Newsom Asks Cities to Ban Homeless Encampments, Escalating Crackdown

my unpopular opinion: homeless encampments in the US are a result of housing becoming unaffordable.
I'm not saying most people ended up in tent cities because they couldn't afford rent. usually people will sleep in their cars, find a spot in a shelter if one's available, crash with relatives etc. at least here (Seattle) most of those who live in big tent cities are homeless because of mental illness: drug addiction and/or psychosis.
but serious addiction isn't new. where did addicts live in the '80s? crack houses! before real estate turned into gold, there was plenty of mold-infested, aabestos-ridden, lead-painted substandard housing left abandoned or rented cheaply by slumlords. junkies could sleep there.
now, most of those buildings have been torn down and luxury condos rebuilt in their place, at least in the big cities.
I'm not pro-crack den. the old buildings were health hazards. but junkies can't afford the upscale housing that replaced them. they can barely afford tents.
- I’m in Little Rock, Arkansas, which has plenty of vacant properties and plenty of homeless, they don’t cancel each other out anymore but it’s because homeowners are terrified of homeless people so they police neighborhoods and call that shit in. As well they should, we have fires all the time around me because of them.
  
  There's a difference between vacant property and affordable housing.
  
  it sounds like you and your neighborhood have chosen tent cities over crack houses, then.

I'm very liberal on 95% of issues, but if there is one issue I lean conservative it's homelessness. I want them to get the help they need, I support programs to help them, but I do not want to see a homeless encampment s take over public parks or other areas. I don't want the trash and safety issues near where I live and near my family.
I know this will get me dumped on my the ultra leftists here, but I didn't think my feelings are unreasonable.
- Banning homelessness doesn't give people a place to stay. It's criminalizing being poor.
  
  It's also a tragedy-of-the-commons type issue. Nobody else can use the park if they are camping there. There are legitimate safety concerns due to the mental health and drug issues that are prevalent in the homeless. To pretend these aren't real issues is stupid.
  I'm being honest here. This is an issue that is a challenge to solve, but I still don't want a bunch of homeless people in my neighborhood. I'd like to find a solution and I'm not afraid of my tax money is going to help them, but tent encampments are not the solution IMHO..
- Your feelings are unreasonable. Banning homeless encampments is criminalization of existing in public for people who do not have anywhere else to go. Homeless people are not a danger to you, rather they are some of the most vulnerable people in our society - and people don't want them to be able to sleep, or cook or eat, or anything in public. Where do you want them to go? Shelters do not have room for everyone and are a massive risk for people that do make it in.
- So you're liberal until it inconveniences you?
  How about instead of outlawing homelessness, we created a housing system for them. Then we can talk about moving them out of parks.
- You want them to get the help they need, that's the opposite of conservative even without the support for programs.

Surely banning homeless encampments will solve the homelessness problem.
- Create for profit prisons tantamount to slavery
  Make homelessness illegal
  Destroy the economy and make everybody homeless
  PROFIT
- Next, we should ban heart disease and cancer...
  
  It's harder to work in the mines with those
  
  Nah, let’s just keep it the way it is and keep the poors illegal, I mean, I feel bad for people with heart disease, if they have health insurance.

Ok sure.
While you're at it, allow cities to commandeer vacancies over 3 months to house the unhoused.
Or is the point to put the squeeze on folks without options or resources to move up economically without providing any solution.
- Or is the point to put the squeeze on folks without options or resources to move up economically without providing any solution.
  Given Newsom's swing toward the hard right, I'm going with this choice...
  And, fuck Newsom. 🤦‍♀️ 🤷‍♂️ 🖕
  
  Perhaps we have a brainslug infestation in progress?
  Would explain a lot actually...
- They don't want them to move up they want them to move out
- I bet I can guess which option it is…

Title is a bit missleading. He's also setting out $3billion for homeless facilities. Better than nothing, he'll probably criminalize homelessness even more than it already is at the same time.
I doubt the $3 billion will do much to reverse the damage California has done with their prison machine, cost of living crisis, and under funded public services. Unless they address the underlying issues the problems are not going to go away.
- Funding is easy to lose down the road but laws against the homeless will sure be there for decades to come.
- Yeah that $3 billion won't do squat. California spent $24 billion over a five year period and didn't track any of the money, how it was spent, or the outcomes. It's a safe bet that most of the money went to contractors charging extortionate fees for services while providing almost nothing in return, and probably quite a bit landing in the pockets of local politicians. It was basically a big scam to further enrich a bunch of greedy parasites. A few low-level idiots were charged with fraud and embezzlement of like $400k, but that doesn't even scratch the surface of corruption involved in that whole scheme.
- California will be fine. They just need to succeed.

Yo, fuck this guy - pivoting to the right? Fuck off.
- Pivoting?

So - when did Newson have a Fetterman-like stroke?
- When he realized he could get a bunch of money capitulating to and sane washing hard right wingers with a podcast.
- I hope he has one that is substantially worse

Jesus , this guy looking to join Trump's team?
- his ex; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhFks_9faQY
  his current wife; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Siebel_Newsom
  Siebel Newsom was registered as a Republican until 2008, before re-registering as No Party Preference. Prior to registering as an independent voter, she accidentally registered with the far-right American Independent Party, before correcting her party to "decline to state".
  I think yes, yes he is.
- I came here to say this sounds like something Trump or DeSantis would do. Disappointing it is Newsome. We need leaders with solutions, not bigger prisons. (I'm not sure what I would do, but I'm also not the Gov of California hoping to be in the Dem shortlist in 2028).
  
  I'm trying wrap my head around the possibility of voting for Newsome just to keep whoever the Nazis nominate is really painful.
  
  I mean, they've been trying other solutions and they obviously haven't been working. Citizens don't like living near these and this issue is rallying people to the right. I get that banning and sweeping sucks and is just moving people around, but if that ends up moving people from a highly visible area to a less visible area then it can go a long way for local businesses and tourism.

He has tried nothing useful and is all out of ideas.
- I don't think the first part is true but unfortunately I agree on the second part. The west Coast in general has been struggling with this for a while and the compassionate approach hasn't shown the promised results. Maybe it technically is, but visible homelessness is what gets people elected.
  
  The solution is so simple. Its two pronged. Get them a place to live. Help them with their problems. Its what happened in this country until a republican took apart the system that was designed to do that. It had its problems but the solution shouldn't have been the abandonment of the national mental health system. This homeless problem is 100 percent tied directly to the utter failure of all politicians who ever supported cuts to the mental health system.
  The reason they do it is also simple. They are terrified that everyone will know how bad they are on the inside. Not realizing that most of us already know.

The sun beams down on a brand-new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last, we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonight
- Efficiency and progress is ours once more Now that we have the neutron bomb It's nice and quick and clean and gets things done Away with excess enemy With no less value to property No sense in war but perfect sense at home...

we need the infrastructure for the unhoused to be housed. where does he expect the homeless to go?
- Prison
- Next up in 2025, the resurgence of the Hooverville
  Trump Towns… Donaldvilles…

Attacking the very poorest of society with all his energy. What a piece of work.

What a cunt

Crazy how California is speed-running a transition from liberal to left to Authoritarian almost as fast as the Federal government is transitioning from conservative to right to Fascism.
- What other examples can you give? As a California resident I think your comment is bullshit.
- Newsom was always a slimy neolib. He was just the lesser evil. The same story plays out constantly all over the US thanks to our broken two-right-wing-parties system, in which both parties are owned and operated by self-serving billionaires.

Ladies and Gentlemen, our 48th President (whether we want him or not)...
- Not going to happen. Not because the conservative Democrats won't be able to hoodwink enough primary voters to believe the highest priority is accommodating what they think their shittiest neighbor could (but will not) tolerate, but because in doing so they'll lose the voters they actually need to win and Don Jr. will ascend to the throne.
  
  You are overlooking the most valuable thing that Newsom has, that makes him even more qualified to earn enough votes to win: a penis.
  Unfortunately, if you don't have one, you can't get elected right now.
- Lol.

If you want to get rid of homeless encampments, how about making sure people have a safe place to stay at night?

California is a garden of Eden,
A paradise to live in or see
but believe it or not
you won't find it so hot
if you ain't got the doe ray me.

Sweep all problems under the carpet instead of trying to solve the root problem.

Just say "kill them", fuck! Stop pretending to be anything other than that.
- than*
  
  Thank you

He setup the conditions for San Francisco to actually do this. He just wants more cities to do it now.

I shouldn’t be shocked at how swiftly he transitioned, but still, I am.

Dude is weird

"Make it invisible, that will surely solve the peoblem"

Crazy how fast the internet turns. A few months ago? Everyone loved him for not letting trump do the ego handshakes. Now everyone calls him weird.
- It's just so weird that people of a certain mindset and philosophy would praise something they approved of in line with that mindset and condemn something they didn't in line with that mindset.