was assuming the drug addicted want assistance. They don't. All they wanted was clean needles.
Why is that a bad thing? Why is having the resources to help them available a bad thing, and clean needles to prevent things like AIDs from spreading a bad thing? Not having that isn't going to stop them. Having that means the ones who do want help can get it.
He doesn't like it.
Having the resources to help them is a good thing, it's bad that they don't want the help.
We set up a plan where getting caught with drugs got you a $100 ticket. The ticket was waived if you called a 1-800 helpline and asked about getting help.
Note - You didn't ACTUALLY have to enter treatment, just calling the number was enough.
Of the 16,000 or so people ticketed, about 2/3rds of 1% called the number. They wiped their asses with the tickets.
We're replacing that with a new plan that says "Get help or go to jail, pick one." Kicks in I think in September?
If you think this problem started in 2021, you must be new to the area.
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I'm sorry, but yes. They clearly can't care for themselves anymore.
"...entirely too many people here refuse shelter for a variety of reasons..."
Have you ever spent time in a shelter? Like tried to sleep there? Undoubtedly no. Because if you had you'd know that the only way they are tolerable and the only way you can block out that they are obviously unsafe, noisy, and completely not conducive to good sleep is to dull your pain with drugs or alcohol.
You are better off on the street.
The street, which is obviously unsafe, noisy, completely not conducive to good sleep, and open to the elements.
The street, which is obviously unsafe, noisy, completely not conducive to good sleep, and open to the elements
It seems to me that this is not something with which you've had personal experience. Yours is a reasonable speculation but it's at odds with the reality for most people who have been homeless. I grant my own experience is limited to two shelters, but both were horrendous and I've never once heard a good word about any of them.
Here, I found a random article explaining why: https://www.kqed.org/news/11668623/why-do-thousands-of-l-a-s-homeless-shelter-beds-sit-empty-each-night-rats-roaches-bedbugs-mold