4 ms·

I'm hardly railing. In response to your question, they aren't a steady source of income for drug dealers, and drug dealers aren't just wandering the streets try

I'm hardly railing. In response to your question, they aren't a steady source of income for drug dealers, and drug dealers aren't just wandering the streets trying to sell drugs to people with no money. They stay on their turf and sell to people who come to them. And "related criminal activity"? Homeless people aren't criminal masterminds who collect all the city's neer-do-wells. They're just broken down people who need a place to lie down.

cgriswald 7y ago
I don’t think you have any experience with one of these encampments. They bring crime, perpetrated both on and by homeless people. These are facts. No one has implied that homeless people are criminal masterminds operating vast syndicates.
- peterwwillis 7y ago
  > They bring crime, perpetrated both on and by homeless people. These are facts. There is crime anywhere there are lots of people who have needs they can't meet, but even so, the crime rates aren't significant compared to other populations. Analysis such as this one by the Guardian show that the existence of homeless encampments don't have a direct link to crime rates: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/23/homeless-villages-crime-rate-seattle-portland https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/23/homeless-vil... Sometimes crime rates may increase slightly, and sometimes they decrease slightly. Reports like these go back decades: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040521&slug=tentcrime20m http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=200...
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    You objected to the city of Boise talking about crime related to these encampments. Now you’ve accepted the crime happens, but you’re moving the goalposts to say the crime isn’t any worse. The crime is happening. A lot of the crime that occurs is against homeless people. It often goes unreported. It won’t affect crime rates. For a variety of other reasons it is not, in the general sense, a simple thing to measure. In no case are you going to convince the people with actual experiences that their experiences didn’t happen by waving a study at them.

cgriswald 7y ago

I don’t think you have any experience with one of these encampments. They bring crime, perpetrated both on and by homeless people. These are facts. No one has implied that homeless people are criminal masterminds operating vast syndicates.

peterwwillis 7y ago
> They bring crime, perpetrated both on and by homeless people. These are facts. There is crime anywhere there are lots of people who have needs they can't meet, but even so, the crime rates aren't significant compared to other populations. Analysis such as this one by the Guardian show that the existence of homeless encampments don't have a direct link to crime rates: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/23/homeless-villages-crime-rate-seattle-portland https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/23/homeless-vil... Sometimes crime rates may increase slightly, and sometimes they decrease slightly. Reports like these go back decades: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040521&slug=tentcrime20m http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=200...
- cgriswald 7y ago
  You objected to the city of Boise talking about crime related to these encampments. Now you’ve accepted the crime happens, but you’re moving the goalposts to say the crime isn’t any worse. The crime is happening. A lot of the crime that occurs is against homeless people. It often goes unreported. It won’t affect crime rates. For a variety of other reasons it is not, in the general sense, a simple thing to measure. In no case are you going to convince the people with actual experiences that their experiences didn’t happen by waving a study at them.