11 ms·

Judge rules Seattle homeless man’s truck is a home

112 points by nouveaux 9y ago

olympus 9y ago
"could have great implications for homelessness" Thinking like a politician, one of the implications might be- since we can count a car as a home, all the people living out of their cars aren't homeless anymore. With this huge reduction in homeless people we can cut the budget to the shelters because they are serving fewer people. They'll definitely win re-election because they simultaneously reduced homelessness and cut spending, and they didn't even have to put forth any effort. Total win for the politicians.
c3534l 9y ago
This makes sense and it's good for the courts to step in on this. The point of the law is clearly that there's a limit to how much the government can take from a person which is fair and just. There needs to be a rational-thinking person in the room who knows it's wrong to take away a person's car when they're currently living out of it because of economic troubles. It's always good when common sense and decency wins out in a court of law.
- klipt 9y ago
  It's even mentioned in the old testament: "If your neighbor is poor and gives you his cloak as security for a loan, do not keep the cloak overnight. Return the cloak to its owner by sunset so he can stay warm through the night" Deuteronomy 24:12
RickJWag 9y ago
Oh, good. Now maybe taco trucks can have less stringent health codes.
lr4444lr 9y ago
I can't imagine the legal ramifications of this. How would a court or government agency deliver legal notices to such people, for example?
- nikanj 9y ago
  How do they deliver them to tents under the bridge? We need to stop pretending the homeless don’t exist.
  - Kalium 9y ago
    You're absolutely right! The homeless have always been with us, and it's high time government policy caught up with that. Yet, might there be a kernel of subtlety here? In some places, the homeless quite commonly register intersections or similar locations as their stationary home location. Then things like notices are delivered to them there. This, as grandparent implies, is not so straightforward with a mobile vehicle. What does that leave? A requirement to constantly update your location of record with local government? Overbearing surveillance to track the homeless so government can reach them? All-electronic systems relying on devices and services the homeless almost certainly can't afford? None of these are great solutions. All are clearly problematic, in the damning social justice sense. Again, you're completely correct. We need to admit, accept, acknowledge, and embrace our unhoused friends and neighbors. It's just possible that a truck and a tent under a bridge might pose slightly different levels of difficulty for addressing-type needs.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - vkou 9y ago
      > In some places, the homeless quite commonly register intersections or similar locations as their stationary home location. Then things like notices are delivered to them there. What about those that don't?
      - evanlivingston 9y ago
        Then those people are pretty hard to contact!
    - bsimpson 9y ago
      There are also folks who choose to live in vans or RVs as a lifestyle. There are also folks who go backpacking overseas for months or years at a time, or who work nomadic jobs (like travel nursing) which move them every few months. You don't have to be homeless to lack a permanent address.
jey 9y ago
According to the much better article at https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/judge-rules-seattle-homeless-mans-truck-is-a-home/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/judge-rul..., it was a WA state judge who ruled based on WA's "Homestead Act".
- cag_ii 9y ago
  That's in the article linked.
  - TomMarius 9y ago
    The linked article is on a different domain...? EDIT: I misunderstood the point, sorry
    - cag_ii 9y ago
      I'm not sure I understand your question. The submission links to an article at fox13memphis.com. The user I'm replying to suggests a "much better" article at seattletimes.com because it includes content which I'm pointing out is already contained at the submission link.
      - TomMarius 9y ago
        Ah, okay, sorry. I understood it literally, like "this is the same link".
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- sctb 9y ago
  Thanks, we've updated the link from http://www.fox13memphis.com/news/trending-now/judge-declares-mans-truck-his-home-in-ruling-that-could-affect-hundreds-of-homeless-people/711693182 http://www.fox13memphis.com/news/trending-now/judge-declares....
fenwick67 9y ago
this is my own private domicile and I will not be harassed
AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
> Moreover, the courts "have consistently held that there is no constitutional right to housing." I'm still puzzled at how our society affirms our Right to Life, while simultaneously affirming food, water, and shelter as Essential to Life, yet will never make the logical conclusion that food/water/shelter are necessarily included in our right to life. 1. All men are entitled to life. 2. Food, water, and shelter are essential to life. 3. Fuck you, get a job or freeze to death.
- tensor_rank_0 9y ago
  recognizing the right to life is a lot easier than figuring out how to provide shelter/food/water to everyone without expecting them to pay for it. those resources come from somewhere. that somewhere is other people, and taking food/water/shelter from them could kill them, and forcing them to provide whatever they have in excess of their own necessities is going to cause many of them to become "net consumers" and expect you to find food and housing for them. the nth order effects of these programs need to be considered.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
  Rights are mainly seen in the US as negative rights. The Bill of Rights Constitutional amendments are all proscriptions on government behavior. A right to life means that I must not kill you. If however, you are choking to death, there is no obligation for me to help you. I think negative rights are the way to go. Once you start having positive rights, then you place obligations on others which ultimately require force or the threat of force to make people do something. In addition, positive rights has a tendency to keep on growing - for example a right to Internet access. The downside of that is that rights then do not become something that is stable across time and space but just a synonym for something someone arbitrarily decided to call a right.
  - burkaman 9y ago
    Ok, so the right to housing would mean the government can't deprive you of a home.
  - thesimon 9y ago
influx 9y ago
I'm watching closely for the implications of this ruling. There are already Seattle neighborhoods who have folks living in their RVs, cooking meth, with no trash service, no working sewer system, selling drugs out of their RV, spewing needles around the ground, and the police already refused to do anything about it. Sympathetic to the plight of the homeless, but there needs to be enforcement of laws and respect to the neighborhood that you are living in, whether or not you are homeless. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/meeting-draws-hundreds-frustrated-by-rvs-property-theft-in-seattle/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/meeting-draws-hund...
- syshum 9y ago
  >>Sympathetic to the plight of the homeless, but Doubtful, if you have to sat "I am x but" that means you understand you are about to disprove your own position Like saying "I support freedom of speech but..." No you do not... >>there needs to be enforcement of laws and respect to the neighborhood that you are living in, whether or not you are homeless. There needs to be respect for the individual and if a person is not causing physical harm to another person they need to be left alone. "Respect" is a nebulous subjective concept that the government has no business attempting to enforce with law "The Law" is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
- ProAm 9y ago
  This ruling is completely different from your example. Making and selling drugs and even littering is still 100% illegal, regardless of if you do it in your home or car. Very different from selling your car/home to pay parking tickets and fines.
  - influx 9y ago
    Seattle police have already been told to stand down enforcing homeless folks living in vehicles, including when residents report drug selling, and health violations. This ruling will just add to the pressure for police to look the other way. It's not fair to the residents of the neighborhood, or people living in vehicles that are respecting the law and minding their own business. http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/seattle-business-owner-frustrated-by-crime-violent-incident-near-unauthorized-rvs/681752879 http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/seattle-business-owner-frust...
vkou 9y ago
> He had been living in his 2000 GMC pickup, parked on a side street, but the city of Seattle towed it because Long had violated a city rule that requires vehicles be moved every 72 hours. Judging by the amount of leaves, gunk, and other crap that accumulates underneath the parked cars on my street (Which were also in the same place day, after day, after day), this is another one of those rules which is enforced incredibly selectively. If it weren't, half the cars on Capitol hill would be in impound.
- newfoundglory 9y ago
  I live on Capitol Hill and regularly see parking enforcement checking cars, but if there are cars that you think are hanging around too long near you, you can report them at https://www.seattle.gov/police/need-help/abandoned-vehicles https://www.seattle.gov/police/need-help/abandoned-vehicles
  - vkou 9y ago
    What are the owners of those cars supposed to do? Repark them, when there is no parking available? The residential buildings there don't have enough parking spots[1]. This isn't Soviet Russia, it's not like I'll get an extra ration and a pat on the back for turning my neighbour in. [1] This has gotten better since they've added a parking permit requirement.
    - newfoundglory 9y ago
      What? They are supposed to find longterm parking if they want to leave their car sitting useless for days at a time, not use public space for it. And if they are regularly not needing their car for days at a time and they're unwilling to pay for storage, maybe they should get rid of it and find another way to take their weekly ski trip.
- lph 9y ago
  It's only enforced when police receive a complaint. File a complaint if you want them to do something about your local nuisance vehicles.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
>Shaffer also ruled the fees the city required Long, 58, to pay to retrieve the truck were too high, violating constitutional protections against excessive fines. This is really good for anyone who owns a towing and impound company in Seattle.
felipelemos 9y ago
Imagine the situation. The only property that you have is a truck. You get out of money and cannot afford gas anymore, so for 72h straight your truck stay parked in some street. The city notices this and impound your vehicle. Now you have to: 1. Pay for the time your vehicle is in city deposit and the fine 2. Do nothing and wait for your vehicle got auctioned. You end up with the second option because you don't have any money (or the car wouldn't be impounded in first place). So you now have: a fine to pay and no car. And no place to live.
- masonic 9y ago
  for 72h straight your truck stay parked in some street That's misrepresenting the facts. He may have been there for weeks; the article didn't say. What it does say is: "When officers saw the truck, which was not operable, they called a city parking enforcement officer, who tagged it and told Long he had to move it within 72 hours (of the tagging)... Long tore off the impound sticker... and left the truck in place. The parking officer waited at least four days before having the vehicle towed, giving Long extra time to buy a part needed to get it running. When the enforcement officer returned Oct. 12, the truck was still there but Long was not, and the vehicle was towed." The officers didn't know initially that it was outright inoperable. Simply pushing the vehicle (or having it pushed) to the next adjacent space complies with the letter of the law; he may have volunteered that it was inoperable hoping for an empathetic extension (which he received), yet he still didn't move or fix it. Since its release, it's right back on the street, inoperable.
- FussyZeus 9y ago
  Just another one of those fun ways that being poor in America is ludicrously expensive.
  - ythn 9y ago
    So how does this play out in Europe? Say, a poor immigrant can't afford housing in London so he sleeps in an illegally parked car.
    - 9y ago
lisper 9y ago
There is a significant segment of American society that believes that if you are poor you must have done something to deserve it, like not work hard enough. Because of this, to help poor people is to subsidize (and hence encourage) laziness, and that is unacceptable. On the other hand, we can't just shoot all the poor people (though we can shoot some of them, as long as they're black and threatening) and we can't just have them loitering in the streets because that's bad for business. So the best we can do it run them out of town on a rail. Out of sight, not our problem any more, that's good enough. We don't need a long-term solution, we just need to stave off disaster long enough for Jesus to return, and that will be Real Soon Now. Sadly, this is not an exaggeration. Tens of millions of Americans really do believe all of the above.
- dang 9y ago
  Please keep generic ideological flamewars well away from HN, and religious flamewars well awayer. Scorched earth is not interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16531067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16531067 and marked it off-topic.
  - lisper 9y ago
    Sorry about that. I didn't think I was crossing the line. Will be more careful in the future.
    - dang 9y ago
      Thanks!
      - lisper 9y ago
        BTW, can you please clarify for me exactly what it was about my comment that crossed the line? Was it the actual content, or just the editorialized phraseology ("real soon now"). Because it is simply a fact that a significant fraction of American society really does believe that there is no need to address any long term problems because the Second Coming is imminent. If I had phrased it like that, would that have been OK?

112 points by nouveaux 9y ago

"could have great implications for homelessness" Thinking like a politician, one of the implications might be- since we can count a car as a home, all the people living out of their cars aren't homeless anymore. With this huge reduction in homeless people we can cut the budget to the shelters because they are serving fewer people. They'll definitely win re-election because they simultaneously reduced homelessness and cut spending, and they didn't even have to put forth any effort. Total win for the politicians.

c3534l 9y ago

This makes sense and it's good for the courts to step in on this. The point of the law is clearly that there's a limit to how much the government can take from a person which is fair and just. There needs to be a rational-thinking person in the room who knows it's wrong to take away a person's car when they're currently living out of it because of economic troubles. It's always good when common sense and decency wins out in a court of law.

klipt 9y ago
It's even mentioned in the old testament: "If your neighbor is poor and gives you his cloak as security for a loan, do not keep the cloak overnight. Return the cloak to its owner by sunset so he can stay warm through the night" Deuteronomy 24:12

RickJWag 9y ago

Oh, good. Now maybe taco trucks can have less stringent health codes.

lr4444lr 9y ago

I can't imagine the legal ramifications of this. How would a court or government agency deliver legal notices to such people, for example?

nikanj 9y ago
How do they deliver them to tents under the bridge? We need to stop pretending the homeless don’t exist.
- Kalium 9y ago
  You're absolutely right! The homeless have always been with us, and it's high time government policy caught up with that. Yet, might there be a kernel of subtlety here? In some places, the homeless quite commonly register intersections or similar locations as their stationary home location. Then things like notices are delivered to them there. This, as grandparent implies, is not so straightforward with a mobile vehicle. What does that leave? A requirement to constantly update your location of record with local government? Overbearing surveillance to track the homeless so government can reach them? All-electronic systems relying on devices and services the homeless almost certainly can't afford? None of these are great solutions. All are clearly problematic, in the damning social justice sense. Again, you're completely correct. We need to admit, accept, acknowledge, and embrace our unhoused friends and neighbors. It's just possible that a truck and a tent under a bridge might pose slightly different levels of difficulty for addressing-type needs.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - vkou 9y ago
    > In some places, the homeless quite commonly register intersections or similar locations as their stationary home location. Then things like notices are delivered to them there. What about those that don't?
    - evanlivingston 9y ago
      Then those people are pretty hard to contact!
  - bsimpson 9y ago
    There are also folks who choose to live in vans or RVs as a lifestyle. There are also folks who go backpacking overseas for months or years at a time, or who work nomadic jobs (like travel nursing) which move them every few months. You don't have to be homeless to lack a permanent address.

jey 9y ago

According to the much better article at https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/judge-rules-seattle-homeless-mans-truck-is-a-home/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/judge-rul..., it was a WA state judge who ruled based on WA's "Homestead Act".

cag_ii 9y ago
That's in the article linked.
- TomMarius 9y ago
  The linked article is on a different domain...? EDIT: I misunderstood the point, sorry
  - cag_ii 9y ago
    I'm not sure I understand your question. The submission links to an article at fox13memphis.com. The user I'm replying to suggests a "much better" article at seattletimes.com because it includes content which I'm pointing out is already contained at the submission link.
    - TomMarius 9y ago
      Ah, okay, sorry. I understood it literally, like "this is the same link".
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
sctb 9y ago
Thanks, we've updated the link from http://www.fox13memphis.com/news/trending-now/judge-declares-mans-truck-his-home-in-ruling-that-could-affect-hundreds-of-homeless-people/711693182 http://www.fox13memphis.com/news/trending-now/judge-declares....

fenwick67 9y ago

this is my own private domicile and I will not be harassed

AdmiralAsshat 9y ago

> Moreover, the courts "have consistently held that there is no constitutional right to housing." I'm still puzzled at how our society affirms our Right to Life, while simultaneously affirming food, water, and shelter as Essential to Life, yet will never make the logical conclusion that food/water/shelter are necessarily included in our right to life. 1. All men are entitled to life. 2. Food, water, and shelter are essential to life. 3. Fuck you, get a job or freeze to death.

tensor_rank_0 9y ago
recognizing the right to life is a lot easier than figuring out how to provide shelter/food/water to everyone without expecting them to pay for it. those resources come from somewhere. that somewhere is other people, and taking food/water/shelter from them could kill them, and forcing them to provide whatever they have in excess of their own necessities is going to cause many of them to become "net consumers" and expect you to find food and housing for them. the nth order effects of these programs need to be considered.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
Rights are mainly seen in the US as negative rights. The Bill of Rights Constitutional amendments are all proscriptions on government behavior. A right to life means that I must not kill you. If however, you are choking to death, there is no obligation for me to help you. I think negative rights are the way to go. Once you start having positive rights, then you place obligations on others which ultimately require force or the threat of force to make people do something. In addition, positive rights has a tendency to keep on growing - for example a right to Internet access. The downside of that is that rights then do not become something that is stable across time and space but just a synonym for something someone arbitrarily decided to call a right.
- burkaman 9y ago
  Ok, so the right to housing would mean the government can't deprive you of a home.
- thesimon 9y ago

influx 9y ago

I'm watching closely for the implications of this ruling. There are already Seattle neighborhoods who have folks living in their RVs, cooking meth, with no trash service, no working sewer system, selling drugs out of their RV, spewing needles around the ground, and the police already refused to do anything about it. Sympathetic to the plight of the homeless, but there needs to be enforcement of laws and respect to the neighborhood that you are living in, whether or not you are homeless. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/meeting-draws-hundreds-frustrated-by-rvs-property-theft-in-seattle/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/meeting-draws-hund...

syshum 9y ago
>>Sympathetic to the plight of the homeless, but Doubtful, if you have to sat "I am x but" that means you understand you are about to disprove your own position Like saying "I support freedom of speech but..." No you do not... >>there needs to be enforcement of laws and respect to the neighborhood that you are living in, whether or not you are homeless. There needs to be respect for the individual and if a person is not causing physical harm to another person they need to be left alone. "Respect" is a nebulous subjective concept that the government has no business attempting to enforce with law "The Law" is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
ProAm 9y ago
This ruling is completely different from your example. Making and selling drugs and even littering is still 100% illegal, regardless of if you do it in your home or car. Very different from selling your car/home to pay parking tickets and fines.
- influx 9y ago
  Seattle police have already been told to stand down enforcing homeless folks living in vehicles, including when residents report drug selling, and health violations. This ruling will just add to the pressure for police to look the other way. It's not fair to the residents of the neighborhood, or people living in vehicles that are respecting the law and minding their own business. http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/seattle-business-owner-frustrated-by-crime-violent-incident-near-unauthorized-rvs/681752879 http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/seattle-business-owner-frust...

vkou 9y ago

> He had been living in his 2000 GMC pickup, parked on a side street, but the city of Seattle towed it because Long had violated a city rule that requires vehicles be moved every 72 hours. Judging by the amount of leaves, gunk, and other crap that accumulates underneath the parked cars on my street (Which were also in the same place day, after day, after day), this is another one of those rules which is enforced incredibly selectively. If it weren't, half the cars on Capitol hill would be in impound.

newfoundglory 9y ago
I live on Capitol Hill and regularly see parking enforcement checking cars, but if there are cars that you think are hanging around too long near you, you can report them at https://www.seattle.gov/police/need-help/abandoned-vehicles https://www.seattle.gov/police/need-help/abandoned-vehicles
- vkou 9y ago
  What are the owners of those cars supposed to do? Repark them, when there is no parking available? The residential buildings there don't have enough parking spots[1]. This isn't Soviet Russia, it's not like I'll get an extra ration and a pat on the back for turning my neighbour in. [1] This has gotten better since they've added a parking permit requirement.
  - newfoundglory 9y ago
    What? They are supposed to find longterm parking if they want to leave their car sitting useless for days at a time, not use public space for it. And if they are regularly not needing their car for days at a time and they're unwilling to pay for storage, maybe they should get rid of it and find another way to take their weekly ski trip.
lph 9y ago
It's only enforced when police receive a complaint. File a complaint if you want them to do something about your local nuisance vehicles.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

>Shaffer also ruled the fees the city required Long, 58, to pay to retrieve the truck were too high, violating constitutional protections against excessive fines. This is really good for anyone who owns a towing and impound company in Seattle.

felipelemos 9y ago

Imagine the situation. The only property that you have is a truck. You get out of money and cannot afford gas anymore, so for 72h straight your truck stay parked in some street. The city notices this and impound your vehicle. Now you have to: 1. Pay for the time your vehicle is in city deposit and the fine 2. Do nothing and wait for your vehicle got auctioned. You end up with the second option because you don't have any money (or the car wouldn't be impounded in first place). So you now have: a fine to pay and no car. And no place to live.

masonic 9y ago
for 72h straight your truck stay parked in some street That's misrepresenting the facts. He may have been there for weeks; the article didn't say. What it does say is: "When officers saw the truck, which was not operable, they called a city parking enforcement officer, who tagged it and told Long he had to move it within 72 hours (of the tagging)... Long tore off the impound sticker... and left the truck in place. The parking officer waited at least four days before having the vehicle towed, giving Long extra time to buy a part needed to get it running. When the enforcement officer returned Oct. 12, the truck was still there but Long was not, and the vehicle was towed." The officers didn't know initially that it was outright inoperable. Simply pushing the vehicle (or having it pushed) to the next adjacent space complies with the letter of the law; he may have volunteered that it was inoperable hoping for an empathetic extension (which he received), yet he still didn't move or fix it. Since its release, it's right back on the street, inoperable.
FussyZeus 9y ago
Just another one of those fun ways that being poor in America is ludicrously expensive.
- ythn 9y ago
  So how does this play out in Europe? Say, a poor immigrant can't afford housing in London so he sleeps in an illegally parked car.
  - 9y ago

lisper 9y ago

There is a significant segment of American society that believes that if you are poor you must have done something to deserve it, like not work hard enough. Because of this, to help poor people is to subsidize (and hence encourage) laziness, and that is unacceptable. On the other hand, we can't just shoot all the poor people (though we can shoot some of them, as long as they're black and threatening) and we can't just have them loitering in the streets because that's bad for business. So the best we can do it run them out of town on a rail. Out of sight, not our problem any more, that's good enough. We don't need a long-term solution, we just need to stave off disaster long enough for Jesus to return, and that will be Real Soon Now. Sadly, this is not an exaggeration. Tens of millions of Americans really do believe all of the above.

dang 9y ago
Please keep generic ideological flamewars well away from HN, and religious flamewars well awayer. Scorched earth is not interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16531067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16531067 and marked it off-topic.
- lisper 9y ago
  Sorry about that. I didn't think I was crossing the line. Will be more careful in the future.
  - dang 9y ago
    Thanks!
    - lisper 9y ago
      BTW, can you please clarify for me exactly what it was about my comment that crossed the line? Was it the actual content, or just the editorialized phraseology ("real soon now"). Because it is simply a fact that a significant fraction of American society really does believe that there is no need to address any long term problems because the Second Coming is imminent. If I had phrased it like that, would that have been OK?