For the Homeless, the Hardest Choice is the Right Choice

UPDATE: When I wrote this post in 2019 many people got upset that I suggest moving the homeless to large care facilities. Flash forward to 2022:

And this:

In 2022 Society is catching up to this crucial idea.


ORIGINAL POST: Lets start this discussion with a painful truth: Allowing the Homeless to live on public streets is the single worst thing society can do to help them. And it’s the most dangerous thing our political leadership is doing to affect the health and welfare of the public.

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LA Homeless encampment

Lets further stipulate what types of Homeless People currently exist:

  1. Chronically homeless
  2. Mentally unbalanced
  3. Drug addicts
  4. Economic Homeless
  5. Homeless by Choice

Now, medieval diseases are making a comeback in Los Angeles, all due to abysmal leadership on the homeless crisis.

“A police officer in an L.A. suburb observed that, “About 60% of our calls every day are about transients and problems that they cause.” When a homeless person acts out on the street and someone calls the police, they generally have three options: do nothing, take the person to an ER to be stabilized, or make an arrest. Having additional options, such as resources tailored for the needs of the homeless—mostly drug rehab and mental health—backed up by a legal system that encourages compliance, is essential in helping people escape the downward spiral of homelessness.”

The number of homeless people counted across Los Angeles County jumped 12% over the past year to nearly 59,000, with more young and old residents and families on the streets, officials said Tuesday.

The majority of the homeless were found within the city of Los Angeles, which saw a 16% increase to 36,300, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority said in presenting January’s annual count to the county Board of Supervisors.”

“The rising number of homeless deaths in Orange County, coupled with the intervention of a federal court judge, will spur an extra $100 million in health care spending for homeless people over the next three years. The $100 million is set aside specifically for health services to help homeless people — many of whom would qualify for Medi-Cal coverage but typically are not signed up for that program. The money includes $60 million for undefined “new initiatives.”

“Now California is home to a public-health crisis. This one is no act of God, though, but rather the inevitable result of tolerating unsanitary conditions. Diseases, some bringing to mind medieval times, have returned to urban streets. Typhus, carried by infected fleas and transmitted by rats and other animals, plagues Los Angeles. Hepatitis A, spread through fecal matter, has sickenedmore than 1,000 people in Southern California since 2017. A “trash and rodent nightmare” threatens downtown Los Angeles. There’s “a mountain of rotting, oozing, stinking trash” that stretches “a good 20 yards along a skid row alley,” where “rats popped their heads out of the debris like they were in a game of Whac-A-Mole.”

The garbage and disease outbreaks are closely linked. In late May, the local NBC affiliate reported that “piles of rotting garbage left uncollected by the city of Los Angeles, even after promises to clean it up, are fueling concerns about a new epidemic after last year’s record number of flea-borne typhus cases.” These garbage piles, along with human feces in San Francisco streets requiring apps for avoidance, contrast with California’s progressive past. Progressives once cared about clean streets and public health. Today, they value political correctness, protecting the interests of the homeless over pedestrians. Their policies have produced appalling conditions in urban neighborhoods.”

So we see, the Homeless are:

  1. Increasing exponentially.
  2. Fiscally outpacing our ability to help and solve the problem.
  3. Because of being allowed to live on the streets in large numbers deadly diseases, long thought cured, are being introduced into the public creating the potential for pandemic.

Our progressive politicians thought they could cynically use the homeless as examples of their “compassion”, this has backfired and people will die as a result. From small to large cities homeless policy is a complete failure and must be overturned.

Alarmingly, there is a “Homeless Industrial Complex” that profits from the Homeless Crisis. Groups like the United Way are partnering with developers and the state to force “permanent supportive housing” even though the Homeless will not utilize free housing.

But, some are beginning to speak publicly about the problem’s best solution:

The problem of the homeless could be completely solved in a few months if there were the political and judicial will to get it done. The national guard could be deployed, working with city and county law enforcement. The homeless could be sorted into groups; criminals, substance abusers, mentally ill, undocumented aliens, and all the rest. For each of these groups, separate facilities could be built on vacant or underutilized government land in or near urban centers but away from downtowns and residential areas. They could consist of tents, porta-potties, and mobile modules providing food and medical services.

Recently news channel KOMO 5 in Seattle bravely produced “Seattle is Dying“, a short documentary about the explosion of homeless in that town and how the Mayor and city council are openly ignoring the problem. At the documentary’s end they pose the question about whether society needs to use closed facilities to house and care for the homeless, the announcer wonders whether using lock-down sites might be the best choice to actually help the them.

Imagine a place, say 200 acres in the federally-owned CA desert. A city arises, a care facility where the homeless are brought to live, be assessed, separated by their conditions and given treatment for their particular ailments or situations and in the case of the legitimately mentally disturbed, a place where they are kept safe, from the elements, themselves and others. In this facility the homeless are safe, well-fed, housed and their needs attended to. For the “homeless by choice” a path is given, enter the programs that will prepare you for societal re-integration OR stay in the facility. No choice is being taken from these people, if a homeless person wants to live in the care facility they can, with no strings…they just can’t live on public streets any longer.

Yes, this facility would be mandatory. Yes, many laws will need to be changed. Yes…this will be a huge battle that will further divide the country.

But, there may be good news coming this fall.

A series of decisions by the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, for instance, determined that clearing homeless encampments is an unconstitutional form of punishment. Now Boise, Idaho, as part of a ten-year legal fight, is appealing to the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by the Ninth Circuit that effectively bars the city from cleaning up camp sites on public property. How the case turns out may determine whether cities have powers to police their streets amid a sharp rise in public camping and sleeping.

There is an immutable law of life, the hardest choice is nearly always the right choice. Anyone that tells you different is probably picking your pocket.

“We” as a society, have to arrive at the understanding that No one, save the owners of real property, has the “Right” to live in a given place. People cannot be allowed to live on our streets as it is the single worst thing we can do for them. Further, the tax-paying public should expect, at a minimum, government to make their towns safe. No person should be allowed to camp or live in public as it diminishes the safety and quality of life for the people who are paying the tab and, as is obvious, it’s the most damaging choice for the homeless themselves. It’s a lose/lose proposition, only politics and weakness of moral fiber stand in the way of truly helping these people.

The time is now, Supreme Court.


PS: The Supreme Court chose poorly in the Boise decision, we will see how this affects every city going forward.

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