Endless enablement will worsen the environment. Criminals should be charged with crimes, not receive free services.
In the interests of not being passive-aggressive, I'm saying that your absolutist approach is a bad idea and in many cases makes things worse.
I do recognise that there are people who prefer a worse outcome, because they want to see people directly punished, and also people who prefer a worse overall outcome if it makes their lives any better at all (effectively offload all the bad outcome onto other people).
Currently, criminals are allowed to live on public pathways and in neighborhood parks.
It's normal to see mountains of feces and needles and water bottle caps.
It's outrageous and absolutely a failure of government.
You could also build centers with toilet facilities for people to live outside if they choose - like campsites, only nicer.
If the people are criminals, the solution is to have better re-integration programs and focus much of the criminal justice system on helping folks instead of being cruel and punishing folks.
You are correct, however, that it is outrageous and an absolute failure of government.
Letting everything else fall apart (libraries, parks, transit, sidewalks, bike paths, etc) as we hold out for this to change doesn't strike me as pragmatism.
Your tough-guy jingoism also just ignores all the evidence that shows that just punishing people at the lowest end of society simply doesn’t work. Send them to jail (which costs more than college) and they don’t get out and say “oh, now I have the skills to get my life back in order”.
Being homeless is terribly uncomfortable and punishing already. Nobody who operates on your simplistic sticks-and-no-carrots approach would ever be homeless in the first place.
I am correct for wanting criminals held responsible for their crimes.
You want thieves and rapists to freely live on my public pathways.
Some homeless I've met say they moved to Portland because the camping laws are not enforced.
Every illegal camper is breaking the law. The local government decided not to enforce the law.
Those are some pretty extreme accusations to make at an umbrella group term such as "Homeless".
If your point of not prosecuting illegal campers is true, how does this relate to "Rapists and Thieves" not facing usual criminal proceedings?
In a personal side note, in many jurisdictions your blanket statements could be seen as incendiary towards a very vulnerable community.
I have reconsidered my nomenclature, and because many of these "homeless" have homes, I am going to substitute the word vagrant.
[0]:Which I agree, it would be better we didn't have to.
That comes to something like $33 per day, or $12,000 per year. A possible solution presents itself: sell camping permits.