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Boise is why L.A. can’t legally clear its streets of homeless encampments
- fred_is_fred 7y agoTo save you a click, the "City in Idaho", which is clearly written to make it sound like a village of like 10 people in the middle of nowhere, is Boise.
- cwbrandsma 7y agoWhich is about 700k people (when counting the metro area). Which is not huge...but a long way from small.
- CodeWriter23 7y agoDon’t feel so bad, the article is also sounds like it was written by someone who has never been to LA. Skid Row overflowed into Little Tokyo several years ago, creating a new ad hoc neighborhood name “Skid Rokyo”. Oh and the there’s the giant homeless encampments every 1-3 miles as you drive around LA.
- magic_beans 7y agoI grew up in LA but moved away in 2009. I was shocked when I visited this past year. Homeless encampments everywhere, taking over sidewalks in West LA, kind of scary aggressively homeless men harassing people in the street in West Hollywood. No wonder everyone drives everywhere in LA.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoJapan has homeless encampments also...I saw a nice tidy one in an Osaka park, and also around Uueno in Tokyo. They are fairly clean about it, however.
- livueta 7y agoYeah, go for a walk down the Arakawa or Sumida embankments (not right now, I guess, given that was all recently underwater) and you'll find some semi-permanent camps in a good state of repair. Talked to some of the guys by one and apparently they've got a pretty strong culture of self-enforcing cleanliness and not messing with the civilians, since they'll get cleared out if the cops get legitimate complaints from people in the area
- neonate 7y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20191015123642/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-15/homeless-boise-martin-supreme-court https://web.archive.org/web/20191015123642/https://www.latim...
- dv_dt 7y agoIn the article, Boise is challenging a court ruling that cities cannot ticket or arrest the homeless if there are no shelter beds available. This begs the question how ticketing/arresting clears the streets? By shoving them elsewhere for another city to ticket? Or housing them in jail (at a much higher expense)? Later in the article it does mention that LA (correction from Boise) is also voiding millions of citations on the homeless, and that those citations were keeping the homeless from accessing services, like housing. That brings even more questions about the usefulness of ticketing for homelessness. Edit: correction it is LA not Boise voiding citations.
- Spellman 7y agoUsually putting them in jail. Then at least you don't have residents complaining about homeless tent camps. And the cops feel like they have a tool to "fight homelessness." And the added (perceived) incentive of disincentivizing people from coming to your area to be homeless and set up semi-permanent tent camps.
- romaaeterna 7y agoAnd women and children being able to walk the streets without being harassed is another -- as you might write "(perceived)" -- incentive.
- crooked-v 7y agoUnless, of course, those women and children are homeless.
- shadowgovt 7y agoL.A. is a place that respects the value of a creative solution. If one cannot force the homeless to leave, how does one positively incentivize people to stop living in the street?
- crooked-v 7y ago'Just give them housing' seems to work pretty well. https://nationswell.com/one-state-track-become-first-end-homelessness-2015/ https://nationswell.com/one-state-track-become-first-end-hom...
- DuskStar 7y agoIIRC that actually hasn't worked too well for Utah in recent years.
- crooked-v 7y agoTragedy of the commons is a major factor here. Any city that looks 'homeless friendly' will get people shipped to it from other cities, sometimes as part of explicit 'bus ticket' programs. Really solving this will take work at the national level. There's more than enough wealth around to fund it, given how much goes into the pockets of opioid manufacturers alone.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoHomeless people are also fairly mobile, it doesn’t take that much to come up with a $50 bus ticket even if they don’t bother hopping freight cars anymore. Hell, many can even scrounge up enough for one way tickets to Hawaii (...and Hawaii will often take care of the ticket back).
- pnw_hazor 7y ago"It’s time to come clean. The unrealistic narrative that Utah has ended homelessness by giving out homes is not helping." https://www.huffpost.com/entry/think-utah-solved-homeles_b_9380860 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/think-utah-solved-homeles_b_9...
- tehjoker 7y agoBrutal article. They're trying to conduct a violent purge/exile of homeless while dressing it up as caring about them. Give them houses wtf
- theNJR 7y agoThis is not as much a housing issue as it is a mental health and substance abuse issue. See https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-07/homeless-population-mental-illness-disability https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-07/homeless...
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoNot all homeless are homeless because of mental health or substance abuse issues, but those that are homeless for other reasons are more likely to get help so you don’t notice them as much.
- excursionist 7y agoMental health and substance abuse issues don't spontaneously emerge on their own. Lack of money, housing, personal life, etc. are huge contributing causes.
- theNJR 7y agoMental health / substance can cause homelessness. Homelessness can cause mental health / substance. It’s a shit cycle either way, but the one certainty is we are not addressing either in a meaningful way.
- excursionist 7y agoClaiming there are no fundamental material/economic problems, such as with housing, and pretending homeless people are just a lost cause of mentally ill substance abusers is certainly not going to solve any problems, except maybe putting your conscience at ease. Housing is not the only problem, but there are fundamental material issues which greatly increase the chance of mental illness and substance abuse.
- generalpass 7y agoThe broader issue is why a federal court is interfering with municipal policies.
- jlmorton 7y agoBecause in a constitutional form of government there are lots of things that cities are not allowed to do, and judicial relief from those unconstitutional, or otherwise illegal actions is expected and by design.
- generalpass 7y agoWhich laws in the U.S. Constitution grant such powers over municipal governments?
- jlmorton 7y agoAccording to the US Ninth Circuit, 42 U.S.C. §1983, and the 8th Amendment to the US Constitution, prohibiting the imposition of excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishment, on the basis that homeless people have no choice in the matter of their homelessness.
- generalpass 7y agoThe bases of your claims are in court decisions. Is it correct that courts are the ones who grant powers?
- jlmorton 7y agoThe powers are not granted by the courts, the Constitution is interpreted by the courts. The concept of judicial review goes back to the country's founding.
- generalpass 7y agoDid the constitution grant the courts power to be the final decider of all law, everywhere?
- CodeSheikh 7y agoBuild them tents on all of these golf courses. We have plenty of those in this country.
- olliej 7y agoBoise is a magical city with only 1600-2000 homeless people, as opposed to the chaos of LA with its 36000 homeless! Oh, except Boise has a population of 228000 to LAs 4 million. So LA is 17 times larger. So basic scaling would be equivalent to 28-35k homeless. I think the reason Boise is having less difficulty with homelessness is solely because it’s a small city.
- jMyles 7y agoOne thing that I have never understood about this discussion is why it always seems to avoid the following question: What about people who want to be homeless? Why have we built a society in which anybody who doesn't accept the lifestyle of sleeping in a static, hardened structure, and working to pay rent or a mortgage so as to have the right to do so, is diagnosed with some kind of illness? Isn't it quite clear that there are some humans that simply aren't built to live with this strange definition of normalcy? I have lived on a school bus for the past five years (if you are curious about this aspect, I gave a talk at PyCon last year that might interest you[0]) and I have met literally thousands of people like those I'm describing. I'm convinced that there are hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions - in the USA. Of people that I have met who live on streets, in forests, in mobile vehicles like me, and in all sorts of other configurations that are not "homes" as we typically understand that word, I think that something like 1% are a nuisance to the extent that some kind of intervention is warranted for the public good. And, for what it's worth, that's probably true of about 1% of people who aren't homeless as well. Now, in the age of smartphones, small-scale solar charging, and remote work, it's easier than ever to be happily homeless. Let's stop acting like it's such a problem. Help the people who are homeless and want to stop being homeless. Don't judge the people who are homeless and loving life. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRp84BlFF94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRp84BlFF94
- sweeneyrod 7y agoBecause people like you are incredibly uncommon. I do not believe at all that there are millions of people like that in the US.
- tistrue999 7y agoI don't know about millions, but I have firsthand experience and no one would know just by meeting someone like this that they had no fixed place of residence.
- jMyles 7y agoYou interact with us all the time, every day, and you have no idea.
- munherty 7y agoHow about finding ways to rehab these people instead of finding creatively hide them away at the fringes of cities and towns.
- alexbanks 7y agoIf you don't want to be rehabilitated, you will not be rehabilitated.
- freehunter 7y agoYou have to at least try before coming to that conclusion.
- alexbanks 7y agoDefinitely. I'm by no means saying "Do nothing, let them die." But I'm also saying "We have to rehabilitate them" is not a good enough idea either - you can't make people want help.
- wahern 7y ago> you can't make people want help. You can make people receive help. We just don't do that anymore because we've adopted a principle of radical autonomy, which apparently includes the "freedom" for the mentally ill and addicted to literally rot on the streets. Many homeless advocates seem to have similar fears as gun rights advocate. Whereas some people vociferously oppose gun restrictions because of an irrational fear of helplessness in the face of crime if they couldn't carry a gun anywhere and everywhere, some homeless advocates vociferously oppose forced psychiatric and drug abuse treatment because of an irrational fear--obscured by a simplistic, self-serving sense of empathy--that they'll somehow be forced into such treatment or otherwise lose their own autonomy. The boogey man of big government out to get you isn't just a motivating fear of the right, it's also a motivating fear of the left.
- 11thEarlOfMar 7y agoThe article says 1,000 - 2,000 homeless in Boise, but at 2,000, a little quick MATH shows that Boise's homelessness rate may be a tad higher than LA's: Boise: 2,000 homeless in population of 227,000 = 1:113 LA: 36,000 homeless in population of 4,000,000 = 1:111 Given the difference in annual weather, it's not clear that Boise policy is effective in reducing homelessness.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago> Given the difference in annual weather, it's not clear that Boise policy is effective in reducing homelessness. They might winter in Portland or even LA. Spokane is another city in that area with a huge homeless problem, and perhaps even harsher weather (Boise is at least high desert). Though housing can be super cheap, my granddad used to run what we thought became basically a flop house that we nicked named the Empty Arms. SLC seems to have focused more on housing the homeless, but even then I think in recent years they’ve found that their success has mainly just led to a larger problem.
- alexbanks 7y agoIt's an exhausting problem. I live in Portland, which is just another west coast city having increasing trouble with a rising homeless population. On one hand yes, they're people and they deserve help and support and appropriate housing and access to rehab and structure. But on the other hand, if you buy a house in Portland there's very little you can do to prevent your front sidewalk from getting turned into a homeless camp. Having seen first hand how frequently camps are also drug dens, it's really tiring stepping over hundreds of dirty needles and needle-caps when you leave every morning. And the smell of piss and shit in every offstreet doorway in the city. When my mom visited we were driving over the Morrison bridge and a homeless man was pissing off the side in broad daylight - not a care in the world. So yes, help them. But also just do something, anything at all.
- tppiotrowski 7y agoI have heard the hundreds of dirty needles sentiment from people but have never encountered a neighborhood in LA where there are hundreds of dirty needles on the ground. Is there any photos of this phenomenon online you could point me to or is this mostly hyperbole?
- _t0du 7y agoCaps are way more common, but every monday morning the front stoop at my old office would have a handful of used needles on it. I suppose the hyperbole would be implying "hundreds" of dirty needles all in one place. When I walk to work, I see many, but rarely are there more than 2-3 in one spot.
- coldtea 7y agoDoesn't have to be "hundreds of dirty needles on the ground" in the same spot . It's enough that there are hundreds of dirty needles on the ground to be discovered in the span of a couple square miles or so...
- big_chungus 7y ago"Thousands of pounds of human waste, close to 14,000 hypodermic needles cleaned out from Santa Ana River homeless encampments" - https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/08/thousands-of-pounds-of-human-waste-close-to-14000-hypodermic-needles-cleaned-out-from-santa-ana-river-homeless-encampments/ https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/08/thousands-of-pounds-of... They will also need to remove a few inches of topsoil to clean it up. This is the sort of procedure that is used to clean up toxic chemical spills, high levels of pollution, and nuclear waste.
- annoyingnoob 7y agoWoody Guthrie was on to something... As I went walking I saw a sign there, And on the sign it said "No Trespassing." But on the other side it didn't say nothing. That side was made for you and me. In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people, By the relief office I seen my people; As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking Is this land made for you and me? Nobody living can ever stop me, As I go walking that freedom highway; Nobody living can ever make me turn back This land was made for you and me.
- kauffj 7y agohttp://archive.is/gNmAt http://archive.is/gNmAt (Archive link for those who prefer non-broken web experiences or want to avoid supporting publishers that actively want to break the web.)
- throwawaysea 7y agoThe actual ruling: https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2018/09/04/15-35845.pdf https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2018/09/04/1...
- ridewinter 7y agoNo one discussing UBI as a nation-wide comprehensive solution here?
- carapace 7y agoBucky Fuller had the idea that we should build houses in factories and deliver them by helicopter. They were designed to fit onto a central mast that supported them and had hook ups for utilities. Basically he wanted to apply the automated assembly line to homes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house Everyone who wants one should have a home.