Not down with imprisoning people who don't commit a crime. They could start enforcing quality of life laws and if someone habitually violated those they could see an appropriate jail sentence. While jailed consistent with due process they could placed in rehab programs.
The mayor of Redding has no options left. What's there to do?
Just leave them to poison the river with untreated human feces while her city winds up a maze of Skid Rows the way SF and LA have, and the heroin needles float down the river and accumulate in the street? Not what her constituents elected her for.
The whole "affordable housing" thing is an empty canard. When a rational person can't afford housing, that person often moves the hell out of the state, which is what has been happening. Reasonable people in extreme poverty usually go somewhere where they won't be in extreme poverty anymore. By contrast, the permanently homeless are moving to California to be homeless.
Not housing, not poverty - fundamentally, it's a mental health and substance abuse problem. Most of these people have something severely wrong with their brains that medical science cannot fix.
Criminalization is actually the best approach, because it involves due process, but it'd require a robust police presence and a healthy judicial system, and good luck getting either of those in the state of California. Combine that with some really bad Supreme Court rulings, and vagrancy laws are almost impossible to enforce. Rhode Island has seen some success with this approach, though, as it sentences people to rehab - but the best rehab in the world can't fix the unfixable. It might be able to bring them from absolute rock bottom all the way up to halfway sane.
These people are very bad to have around. It's not feasible to bus them all out, not when there's this many. You're not allowed to simply cage or kill them all (waiting for them to die of overdose or untreated septic infections, on the other hand, is perfectly legal, but that's too slow and unreliable).
So the mayor of Redding issues an empty threat, a mayor trying to get it out there to homeless people that if they go to her city, they'll be thrown into camps without benefit of trial. She knows she can't actually do that, but she wants them to think she can.
I wish I could upvote this at least five times. It's the most rational thing I have read on CA's homeless problem, especially about the "affordable housing" canard.
This may actually be some realistic thinking about the problem. Certainly there needs to be due process. But there needs to be deeper thinking about why very large numbers of people think they can abandon any responsible role in society and become a burden and a danger to everyone else. The ones who refuse to change probably belong in camps where they have to work for each meal, day by day.
I disagree - i think this is effectively making it a crime to be too poor. The homeless are only a burden to others if we have a welfare state, and the criminal homeless are only a danger to others if the police are not enforcing misdemeanors, both of which California has going for them
Why not just bring back the psychiatric hospitals? California's homeless are primarily drug addicts and the mentally ill. It's where they belong and at least has some prospect of rehabilitation.
At least one CA politician has gotten past the stupid idea that the homeless are merely "down on their luck", but are actually losers, crazies, and parasites. Credit is deserved for that.
The city I live in made a massive push for affordable housing, even giving people 6 months free rent in a brand new apt. bldg. so they could "get on their feet" by having a stable, permanent address.
All it did was attract many, many more homeless people to the city, so the homeless initiative actually INCREASED the numbers & the crime & drugs increased dramatically. It's so bad the city has now allowed camping in the downtown. Yea!
The low income apt. bldg. became a magnet for drug deals, hookers, etc. who terrorize their neighbours. It ruined the neighbourhood. Police, as usual, are totally useless.
The people would get their 6 months, then the majority would be back on the streets again. Meanwhile we've seen a 300% increase in our taxes, partly because we're expected to pay for all these drug addicts, the mentally ill & criminals, plus the increased policing. The police spend most of their time saving drug addicts from overdoses & fining tax payers on their way to & from work.
Not down with imprisoning people who don't commit a crime. They could start enforcing quality of life laws and if someone habitually violated those they could see an appropriate jail sentence. While jailed consistent with due process they could placed in rehab programs.
As far as I can tell, there’s no judge or jury either
So captured slaves then?
Guarantee these people think there are concentration camps on the border
this Is how authoritarians respond to a humanitarian problem
California gonna California.. I gues...
So they're bringing back the poorhouse? Can we have spittoons and buggy whips too?
I think (could be wrong) you had to be in debt to go to the poorhouse - in CA it seems you just have to take a nap in the park
Good Lord, this is beyond barbaric. The democrats should never ever be in power again.
California is looking to bring back the bubonic plague and slavery
And typus!
Don’t forget the typhus! I think typhoid fever too actually
The mayor of Redding has no options left. What's there to do?
Just leave them to poison the river with untreated human feces while her city winds up a maze of Skid Rows the way SF and LA have, and the heroin needles float down the river and accumulate in the street? Not what her constituents elected her for.
The whole "affordable housing" thing is an empty canard. When a rational person can't afford housing, that person often moves the hell out of the state, which is what has been happening. Reasonable people in extreme poverty usually go somewhere where they won't be in extreme poverty anymore. By contrast, the permanently homeless are moving to California to be homeless.
Not housing, not poverty - fundamentally, it's a mental health and substance abuse problem. Most of these people have something severely wrong with their brains that medical science cannot fix.
Criminalization is actually the best approach, because it involves due process, but it'd require a robust police presence and a healthy judicial system, and good luck getting either of those in the state of California. Combine that with some really bad Supreme Court rulings, and vagrancy laws are almost impossible to enforce. Rhode Island has seen some success with this approach, though, as it sentences people to rehab - but the best rehab in the world can't fix the unfixable. It might be able to bring them from absolute rock bottom all the way up to halfway sane.
These people are very bad to have around. It's not feasible to bus them all out, not when there's this many. You're not allowed to simply cage or kill them all (waiting for them to die of overdose or untreated septic infections, on the other hand, is perfectly legal, but that's too slow and unreliable).
So the mayor of Redding issues an empty threat, a mayor trying to get it out there to homeless people that if they go to her city, they'll be thrown into camps without benefit of trial. She knows she can't actually do that, but she wants them to think she can.
Interesting perspective
I wish I could upvote this at least five times. It's the most rational thing I have read on CA's homeless problem, especially about the "affordable housing" canard.
Take control of their finances?
No one would ever take advantage of such a thing. /s
ESPECIALLY NOT IN CALIFORNIA! /s
There is a Star Trek DS9 episode that is about EXACTLY this scenario, called Past Tense. In the end it leads to massive riots in San Francisco...
Star Trek is weirdly prophetic.
This may actually be some realistic thinking about the problem. Certainly there needs to be due process. But there needs to be deeper thinking about why very large numbers of people think they can abandon any responsible role in society and become a burden and a danger to everyone else. The ones who refuse to change probably belong in camps where they have to work for each meal, day by day.
I disagree - i think this is effectively making it a crime to be too poor. The homeless are only a burden to others if we have a welfare state, and the criminal homeless are only a danger to others if the police are not enforcing misdemeanors, both of which California has going for them
Sounds like a great idea!
They did it to the Japanese.
I would think that the first step is to start enforcing the current laws and stop handing out free shit, but thats just me
I’m all for forced rehab.
Why not just bring back the psychiatric hospitals? California's homeless are primarily drug addicts and the mentally ill. It's where they belong and at least has some prospect of rehabilitation.
At least one CA politician has gotten past the stupid idea that the homeless are merely "down on their luck", but are actually losers, crazies, and parasites. Credit is deserved for that.
The city I live in made a massive push for affordable housing, even giving people 6 months free rent in a brand new apt. bldg. so they could "get on their feet" by having a stable, permanent address.
All it did was attract many, many more homeless people to the city, so the homeless initiative actually INCREASED the numbers & the crime & drugs increased dramatically. It's so bad the city has now allowed camping in the downtown. Yea!
The low income apt. bldg. became a magnet for drug deals, hookers, etc. who terrorize their neighbours. It ruined the neighbourhood. Police, as usual, are totally useless.
The people would get their 6 months, then the majority would be back on the streets again. Meanwhile we've seen a 300% increase in our taxes, partly because we're expected to pay for all these drug addicts, the mentally ill & criminals, plus the increased policing. The police spend most of their time saving drug addicts from overdoses & fining tax payers on their way to & from work.
My patience has evaporated.
So the homeless are under represented in concentration camps so this is a diversity action?