The high court’s ruling is already having a ripple effect on cities across the country, which have been emboldened to take harsher measures to clear out homeless camps that have grown in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Many US cities have been wrestling with how to combat the growing crisis. The issue has been at the heart of recent election cycles on the West Coast, where officials have poured record amounts of money into creating shelters and building affordable housing.
Leaders face mounting pressure as long-term solutions - from housing and shelters to voluntary treatment services and eviction help - take time.
“It’s not easy and it will take a time to put into place solutions that work, so there’s a little bit of political theatre going on here," Scout Katovich, an attorney who focuses on these issues for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told the BBC.
"Politicians want to be able to say they’re doing something,”
It “helps” the NIMBYs who want them off the streets by any means necessary.
–Those same NIMBY’s, probably
The irony here is that housing-first strategies are the best way to do that. They’re also the one these asshats are against.
The best way that isn’t cruel. But since homeless people supposedly deserve it… you have to punish the poor for being poor after all. Sure, they can’t afford the bootstraps, but that’s not excuse not to pull themselves up by them.
Except the means of helping to get them homes of course.
These sorts of “concerned citizens” are happy to give the homeless a prison cell for a home.
they’ll happily spend $150,000 a head to make sure those homeless people are housed in a prison instead of near their community