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In Rare Alliance, Democrats and Republicans Seek Legal Power to Clear Homeless Camps
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this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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I don’t agree that the strategy of increasing the housing supply is a bad strategy. Indeed, it’s the only way to solve this issue long-term. But it does take time and money which raises the question of what to do with thousands of people in the meantime.
Use eminent domain for something useful for once and reallocate existing unused housing?
I don’t think there is enough unused housing in some of these cities. Also, some fraction of these people are mentally ill and would severely damage or destroy whatever housing they find themselves in. We saw this with some of the hotel shelter programs during the pandemic.
I see that cited, and wonder where that number comes from. The document they cite is from Grants Pass, and just also says that number without saying where they got it other than "Portland Officials." I'm not necessarily saying it is untrue, but it seems dubious at best. Even if it were true, were there stipulations to that housing (no partners, no pets, no drugs, etc)? If so, the high number may be related. Housing first (which should include other social support structures) is shown to work; housing with conditions is marginal at best.
One problem may be the extreme restriction of autonomy that sometimes accompanies public housing. You see this tendency to treat adults receiving any sort of aid as if they were children.
It also tends to be the case with VA housing. The way they treat veterans living in VA condos is absurd. It's on par with what you'd expect to see in like a halfway home, except these folks usually haven't done anything illegal. They signed their lives away, came home with PTSD, and get treated like trash by the VA for their troubles.
The strings that go with public housing often make the idea of looking for another way to get a leg up more appealing.
It certainly raises questions but I think there’s a lot of missing information there. Who are they asking? Every unhoused person or just the most disruptive groups that they most want to move? And why are people refusing? Is the offered shelter substandard in some way? You could write a whole article about just that statistic.
But if they have shelter available the courts do allow them to ban camping in public spaces which is needed in my view. Public space is very limited in America and there are real costs to that space being monopolized by a small group of people. If they truly have nowhere else to be then fair enough but as soon as alternatives exist then they should be there instead and not on sidewalks and public parks.