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Comment by Bratmon | Hacker News Reader

> I do not live in one of the cities that have issues with a large homeless population, so the experience is a bit lost on me

That's the key experience you're missing. If you've never lived in a high-homeless/drug abuse area, you don't really understand how thoroughly draining it is on every aspect of civic life.

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I recognize that I'm missing that part of the context, but it still surprises me that the answer to that is relatively global surveillance. In the current state of things, homelessness is perfectly public and observable, right? And so at any point now, the proposed "enforcement" could take place without the need for cameras? I think that part is unclear to me as well, the problem that exists that this solves.

Yes. It solves the "surveillance tech company needs to make quarterly goals" problem, and the "politician needs to look like they are doing something about crime" problem.

Well, there are two ways to reduce homelessness: enforce vagrancy laws directly or wait for homeless people to commit a second crime and arrest them for that.

Some American cities have the state capacity necessary to do the former option, but the rest are stuck with the latter. And the latter only works if you can get evidence for low-level crimes when they happen.

I live in DC and do not wish for human rights violations against these people because they bother me. I understand how draining it is but IMO forcing us all into a surveillance state because of "undesirables" is the laziest way to solve this problem.

So the answer to a problem the police and authorities already know about is a surveillance state for everyone? How are ever more cameras going to fix the drug abuse/homlessness problem?

Well why not fix it then?!

Except you don't fix homelessness by charging all the homeless people with felonies for engaging in their hobbies (weed smoking) - you do it by working out why the housing economy is so dogshit that so many people can't get one.

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