Even “progressive” cities are aggressively cracking down on homeless populations and encampments. What does this entail for policies around public order and housing going forward?
Posted by CheetoMussolini
Even “progressive” cities are aggressively cracking down on homeless populations and encampments. What does this entail for policies around public order and housing going forward?
Posted by CheetoMussolini
3 Comments
Instead of dealing with the problem, they just want to push it somewhere else. We often say that homelessness is a housing issue and it is but it’s also a mental health and drug issue. Getting them a house and the help they need can go a long way toward reducing homelessness or outright eliminating it. But, I think many politicians, even progressives, are concerned with looking soft on crime so when it comes to this issue they’re more Stalin than Gandhi.
Lot of people that live around these homeless encampments get disturbed by the homeless and it makes their neighborhood look shittier. People hate getting off work and then coming home to a neighborhood that looks shittier than before.
It’s easy for people to sit in the internet talking about “we should go easy on the homeless, just keep giving them free stuff and let them do whatever they want” when you don’t have to deal with them in real life
There are two things going on at the same time here:
1- People are left without housing for a number of reasons but the biggest one seems to be a severe lack of development.
2- People are setting up encampments in common areas that were NOT designed or intended for encampment.
Obviously the second issue wont go away by just making homelessness illegal. But there is a legitimate point to be made that just letting people waste away in homeless encampments is no solution to either problem 1 or 2 either.