Comment by websites420 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by websites420 | Hacker News Reader

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>ultimately it is an illegal annexation of public land that belongs to the taxpayers and has other intended uses (even if that use is just greenspace or empty land).

This is exactly how I feel seeing the homeless camps in Austin. Primarily, the first question I had was: what happens when one homeless person wants to spot of another? Neither has a legal right to it; are we not encouraging interpersonal violence by refusing to enforce the property laws that separate us from the state of nature?

>my experience has been that most are not locals, despite what surveys say, because the surveys always rely on volunteered answers about origins, rather than proven identity

Right. Why would anyone tell a volunteer they're from out of town? Seems like the first rule of being homeless: get a story that appeals to people. "Born here and down on my luck" is much more compelling than "Where I came from is worse than this place so I hopped a ride here."

Basically, we can spend all the money in the world and build all the housing that people need, but the personal liberty that this country espouses -- personal liberty I agree with! -- means that no one is obligated to take it. There is already a myriad of excuses I hear in these threads for why the homeless don't go to the shelters, participate in the programs, etc. "They don't allow my dog." "They would make be get sober", etc. Until we accept that there is a significant population of unhoused that prefer it that way, and then decided what we want to do about that, all the little villages and things won't scratch the surface of the problem.

> are we not encouraging interpersonal violence by refusing to enforce the property laws that separate us from the state of nature?

The tradeoff is that we definitely have to use violence to evict people from these spaces and force them back onto the streets or into other open spaces. And with fewer places to camp, they'll likely be exposed to more physical disputes than before. It's not as if the residents of these camps will go "well, time to buy a condo". They'll still need somewhere to live.

> Basically, we can spend all the money in the world and build all the housing that people need, but the personal liberty that this country espouses -- personal liberty I agree with! -- means that no one is obligated to take it.

The east bay has hundreds of people on a waiting list just for shelter space. There aren't enough beds for the night, let alone supportive housing, so we haven't even come close to trying the "build all the houses that these people need" (and make they available) strategy.

EDIT: FWIW I learned about the waitlist problem while listening to this podcast: https://99percentinvisible.org/need/

>The east bay has hundreds of people on a waiting list just for shelter space. There aren't enough beds for the night, let alone supportive housing, so we haven't even come close to trying the "build all the houses that these people need" (and make they available) strategy.

That's because people come from all over the country, since the bay area is homeless friendly. The best solution is to make project room key permanent.

>EDIT: FWIW I learned about the waitlist problem while listening to this podcast: https://99percentinvisible.org/need/

I listened to that too, and in the final episode, you hear exactly what I'm talking about. In the interview with K.C., the narrator mentions that she had been in a shelter, but they didn't allow dogs and she didn't like the lack of privacy. Some people won't take the help you give them, and not preferring the solutions offered doesn't give you an absolute right to public land.

Simple solution is enforce the law.Remove the housing and charge those who build or assist in building on public land with a criminal offense - same as would happen to anyone else who illegally builds on public lands.

It's past ridiculous that this behaviour is applauded and endorsed by elected officials.

There are no simple solutions here. I do believe the homeless ought to be assigned housing by making California’s Project Room Key permanent and national. If you can prove some connection to the location where you’re sleeping rough, you get first crack at local housing. Otherwise it’s back to where you have that connection — could even be where you were born.

These motels will be slums. There will be prostitutes, and drug dealers, and crime. But it will also be a central location for service outreach without the prerequisites of other places.

>These motels will be slums. There will be prostitutes, and drug dealers, and crime.

sounds like a refugee camp to me.

There are simple solutions here, but they’re not politically tenable:

- Roll back the changes that gutted mental health care in California.

- Modify the planning process, codes and zoning so people can build houses.

What is the reasoning for giving them a criminal offense? Not “because they broke the law” but like, what are we hoping to get out of sending them to jail/giving them a fine? That they choose to stop being homeless? That being in jail makes them not homeless anymore?

I think it’s a fools errand to jail homeless people. It seems like a waste of money to me but I don’t have a better solution or idea on how to spend my tax dollars so am really interested in hearing more on the positive side of jailing them.

>what are we hoping to get out of sending them to jail/giving them a fine?

disincentivizing them and/or others from doing the same? As GP argued they're basically annexing public land for their own use.

My anecdote is that people that are homeless are not really disincentivized by these things. They’re shitting in the street and sleeping in an underpass. I don’t think three hots and a cot is really an issue they want to avoid with any serious meaning.

Similarly, any fine will not get paid because, how would it?

I think we might disincentivize the “hippies” that are choosing to be homeless and care about these things. For sure that is possible. Do we think that the % of people that are choosing that lifestyle is high enough that it will be cost effective to tax payers? I don’t think so but it’s definitely something to look into more closely.

Putting them in jail prevents them from doing things that the taxpayers don't like: building fires under overpasses, leaving needles and human waste in the streets, harassing passersby, etc. It also puts them in contact with social services, in some cases.

It's not a perfect solution, or even a good one. We can and should develop a more compassionate alternative.

Ah, so it’s not about directly a consequence to them for their actions but a way to appease people/clean up where tax payers live? I disagree that’s a good move but it makes sense that we would need to do something similar.

> It's not a perfect solution, or even a good one. We can and should develop a more compassionate alternative.

I'm guessing you don't see providing cheap shelter in empty areas that have no other good use (like a highway underpass) as a more compassionate alternative then?

Jail costs 80k a year per prisoner in California on average. That's a hell of a lot of money, and it clearly doesn't work to keep people from being homeless.

I think a more compassionate alternative really just is a cheaper shelter for homeless than what Jail costs us, and programs that actually show some level of success at reentrance into society.

I'd be willing to change my tune if good data showed that Jails were both cost effective, and actually acted as a deterrent for homelessness, and was a good pathway to reentrance, but everything I looked at seems to indicate it's terrible at all of these, and ends up just being a very expensive shelter.

> a criminal offense - same as would happen to anyone else who illegally builds on public lands

Are you sure this is the case? Any lawyer out here?

Is building on public land a criminal offence? What kind of penalty can you be looking at for doing so?

I assume this must often happen where one building potentially extends slightly beyond it's lot lines, so could you get criminally charged in those cases?

If you build over your lot lines, or build more than allowed by a conservation agreement, or build without securing permits, or violate local building laws in any number of other ways, your local government (when they find out) will ask you to tear it down. If you don’t, you will be compelled (fines, probably). If you refuse, your structure will be torn down, and you might go to jail.

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