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Are the people living in vehicles not minding their own business? How do you know the people living in homes are respecting the law? Do you see that you're put

Are the people living in vehicles not minding their own business? How do you know the people living in homes are respecting the law? Do you see that you're putting a value judgement on ownership of a home and attributing them with some ownership of the "neighborhood" while denying that broader sense of ownership to people choosing to reside in that neighborhood in their vehicles?

toasterlovin 9y ago
The people who own property contribute to the upkeep of the neighborhood in the form of property taxes. People living in cars do not. That is the fundamental difference.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > The people who own property contribute to the upkeep of the neighborhood in the form of property taxes. People living in cars do not. That's, if true, entirely the fault of how your state allocates revenue from vehicle license fees, not the people living in (currently licensed) cars.
  - munificent 9y ago
    If you were to jack up vehicle license fees, you would further punish low-income people who are barely getting by and need to drive for work.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > If you were to jack up vehicle license fees I didn't say anything about the level of VLFs, I said something about the distribution of funds raised thereby.
      - munificent 9y ago
        That's zero-sum. If you're going to put more of that money into services to support vehicle-dwellers, what about the other areas that lose out? Road maintenance?
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        Road maintenance is contributing to the upkeep of the community, so that's not a use that illustrates the argument that vehicle dwellers aren't contributing to community upkeep. But, yes, it's zero-sum: but if vehicles that are used more as houses are having tax revenue distributed as if they were being used more as transport, then people sleeping in cars are subsidizing drivers.
    - newnewpdro 9y ago
      You're willfully ignoring the obvious classifiable difference between a vehicle used as a dwelling vs. a vehicle used for commuting. There could simply be a registration category for vehicle dwellings with increased fees to offset the difference. This could even translate into states providing facilities for pump outs and showers for those registered for vehicle dwellings to improve the sanitation of what's going to be happening regardless. The reality is the law, as always, is lagging behind reality. Things have changed substantially in the last few decades in terms of how realistic it is to live a fairly normal and connected life from a vehicle. There is essentially no practical need for a mailing address or land line anymore for example, smart phones, internet, efficient solar panels... Drug addicts/cooks living in squalor who happen to be in vehicles will be committing myriad obvious and easily policed crimes. Why those police are not doing their job is entirely orthogonal to if a vehicle should be considered a potential legal residence.
      - munificent 9y ago
        > There could simply be a registration category for vehicle dwellings with increased fees to offset the difference. What incentive do people have to not lie about that? When someone loses their home, are they obligated to go to the DMV and update their registration and throw in a bunch of extra money? How do you police this? Do you have the police capacity to handle this? How do you enforce violations? If someone is living in their car but didn't pay the registration, do you tow their car? Doesn't that get right back to the original problem? > This could even translate into states providing facilities for pump outs and showers for those registered for vehicle dwellings to improve the sanitation of what's going to be happening regardless. In the Seattle area, at least, there are free RV hookups for people to dump their waste. Many people just don't use them. Their vehicle may not actually be that driveable, or maybe they can't afford the gas, or maybe they simply don't care. > There is essentially no practical need for a mailing address or land line anymore for example, smart phones, internet, efficient solar panels... Yes, a well-adjusted, committed person can leave reasonably from a vehicle. But what about the people who live in vehicles in part because they aren't doing the work required to keep the social contract and be a participating member of society? > Drug addicts/cooks living in squalor who happen to be in vehicles will be committing myriad obvious and easily policed crimes. Many of these crimes aren't easily policed, actually. Drug possession requires a warrant to search a vehicle. Finding discarded paraphernalia isn't enough, nor is a witnessing drug use. Littering and waste dumping are almost impossible to police — you have to be caught in the act by a police officer. Ignoring that, the reality is that Seattle isn't policing these.
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  I kinda thought society moved past equating "whether you have human rights" with "whether you own property" in the 1800's, but I guess some of us have yet to catch up.
  - toasterlovin 9y ago
    Nowhere did I mention anything about human rights. My point is that it's a reasonable stance for people who contribute to the upkeep of a neighborhood in the form of property taxes to have a greater claim to that neighborhood than people who decided that it would be a good place to park their car or camp for the night. Not sure if you live in a neighborhood where people regularly camp out and live out of their cars, but I do and there are tons of problems with it: 1. At a fundamental level, it is unfair. People who own or rent homes in the neighborhood spend lots of money (our property taxes are $600/month) in order to contribute to the the upkeep of the neighborhood. They also generally clean up after themselves and don't steal stuff. 2. People who own or rent are also tied to the neighborhood in a way that people who camp or live in cars are not. If the neighborhood goes to shit, it's easy to pull up camp or start your car and leave; you can be out in a few hours. If you rent, it's at least a few months to find a new place to live. For homeowners, you could be looking at years, plus many thousands of dollars in broker and moving costs. 3. It's not just that homeowners contribute to the well being of the neighborhood, it's that people who camp and live in cars actively do the opposite. After the city of Portland clears the regular camping spots in my neighborhood, a team of cleaners has to come in to dispose of waste. Many people, and thus, much taxpayer expense is involved. This happens every 6-8 weeks. Guess how many times the city has ever had to clean up in a similar way after homeowners... zero. 4. But it's more than just the clean up. Campers bring tons of crime with them. There is a tent at the campsite down the street from me that is actually a bicycle chop shop! And then there's the stolen cars that get stripped and abandoned in our neighborhood on a weekly basis when there is an active campsite. Oh, and there are tons of hypodermic needles all over the ground near the campsites. So, yeah, I think it's pretty legitimate to not think it's fair for people who follow the rules, work hard, and contribute to society to have to watch their neighborhood get torn apart by people who are A) completely uninvested in the wellbeing of the neighborhood, and B) actively contributing to it's decline.
- brudgers 9y ago
  The fundamental similarity however is that people living in cars are still citizens.
  - toasterlovin 9y ago
    So what? Being a citizen is not a license to do whatever you want. Nobody argues that people should be able to ignore posted parking restrictions when it suits them. Yet the negative externalities from people camping and living in their cars are way more significant than from parking in a loading zone or not paying the meter. Just ask anybody who lives in a neighborhood with a significant homeless presence.
munificent 9y ago
> Are the people living in vehicles not minding their own business? No, they aren't, mostly. There are probably a few that are conscientious, but over the past years, almost every RV that's gone through my neighborhood has brought problems with it. Part of living in physical housing is that there are sewer lines to it and trash pick-up. RVs and cars don't have that. Most of those denizens are not driving halfway across town to drain their blackwater tanks or paying to dispose of their trash. Instead, the dump it out on the street before relocating. In addition to the obvious health risk of literal human shit being dumped on the street and grass, that trash more often than not contains used needles, used toilet paper, and other dangerous stuff. On top of that: 1. Along with piles of trash that had been jammed into the bushes, my neighbor found a discarded gun. (Fortunately he found it before his toddler did.) 2. My wife interrupted someone squatting and shitting on the ground in our alley. Multiple times. 3. We see and hear screaming matches and fights between people in and near RVs on a pretty regular basis. 4. Property theft is constant. Most of us don't ship things to our homes anymore. One friend has a giant bin with a lock on it for package delivery people to lock things in. 5. Our car has been broken into twice. 6. Someone once climbed our back fence and was wandering around the yard babbling incoherently. 7. A gas can was stolen out of the back of my truck. > How do you know the people living in homes are respecting the law? Let's not play the whataboutism game. That won't solve any problems. The people living in their vehicles need real help. The city (and the country at large) has profound systemic problems around inequality, housing, healthcare, and drug addiction. Pretending that the people living in their vehicles are law-abiding citizens whose homes happen to have wheels denies the full reality of their experience. Most of them, in addition to experiencing homelessness, are also experiencing drug addiction, often have mental illness, and are living in an environment that lacks the sewage and trash infrastructure needed for humans to live safely. All of that needs to be addressed. These aren't just free spirits living the dream out of their VW bus. (If they do want to do that, more power to them. But they still gotta find a place for their shit and trash.)
- evanlivingston 9y ago
  No, let's instead not deplatform people by invoking the whataboutism critique. When examining the causes and effects of issue that you'd rather not take place in your neighborhood it is essential to look at all the intersections of those issues and look at other situations where those issues are also present. If you don't recognize the fact that a majority of those issues you listed are committed most frequently by traditionally housed people, in other neighborhood than your own, then you'll be blind to the larger systemic issues that need to be addressed to fix the problems. You'll also be much more likely to support a short-term solution that fixes your problems but not the larger problem.

toasterlovin 9y ago

The people who own property contribute to the upkeep of the neighborhood in the form of property taxes. People living in cars do not. That is the fundamental difference.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> The people who own property contribute to the upkeep of the neighborhood in the form of property taxes. People living in cars do not. That's, if true, entirely the fault of how your state allocates revenue from vehicle license fees, not the people living in (currently licensed) cars.
- munificent 9y ago
  If you were to jack up vehicle license fees, you would further punish low-income people who are barely getting by and need to drive for work.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > If you were to jack up vehicle license fees I didn't say anything about the level of VLFs, I said something about the distribution of funds raised thereby.
    - munificent 9y ago
      That's zero-sum. If you're going to put more of that money into services to support vehicle-dwellers, what about the other areas that lose out? Road maintenance?
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        Road maintenance is contributing to the upkeep of the community, so that's not a use that illustrates the argument that vehicle dwellers aren't contributing to community upkeep. But, yes, it's zero-sum: but if vehicles that are used more as houses are having tax revenue distributed as if they were being used more as transport, then people sleeping in cars are subsidizing drivers.
  - newnewpdro 9y ago
    You're willfully ignoring the obvious classifiable difference between a vehicle used as a dwelling vs. a vehicle used for commuting. There could simply be a registration category for vehicle dwellings with increased fees to offset the difference. This could even translate into states providing facilities for pump outs and showers for those registered for vehicle dwellings to improve the sanitation of what's going to be happening regardless. The reality is the law, as always, is lagging behind reality. Things have changed substantially in the last few decades in terms of how realistic it is to live a fairly normal and connected life from a vehicle. There is essentially no practical need for a mailing address or land line anymore for example, smart phones, internet, efficient solar panels... Drug addicts/cooks living in squalor who happen to be in vehicles will be committing myriad obvious and easily policed crimes. Why those police are not doing their job is entirely orthogonal to if a vehicle should be considered a potential legal residence.
    - munificent 9y ago
      > There could simply be a registration category for vehicle dwellings with increased fees to offset the difference. What incentive do people have to not lie about that? When someone loses their home, are they obligated to go to the DMV and update their registration and throw in a bunch of extra money? How do you police this? Do you have the police capacity to handle this? How do you enforce violations? If someone is living in their car but didn't pay the registration, do you tow their car? Doesn't that get right back to the original problem? > This could even translate into states providing facilities for pump outs and showers for those registered for vehicle dwellings to improve the sanitation of what's going to be happening regardless. In the Seattle area, at least, there are free RV hookups for people to dump their waste. Many people just don't use them. Their vehicle may not actually be that driveable, or maybe they can't afford the gas, or maybe they simply don't care. > There is essentially no practical need for a mailing address or land line anymore for example, smart phones, internet, efficient solar panels... Yes, a well-adjusted, committed person can leave reasonably from a vehicle. But what about the people who live in vehicles in part because they aren't doing the work required to keep the social contract and be a participating member of society? > Drug addicts/cooks living in squalor who happen to be in vehicles will be committing myriad obvious and easily policed crimes. Many of these crimes aren't easily policed, actually. Drug possession requires a warrant to search a vehicle. Finding discarded paraphernalia isn't enough, nor is a witnessing drug use. Littering and waste dumping are almost impossible to police — you have to be caught in the act by a police officer. Ignoring that, the reality is that Seattle isn't policing these.
Analemma_ 9y ago
I kinda thought society moved past equating "whether you have human rights" with "whether you own property" in the 1800's, but I guess some of us have yet to catch up.
- toasterlovin 9y ago
  Nowhere did I mention anything about human rights. My point is that it's a reasonable stance for people who contribute to the upkeep of a neighborhood in the form of property taxes to have a greater claim to that neighborhood than people who decided that it would be a good place to park their car or camp for the night. Not sure if you live in a neighborhood where people regularly camp out and live out of their cars, but I do and there are tons of problems with it: 1. At a fundamental level, it is unfair. People who own or rent homes in the neighborhood spend lots of money (our property taxes are $600/month) in order to contribute to the the upkeep of the neighborhood. They also generally clean up after themselves and don't steal stuff. 2. People who own or rent are also tied to the neighborhood in a way that people who camp or live in cars are not. If the neighborhood goes to shit, it's easy to pull up camp or start your car and leave; you can be out in a few hours. If you rent, it's at least a few months to find a new place to live. For homeowners, you could be looking at years, plus many thousands of dollars in broker and moving costs. 3. It's not just that homeowners contribute to the well being of the neighborhood, it's that people who camp and live in cars actively do the opposite. After the city of Portland clears the regular camping spots in my neighborhood, a team of cleaners has to come in to dispose of waste. Many people, and thus, much taxpayer expense is involved. This happens every 6-8 weeks. Guess how many times the city has ever had to clean up in a similar way after homeowners... zero. 4. But it's more than just the clean up. Campers bring tons of crime with them. There is a tent at the campsite down the street from me that is actually a bicycle chop shop! And then there's the stolen cars that get stripped and abandoned in our neighborhood on a weekly basis when there is an active campsite. Oh, and there are tons of hypodermic needles all over the ground near the campsites. So, yeah, I think it's pretty legitimate to not think it's fair for people who follow the rules, work hard, and contribute to society to have to watch their neighborhood get torn apart by people who are A) completely uninvested in the wellbeing of the neighborhood, and B) actively contributing to it's decline.
brudgers 9y ago
The fundamental similarity however is that people living in cars are still citizens.
- toasterlovin 9y ago
  So what? Being a citizen is not a license to do whatever you want. Nobody argues that people should be able to ignore posted parking restrictions when it suits them. Yet the negative externalities from people camping and living in their cars are way more significant than from parking in a loading zone or not paying the meter. Just ask anybody who lives in a neighborhood with a significant homeless presence.

munificent 9y ago

> Are the people living in vehicles not minding their own business? No, they aren't, mostly. There are probably a few that are conscientious, but over the past years, almost every RV that's gone through my neighborhood has brought problems with it. Part of living in physical housing is that there are sewer lines to it and trash pick-up. RVs and cars don't have that. Most of those denizens are not driving halfway across town to drain their blackwater tanks or paying to dispose of their trash. Instead, the dump it out on the street before relocating. In addition to the obvious health risk of literal human shit being dumped on the street and grass, that trash more often than not contains used needles, used toilet paper, and other dangerous stuff. On top of that: 1. Along with piles of trash that had been jammed into the bushes, my neighbor found a discarded gun. (Fortunately he found it before his toddler did.) 2. My wife interrupted someone squatting and shitting on the ground in our alley. Multiple times. 3. We see and hear screaming matches and fights between people in and near RVs on a pretty regular basis. 4. Property theft is constant. Most of us don't ship things to our homes anymore. One friend has a giant bin with a lock on it for package delivery people to lock things in. 5. Our car has been broken into twice. 6. Someone once climbed our back fence and was wandering around the yard babbling incoherently. 7. A gas can was stolen out of the back of my truck. > How do you know the people living in homes are respecting the law? Let's not play the whataboutism game. That won't solve any problems. The people living in their vehicles need real help. The city (and the country at large) has profound systemic problems around inequality, housing, healthcare, and drug addiction. Pretending that the people living in their vehicles are law-abiding citizens whose homes happen to have wheels denies the full reality of their experience. Most of them, in addition to experiencing homelessness, are also experiencing drug addiction, often have mental illness, and are living in an environment that lacks the sewage and trash infrastructure needed for humans to live safely. All of that needs to be addressed. These aren't just free spirits living the dream out of their VW bus. (If they do want to do that, more power to them. But they still gotta find a place for their shit and trash.)

evanlivingston 9y ago
No, let's instead not deplatform people by invoking the whataboutism critique. When examining the causes and effects of issue that you'd rather not take place in your neighborhood it is essential to look at all the intersections of those issues and look at other situations where those issues are also present. If you don't recognize the fact that a majority of those issues you listed are committed most frequently by traditionally housed people, in other neighborhood than your own, then you'll be blind to the larger systemic issues that need to be addressed to fix the problems. You'll also be much more likely to support a short-term solution that fixes your problems but not the larger problem.