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Imagine making it a crime to sleep outside. No thanks! I would much prefer to rent "illegally" or sleep in my car before we criminalize being at a certain loca

Imagine making it a crime to sleep outside. No thanks! I would much prefer to rent "illegally" or sleep in my car before we criminalize being at a certain location at 4am

zozbot234 7y ago
Open defecation is a health hazard, which the WHO and UNICEF are trying to get rid of throughout the world. Yes, we should be providing reasonable alternatives (such as environmentally-friendly public toilets) but to say that there's no real issue here seems quite misguided.
ryanmercer 7y ago
I was in San Francisco for about 1 hour last year before I saw multiple people asleep on the sidewalk downtown in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. I was there about 16 hours before I watched a woman, a block from OpenAI, step out of a tent (in a row of tents and tarps) and squat immediately front of her tent, take a dump, and go back into her tent before I could walk 20 feet. Never in my 33 years of life at the time had I thought I'd witness such a thing, that's when I realized what I assumed was a police horse barn somewhere nearby (we have mounted police, and hansom cabs, in downtown Indianapolis) was the smell of human feces and urine, not road apples and hay. Then I started looking where I was walking and noticed brown smudge after brown smudge after brown lump. Saw a decent one outside of YC's SF office too maybe halfway down the block. Homeless people have to use the restroom, if they're homeless they don't have a toilet and are probably going to do it on the sidewalk or in an alley. This is how disease spreads.
- quaquaqua1 7y ago
  Then fine her for shitting in public and not sleeping in it :) It's like saying we should ban batteries because maybe you will throw them in the river.
tim333 7y ago
You don't really have to imagine as places like Las Vegas have similar laws already. It's a trade off. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/07/777356656/las-vegas-bans-sleeping-camping-in-public-places https://www.npr.org/2019/11/07/777356656/las-vegas-bans-slee...

Imagine making it a crime to sleep outside. No thanks! I would much prefer to rent "illegally" or sleep in my car before we criminalize being at a certain location at 4am

zozbot234 7y ago

Open defecation is a health hazard, which the WHO and UNICEF are trying to get rid of throughout the world. Yes, we should be providing reasonable alternatives (such as environmentally-friendly public toilets) but to say that there's no real issue here seems quite misguided.

ryanmercer 7y ago

I was in San Francisco for about 1 hour last year before I saw multiple people asleep on the sidewalk downtown in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. I was there about 16 hours before I watched a woman, a block from OpenAI, step out of a tent (in a row of tents and tarps) and squat immediately front of her tent, take a dump, and go back into her tent before I could walk 20 feet. Never in my 33 years of life at the time had I thought I'd witness such a thing, that's when I realized what I assumed was a police horse barn somewhere nearby (we have mounted police, and hansom cabs, in downtown Indianapolis) was the smell of human feces and urine, not road apples and hay. Then I started looking where I was walking and noticed brown smudge after brown smudge after brown lump. Saw a decent one outside of YC's SF office too maybe halfway down the block. Homeless people have to use the restroom, if they're homeless they don't have a toilet and are probably going to do it on the sidewalk or in an alley. This is how disease spreads.

quaquaqua1 7y ago
Then fine her for shitting in public and not sleeping in it :) It's like saying we should ban batteries because maybe you will throw them in the river.

tim333 7y ago

You don't really have to imagine as places like Las Vegas have similar laws already. It's a trade off. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/07/777356656/las-vegas-bans-sleeping-camping-in-public-places https://www.npr.org/2019/11/07/777356656/las-vegas-bans-slee...