> “I’m sorry sir or madam, but this is some of the most expensive real estate in the entire world, and you may not just pitch a tent here on the sidewalk. If yo

> “I’m sorry sir or madam, but this is some of the most expensive real estate in the entire world, and you may not just pitch a tent here on the sidewalk. If you refuse to remove yourself then we will remove you.” I mean, this is what they do in a lot of cities (albeit not San Francisco), except it’s usually far less polite than this. It’s not uncommon to see LAPD breaking up homeless camps and destroying their possessions (funny how selective property rights are), and it’s not exactly fixed the problem in LA. At best it tends to push them towards cities that’ll not abuse them arbitrarily, at least until the voters in that area vote in a police chief that’ll be “tough on crime” and they’re turned out, repeating the cycle. > Am I wrong to think that enforced removal is necessary to any serious solution? Yes, because it’s what we’ve been trying for about half a century and it has failed miserably. At best it results in us playing hot potato with them between different cities. At worst it involves illegal application of state violence against the poor and powerless. It’s genuinely hard for me to understand how “enforced removal” could possibly be seen as a solution for homelessness. Maybe if your goal is to stop seeing the problem, perhaps. But it’s not exactly a solution; are the homeless going to stop being homeless after you’ve “removed” them? Or are they just going to be dumped somewhere else after getting roughed up by the cops a bit? > If I’m missing another possibility here, then somebody please point it out to me. Note that I’m purposefully leaving out any discussion of where those that are forced to leave should go, which admittedly must be a part of any solution but is not the part that I’m interested in for now. There’s a good reason why I accuse a lot of people of not actually wanting to solve the problem, but rather make it happen out of sight. It’s rare to have someone say it so nakedly though. Maybe you should focus less on where they should go, and more on rehabilitating as many of them as possible back into society? If they had homes in which to secure their possessions, maybe fewer of them would feel the need to camp out on the property you seem so concerned about? Or better yet we can take a look at what policy changes have caused the homeless population to grow and change those, so that fewer of our fellow human beings end up on the street? Just a thought.