The scenes were emblematic of the crisis gripping the small, Oregon mountain town of Grants Pass, where a fierce fight over park space has become a battleground for a much larger, national debate on homelessness that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
The town’s case, set to be heard April 22, has broad implications for how not only Grants Pass, but communities nationwide address homelessness, including whether they can fine or jail people for camping in public. It has made the town of 40,000 the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis, and further fueled the debate over how to deal with it.
“I certainly wish this wasn’t what my town was known for,” Mayor Sara Bristol told The Associated Press last month. “It’s not the reason why I became mayor. And yet it has dominated every single thing that I’ve done for the last 3 1/2 years.”
Officials across the political spectrum — from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, which has nearly 30% of the nation’s homeless population, to a group of 22 conservative-led states — have filed briefs in the case, saying lower court rulings have hamstrung their ability to deal with encampments.
What the fuck? They’re homeless. Sleeping outside is their only option. Shelters are often dangerous, very restrictive on who they let in and there aren’t anywhere near enough of them in the places they need to be.
Sleeping in public places isn’t a fucking crime. It’s not like they’d choose the park over an apartment if they had one.
Yes, but if it’s criminalized you get to remove the eyesore of struggling poor people with the added benefit of fines and imprisonment.
Also prisoners are slave labor thanks to the 13th amendment so if you can take people off the street and chuck them in jail, you get free labor. Yay capitalism. /s
How effective do they expect fining homeless people to be?
Extremely effective. It’s not about housing them…
Can’t pay the fine, believe it or not, jail.
Also a lot of them are ran by Christians. Can’t imagine they treat gay people equally
Not to mention you get kicked out of the shelter in the morning and can’t return until the evening, assuming you’re back in time to get a bed.
It’s tricky, because allowing it to happen creates massive public health and environmental disasters:
These aren’t the “oh, poor innocent homeless, down on their luck” portrayed by advocates, they are drug addicts and thieves, leeching off society, and actively making life worse for themselves and everyone else.
Studies show the majority of homeless people have jobs. Furthermore they didn’t have one big reason for going homeless. They just couldn’t afford housing and eventually they are unable to pay. People report sliding into homelessness over the course of years as the cost of housing kept rising without pay rising.
Trying to depict all homeless people as junkies is disingenuous at best.
That was the estimate from the University of Chicago in 2021 which has since been actively been disproven by point in time counts of actual homeless people.
The Chicago stat:
https://endhomelessness.org/blog/employed-and-experiencing-homelessness-what-the-numbers-show/
“53% of people living in homeless shelters and 40% of unsheltered people were employed, either full or part-time, in the year that people were observed homeless between 2011 – 2018.”
The reality is almost the exact opposite:
https://socialinnovation.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Homelessness-and-Employment.pdf
“According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s (LAHSA) 2019 Adult Demographic Survey, over 50% of single adults (24 and older) experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Los Angeles County are unemployed (LAHSA, 2019a). Of those unemployed, approximately half reported that they are actively looking for work. The same survey found that 49% of unsheltered adults in family units are unemployed, but a much higher percentage of them (36%) are actively looking for work than single adults. Additionally, 46% of unsheltered adults cited unemployment or a financial reason as a primary reason why they are homeless (LAHSA, 2019a).”
And:
“According to the same survey, about 20% of single adults experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Los Angeles County are working, including full-time, part-time, seasonal, and self-employment compared to about 32% of unsheltered adults in family units (LAHSA, 2019a). Not only are people experiencing homelessness employed at low rates, but evidence shows that those who are employed report very low annual earnings (California Policy Lab, 2020). In Los Angeles County, employed people experiencing homelessness earned an average of just under $10,000 in the year prior to experiencing homelessness (California Policy Lab, 2020).”
So first of all, you’re comparing two different regions. Second 51 percent of people in the document you linked have an income and 36 percent are seeking work. Third, you should really read their myths document. It pretty clearly refutes all of your claims.
While employment helps people stay housed, it does not guarantee housing. As many as 40%-60% of people experiencing homelessness have a job, but housing is unaffordable because wages have not kept up with rising rents. There is no county or state where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest apartment. At minimum wage, people have to work 86 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom. Even when people can afford a home, one is not always available. In 1970, the United States had a surplus of 300,000 affordable homes. Today, only 37 affordable homes are available for every 100 extremely low-income renters. As a result, 70% of the lowest-wage households spend more than half their income on rent, placing them at high risk of homelessness when unexpected expenses (such as car repairs and medical bills) arise. Source
Perhaps if they had housing and sufficient social nets so they didn’t have to steal to eat and places they could get managed drug doses (you can’t just quit, especially without resources) then this wouldn’t be a problem.
It’s not like people choose to be problems and homeless. Almost all Americans are one or two bad turns away from joining them.
A fine on existing.
I didn’t think they’d actually start setting up Sanctuary Districts in 2024, but it looks like that’s their eventual goal…
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bell_Riots
Too bad we don’t have a Gabriel Bell.
Open up the governor’s mansion so they can sleep indoors
With this lineup, the SC is going to make execution the punishment for not having gainful employment. Only half sarcastic.
Sounds like we’re running out of orphans for the orphan-crushing machine.
Oh no they still work. They just can’t afford to live in a building.
You can be sure that these jailed homeless people will end up being forced into labor - enslaved - because you can’t let dirt-cheap labor go to waste, and you can’t let a poor person look like they’re getting something for nothing - mooching, free-riding - even if it’s not their choice. Handouts are legitimately only for the rich and their corporations after all. If someone’s fined+jailed and won’t work for some capitalist exploiter, what will be done? I would guess some kind of torture will be employed to change their minds, but wouldn’t be surprised if they’re simply executed, especially if they’re non-white.
You have an outlandish view of county jail in the US. None of that shit happens.
Yeah, you’re right, they’ll just tied you down and torture you for fun.
That’s a strawman argument. She wasn’t tortured to make her work, she was tortured by a sadist.
You’re right. Clearly our jail and prison industry is entirely above board
Our jails and prisons are fucked up but OP made some VERY outlandish claims
Look, you haven’t made any real argument here, so I was just following your lead. If you insist that I prove you wrong, here you go: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4228271
Yeah, that paper that famously pointed out that county corrections inmates are required to maintain the cleanliness of their living space.
Fines will teach those people who have no money to get more money.
The federal government needs to take over homeless support. Establish federally managed shelters.
HUD could do a lot by just literally buying buildings or developing new projects and renting them for just enough to cover costs. Put an anchor into the real estate markets.
And impose property taxes on rich people to pay for it. Allow those same taxpayers to vote to.have that tax go to permanent housing for the homeless in their zip code and such a vote is also consent to override all local laws in the process and make it lawsuit immune
I’m wary about this being the solution. I mean… [Gestures wildly at the federal government] Just wait until the republicans get a supermajority again and see what they do with camps full of homeless people under federal control.
Yeah, but giving the homeless bus tickets to another state isn’t the answer either. I know that wasn’t referenced earlier- but it happens. Without federal level support, Republicans’ solution is to remove their burdens to someone else’s plate. Then they unironically point at the “failures” of Democratic states, “look at all the encampments.”
Making homelessness illegal is just another arrow in their quiver towards the same goal (target).
Clearly, we need more space tourism.
It’s getting to the point that you can’t sleep anywhere legally unless you’re paying someone for the space you’re occupying. Most of the cities near me have destroyed the woods that homeless people lived in, forcing them to move and leaving behind a weird ass looking stand of trees.
I used to work with homeless people and as much as being outside sucks, shelters can be worse. We had people in their 70s who went to shelters and slept on the floor, their heads almost touching their neighbors. They had their meds stolen and had to sleep on top of their belongings to keep them safe. A lot of people chose to sleep outside in the summer because they felt safer.
I can’t speak for Oregon, but here in California the problem is that we have a LOT of beds that are not being used. And cities and states can’t force people into shelter and care if the area doesn’t have enough beds for everyone that is unhoused.
The ask is to be able to shelter some people with the beds that are available. Right now CA is forced to wait until it could theoretically give every unhoused person a shelter bed at once.
If the shelters aren’t being used then maybe ask why they aren’t being used instead of trying to force people into them.
Safety, hygiene, and convenience are often reasons why many people opt for a tent over the local shelter.
So it seems like a better idea then would be highly subsidized tiny houses/apartments.
That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard so I 100% believe the government would be stuck on exactly that.
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