4 ms·

This is a tough one because as a homeowner I really don't like that an army of homeless people can setup encampment by my home on public property (in part maint

This is a tough one because as a homeowner I really don't like that an army of homeless people can setup encampment by my home on public property (in part maintained by my tax dollars) and then bring crime, aggressive panhandling, trash (lots of it) and lowered property values to my neighborhood. I'd really not like to see that expanded and we should be in search of better alternatives that don't punish productive members of society.

skywhopper 8y ago
The reasonable solution from a practical point of view, then, is to use your political power as a homeowner to push your municipality to provide sufficient services to the homeless population to provide them with shelter and to help them find more permanent places to live. Criminalizing this stuff is very likely a lot more expensive than just providing enough beds and shelter and basic for everyone who needs one, anyway.
- DuskStar 8y ago
  > is to use your political power as a homeowner to push your municipality to provide sufficient services to the homeless population to provide them with shelter and to help them find more permanent places to live. And what if it turns out that homelessness, on a local scale, is like traffic - and providing more services (building more/bigger roads) just creates more homeless in the area (induces more people to drive)? Now you've spent what's likely to be a significant amount of money, and made no progress on his problem.
  - jquery 8y ago
    Congratulations, you just described San Francisco. I strongly disagree with this ruling and I hope it's overturned. Sleeping on the street is never just sleeping on the street, it's almost always accompanied by drug use, needles left on the ground, and feces on the sidewalk, major health hazards and quality of life issues for city dwellers. We should provide more solutions to these homeless but jail needs to exist as a method of last resort. EDIT: careful, looks like a partisan brigade is trying manipulate the comment section regardless of comment quality. (violating HN rules)
    - malvosenior 8y ago
      > EDIT: careful, looks like a partisan brigade is trying manipulate the comment section regardless of comment quality. (violating HN rules) This is happening a lot lately. My comment saying enforcing an existing law isn’t cruel and unusual is sitting at -4. I’ve noticed a lot of my old comments getting waves of downvotes long after the post has been on the front page. I’d say it’s been very active for the past week or two and makes using this site very frustrating.
      - yebyen 8y ago
        And he's flagged off the page! Jon Resig, is that you?
  - stephengillie 8y ago
    > And what if it turns out that homelessness, on a local scale, is like traffic - and providing more services just creates more homeless in the area? Do you honestly believe most people are so lazy that they are desperate to lose everything they have? If so, why do high school students give up their after-school time to flip hamburgers and bag groceries - because otherwise they will starve? I'll encourage you to read about Maslow's hierarchy.
    - DuskStar 8y ago
      That's part of why I included on a local scale. If your town provides more amenities and generally treats the homeless population better than the surrounding areas, of course homeless people are going to move to it. Which might be good for the homeless, but it's kind of counterproductive in terms of the original problem statement - "as a homeowner I really don't like that an army of homeless people can setup encampment by my home on public property (in part maintained by my tax dollars) and then bring crime, aggressive panhandling, trash (lots of it) and lowered property values to my neighborhood."
      - stephengillie 8y ago
        So you're saying a regional, or even statewide approach is needed?
        DuskStar 8y ago
        I'm saying that an approach that covers an area large enough that you cannot easily traverse it has a chance of working, and smaller programs will always have to contend with the "importing more homeless" problem. IMO, that would have to be the entire country - getting a greyhound from Las Vegas to Los Angeles isn't out of reach, for example. But a statewide approach would still be less affected by this than a citywide one, which itself would be better than something on the scale of a neighborhood. And even then, that's to have a chance. I don't think that "give a ton of benefits to the homeless" is a surefire solution to reducing homelessness. The Utah approach (fix the "homeless" part by giving them a home, then fix everything else) might work, but it requires a bit more societal trust than a lot of the country has.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Or we could make society work better instead. But that would require us to genuinely respect and care about all of our people and it comes with no opportunity to play hero and expect people with pathetic lives to grovel before you in gratitude.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

skywhopper 8y ago

The reasonable solution from a practical point of view, then, is to use your political power as a homeowner to push your municipality to provide sufficient services to the homeless population to provide them with shelter and to help them find more permanent places to live. Criminalizing this stuff is very likely a lot more expensive than just providing enough beds and shelter and basic for everyone who needs one, anyway.

DuskStar 8y ago
> is to use your political power as a homeowner to push your municipality to provide sufficient services to the homeless population to provide them with shelter and to help them find more permanent places to live. And what if it turns out that homelessness, on a local scale, is like traffic - and providing more services (building more/bigger roads) just creates more homeless in the area (induces more people to drive)? Now you've spent what's likely to be a significant amount of money, and made no progress on his problem.
- jquery 8y ago
  Congratulations, you just described San Francisco. I strongly disagree with this ruling and I hope it's overturned. Sleeping on the street is never just sleeping on the street, it's almost always accompanied by drug use, needles left on the ground, and feces on the sidewalk, major health hazards and quality of life issues for city dwellers. We should provide more solutions to these homeless but jail needs to exist as a method of last resort. EDIT: careful, looks like a partisan brigade is trying manipulate the comment section regardless of comment quality. (violating HN rules)
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    > EDIT: careful, looks like a partisan brigade is trying manipulate the comment section regardless of comment quality. (violating HN rules) This is happening a lot lately. My comment saying enforcing an existing law isn’t cruel and unusual is sitting at -4. I’ve noticed a lot of my old comments getting waves of downvotes long after the post has been on the front page. I’d say it’s been very active for the past week or two and makes using this site very frustrating.
    - yebyen 8y ago
      And he's flagged off the page! Jon Resig, is that you?
- stephengillie 8y ago
  > And what if it turns out that homelessness, on a local scale, is like traffic - and providing more services just creates more homeless in the area? Do you honestly believe most people are so lazy that they are desperate to lose everything they have? If so, why do high school students give up their after-school time to flip hamburgers and bag groceries - because otherwise they will starve? I'll encourage you to read about Maslow's hierarchy.
  - DuskStar 8y ago
    That's part of why I included on a local scale. If your town provides more amenities and generally treats the homeless population better than the surrounding areas, of course homeless people are going to move to it. Which might be good for the homeless, but it's kind of counterproductive in terms of the original problem statement - "as a homeowner I really don't like that an army of homeless people can setup encampment by my home on public property (in part maintained by my tax dollars) and then bring crime, aggressive panhandling, trash (lots of it) and lowered property values to my neighborhood."
    - stephengillie 8y ago
      So you're saying a regional, or even statewide approach is needed?
      - DuskStar 8y ago
        I'm saying that an approach that covers an area large enough that you cannot easily traverse it has a chance of working, and smaller programs will always have to contend with the "importing more homeless" problem. IMO, that would have to be the entire country - getting a greyhound from Las Vegas to Los Angeles isn't out of reach, for example. But a statewide approach would still be less affected by this than a citywide one, which itself would be better than something on the scale of a neighborhood. And even then, that's to have a chance. I don't think that "give a ton of benefits to the homeless" is a surefire solution to reducing homelessness. The Utah approach (fix the "homeless" part by giving them a home, then fix everything else) might work, but it requires a bit more societal trust than a lot of the country has.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
Or we could make society work better instead. But that would require us to genuinely respect and care about all of our people and it comes with no opportunity to play hero and expect people with pathetic lives to grovel before you in gratitude.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]