Man you know what’s not hard? Empathy. You know what is hard? Constantly finding ways to make life for others difficult.
Literally just build some free housing that won’t kick people out after extended periods of time, give them social support for jobs, give them mental health support, and feed them. If they don’t want to live there because of mental health issues, they should still have access to the other amenities and eventually they might move in. And blam, you will have a much better city with less crime and a happier population. Oh and it’s cheaper then funding death and destruction
Last detail: Proper funding for extra policing, to handle the natural difficulties in transitioning a whole bunch of people to a more structured lifestyle all at once, in the same small geographical area.
Otherwise we'll run into the same problems we did last time we tried block housing, leading to "the projects". I mean, think about it. That's a fantastic market for a drug dealer or a gang otherwise, that many vulnerable people all in one place.
Extra policing was part of the problem that led to the gangs. Extra policing targeted at an outgroup means every issue big or small is met with violence and imprisonment. The paternalistic overuse of the criminal justice system leads to the people losing trust in police and in the system. They still need someone to provide community structure, to settle disputes, and to offer some degree of protection and gangs are the homegrown solution to fulfilling that need. Extra social workers and community organizers that are from that community would do a lot better than extra police.
Extra policing would be fine if the problems with police departments were addressed. Without addressing that whole mess, though, throwing more police officers won't solve that problem.
Not policing, extra services from non-violent professionals that know how to address issues with homelessness in a way that does not involve tasers and physical assault.
Very true and these police should be trained and continually educated on how to deal with and identify mental health episodes. A lot of people hate police as do I, but I truly believe with proper oversight and education they can be a great asset to our society.
i mean, i agree the conservatives have shown they contain zero empathy for anyone anywhere except themselves.
but
wasnt the US constitution written for and by a bunch of rich, land-owning white guys? i guess im surprised what rights any non-landowners currently have. lucky us!
That's a bit over-simplistic. If the founders had simply wanted to swap out rule by British monarchy and oligarchs with themselves, they could have done a lot more to enable that. The Constitution allowed the States to set voting rights as they liked, and there was more diversity than you'd expect. 60 percent of white men were eligible to vote in 1776, and while that's obviously not exactly good, it's not an attempt to establish a blatant neo-nobility. In 1789, Georgia abolished the property requirement. Vermont granted voting rights to all men in 1791. Property restrictions were gradually eliminated over the next few decades, and by 1856, property ownership was no longer a requirement in any state.
Given the original framework of the United States as a somewhat loose coalition of operationally independent states, it would have been seen as an overreach for the Constitution to mandate how states could distribute voting rights. The federal government wasn't meant to play a super significant part it the average person's day-to-day life.
One does have to wonder, though, if the main reason they avoided trying to set up a new aristocracy is because they were afraid of what would happen if they did. They had just convinced a whole lot of people to take up arms against the king, and it doesn't take much imagination to see those same people turning against a new batch of American aristocrats very quickly.
Tread carefully SC. lots of us are on that fence with very little to lose should we become homeless. I can lose my house, but I'll never lose the memory of how you fuckers sold us out to your donors.
No, the constitutional rights will not change. They will still have protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
The issue is the 9th circuit ruling is overly broad. I fully agree if somebody has nowhere to go, then penalizing them for existing is cruel and unusual. With the stipulations of the Boise shelters, that was certainly the case for the plaintiffs.
However stretching that to "unless there is a shelter bed for everybody, nobody can be penalized for declining a bed" is an illogical conclusion. The difference is individual versus population. If individual A has nowhere they can legally go, they cannot be punished. But that doesn't mean individual B, who does have somewhere to go also cannot be punished.
Using the same logic as the 9th Circuit's ruling, if the government cannot provide a foster home for every child, then we cannot enforce any child endangerment laws. Even if in the hypothetical some child may be able to be placed with a relative, they couldn't be removed from the endangering situation. That's illogical and this ruling needs narrowed in scope.
Edit: I also want to point out that even this post is probably too reductionist. So please add counterpoint, clarifications, etc. One compelling counterpoint I've heard is the difficulty of determining who would be unable to go somewhere. And truthfully I don't have a good argument against it. However I have a hard time accepting when shelter beds have lower occupancy, why no enforcement is allowed.
The bottom line remains these are people, and many desperately need help, some against their will. We need more housing, more support systems, more everything really. But throwing our hands up and allowing the problem to remain unabated is no benefit to the individual nor the community as a whole.