Hacker News Reader

Comment by matt4077 | Hacker News Reader

Being poor isn’t a crime. Many homeless people never commit crimes.

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.

View on HN

Your solution, which has unfortunately become the status quo, is to allow criminals to freely operate in camps in plain view.

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.

If you want people to be arrested for theft and rape, do that. Merely sleeping without a roof over one’s head should never be illegal, and I applaud anyone who fights against it being so, at any level.

~ You want thieves and rapists to freely live on my public pathways.

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.

The rape and thievery would lessen if camping laws were enforced. The vagrants would be pinched for trespass and illegal camping and drugs and whatever else.

I have reconsidered my nomenclature, and because many of these "homeless" have homes, I am going to substitute the word vagrant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com