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<q> Nobody's building a magical housing and treatment facility for 5,500 people. </q> Yeah, that's the problem; nobody's building it, not because the facility

<q> Nobody's building a magical housing and treatment facility for 5,500 people. </q> Yeah, that's the problem; nobody's building it, not because the facility is impossible to build or run, but because it would require the political will to compel anyone arrested on multiple counts of vagrancy to be held there on the condition of accepting some form of treatment or further counseling. It is not magic; the tent city phenomena is not a permanent fixture of big west coast cities.

vkou 5y ago
> Yeah, that's the problem; nobody's building it, not because the facility is impossible to build or run, but because it would require the political will to compel anyone arrested on multiple counts of vagrancy to be held there on the condition of accepting some form of treatment or further counseling. Nonsense. It's not being built because city voters (and, more importantly, city businesses like Amazon) like their money more than they like not seeing tent camps. Complaining on AM radio about tent camps is free, fixing the problem is expensive. You're attacking some weird progressive boogieman, when progressives aren't the ones winning city elections, or in control of the council. The winners of the most recent one are all status quo corporate candidates, who have zero qualms about fucking with homeless people (hence the re-introduction of the sweeps), but have every qualm about actually spending money on solving homelessness. Musical chair sweeps are cheap, solutions are expensive. The political will to do something is there, it's just not the political will to do anything useful. You can't with a straight face blame progressives and bleeding hearts for not solving the problem, when they aren't the ones running the town. > I don't think compelling longterm vagrants to accept mandatory psychiatric and drug treatment in a secure facility under state custodial care is criminalizing poverty. > but because it would require the political will to compel anyone arrested on multiple counts of vagrancy ... So, hold on, let me get the record straight, is poverty and/or mental illness a crime or not? You seem to flip-flop on this from one post to the other.
- linksnapzz 5y ago
  <q>It's not being built because city voters (and, more importantly, city businesses like Amazon) like their money more than they like not seeing tent camps.</q> I think that the burden ought to fall not only on King County voters, but on the WA & Fed. gov't to an extent. My cursory feeling is that my good progressive friends in Seattle would be happy to pay a tax increase, if that were to translate into a guaranteed significant reduction in misery. <q>You're attacking some weird progressive boogieman</q> Sorry, no. Well, not this time. The failing in this case is that there's no guarantee that anyone would remain in such a facility against their will, given that neither being an addict nor insane is enough to keep someone in jail in and of itself. <q>you state that homelessness is not a crime, but in this one, you state that it is.</q> I'm comfortable with the first two instances of sleeping rough or public drug use being misdemeanors; after that-you've gotta go.
  - vkou 5y ago
    > I think that the burden ought to fall not only on King County voters, but on the WA & Fed. gov't to an extent. I mean, yes, it's obviously unsustainable for the rest of the state/country to dump all its problems onto a few coastal cities. But lack of state/federal support is not a problem that KC can solve anytime soon. It can only push on the parts that it can solve. > The failing in this case is that there's no guarantee that anyone would remain in such a facility against their will, We're talking past eachother, here. It sounds like you're saying there's no point to building facilities because we don't want to compel people to live in them. I'm saying that it's unconscionable to compel people to live in facilities that, well, don't exist. I postulate that if facilities existed, a lot of people who oppose criminalizing homelessness as of 2022 would find mandating them a reasonable compromise... If the facilities were actually better for homeless people than tent cities. It's a very low bar that we are currently failing to meet.

vkou 5y ago

> Yeah, that's the problem; nobody's building it, not because the facility is impossible to build or run, but because it would require the political will to compel anyone arrested on multiple counts of vagrancy to be held there on the condition of accepting some form of treatment or further counseling. Nonsense. It's not being built because city voters (and, more importantly, city businesses like Amazon) like their money more than they like not seeing tent camps. Complaining on AM radio about tent camps is free, fixing the problem is expensive. You're attacking some weird progressive boogieman, when progressives aren't the ones winning city elections, or in control of the council. The winners of the most recent one are all status quo corporate candidates, who have zero qualms about fucking with homeless people (hence the re-introduction of the sweeps), but have every qualm about actually spending money on solving homelessness. Musical chair sweeps are cheap, solutions are expensive. The political will to do something is there, it's just not the political will to do anything useful. You can't with a straight face blame progressives and bleeding hearts for not solving the problem, when they aren't the ones running the town. > I don't think compelling longterm vagrants to accept mandatory psychiatric and drug treatment in a secure facility under state custodial care is criminalizing poverty. > but because it would require the political will to compel anyone arrested on multiple counts of vagrancy ... So, hold on, let me get the record straight, is poverty and/or mental illness a crime or not? You seem to flip-flop on this from one post to the other.

linksnapzz 5y ago
<q>It's not being built because city voters (and, more importantly, city businesses like Amazon) like their money more than they like not seeing tent camps.</q> I think that the burden ought to fall not only on King County voters, but on the WA & Fed. gov't to an extent. My cursory feeling is that my good progressive friends in Seattle would be happy to pay a tax increase, if that were to translate into a guaranteed significant reduction in misery. <q>You're attacking some weird progressive boogieman</q> Sorry, no. Well, not this time. The failing in this case is that there's no guarantee that anyone would remain in such a facility against their will, given that neither being an addict nor insane is enough to keep someone in jail in and of itself. <q>you state that homelessness is not a crime, but in this one, you state that it is.</q> I'm comfortable with the first two instances of sleeping rough or public drug use being misdemeanors; after that-you've gotta go.
- vkou 5y ago
  > I think that the burden ought to fall not only on King County voters, but on the WA & Fed. gov't to an extent. I mean, yes, it's obviously unsustainable for the rest of the state/country to dump all its problems onto a few coastal cities. But lack of state/federal support is not a problem that KC can solve anytime soon. It can only push on the parts that it can solve. > The failing in this case is that there's no guarantee that anyone would remain in such a facility against their will, We're talking past eachother, here. It sounds like you're saying there's no point to building facilities because we don't want to compel people to live in them. I'm saying that it's unconscionable to compel people to live in facilities that, well, don't exist. I postulate that if facilities existed, a lot of people who oppose criminalizing homelessness as of 2022 would find mandating them a reasonable compromise... If the facilities were actually better for homeless people than tent cities. It's a very low bar that we are currently failing to meet.