5 ms·

As nice as these structures are, and as much as I appreciate the skills it takes to roll up your sleeves and build something like this, ultimately it is an ille

As nice as these structures are, and as much as I appreciate the skills it takes to roll up your sleeves and build something like this, ultimately it is an illegal annexation of public land that belongs to the taxpayers and has other intended uses (even if that use is just greenspace or empty land). The act of building on this land is a crime, and should not be allowed. The West Coast cities need to enforce the law and protect the interests of actual residents, who legally reside in those cities and pay their fair share of taxes. As for the vagrants in these encampments - my experience has been that most are not locals, despite what surveys say, because the surveys always rely on volunteered answers about origins, rather than proven identity. Regardless, everyone must show personal responsibility and people need to realize they are not entitled to a life in the most attractive and expensive locations on the planet. There are TONS of open jobs across the country and lots of places that are great to live in and affordable. They don't have the same 'brand' as the Bay Area or other West Coast locations, but as the saying goes, beggars can't be choosers. What I do think we can band together to provide is a service that matches those in need with jobs in other locations, along with bridge funding to move locations and get settled in.

websites420 5y ago
>ultimately it is an illegal annexation of public land that belongs to the taxpayers and has other intended uses (even if that use is just greenspace or empty land). This is exactly how I feel seeing the homeless camps in Austin. Primarily, the first question I had was: what happens when one homeless person wants to spot of another? Neither has a legal right to it; are we not encouraging interpersonal violence by refusing to enforce the property laws that separate us from the state of nature? >my experience has been that most are not locals, despite what surveys say, because the surveys always rely on volunteered answers about origins, rather than proven identity Right. Why would anyone tell a volunteer they're from out of town? Seems like the first rule of being homeless: get a story that appeals to people. "Born here and down on my luck" is much more compelling than "Where I came from is worse than this place so I hopped a ride here." Basically, we can spend all the money in the world and build all the housing that people need, but the personal liberty that this country espouses -- personal liberty I agree with! -- means that no one is obligated to take it. There is already a myriad of excuses I hear in these threads for why the homeless don't go to the shelters, participate in the programs, etc. "They don't allow my dog." "They would make be get sober", etc. Until we accept that there is a significant population of unhoused that prefer it that way, and then decided what we want to do about that, all the little villages and things won't scratch the surface of the problem.
- randompwd 5y ago
  Simple solution is enforce the law.Remove the housing and charge those who build or assist in building on public land with a criminal offense - same as would happen to anyone else who illegally builds on public lands. It's past ridiculous that this behaviour is applauded and endorsed by elected officials.
  - websites420 5y ago
    There are no simple solutions here. I do believe the homeless ought to be assigned housing by making California’s Project Room Key permanent and national. If you can prove some connection to the location where you’re sleeping rough, you get first crack at local housing. Otherwise it’s back to where you have that connection — could even be where you were born. These motels will be slums. There will be prostitutes, and drug dealers, and crime. But it will also be a central location for service outreach without the prerequisites of other places.
    - gruez 5y ago
      >These motels will be slums. There will be prostitutes, and drug dealers, and crime. sounds like a refugee camp to me.
    - hedora 5y ago
      There are simple solutions here, but they’re not politically tenable: - Roll back the changes that gutted mental health care in California. - Modify the planning process, codes and zoning so people can build houses.
  - beardedetim 5y ago
    What is the reasoning for giving them a criminal offense? Not “because they broke the law” but like, what are we hoping to get out of sending them to jail/giving them a fine? That they choose to stop being homeless? That being in jail makes them not homeless anymore? I think it’s a fools errand to jail homeless people. It seems like a waste of money to me but I don’t have a better solution or idea on how to spend my tax dollars so am really interested in hearing more on the positive side of jailing them.
rahimnathwani 5y ago
"annexation of public land that belongs to the taxpayers" It's worth considering why people are more sympathetic to: A) Restaurant owners who, under San Francisco's 'Shared Spaces' scheme, have been given the right to construct outdoor dining spaces on public land (i) without any payment for use of the land, and (ii) with the right to exclude/eject members of the public from that land, unless they pay the restaurant. Than: B) People who would otherwise be homeless living on public land.
- Google234 5y ago
  Well A is mostly because the government has disallowed them to use the indoor space thst they own. Seems like a fair trade to meZ
  - rahimnathwani 5y ago
    If that were the reason, then: 1. The scheme would be open to all affected businesses (including offices) and not just restaurants. 2. There SF govt would not be trying to make the scheme permanent.
- gruez 5y ago
  Because the former is sanctioned and the latter isn't. Being sanctioned means it went through an approval process where the residents have representation and can reject the proposal. If restaurants decided to unilaterally annex roads for their own private use they'd get in trouble as well.
- hedora 5y ago
  This doesn’t have much to do with who owns the land. California won’t allow affordable housing to be built anywhere in the Bay Area. The result is that you get buildings that somehow cost 4-5x more to build than they would elsewhere (even adjusting for seismic costs) and you get dangerous squatter villages, but you get nothing in between.
didibus 5y ago
> my experience has been that most are not locals, despite what surveys say I'm curious what that matters for? States don't have borders no? So it's not like being born in a particular state grants you anything special, I don't think you can deport people from one state to another on grounds of not being born in the state no? > What I do think we can band together to provide is a service that matches those in need with jobs in other locations, along with bridge funding to move locations and get settled in That's a good idea, but are there employees willing to participate in such program? And are all homeless really able too? Lots of them have mental illness or addiction issues that might prevent them from keeping a job or make them unattractive to employers. > The West Coast cities need to enforce the law and protect the interests of actual residents, who legally reside in those cities and pay their fair share of taxes I think this is where the "ideal" breaks appart. Enforcing the law in those case seems to be a dead end. It costs 80k per inmate on average to jail someone in California, which seems like a stupidly high cost solution, and jail doesn't seem to work to deter homelessness. So what else can be done? And that's the million dollar question right here, and nobody has found the sure fire solution yet.

websites420 5y ago

>ultimately it is an illegal annexation of public land that belongs to the taxpayers and has other intended uses (even if that use is just greenspace or empty land). This is exactly how I feel seeing the homeless camps in Austin. Primarily, the first question I had was: what happens when one homeless person wants to spot of another? Neither has a legal right to it; are we not encouraging interpersonal violence by refusing to enforce the property laws that separate us from the state of nature? >my experience has been that most are not locals, despite what surveys say, because the surveys always rely on volunteered answers about origins, rather than proven identity Right. Why would anyone tell a volunteer they're from out of town? Seems like the first rule of being homeless: get a story that appeals to people. "Born here and down on my luck" is much more compelling than "Where I came from is worse than this place so I hopped a ride here." Basically, we can spend all the money in the world and build all the housing that people need, but the personal liberty that this country espouses -- personal liberty I agree with! -- means that no one is obligated to take it. There is already a myriad of excuses I hear in these threads for why the homeless don't go to the shelters, participate in the programs, etc. "They don't allow my dog." "They would make be get sober", etc. Until we accept that there is a significant population of unhoused that prefer it that way, and then decided what we want to do about that, all the little villages and things won't scratch the surface of the problem.

randompwd 5y ago
Simple solution is enforce the law.Remove the housing and charge those who build or assist in building on public land with a criminal offense - same as would happen to anyone else who illegally builds on public lands. It's past ridiculous that this behaviour is applauded and endorsed by elected officials.
- websites420 5y ago
  There are no simple solutions here. I do believe the homeless ought to be assigned housing by making California’s Project Room Key permanent and national. If you can prove some connection to the location where you’re sleeping rough, you get first crack at local housing. Otherwise it’s back to where you have that connection — could even be where you were born. These motels will be slums. There will be prostitutes, and drug dealers, and crime. But it will also be a central location for service outreach without the prerequisites of other places.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >These motels will be slums. There will be prostitutes, and drug dealers, and crime. sounds like a refugee camp to me.
  - hedora 5y ago
    There are simple solutions here, but they’re not politically tenable: - Roll back the changes that gutted mental health care in California. - Modify the planning process, codes and zoning so people can build houses.
- beardedetim 5y ago
  What is the reasoning for giving them a criminal offense? Not “because they broke the law” but like, what are we hoping to get out of sending them to jail/giving them a fine? That they choose to stop being homeless? That being in jail makes them not homeless anymore? I think it’s a fools errand to jail homeless people. It seems like a waste of money to me but I don’t have a better solution or idea on how to spend my tax dollars so am really interested in hearing more on the positive side of jailing them.

rahimnathwani 5y ago

"annexation of public land that belongs to the taxpayers" It's worth considering why people are more sympathetic to: A) Restaurant owners who, under San Francisco's 'Shared Spaces' scheme, have been given the right to construct outdoor dining spaces on public land (i) without any payment for use of the land, and (ii) with the right to exclude/eject members of the public from that land, unless they pay the restaurant. Than: B) People who would otherwise be homeless living on public land.

Google234 5y ago
Well A is mostly because the government has disallowed them to use the indoor space thst they own. Seems like a fair trade to meZ
- rahimnathwani 5y ago
  If that were the reason, then: 1. The scheme would be open to all affected businesses (including offices) and not just restaurants. 2. There SF govt would not be trying to make the scheme permanent.
gruez 5y ago
Because the former is sanctioned and the latter isn't. Being sanctioned means it went through an approval process where the residents have representation and can reject the proposal. If restaurants decided to unilaterally annex roads for their own private use they'd get in trouble as well.
hedora 5y ago
This doesn’t have much to do with who owns the land. California won’t allow affordable housing to be built anywhere in the Bay Area. The result is that you get buildings that somehow cost 4-5x more to build than they would elsewhere (even adjusting for seismic costs) and you get dangerous squatter villages, but you get nothing in between.

didibus 5y ago

> my experience has been that most are not locals, despite what surveys say I'm curious what that matters for? States don't have borders no? So it's not like being born in a particular state grants you anything special, I don't think you can deport people from one state to another on grounds of not being born in the state no? > What I do think we can band together to provide is a service that matches those in need with jobs in other locations, along with bridge funding to move locations and get settled in That's a good idea, but are there employees willing to participate in such program? And are all homeless really able too? Lots of them have mental illness or addiction issues that might prevent them from keeping a job or make them unattractive to employers. > The West Coast cities need to enforce the law and protect the interests of actual residents, who legally reside in those cities and pay their fair share of taxes I think this is where the "ideal" breaks appart. Enforcing the law in those case seems to be a dead end. It costs 80k per inmate on average to jail someone in California, which seems like a stupidly high cost solution, and jail doesn't seem to work to deter homelessness. So what else can be done? And that's the million dollar question right here, and nobody has found the sure fire solution yet.