On May 12, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, demanded that cities throughout the state adopt anti-camping ordinances that would effectively ban public homelessness by requiring unhoused individuals to relocate every 72 hours.
While presented as a humanitarian effort to reduce homelessness, the new policy victimizes California’s growing unhoused population—approximately 187,000 people—by tying funding in Proposition 1 to local laws banning sleeping or camping on public land.
In his announcement, Newsom pushed local governments to adopt the draconian ordinances “without delay.”
How does this reduce homelessness?
The most coherent argument I’ve heard from
is that the whole point of this policy is to ping-pong the homeless around till they naturally congregate in areas far enough out of site that nobody will bother reporting them anymore. So basically forcing them into massive isolated encampments so you don’t have homeless people in public parks and shit.
Honestly if that’s the fucking goal why not just be honest and have the state buy some vacant lots and make sanctioned “camping sites”. At least then NGOs and shit could set up like showers and clinics and stuff nearby them. But knowing Amerikkka they’d probably just become concentration camps.
God forbid some just build some fucking public housing.
It would literally just be a lot of land
Even that is too much, no politician in this wasteland is going to vote for a measure to establish land solely for the homeless.
None of those people would want to be known as the person who voted to establish what would doubtlessly become smeared as a ‘homeless encampment’ in their district/state.
I feel like you could retort to that “well it’s better than them camping in your local park!” But Democrats aren’t smart or brave enough for that.
Regardless, I wouldn’t trust the US to implement something like this in any sort or humane or effective way.
Liberals would legalize murdering the homeless if they thought they could get away with it. But since they can’t do that, they pretend like homeless people disappear if no one is looking at them. They think the problem goes away if you throw away all their stuff and tell them they can’t stay there.
“It’s a lifestyle choice. They choose to be homeless. There are unused shelters, empty beds, and piles of cash, resources and housing but they just can’t stop doing drugs. We need to open padded room straight jacket torture asylums again.”
I have literally seen all these statements posted in earnest.
I hear them all repeated by professionals and academics constantly. It’s so exhausting.
I’ve heard all of these opinions expressed by people in person.
Reduces homelessnes via number shuffling, i.e. moving homeless across county lines makes it harder for them to be officially recorded. Like all things neoliberal it is the appearance of wellness but nothing true or substantial. Instead of money going into housing, shelters, rehabilitation, and job programs we spend more money into a police force well drilled into treating human beings like the way one herds cattle.
He is probably just
lyingusing PR nonsense speak. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they used some tortured definition of homelessness that meant if they can’t track a person for X consecutive nights they won’t be included in the statistica.If you’re trying to move everything you own you are not at that moment homeless.
The point is to make it easier for cops to brutalize unhoused people.