If homelessness is a problem, why should the alternative be to put them in jail or prison? For something as simple as car camping, it seems like an unjustifiable punishment for a simple offense. Without getting into much of a semantics argument, this post itself puts off a sense of “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” attitude when it comes to homelessness. In a city that has a GDP of $231 billion in 2010[1], it seems ineffective to punish the homeless instead of trying to rid the city of the problem in a more productive manner than hauling offenders away. While public consumption of drugs should still be a citational offense, the simple possession of a drug should not be a jail sentence. There are many users that have deeper issues that need to be worked out to rid them of their addiction and putting them into confinement is not always the most effective way. Seattle needs to invest in safe injection sites, public health programs, and they need to build more shelters for their homeless. In today’s society, homeless are looked at as the bottom of the feeder chain, but when we do that, we begin to strip people of their humanity and instead we look at them as simply statistics or an nuance.
A tremendous amount of these homeless don't want to quit heroin. They don't want to live in shelters. They want to live in a tent and shoot heroin.
There is a heroin addict that lives on one street I use to walk to work. He can't have more than a few years to live, he's as broken as humans get. The street he lives on is littered with literally hundreds of his used needles across bus stops, gardens, yards, paths. He defecates on the street and in bags that he leaves around.
Letting people do this legally, which Seattle now de facto does, is not appropriate.
> A tremendous amount of these homeless don't want to quit heroin.
That’s sort of how addiction works. Drugs are a lot of fun and feel good for a long time and that lets you ignore negative consequences way past the point that someone not on drugs would make a change in their life.
People who are addicted to heroin would rather do heroin in a muddy ditch than be sober in a 5 star hotel.
I did a lot of club drugs in my 20s and knew a lot of addicts and alcoholics (although personally once I decided to quit everything around 30, I just stopped cold turkey with no problems), and although I personally avoided opiates I knew people who didn’t and had very hard lives as a consequence.
You are correct that most of them had hard lives to begin with. Happy people with strong support networks don’t tend to use heroin, I wouldn’t think.
> A tremendous amount of these homeless don't want to quit heroin.
Their addictions would be better managed if they lived anywhere but the street.
> They don't want to live in shelters.
They don't want to live in dry shelters.
> They want to live in a tent and shoot heroin.
No, they want to shoot heroin, and when given the option between tent and heroin, versus a dry shelter, they'll take the former.
That doesn't mean that they wouldn't prefer having a managed addiction, and not living on the streets. [1]
There are people with therapists, homes, loving families, and good jobs, that are also opiate addicts. They have a hard enough time breaking their addictions. In light of that, condemning someone living in a tent by the on-ramp for failing to just drop their addiction, so they can live in a shelter is lunacy.
[1] Yes, there is a small percentage of the homeless population that can't reasonably be housed, period, regardless of whether their addictions are managed. I'm not talking about them - I'm talking about everyone else.
Ultimately I don't care about blame or condemnation, it's irrelevant. What I care about is the state doing it's job and not letting anyone, for any reason, egregiously pollute and destroy our shared living environments. As far as fundamental solutions, they can and should try many things, as a first order condition, this must be forcibly prohibited.
Storing your addicted+homeless population in a prison is not only inhumane, it's not effective. And just moves the costs elsewhere. (And often increases them, since incarcerating someone is not cheap. Where will this money come from?) The problem has been swept under a rug, not actually solved.
There are two conflicting claims floating around in this thread:
> "And just moves the costs elsewhere" / "the good old 'bus them out of town, let them be someone else's problem' non-solution."
And
> "The King County homeless census[1] found the overwhelming majority of homeless in the area were living in the area before becoming homeless."
It's pretty obvious both aren't true. Either Seattle's homeless are produced primarily by Seattle, or Seattle's homeless supply is from other cities. If the homeless are coming from other cities, that supports the idea that Seattle is making itself attractive to the nation's homeless (and should stop doing that.) If Seattle's homeless are predominately from Seattle, not other cities, then Seattle should seek to emulate cities that produce fewer homeless.
Personally I believe the later theory is false. I don't believe that most of the homeless in Seattle are originally from Seattle. However many in Seattle buy into that narrative. I think Seattle is filled with homeless because other cities kick them out and Seattle welcomes them with open arms.
The problem is homeless are ruining my city and negatively impacting my day to day life. How is getting them away from here somewhere else not effective at literally solving my only problem with them?
Well, in some sense what I want doesn't matter. I'd like us as a join group to have some hypotheticals and test them empirically.
But in a more direct sense, I think this all requires the government to take some sort of ownership over these people. That is to say, you are not free to live on the streets. Depending on your state (e.g. down on luck, or ill, or addicted), the treatment is different. We may have more holding centers for the government to keep people against their will who otherwise would use heroin and live on our streets. We could have some mechanism for them to go up for 'parole' so to speak, every 6-12 months. Otherwise they are treated humanely and given make-work type projects (e.g. farming or wood-working), or the opportunity to learn, should they take it.
Of course if they are truly severely mentally ill, they will just be taken care of by the government.
But none of this starts until we all agree that it is, ultimately, illegal to abuse drugs, sleep, and shit, on the streets of a city. Once we can agree on that, we can explore a entire solution set closed off from us.
Unfortunately, the 9th circuit doesn't... share my views.
I'd prefer you didn't impose uncharitable inferences on what I said, and use it to imply I'm maligned. If you feel I'm unclear, or think what I said may propose something negative, feel free to politely ask for clarification.
The fundamental reason I suggested that is humans, particularly the type who suffer from mental illness or lack the ability to care for themselves, to the extent they end up destitute and addicted living in filth and on the sidewalk, require some sort of structure imposed on them. In the past that was done by the family, in our current world many of these family bonds are, sadly, falling apart.
Putting people in an asylum, only to sit around on a bed all day and take copious amounts of anti-psychotics is a miserable existence. Having the opportunity, if one chooses, to engage in meaningful work, can provide structure and meaning to life.
I'd prefer to think of it more as a therapeutic sort of work program, where those under conservatorship by the state learn how to live with structure, learn what it means to make something, and could even be compensated for their efforts.
In my mind at least, I am contrasting the reward of a hard days work tending to, say, an organic vegetable garden, with the mundane horror of sitting on a bed in between distributions of anti-psychotic medicine.
I hope my clarification gives you more context to realize I'm not suggesting slavery.
> That doesn't mean that they wouldn't prefer having a managed addiction, and not living on the streets.
Why would it matter what they prefer? The homeless person in the parent post is clearly breaking multiple laws, is a public nuisance and a health hazard. We can optimize society so that people like that are happy or we can optimize society for people who aren't a constant burden on others. There should be intense societal pressure to not do these things. Have you been to Seattle or SF lately? Their homeless problem is out of control compared to places like New York that took a more aggressive and productive stance toward dealing with the homeless.
Many, not all but many, of the addicts I've seen seem to genuinely no longer have agency anymore. Their addiction has totally taken over their life. The person you describe will likely be dead in a few years. The state stepping in and taking control, at least for a short time, could potentially save them. Instead, I think we've over indexed on assuming that if we put enough opportunities in front of people like that they'll volunteer themselves into getting clean. I don't think that's true.
What he is doing is not legal at all. He's littering. He's defecating in public. He's tresspassing presumably in some instances. He's perhaps doing these drugs in public. All of these things can get him in trouble if a cop cited him.
However, the one thing that won't get him in trouble is just having heroin in his pocket. All the other problems you list are still illegal.
In Seattle the police have stopped arresting for public defecation, as the city won't prosecute it anymore, as they don't wish to give the homeless a criminal record. The police don't arrest for using drugs in public, as the city won't prosecute if it's a small amount. The police won't arrest for minor trespassing, they'll just ask them to move along, as the city has stopped prosecuting homeless for small indiscretions, and just release them the same day. I recently had a homeless person trespassing near my home, using drugs openly, and the real tough part of this was he was manically cackling and yelling late at night, so that we couldn't sleep. We called the police, and they just told him to go do it somewhere else.
It's effectively legal to trespass, scream, and use drugs openly in Seattle.
Now, in addition to the above, if someone has illicit narcotics, the police won't arrest them.
This has become a situation where our police, who want to do their job, are being effectively restricted.
Shelters aren't meaningful places to exist in. They generally are just a big hall filled to the brim with bunk beds. All you can do there is sleep, nothing else. The people inside shelters are still lacking a home.
I agree with you in principal, but at the same time:
> we begin to strip people of their humanity and instead we look at them as simply statistics or an nuance.
Where I live, the groups of car campers (or often times falling apart RV's) seem to attract crime, drug use, theft, vandalism, etc. I stopped going to one park in the middle of a city with a large group of car campers, when I found a used syringe in the fenced in dog play area, and saw two different heroin deals go down while playing with my dog. (one of them involved prostitution right in the back seat of the car in the middle of a city park)
I have personally witnessed a car camper leave their vehicle and barefoot chase an ambulance in the road, screaming profanities at the ambulance (right across from houses with small children). Through their own profanity-laced words, the person was trying to start a fight with the ambulance. Any reasonable person would assume that this car camper was some combination of a) beyond high on some drug, or b) suffering from severe mental health issues (if so, please revoke their license and get him proper help?). My neighbors and I both witnessed the situation, and called the police. Five police cars show up, get a statement from the ambulance driver, and sit the camper down. After talking to the camper for about 5 minutes, the police left with no action.
This _exact_ same car camper 3 weeks later threw a stolen bike at a moving car, out of the blue. 1 week later, I again saw this car camper kicking cars that were stopped at a traffic light, all the while swearing profanities at them. This person is still on the street, likely ready to harass the next underserving victims.
Here's another experience, which you might just write off as another anecdote. I was with my pregnant wife for a normal pregnancy checkup. A person who again was either high or suffering severe mental problems was being restrained by hospital security for breaking the hospital entrance door. The reason? The person was screaming that "the door was not supposed to be guarded by an evil spirit". Again, this person was clear high or mentally ill, or some combination of the two. However, NO ONE, including THIS PERSON, benefits from being left on the streets.
Oh, another anecdote you might write off. I take the bus to work. One morning, there was a school field trip that shared this bus. There was another person on the bus who one might assume was homeless, but agreed, looks can be deceiving. This person was drinking from a handle of cheap vodka, and then spitting back into the bottle. In between swigs, the person was swearing. What a great environment for children. We need to feel compassion for these troubled people, and provide help, but that DOES NOT mean that we should normalize these harmful behaviors.
Anyways, just some first person anecdotes to balance this thread out. It's easy to preach when you're not the one raising children around these folks.
Intervention and interning street addicts in rehab centers is a very effective program for Rhode Island. They prosecute drug crimes and misdemeanors, and offer a choice between prison or rehab. Many people who go through the program say it saved their life.
West coast states have similar alternative drug courts and rehab available, but they are underutilized, because there is no prosecution in the regular court system and therefore no incentive.
>Many people who go through the program say it saved their life.
That's great!
Theoretically though, if someone were to state publicly that it was completely ineffective, will they still get the option to stay out of jail next time?
It's not that simple. (Problems are never that simple.) I live in Ballard which has a lot of people living out of RVs and tents. Many of those people don't cause problems for anyone, however, I have personally experienced:
* People shitting in our alley.
* People pissing on our garage.
* Someone shitting in a medical commode on the side of the road in broad daylight. (I admit a certain admiration for this person's self-confidence.)
* In the middle of the night, someone standing at our fence gazing into our kitchen for several minutes while gesticulating wildly.
* Furniture stolen from our front porch.
* Someone rifling through our trash. (Presumably for identity theft. In Seattle, food goes into separate compost bins.)
* Finding used needles on the lawn. (I have small children, so I had to teach them that the shiny bright orange plastic things are not toys.)
* Frequent fights and people screaming at each other at all hours of the night.
* Multiple car break-ins from car prowlers. My wife caught and yelled at one car prowler before they were able to get into one.
* When they people relocate, they typically leave a pile of trash and human waste behind. Often, RVs will dump their blackwater tank directly on the street or sidewalk. This is, obviously, a health issue.
This is just what has happened directly to my wife and I. Other nearby events:
* My neighbor owns an RV in his backyard. Someone broke into it and stole several things, including an urn containing his father's ashes. He chased after the guy, who responded by pulling a knife on him. [1]
* A couple of blocks away, someone was stabbed in the chest when they confronted someone slashing tires (in what I heard was some sort of turf disagreement).[2]
* Another neighbor found a discarded gun in their bushes. They have small children too.
* Our neighbors are constantly finding trash that's been dumped in their bushes.
* Many neighbors have been screamed at, harassed, or assaulted by people that are either mentally ill, in the throes of meth psychosis, or both.
* Public parks that used to be places to play with the kids but now are effectively off-limits. [4]
All of this is just in a couple block radius, just in the past few years. And this is in a nice part of town. Residents in the city have had a lot of compassion and a lot of patience for many years, but the city has failed to actually come up with any effective solutions. In the past year or two, people have simply run out of. It's hard to get people to empathize with someone who is actively causing them harm.
Fundamentally, humans cannot safely live at urban density without access to the full range of residential services. You can't just "car camp". Humans produce waste. Without clean water, garbage pick up, and sewage services, each of those humans is a walking disease vector [3].
Safe injection sites are not a solution. If you don't address the crimes that addicts commit to afford drugs, then your injection site just becomes a crime magnet. Mental health and addiction treatment centers are good. Shelters are somewhat good but many homeless people choose not to use them because most shelters prohibit drug use.
It's not about jailing homeless people or drug addicts. It's about jailing people who repeatedly commit property or violent crime. The root cause is usually drugs, and should be treated as part of a solution. But, at the same time, other people in the city (including many other homeless people who are one of the most common victims of crime) need to be protected and feel safe. Being a drug addict should not be a blank check to steal from, vandalize, and assault people.
1. Safe injection sites, free drugs, and housing? This will solve most of your property crime + health issues, at high cost, and some moral hazard.
2. Safe injection sites and locking people up forever for property crime? If you ever let them out, without addressing the reasons for why they are breaking into cars, they'll be right back at it. This is also incredibly expensive.
3. No safe injection sites and some combination of the above? You get the same costs + problems, but also more overdoses.
The reason this is an issue is because it's a local problem that requires a national intervention.
1. The War on Drugs still exists, creating an expensive black market for addicts where they have to commit crimes to feed their addiction - money that goes to gangs/cartels. Researching treatments is difficult due to drug scheduling. Treatment options are limited (like "free drugs").
2. When a particular locality attempts to address these issues in a callous way (like busing), it "solves" the problem for locals, but of course the people still exist and just move to the next town that is not cutthroat. This leaves a disproportionate amount of the problem to those living in cities, where the most services/shelter options are available.
To truly solve the problem, we need to end the War on Drugs, build housing, and properly fund treatment centers on a national level.
Your first option is about as good as it can get when trying to solve this problem using local tools. Safe injection sites, methadone/similar, and housing are all far cheaper than just a subset of what the chronically/drug-addicted homeless cost already and they actually attempt to address the issues of addiction and homelessness. Without housing, drugs/treatment, and injection sites you get: people on the street buying from the black market spreading disease that have numerous emergency room visits and nights in jail, costing everyone far more money than the housing/treatment. But folks in cities will still be paying far more than their fair share to do so and they'll be treating a lot of outsiders from places that don't offer those services, but should - the causes of the problems will still exist elsewhere.
Treat everyone the same. My local bar recently got in trouble for allowing people to smoke weed on the patio. Meanwhile there's someone shooting heroin in the parking lot.
If you commit property or violent crime you go to jail. Rehabilitation services should be made available there.
Aside from rehabilitation services, that's what already happens: they go to jail. It's extremely expensive and does not actually solve the problems, just takes the addict off the street for a few days and adds to their record. Then they are back on the street, still an addict, with even less money. Guess what happens next.
1: http://www.greyhilladvisors.com/gross-metropolitan-product/