7 ms·

What about going to a homeless shelter, or to a municipality that does allow homeless encampments?

by PessimalDecimal 2y ago

squidbeak 2y ago
Homeless people don't tend to have the mobility you imagine.
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  There is a charity run homeless shelter in the town where they were camping on public grounds.
  - jjk166 2y ago
    Which requires people staying there to attend religious services.
    - IncreasePosts 2y ago
      The horror. They can just go and...not pay attention? Just like most people who attend religious services.
      - jjk166 2y ago
        Go to church or go to jail is not a choice we force people to make in this country.
        IncreasePosts 2y ago
        It's not "church or jail". The shelter is just one option. They could also crash on a friend's couch, or go somewhere with a shelter that doesn't require religious service.
        jjk166 2y ago
        Or they could just stop being poor and buy a mansion. No one is sleeping outside because they don't want to sleep on a friend's couch. It's a government ultimatum to force people to attend religious services, plain and simple.
        IncreasePosts 2y ago
        No, it's an ultimatum to not turn places intended for the public into your personal campsite. Even if your circumstances are bad.
        jjk166 2y ago
        That's not what the word ultimatum means, and they are the public.
        IncreasePosts 2y ago
        Yes. It is what ultimatum means, because they can no longer flout the law without punishment. They are "members of the public". That doesn't mean they can unilaterally dictate the laws of society. If they were "the public", then they could just change the law. I wonder why they can't? Because most people don't want anyone setting up their household in a public park.
        jjk166 2y ago
        They weren't unilaterally dictating the laws of society, until 5 hours ago it was the US constitution which said this was the law in this country. 6 people unilaterally dictated the new law of society that enables the mob to ignore the rights of the few. Enjoy your park.
        IncreasePosts 2y ago
        Believe it or not, but the legitimacy of our institutions aren't in question after a ruling you dislike. And I will enjoy my park. Maybe the rate at which I have been hearing stories about children getting pricked with dirty needles will lessen with this ruling.
  - wolrah 2y ago
    > There is a charity run homeless shelter in the town where they were camping on public grounds. That "charity" is a religious organization which requires all residents to abide by strict "Christian values" including immediate abstinence from all drugs (even nicotine) and sex, attendance to multiple daily sermons, etc. while also working for the organization. The group filed a brief with the court arguing for the ruling we got, stating that people were choosing to camp on the streets instead of go to the shelter as if that weren't an indictment of their offering that they believe a significant portion of their residents were only there because they would otherwise be arrested and not because it was actually a better choice than being on the street.
tumult 2y ago
Article: "The homeless residents said those penalties violated the Eighth Amendment of the US constitution because the city did not have any public shelters."
Xylakant 2y ago
What if just all municipalities forbid homeless encampments? The result of this will be a race to the bottom, as more and more municipalities ban homeless camps, the negative effects will concentrate on fewer and fewer municipalities, making the issue worse and worse. This will in turn drive them to forbid camps as well.
- ydnaclementine 2y ago
  > as more and more municipalities ban homeless camps if that's a possible endgame, the law should have been to ban being homeless
- 0xcafefood 2y ago
  This seems like a slippery-slope argument.
- crooked-v 2y ago
  Of course, eventually that will lead to a growing number of people just giving up and either accumulating tickets they will never be able to pay or actively draining city money by spending every other day in jail (which also happens to be temperature-controlled and have free food).
- Supermancho 2y ago
  > What if just all municipalities forbid homeless encampments? If all municipalities did this instantly and provided transportation to the homeless - either unincorporated parts of a state, or jail, most would choose jail. Nobody wants to try to survive in the wilderness.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    You might not, but nobody? There are those that do. There are even TV shows, multiple reality shows for watching people do just that. It’s not easy living for sure but getting a cabin out in the woods and trying to live off the land is totally a thing people do. For a real world example, you don’t go to the woods outside of Seattle because there are unhoused people living there and it's dangerous to go there.
crooked-v 2y ago
There aren't even nearly enough homeless shelters. That holds the same basically everywhere in the US with a significant homeless population, except for those specific locations with a right to shelter law, like NYC.
tedivm 2y ago
Before this case went to the supreme court, if a city offered someone on the street access to a homeless shelter then they were allowed to force the person to move. It was only when the city did not have shelter space that they were no longer allowed to criminalize the person for existing on public property. Now the city doesn't even have to offer bed space.
gopher_space 2y ago
The shelters are full and other areas are in the same situation. When you see people living on the street that means the system is overloaded. The "visible" homeless are the tip of an enormous iceberg.

What about going to a homeless shelter, or to a municipality that does allow homeless encampments?

squidbeak 2y ago

Homeless people don't tend to have the mobility you imagine.

IncreasePosts 2y ago
There is a charity run homeless shelter in the town where they were camping on public grounds.
- jjk166 2y ago
  Which requires people staying there to attend religious services.
  - IncreasePosts 2y ago
    The horror. They can just go and...not pay attention? Just like most people who attend religious services.
    - jjk166 2y ago
      Go to church or go to jail is not a choice we force people to make in this country.
      - IncreasePosts 2y ago
        It's not "church or jail". The shelter is just one option. They could also crash on a friend's couch, or go somewhere with a shelter that doesn't require religious service.
        jjk166 2y ago
        Or they could just stop being poor and buy a mansion. No one is sleeping outside because they don't want to sleep on a friend's couch. It's a government ultimatum to force people to attend religious services, plain and simple.
        IncreasePosts 2y ago
        No, it's an ultimatum to not turn places intended for the public into your personal campsite. Even if your circumstances are bad.
        jjk166 2y ago
        That's not what the word ultimatum means, and they are the public.
        IncreasePosts 2y ago
        Yes. It is what ultimatum means, because they can no longer flout the law without punishment. They are "members of the public". That doesn't mean they can unilaterally dictate the laws of society. If they were "the public", then they could just change the law. I wonder why they can't? Because most people don't want anyone setting up their household in a public park.
        jjk166 2y ago
        They weren't unilaterally dictating the laws of society, until 5 hours ago it was the US constitution which said this was the law in this country. 6 people unilaterally dictated the new law of society that enables the mob to ignore the rights of the few. Enjoy your park.
        IncreasePosts 2y ago
        Believe it or not, but the legitimacy of our institutions aren't in question after a ruling you dislike. And I will enjoy my park. Maybe the rate at which I have been hearing stories about children getting pricked with dirty needles will lessen with this ruling.
- wolrah 2y ago
  > There is a charity run homeless shelter in the town where they were camping on public grounds. That "charity" is a religious organization which requires all residents to abide by strict "Christian values" including immediate abstinence from all drugs (even nicotine) and sex, attendance to multiple daily sermons, etc. while also working for the organization. The group filed a brief with the court arguing for the ruling we got, stating that people were choosing to camp on the streets instead of go to the shelter as if that weren't an indictment of their offering that they believe a significant portion of their residents were only there because they would otherwise be arrested and not because it was actually a better choice than being on the street.

tumult 2y ago

Article: "The homeless residents said those penalties violated the Eighth Amendment of the US constitution because the city did not have any public shelters."

Xylakant 2y ago

What if just all municipalities forbid homeless encampments? The result of this will be a race to the bottom, as more and more municipalities ban homeless camps, the negative effects will concentrate on fewer and fewer municipalities, making the issue worse and worse. This will in turn drive them to forbid camps as well.

ydnaclementine 2y ago
> as more and more municipalities ban homeless camps if that's a possible endgame, the law should have been to ban being homeless
0xcafefood 2y ago
This seems like a slippery-slope argument.
crooked-v 2y ago
Of course, eventually that will lead to a growing number of people just giving up and either accumulating tickets they will never be able to pay or actively draining city money by spending every other day in jail (which also happens to be temperature-controlled and have free food).
Supermancho 2y ago
> What if just all municipalities forbid homeless encampments? If all municipalities did this instantly and provided transportation to the homeless - either unincorporated parts of a state, or jail, most would choose jail. Nobody wants to try to survive in the wilderness.
- fragmede 2y ago
  You might not, but nobody? There are those that do. There are even TV shows, multiple reality shows for watching people do just that. It’s not easy living for sure but getting a cabin out in the woods and trying to live off the land is totally a thing people do. For a real world example, you don’t go to the woods outside of Seattle because there are unhoused people living there and it's dangerous to go there.

crooked-v 2y ago

There aren't even nearly enough homeless shelters. That holds the same basically everywhere in the US with a significant homeless population, except for those specific locations with a right to shelter law, like NYC.

tedivm 2y ago

Before this case went to the supreme court, if a city offered someone on the street access to a homeless shelter then they were allowed to force the person to move. It was only when the city did not have shelter space that they were no longer allowed to criminalize the person for existing on public property. Now the city doesn't even have to offer bed space.

gopher_space 2y ago

The shelters are full and other areas are in the same situation. When you see people living on the street that means the system is overloaded. The "visible" homeless are the tip of an enormous iceberg.