Santa Cruz made it illegal just to sleep visibly in public in an attempt to criminalize homelessness so they could hide the problem.
Stop demonizing people for not thinking it's "progressive" to let people crap on the streets and shoot up in public. I voted for Bernie, but I live in SF and I see how much money we waste by not addressing the problem directly and in more common sense ways. Just allowing criminals to take over the city and make everyone else feel unsafe is just not fair.
I've mentioned this before on this forum. At one point when I worked in the mission we watched daily a homeless encampment operate a bicycle chop shop in broad daylight from our second-floor lunch room. The police did absolutely nothing until it had been operating for well over a month. They would drive by occasionally, doing nothing more than slowing down, while a pile of stolen bicycles and bicycle parts sat next to the tents covered by nothing more than a tarp. We saw a constant flow of people coming with newly stolen bicycles and leaving with rebuilt permutations presumably to be sold on craigslist. They didn't even try to hide it.
Apparently the police stopped bothering to arrest people for petty crimes because nothing would come of it. The criminals would be immediately released back on the streets.
That has nothing to do with tolerating homelessness and some people living on the streets. We don't need to make homelessness illegal to arrest people operating a bicycle chop shop in broad daylight.
Sometimes I wonder if the city is deliberately neglecting to police crimes being committed in broad daylight independent of homelessness to further an agenda interested in criminalizing homelessness. If they can let things get so bad that everyone conflates homelessness with rampant uncrontrolled crime and destruction of the city, then it becomes much easier to garner support for such laws in a panic.
The police should do their jobs in at least enforcing the existing laws and we should be punishing criminals.
You could clean up the homeless problem in San Francisco pretty easily by simply enforcing laws and incarcerating criminals who happen to also be homeless. It's exceptionally easy when they're operating out in the oppen without even a roof and walls to hide behind.
The police don’t enforce the law because there’s no point and the chief of police tell them no to unless they are a risk to others or themselves. Then there’s no penalty to not pay the fines and even if they don’t show up to court they never get jail time, DAs rarely prosecute (unless violence occurs), juries rarely convict, and even when they do the judges here make it so the consequences are meaningless. I really don’t think it’s the cops who are the problem. Their hands are tied by the incompetent politicians we send to City Hall. Although I really don’t understand why cops don’t walk a beat or do any kind of foot patrols in the worst areas... there’s no excuse for that.
I agree, we need to enforce the law. I’d even go so far as paying another jail in a cheaper area to hold all of the criminals so that they aren’t here where it’s prhobitively expensive. Good luck finding a city that would want to deal with our criminals though.
Would you criminalize someone who’s eternally “backpacking through Europe,” metaphorically speaking?
No one should be forced to live on the streets in a country that has a large multiple of vacant homes per homeless person, but if someone makes a voluntary choice to do so, why stop them, as long as it doesn’t harm public safety? Broadly speaking, you’re allowed to do stupid things in the US, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.
I also don't think that you can group together /transients/ like who you describe and the /tent and tarp settlements/ that are prominent and overwhelming Seattle at this time. These only pronounce and concentrate the sanitary and fire risks, and invariably leave swathes of trash about them.
One of these tent settlements near Pioneer Square was in the middle of the city, not even near the highways, and gained some infamy and even a title name, the 'tent mansion', when it accrued a full keg. It's one thing to say we shouldn't hide problems, another to let a problem run so wild and concentrated that the surrounding area is made useless for other public use in the process.
Once you get someone into a home, it is vastly easier to help them stabilize their other issues (mental health and drug abuse among them). Housing first works, and it’s been proven to work time and again.
I don't think it's that simple. This isn't a fixed constant set of people living on the street that you find homes for and that's the end of the problem.
It's more of a revolving door; there's a constant supply replacing whoever gets off the street.
I think what the article mentioned about Seattle is actually a reasonable approach:
Seattle, meanwhile, has allowed some tent cities to operate as de facto communities —
long-term, regulated, even with phone numbers and addresses.
Then one day a very old rusted camper appeared in front of a house 3 doors down, parked out front. No idea how it got there, and it had no car or truck attached to move it.
About 6 weeks later, a second one in front of the first. Now these were taking about 4-5 spots and the neigbors were running out of places to park.
I inquired with the local police and they told me there was nothing they could do because overnight parking was not illegal in the street and it was not resident permit parking only.
By the time I moved there were 3 or 4 campers along the street at any one time. Of course the windows would always be blocked, and the inhabitants did a good job of never really being seen. Aside from not being able to park in front of my house anymore, there was also quite a bit of associated litter, to say nothing of the stench probably from overflowing holding tanks. It also left me with an uneasy feeling of who these people were and if they posed any risk to my children, or if they might try to break in.
It’s a tragedy of the commons issue, as well as safety, and sanitation. Generally speaking when unknown people with no tie to a community can come and go as they please, it ends badly for the residents of that community.
Currently, there is an SF/Seattle style camp that has sprung up on the entrance into town. The current city council is made up of a majority that sides more with homeless uses than the concerns of others including families. The first 5 (bi weekly) city council meetings of the year have been stuck on what to do with this camp that has sprung up (there were others before it).
The reason this topic has dominated is due to the current council make up. The head of county health is on public record stating that the county hands out between 3 and 600 needles each day for a camp of between 100 and 150 people. This does not account for a "volunteer" group that hands out other needles things like Narcan.
City staff has been working towards "other locations" for "transitional camps". During a recent presentation one of the pro-camp council people is on record asking "as we move people out of the camp to more permanent housing, what happens to those that move in filling those vacancies. In essence, implying he has an expectation to handle every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes through there.
People who have "met with the campers" (including camp members themselves) indicate people don't want services or housing. Specifically the demand is for "a space for a low barrier camp that is private and allows for self-organization within the camp". In otherwords, those that have spoken and (campers and representatives) are demanding something outside what the city and county are wanting to provide.
In reality, the working homeless, those trying to make it (including homeless students) aren't in these camps. They are parking in quiet neighborhoods, camping in areas away from people, etc. I've talked with many at a coffee shop (no longer open) over the last half dozen years.
Many are right to point towards the main issue being drugs and mental illness. (The Seattle Dying Video is spot on). The problem here in Santa Cruz is that most of the "homeless advocates" and the 30+ non-profits (why so many for a city of 60k) addressing "homelessness" are perpetuating the current lifestyle of enablement. There are those that do get help and move up and out.
A recent, newly minted "advocate", is living in an RV and was living near her parent's house in Saratoga. She was requested to moved along and magically landed in Santa Cruz. She is one of those engaging with the camp, but has also made demands on the city that they provide her a space to park safely in her RV. She literally has been in Santa Cruz for less than 6 months. Oh, and has a couple of small children.
Why? The city of Santa Cruz is really good at providing a bunch of freebies to those that want them. It also has a city staff that is pretty incompetent and tends to lose when they get sued. Further, yes they are the county seat, but they have dug themselves a hole over the course of decades and the county is right in not helping the city dig themselves out.
There was even an article recently in SFGate where Berkeley is moving RV dwellers along (Sorry side tangent).
> I've talked with many at a coffee shop (no longer open) over the last half dozen years.
The Perg I presume? I spent many days working from that place with my car parked for free in the adjacent now-pay parking lot.
Santa Cruz has changed a lot in the last ~6 years.
I used to visit regularly from SF, practically every week, when there was still free parking downtown with The Perg and LOGOS used books to patronize. Nowadays there's practically nothing there of interest to me personally, not worth paying parking for, on top of the long drive anyways. The last few times I made the drive down there the high point was the strawberries from Swanton farms en route.
It's more than just an assault on the homeless. The city has transformed quite a bit in general. Much of its hippy/artsy/punk culture has diminished and everything is trying to be more sterile and bourgeoisie IMHO.
LOGOS and The Perg closing marked the end of an era.
The city is in a spiral of it's own creation - lax policies and pretty lax enforcement of violent crime and "hard" drug use (coupled with county policies of no services and releasing them back into the community) are pushing people away from the commercial areas. Residential areas are gentrifying, yes, but with people that are busy somewhere else most of the week (or potentially second homes).
At the same time, a vocal minority is insisting, as I mentioned, on solving all the worlds problems without any expectation of rule of law, decency, etc.
This isn't sustainable.
However, it has engendered a significant non-profit industry base that work towards "solving homeless issues", but there is a lot of overhead, overlap, and little consensus on how to move forward. When there is a request for accountability (for renewal of funding), nearly all of them scream bloody murder because that means rules for them.
It's not a healthy community.