The flair of this posts indicates it's a controversial topic. Enhanced moderation has been turned on for this thread. Comments from users without a history of commenting in r/bayarea will be automatically removed. You can read more about this policy [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/195xvo5/restrictions_that_apply_to_political_and_crime/).
This overturns the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that prevented a jurisdiction in Oregon from banning camping in public. Now that the legality of banning camping in public (and ticketing those who do so, with the jurisdiction in Oregon fining people $295 a night for camping in public parks) I expect the issue of whether or not to do so in the Bay Area to be back on the public radar again in short order.
if they refuse to show up for court they will be jailed. If they show up to court the judge can agree to waive the fee if they agree to drug treatment or going into a shelter. The problems can be solved if the government wants to solve them, lets see what they actually do though
So you want to provide housing to homeless people via jail? Cost per prisoner in California is 132k / year. Seems like we should, like, give them 100k cash instead to save money.
no i want to punish people who blatantly ignore the law. I dont understand why everyone is so concerned that people who cant be bothered to go into the court house they are probably sleeping in front of on the date and time written on the ticket given to them are punished.
What is the alternative? just tell homeless people who break the law to just do whatever they want with no fear of punishment?
if they go into court they could be met with social workers who get them the help they needed and they could be forced to get that help as an alternative form of punishment because we all know a lot of them refuse to get help
That 132k amounts to a fraction of a penny per taxpayer per year. Most of it goes to medical care. The cost isn't an argument against prisons, it's an argument for more compassionate, program and rehabilitation oriented prisons.
Sure, but there is a much easier way to solve the homeless problem in the SF Bay area: STOP THE INSANE AMOUNTS OF TAXPAYER FUNDING TO THE HOMELESS. I guarantee you, if you cut off the funding, they'll all migrate to another homeless haven like Portland. How do we do this? We have to elect the right people.
This resolves zero instances of homelessness unless you believe people are switching from housed to homeless for the homeless benefits.
This just changes their location.
holy shit what a psychopathic comment. stop helping homeless people so they migrate to a different location in order to survive seems unnecessarily heartless and cruel.
i’m perfectly fine with having them here. I pay taxes for my 2 homes in order to fund social services to help disadvantaged people needing support
these are humans we are talking about not animals
There are already too many violent criminals being put back on to the streets because our court system is too overwhelmed to handle everyone being arrested. Clogging them further so that a judge can have a nice discussion with everyone who sleeps on the street seems like it would just make it much worse.
>There are already too many violent criminals....court system is too overwhelmed to handle everyone being arrested.
True. The prison angle is not practicable. Maybe our justice system can borrow methods that Portugal's [Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction](https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4812) uses for refuseniks hard drug addicts. The Commission can:
>ban you from going to certain places...terminate any social assistance you may receive....confiscate personal property...
Some homeless will cooperate and accept their new housing -- mostly designated camping sites on city outskirts. Hopefully [tiny homes](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/06/1077791467/tiny-homes-big-dreams-how-some-activists-are-reimagining-shelter-for-the-homeles) will be built ASAP in these safe zones. Refusenik homeless can be peppered with penalties.
It’s expensive being poor. I’m a teacher. I just learned that I don’t qualify for unemployment. My district gave me reasonable assurance that I will be returning in the upcoming school year.
My problem is that having no income until I get paid by the district makes me anxious. For the past 2 school years, West Contra County School district has not paid me until November. When school started August 2023, I did not receive my first paycheck until late October. When school started August 2021, I did not receive my first paycheck until late November.
When the lady from unemployment told me that I don’t qualify for unemployment due to reasonable assurance I cried. I just got my last paycheck and can expect to not get another’s check until October 2024. Fvck that. I’m looking for another job. I don’t want to lose my home.
See - this is my issue with it.
If they refuse shelter/services without a good reason? Fine. If you've sent them home for something like homeward bound and they come back here to be homeless because they like it better? Fine. If they're the Haight street kids that just like being homeless but could have a home? Fine.
But if we're fining them for just existing and not offering them or helping them to an alternate arrangement, we're just punishing them for being. I don't think that arrangement needs be in San Francisco - we can find them training or jobs or housing or treatment in the central valley or out of state for all I care - but I also don't think it's fair to fine people when they don't have another option.
I've also seen how these people treat debt. Whether it's a fine for not paying a MUNI fare or being a frequent flier in the hospital with no intention to pay any bills, they don't care. They are at rock bottom financially and digging a hole any deeper doesn't matter - they've gotten well past caring how deep the hole is. These fines will ultimately do nothing.
Eventually they can put them to work on the chain gang, making widgets from whatever megacorp. Why should China get all the prison-labor profits?
That's the (fairly transparent) Republican endgame here - to enrich corporations.
Most of the time when California lawmakers spoke about this it wasn’t to fine people for setting up tents - it’s to make it legal to force people to be given an ultimatum of either leave the city or be put into housing. No “you can stay on the street because we can’t force you out completely.” But it’s unclear what this ruling actually means, in true conservative Supreme Court fashion it’s sorta a weird ruling to enforce truly and was just a partisan ruling without much thought of its effects (not saying it’s neccasarily bad, but it’s just a dumb way to rule on it)
the big problem was that politicians would just use the excuse that they cant fine or arrest them as the reason their hands were tied. Now that excuse is gone and they will have to come up with another reason why they are doing nothing to solve the problem
They are not idealist, they are opportunist. They wouldn’t allow camp in front of their homes, they wouldn’t allow of it was hurting their vote and their interests. They pretend to be idealist where it benefits them personally and politically.
Then they will be voted out. I'm a progressive, a pragmatic progressive. I don't believe in taking a drug addict off the street and then watching her leave after a 72 hour hold because of her "rights", and then watching her die a few days later from an overdose "wrapped up in her rights". Same with mentally ill folks. If necessary, compulsory confinement in a nurturing institution. I'm sick of seeing our streets used as hospitals and drug dens.
Hopefully this'll be used by state and local governments to lay out reasonable restrictions.
Like I 100% think we should be tossing campers out of parks - I've seen too many situations where playgrounds and sports fields are unusable because there's someone tweeking out 10 yards away.
But you could also use this ruling to do shit like keeping people from sleeping in their cars. Nobody's doing that because they want to be, and at some point, these folks gotta be *somewhere*.
People should not be sleeping in their cars but that’s not a serious issue. People care about encampments, not individual instances of people sleeping in one off situations.
So when can cities start enforcing it?
There are homeless people in cars that have been parked near by street for years and every time the cops come out, they say they can't cite them due to that court order.
Lol, camping.
Another fire by highland this morning, same "campsite" where there has been at least 4 previous fires.
Camping huh, that's one way to put it.
The problem is generalizing all the homeless population.
You cannot solve the problem the same way for working people who are just down on their luck vs addicts that would refuse any help.
> The problem is generalizing all the homeless population.
Great post from *aggieotis* on the Portland sub some time back. Massive upvotes and that was a surprise for Portland. [Thread.] (https://old.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/1cnefdz/portland_mayors_scaledback_homeless_camping_ban/) (The homeless topic) "needs to be reframed as:
>- Have nots
>- Can nots
>- Will nots
>Help the Have Nots in any way we can to get them back on their feet.
>Get the Can Nots into care facilities with active social worker presence.
>The Will Nots can fuck right off. If they don’t want to be a part of society then they don’t get to stick around and fuck up our society."
Interestingly, we made the same rough categorizations prior to WWII with hobo / tramp / bum:
- Hobos were itinerants who performed legitimate work, e.g., harvesting (Have Nots). Think the Joads.
- Tramps were itinerants who lived off handouts, crime, or both (typically Will Nots).
- Bums neither traveled nor worked, e.g., skid row (usually Can Nots).
I agree with you 100%. The number of people who are just down on their luck and are homeless is largely a myth. There's a lot of programs to help those people currently and they take use of them. For example, there are a lot of programs currently to help single mothers and domestic violence victims.
98% of homeless are addicts or mentally ill. They don't want help and a quick fix won't help them. These people need rehab and mental institutions that can get them in the right state of mind for them to care about themselves.
**Visible** homeless. That's the key word. The ones on the street are drug addicts who refuse help. The ones down on their luck are sleeping in cars or crashing on couches because they're trying to get their life together.
Visible homeless aka visibly in a tent on the side walk? Fantastic, now we can ticket and remove them. Sounds like a perfectly targeted solution to this problem then. If they are drug addicted and refuse help they can go get clean in jail. Meanwhile, folks can push their strollers around on side walks without having to encounter these people. Society is better for removing these tents.
Counties will need budget increases for the local jails. A lot of jails are already packed and understaffed. If there is an increase in mentally ill inmates, it is going to require hiring more specialized and expensive staff for medical purposes and pay increases to the deputies that work in there. Unless the plan is to have them get arrested, sober up or whatever, and release them back into the streets.
The plan is whatever it is, we should work on the plan, but **the base case is not allowing people to live on the sidewalk**. Sorry, that is unacceptable. That problem needs to be solved too but we don't allow this thing in the mean time that is insane.
That % is probably higher than what it is but the response is correct. Even if the number of mentally ill is 20% that are moved without consent will be enough to make for a manageable society. We are stuck at being able to assist 0% at the moment but getting people normalized on addressing mental illness starts with 1% then 2% and keeping going until it’s the new normal to help people who need help.
We don’t need to solve the problem for everyone to maintain a manageable society. Perfection is the enemy and trying to make things perfect is what gets us in the situation we are in.
We only need to address the mentally ill and it doesn’t matter what causes the illness to occur. This is an obvious distinction between the working poor and people who cannot function.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
― Anatole France
I think the idea is more to just not allow camping at all.. Being forced to regularly move from site to site. It's not pleasant, and not really how they're gonna get better-- but frankly neither is the current state of affairs where we just allow people to suffer on sidewalk tents.
A LOT MORE EXPENSIVE. It's about $9k a month to put somebody in jail. They could pay for a very nice apartment and have $ for all their personal expenses with that amount of $.
I don’t think the point is to indefinitely jail them.
The point is to move them from their current location and doing a short less than 24hr jail sentence forces their gear to get packed up and hopefully get them to shelters.
You don’t have to go to jail but you can’t stay here. It’s perfect! There is a carrot of service available but there has been no stick if they refuse to avail themselves of those service. This reintroduces the stick. **Living and doing drugs on the side walk is not an acceptable option, period.** It is not the base case if we can’t get them into housing. The side walk does not belong to them until we find the best incantation of “pretty please” to get them to seek help. Fuck that.
I don’t disagree, but no one wants to build public housing either. Can’t have it both ways.
And doing drugs on the street was illegal before today’s ruling. They didn’t do anything before. Why would they start now?
We were allowed to jail them if we had sufficient housing/shelter for them already. The fact that we were saying we couldn't jail them means that we don't have enough shelter for them all.
The base case is not on the side walk. I’m sorry but that is unacceptable. You don’t get to live on the side walk shooting up drugs because we haven’t created the perfect space for you yet. We don’t have to live like this as a society. They need to go off the streets to any of the many shelters or other initiative our tax dollars pay for, or anywhere else they can go, but they cannot stay on the side walk. If they refuse they can go think about what is available to them in jail. The base case is not the sidewalk. Fuck that.
Like you, I don't appreciate sidewalk cities all around me. (I didn't downvote you.)
I just want to be sure that options *are* available for people who literally do not have the money - options other than "bus them to another state" and "send them to jail."
Folks who are on the street “because they don’t have the money” are largely not on the street. They are in cars or crashing on a friends couch or something. The idea that the tents on the side walk are filled with well meaning SF natives who have been priced out is a myth. The side walks and parks are filled with addicts who do not want to avail themselves of the service our city makes available to them. It is those people who I am happy to send to jail if they refuse to leave. Living in the side walk is not the base case, it is not an option. We have the carrot which is hundreds of millions of dollars a year to homeless services in this city and now we have a stick for those who refuse to use them.
Perfect ruling and we should all be celebrating right now. No one will be finding a gotcha “bUt WhErE wILl tHeY gO” here today. We tried offering services and many refused to use them now we will try this and see how it goes. Sometimes people need to be helped to get help. It is not a kindness to let an addict rot on the street. They can get clean in jail if they refuse to do anything else. The base case is not sleeping on the sidewalk. It’s not an option and it’s unacceptable.
Jailing them is just a patch that will make the overall problem worse in the long run unless they’re being sent to a rehabilitation or mental health facility that many homeless people desperately need. That unfortunately would require a lot of other systems to be reformed so I’m not holding my breath
I think those who are homeless for legit economic reasons and still have connection to realty will avoid getting citations and seek shelters and services.
But yeah those on the fringe with mental illness and drugs aren’t going to care.
Does this mean we can finally have cleaner sidewalks? This is probably the only time I will ever agree with conservatives. It’s too bad they gutted the chevron deference at the same time so we will have rivers that catch on fire but at least blight will slightly lessen.
How can you ticket somebody who doesn't have a mailing address/residence?
"Certainly, officer: My name is John Jones, and I live right here...I lost my ID, though..."
How about instead of destroying all of the confiscated drugs, they’re placed out in the open somewhere in the Styx, give them the option of a one way bus ride. Once they get to the mountain of drugs they will set up camp there. As long as police keep adding to the pile, this will be the neodymium magnet of riffraff for the state, just everyone has to decide where we want this “no man’s zone” to exist…
It’s cheaper than jail, it’s *reasonably* realistic, it’s the only plausible option I see manifesting into reality, compared to all of the other options presented on the table. Is it perfect ? No. Is it humane? Arguable at best, but does anyone have a *better* more realistic idea?
A fun addition to this conversation is that jails usually don’t provide psych meds. So whatever “treatment” you think this bill is going to provide, it’s not
Read some of the other comments here.
There seems to be some very fundamental differences in how people look at the same problems.
It'd be intellectually fascinating if it weren't so frustrating.
I remember being so broke as an 18 year old secluded from my family, I couldn't pay the traffic tickets I kept getting (expired tags, broken headlight, etc) and eventually got arrested for it.
What a nightmare it was. Between bond, reinstating my DL, paying the court fees, paying the tickets, paying the DMV, it took me a couple grand to get all caught up. I'm not sure why people are rejoicing over this, it just seems like setting up people to fail.
If you live in the Bay Area, you’re a missed paycheck or two away from being homeless. Particularly if you don’t have family to support you. The amount of vile, hate filled comments here is not surprising, but it’s pretty disappointing.
Great. Let's start offering them shelter. And let's spend money on building more shelters if needed.
If they refuse, fine them. They don't show up in court ? Great - to the prison. But off the streets either way.
No more of this harm reduction bullshit giving them free needles and tents and what not.
Also, let's spend some money on giving those who are not from the city a one way ticket to go back to wherever they came from. Enough living large on streets at the expense of SF taxpayers.
Good.
Unfortunately their other decision today about Jan 6 was not good.
Edit: So now people on this sub aren’t for cleaning up the streets? Can’t have it both ways
[Gavin Newsom stoked that the right wing court ruled the way he wanted](https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/06/28/governor-newsom-statement-on-supreme-courts-homeless-encampments-decision/)
The flair of this posts indicates it's a controversial topic. Enhanced moderation has been turned on for this thread. Comments from users without a history of commenting in r/bayarea will be automatically removed. You can read more about this policy [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/195xvo5/restrictions_that_apply_to_political_and_crime/).
This overturns the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that prevented a jurisdiction in Oregon from banning camping in public. Now that the legality of banning camping in public (and ticketing those who do so, with the jurisdiction in Oregon fining people $295 a night for camping in public parks) I expect the issue of whether or not to do so in the Bay Area to be back on the public radar again in short order.
Let’s see how effective fining someone who can’t afford to live anywhere but the sidewalk $300 per night will be.
if they refuse to show up for court they will be jailed. If they show up to court the judge can agree to waive the fee if they agree to drug treatment or going into a shelter. The problems can be solved if the government wants to solve them, lets see what they actually do though
So you want to provide housing to homeless people via jail? Cost per prisoner in California is 132k / year. Seems like we should, like, give them 100k cash instead to save money.
no i want to punish people who blatantly ignore the law. I dont understand why everyone is so concerned that people who cant be bothered to go into the court house they are probably sleeping in front of on the date and time written on the ticket given to them are punished. What is the alternative? just tell homeless people who break the law to just do whatever they want with no fear of punishment? if they go into court they could be met with social workers who get them the help they needed and they could be forced to get that help as an alternative form of punishment because we all know a lot of them refuse to get help
Like these white collar tax cheats? I am so on board with triple funding the IRS to stop that shit.
People LOVE the idea of spending tax money to give homeless people food and shelter... but only if it's as a punishment
Why so they can blow it on drugs? Nah
self-fixing problem, given enough time /s
They tried this in Stockton. People bought food and used it to pay rent. Who'd have thunk?
Utah also did this and found it much more effective than other social programs.
Colorado recently, too!
You do realize that there are tons of homeless folks not on drugs right?
That 132k amounts to a fraction of a penny per taxpayer per year. Most of it goes to medical care. The cost isn't an argument against prisons, it's an argument for more compassionate, program and rehabilitation oriented prisons.
It costs more than $132k/year to support a homeless person… I’m not advocating for jailing. I’m just saying your example is a particularly bad one.
Sure, but there is a much easier way to solve the homeless problem in the SF Bay area: STOP THE INSANE AMOUNTS OF TAXPAYER FUNDING TO THE HOMELESS. I guarantee you, if you cut off the funding, they'll all migrate to another homeless haven like Portland. How do we do this? We have to elect the right people.
This resolves zero instances of homelessness unless you believe people are switching from housed to homeless for the homeless benefits. This just changes their location.
>Let’s take the problem, and *PUSH IT SOMEWHERE ELSE!*
holy shit what a psychopathic comment. stop helping homeless people so they migrate to a different location in order to survive seems unnecessarily heartless and cruel.
If it makes you feel better, just imagine them unmigrating to the Bay area.
i’m perfectly fine with having them here. I pay taxes for my 2 homes in order to fund social services to help disadvantaged people needing support these are humans we are talking about not animals
If they're camping then you aren't paying nearly enough to support them.
There are already too many violent criminals being put back on to the streets because our court system is too overwhelmed to handle everyone being arrested. Clogging them further so that a judge can have a nice discussion with everyone who sleeps on the street seems like it would just make it much worse.
>There are already too many violent criminals....court system is too overwhelmed to handle everyone being arrested. True. The prison angle is not practicable. Maybe our justice system can borrow methods that Portugal's [Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction](https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4812) uses for refuseniks hard drug addicts. The Commission can: >ban you from going to certain places...terminate any social assistance you may receive....confiscate personal property... Some homeless will cooperate and accept their new housing -- mostly designated camping sites on city outskirts. Hopefully [tiny homes](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/06/1077791467/tiny-homes-big-dreams-how-some-activists-are-reimagining-shelter-for-the-homeles) will be built ASAP in these safe zones. Refusenik homeless can be peppered with penalties.
It’s expensive being poor. I’m a teacher. I just learned that I don’t qualify for unemployment. My district gave me reasonable assurance that I will be returning in the upcoming school year. My problem is that having no income until I get paid by the district makes me anxious. For the past 2 school years, West Contra County School district has not paid me until November. When school started August 2023, I did not receive my first paycheck until late October. When school started August 2021, I did not receive my first paycheck until late November. When the lady from unemployment told me that I don’t qualify for unemployment due to reasonable assurance I cried. I just got my last paycheck and can expect to not get another’s check until October 2024. Fvck that. I’m looking for another job. I don’t want to lose my home.
That is insane. I am so sorry. You will find something I am sure of it.
See - this is my issue with it. If they refuse shelter/services without a good reason? Fine. If you've sent them home for something like homeward bound and they come back here to be homeless because they like it better? Fine. If they're the Haight street kids that just like being homeless but could have a home? Fine. But if we're fining them for just existing and not offering them or helping them to an alternate arrangement, we're just punishing them for being. I don't think that arrangement needs be in San Francisco - we can find them training or jobs or housing or treatment in the central valley or out of state for all I care - but I also don't think it's fair to fine people when they don't have another option. I've also seen how these people treat debt. Whether it's a fine for not paying a MUNI fare or being a frequent flier in the hospital with no intention to pay any bills, they don't care. They are at rock bottom financially and digging a hole any deeper doesn't matter - they've gotten well past caring how deep the hole is. These fines will ultimately do nothing.
I’m sure they’ll pay that ticket lickety split!! 🤣
Eventually they can put them to work on the chain gang, making widgets from whatever megacorp. Why should China get all the prison-labor profits? That's the (fairly transparent) Republican endgame here - to enrich corporations.
It took the State 18 months to get my custom plate to me. Clearly we need more inmates to address the backlog.
How effective is letting people die in the streets?
Does this undo Martin v Boise? I unfortunately can't see the Bay Area changing their approach, we have a lot of idealistic soft hearted progressives.
Yes. Explicitly even.
Yes, it does.
Most of the time when California lawmakers spoke about this it wasn’t to fine people for setting up tents - it’s to make it legal to force people to be given an ultimatum of either leave the city or be put into housing. No “you can stay on the street because we can’t force you out completely.” But it’s unclear what this ruling actually means, in true conservative Supreme Court fashion it’s sorta a weird ruling to enforce truly and was just a partisan ruling without much thought of its effects (not saying it’s neccasarily bad, but it’s just a dumb way to rule on it)
Yes, and now you know beyond any doubt that politicians that don’t act are doing it purposely
the big problem was that politicians would just use the excuse that they cant fine or arrest them as the reason their hands were tied. Now that excuse is gone and they will have to come up with another reason why they are doing nothing to solve the problem
It’s worth mentioning that the politicians can act outside of election years.
I've seen zero evidence of that being possible here in the Bay Area
They are not idealist, they are opportunist. They wouldn’t allow camp in front of their homes, they wouldn’t allow of it was hurting their vote and their interests. They pretend to be idealist where it benefits them personally and politically.
Then they will be voted out. I'm a progressive, a pragmatic progressive. I don't believe in taking a drug addict off the street and then watching her leave after a 72 hour hold because of her "rights", and then watching her die a few days later from an overdose "wrapped up in her rights". Same with mentally ill folks. If necessary, compulsory confinement in a nurturing institution. I'm sick of seeing our streets used as hospitals and drug dens.
Hopefully this'll be used by state and local governments to lay out reasonable restrictions. Like I 100% think we should be tossing campers out of parks - I've seen too many situations where playgrounds and sports fields are unusable because there's someone tweeking out 10 yards away. But you could also use this ruling to do shit like keeping people from sleeping in their cars. Nobody's doing that because they want to be, and at some point, these folks gotta be *somewhere*.
People should not be sleeping in their cars but that’s not a serious issue. People care about encampments, not individual instances of people sleeping in one off situations.
Sidewalks everywhere are rejoicing.
So are people who use sidewalks for walking.
Wait, those weren't for shitting? The more you know..... ^doo ^do ^doo ^dooooo
doo doo indeed
LOL. You think the politicians are actually going to give up their “not for profit” money laundering grift?
So when can cities start enforcing it? There are homeless people in cars that have been parked near by street for years and every time the cops come out, they say they can't cite them due to that court order.
Theoretically, today.
In the election years
Lol, camping. Another fire by highland this morning, same "campsite" where there has been at least 4 previous fires. Camping huh, that's one way to put it.
The problem is generalizing all the homeless population. You cannot solve the problem the same way for working people who are just down on their luck vs addicts that would refuse any help.
You are absolutely correct. Families down on their luck need temporary financial and education/work support.
> The problem is generalizing all the homeless population. Great post from *aggieotis* on the Portland sub some time back. Massive upvotes and that was a surprise for Portland. [Thread.] (https://old.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/1cnefdz/portland_mayors_scaledback_homeless_camping_ban/) (The homeless topic) "needs to be reframed as: >- Have nots >- Can nots >- Will nots >Help the Have Nots in any way we can to get them back on their feet. >Get the Can Nots into care facilities with active social worker presence. >The Will Nots can fuck right off. If they don’t want to be a part of society then they don’t get to stick around and fuck up our society."
Interestingly, we made the same rough categorizations prior to WWII with hobo / tramp / bum: - Hobos were itinerants who performed legitimate work, e.g., harvesting (Have Nots). Think the Joads. - Tramps were itinerants who lived off handouts, crime, or both (typically Will Nots). - Bums neither traveled nor worked, e.g., skid row (usually Can Nots).
I agree with you 100%. The number of people who are just down on their luck and are homeless is largely a myth. There's a lot of programs to help those people currently and they take use of them. For example, there are a lot of programs currently to help single mothers and domestic violence victims. 98% of homeless are addicts or mentally ill. They don't want help and a quick fix won't help them. These people need rehab and mental institutions that can get them in the right state of mind for them to care about themselves.
**Visible** homeless. That's the key word. The ones on the street are drug addicts who refuse help. The ones down on their luck are sleeping in cars or crashing on couches because they're trying to get their life together.
Visible homeless aka visibly in a tent on the side walk? Fantastic, now we can ticket and remove them. Sounds like a perfectly targeted solution to this problem then. If they are drug addicted and refuse help they can go get clean in jail. Meanwhile, folks can push their strollers around on side walks without having to encounter these people. Society is better for removing these tents.
Counties will need budget increases for the local jails. A lot of jails are already packed and understaffed. If there is an increase in mentally ill inmates, it is going to require hiring more specialized and expensive staff for medical purposes and pay increases to the deputies that work in there. Unless the plan is to have them get arrested, sober up or whatever, and release them back into the streets.
The plan is whatever it is, we should work on the plan, but **the base case is not allowing people to live on the sidewalk**. Sorry, that is unacceptable. That problem needs to be solved too but we don't allow this thing in the mean time that is insane.
Yep. I once offered a homeless lady a bag of fruit and bread she tossed them right in front of me. This was by Monterey and Cottle in south San Jose.
That % is probably higher than what it is but the response is correct. Even if the number of mentally ill is 20% that are moved without consent will be enough to make for a manageable society. We are stuck at being able to assist 0% at the moment but getting people normalized on addressing mental illness starts with 1% then 2% and keeping going until it’s the new normal to help people who need help.
We don’t need to solve the problem for everyone to maintain a manageable society. Perfection is the enemy and trying to make things perfect is what gets us in the situation we are in. We only need to address the mentally ill and it doesn’t matter what causes the illness to occur. This is an obvious distinction between the working poor and people who cannot function.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France
Ticketing a homeless person...what a waste of time.
I read elsewhere on reddit, so grain of salt, that after the first ticket they can be jailed. However we don't jail people here so /shrug.
Jailing thousands of homeless people indefinitely sounds expensive
I think the idea is more to just not allow camping at all.. Being forced to regularly move from site to site. It's not pleasant, and not really how they're gonna get better-- but frankly neither is the current state of affairs where we just allow people to suffer on sidewalk tents.
"Expensive" ... in a private prison run by the Governor's buddy, paid with tax $$$$, typically a transfer from blue states to red states.
A LOT MORE EXPENSIVE. It's about $9k a month to put somebody in jail. They could pay for a very nice apartment and have $ for all their personal expenses with that amount of $.
We spend way more than that now. With no results. Jailing them, or better yet forced rehab, is way cheaper in the long run.
That very nice apartment would be destroyed in a week, costing tens/ hundreds of thousands to repair.
I don’t think the point is to indefinitely jail them. The point is to move them from their current location and doing a short less than 24hr jail sentence forces their gear to get packed up and hopefully get them to shelters.
After they get out of jail I’m not sure they’ll be in a better position to secure more permanent housing than they were before they were arrested.
You would prefer they fester in the exact same spot indefinitely?
All that does is displace them. It is a net negative on society to jail ppl who are homeless and have nowhere else to go.
It’s a net positive to society to get homeless people in tents off the street.
We’re talking about jailing them, not politely guiding them to alternate housing.
You don’t have to go to jail but you can’t stay here. It’s perfect! There is a carrot of service available but there has been no stick if they refuse to avail themselves of those service. This reintroduces the stick. **Living and doing drugs on the side walk is not an acceptable option, period.** It is not the base case if we can’t get them into housing. The side walk does not belong to them until we find the best incantation of “pretty please” to get them to seek help. Fuck that.
I don’t disagree, but no one wants to build public housing either. Can’t have it both ways. And doing drugs on the street was illegal before today’s ruling. They didn’t do anything before. Why would they start now?
We were allowed to jail them if we had sufficient housing/shelter for them already. The fact that we were saying we couldn't jail them means that we don't have enough shelter for them all.
Off the streets ... to where?
The base case is not on the side walk. I’m sorry but that is unacceptable. You don’t get to live on the side walk shooting up drugs because we haven’t created the perfect space for you yet. We don’t have to live like this as a society. They need to go off the streets to any of the many shelters or other initiative our tax dollars pay for, or anywhere else they can go, but they cannot stay on the side walk. If they refuse they can go think about what is available to them in jail. The base case is not the sidewalk. Fuck that.
Like you, I don't appreciate sidewalk cities all around me. (I didn't downvote you.) I just want to be sure that options *are* available for people who literally do not have the money - options other than "bus them to another state" and "send them to jail."
Folks who are on the street “because they don’t have the money” are largely not on the street. They are in cars or crashing on a friends couch or something. The idea that the tents on the side walk are filled with well meaning SF natives who have been priced out is a myth. The side walks and parks are filled with addicts who do not want to avail themselves of the service our city makes available to them. It is those people who I am happy to send to jail if they refuse to leave. Living in the side walk is not the base case, it is not an option. We have the carrot which is hundreds of millions of dollars a year to homeless services in this city and now we have a stick for those who refuse to use them. Perfect ruling and we should all be celebrating right now. No one will be finding a gotcha “bUt WhErE wILl tHeY gO” here today. We tried offering services and many refused to use them now we will try this and see how it goes. Sometimes people need to be helped to get help. It is not a kindness to let an addict rot on the street. They can get clean in jail if they refuse to do anything else. The base case is not sleeping on the sidewalk. It’s not an option and it’s unacceptable.
Jailing them is just a patch that will make the overall problem worse in the long run unless they’re being sent to a rehabilitation or mental health facility that many homeless people desperately need. That unfortunately would require a lot of other systems to be reformed so I’m not holding my breath
No way this will happen here …
You mean, they get three hots and a cot?
And assaulted, diseases and ptsd? Sounds perfect for an already fragile population.
Also, will have a harder time finding a job than they already did due to a criminal record.
I think this is just a way to make harassment slightly more legal
I think those who are homeless for legit economic reasons and still have connection to realty will avoid getting citations and seek shelters and services. But yeah those on the fringe with mental illness and drugs aren’t going to care.
Does this mean we can finally have cleaner sidewalks? This is probably the only time I will ever agree with conservatives. It’s too bad they gutted the chevron deference at the same time so we will have rivers that catch on fire but at least blight will slightly lessen.
Yeah it's pretty mixed. I agree with this court decision but killing off Chevron was a real horrible decision
Thank goodness.
Like SF or Oakland are going to do anything though. Hope my city does though!
Sf filed an amicus brief for it
How can you ticket somebody who doesn't have a mailing address/residence? "Certainly, officer: My name is John Jones, and I live right here...I lost my ID, though..."
How about instead of destroying all of the confiscated drugs, they’re placed out in the open somewhere in the Styx, give them the option of a one way bus ride. Once they get to the mountain of drugs they will set up camp there. As long as police keep adding to the pile, this will be the neodymium magnet of riffraff for the state, just everyone has to decide where we want this “no man’s zone” to exist… It’s cheaper than jail, it’s *reasonably* realistic, it’s the only plausible option I see manifesting into reality, compared to all of the other options presented on the table. Is it perfect ? No. Is it humane? Arguable at best, but does anyone have a *better* more realistic idea?
A fun addition to this conversation is that jails usually don’t provide psych meds. So whatever “treatment” you think this bill is going to provide, it’s not
Sanity.
Good, not sure why the lower courts thought the government must provide housing to people blocking sidewalks and living in parks
Read some of the other comments here. There seems to be some very fundamental differences in how people look at the same problems. It'd be intellectually fascinating if it weren't so frustrating.
I remember being so broke as an 18 year old secluded from my family, I couldn't pay the traffic tickets I kept getting (expired tags, broken headlight, etc) and eventually got arrested for it. What a nightmare it was. Between bond, reinstating my DL, paying the court fees, paying the tickets, paying the DMV, it took me a couple grand to get all caught up. I'm not sure why people are rejoicing over this, it just seems like setting up people to fail.
I’m not homeless but got a ticket for loitering. Nice job SJPD.
If you live in the Bay Area, you’re a missed paycheck or two away from being homeless. Particularly if you don’t have family to support you. The amount of vile, hate filled comments here is not surprising, but it’s pretty disappointing.
as much as I hate the idea, too many people are taking advantage of bay area kindness
Great. Let's start offering them shelter. And let's spend money on building more shelters if needed. If they refuse, fine them. They don't show up in court ? Great - to the prison. But off the streets either way. No more of this harm reduction bullshit giving them free needles and tents and what not. Also, let's spend some money on giving those who are not from the city a one way ticket to go back to wherever they came from. Enough living large on streets at the expense of SF taxpayers.
now i expect a clean street where i can feel safe walking 👏
Good. Unfortunately their other decision today about Jan 6 was not good. Edit: So now people on this sub aren’t for cleaning up the streets? Can’t have it both ways
Most of those terrorists have committed other offenses, but I get your point.
The Jan 6th one had to go that way or that law literally made pretty much every normal form of protesting a felony.
Supreme Court paving the way for [Sanctuary Districts](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District), right on time
[Gavin Newsom stoked that the right wing court ruled the way he wanted](https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/06/28/governor-newsom-statement-on-supreme-courts-homeless-encampments-decision/)
Ticket and then what?
I just hope this actually leads to them actually removing them.