> Taking a public asset and reserving it for exclusive use by certain individuals is not right Letting people freeze to death is not right either. This a mat

> Taking a public asset and reserving it for exclusive use by certain individuals is not right Letting people freeze to death is not right either. This a matter of choosing "least bad" of the short term options. There are no correct options in the short term. There are long term correct options, but they are very expensive. > Furthermore, as we've seen time and time again, this is a shortsighted, temporary alleviation that ultimately dooms a neighborhood. Both petty and violent crime increase overnight, vandalism on surrounding properties skyrocket, the places are littered with trash that ends up in the ocean, property values drop, and are ultimately boarded up until the encampment moves somewhere else and the cycle repeats. As noted in the article, according to judicial precedence the city has to either 1) provide shelter or 2) allow encampments. Since they cannot do the former in the short term the best they can do is to set up a structure that allows them to choose where the encampments go that does the least harm and the harm that does occur can be mitigated. > If the city wants to help, the best thing they can do is listen to local charities, outreaches, churches, etc and clear the regulatory path for them. Knowing Maritimers, I'm fairly confident they're already doing this.