Needles, Syringes, Feces, Bodies on our Streets

Free housing IS welfare and if you think the homeless are just rolling in 'welfare' money, then you must be blind. That money ran out for them a long time ago.

So, you are saying your solution would not solve the problem....

 

With all due respect (seriously!), I think both of you fellows are trying to 'play badminton in a hurricane', so-to-speak. The matter concerning swarms of homeless bums roaming around all over the place -- in both 'red' AND 'blue' states, has assumed proportions much larger than before, and it is likely they will grow during the approaching economic misery that will surely come during 2023 (and beyond?).

All the well-meaning 'coffee table talk' about 'contributing factors', 'who's to blame', 'what should we do', etc. is reduced to almost non-existent importance -- replaced by the far more pressing concerns regarding hygiene, diseases, real criminal activity, public safety on public property, pollution of creeks and streams, and wildfires started in 'camps'... especially out in the West where we have been in the unrelenting grip of a whole series of droughts going back over twenty years!

Simply put -- we have to get them out (OUT) of our cities and towns. OUT! Where they go and what they do is their right to decide as free American citizens, but they have to be gotten out of our populated areas -- NOW, before they wreck everything!

I've advocated giving them free residence on Federal Government public lands (which number in the thousands upon thousands of square miles), along with free food, free shelters (refurbished, abandoned government buildings, or, places to pitch their tents), free clothes, free occasional, basic medical care, free alcohol, and even free drugs. But they must STAY there once they go there, and if they want, they can remain there for the rest of their lives. But, again, we MUST get them OUT of our cities and towns!

 

What if they want to be in cities?

 

If homeless citizens of the United States "want to be in cities", then, of course, that is their right as citizens! But, whether in cities or anywhere else, they must (MUST) obey all the laws, whether federal, state, county, or municipal, that every other citizen must obey... or do you disagree...?

 

They have to comply with the law.

 

I'd go further and say that citizens have obligations to do more than just obey the written laws. In other words, you don't get to sleep on the streets and eschew work just because you are not committing crimes.

Somewhere along the line we in the USA became obsessed with "rights," which to me is funny, because the Bill of Rights was tacked onto the constitution at the end of it as an addendum.

My guess is that the founders took it for granted that people would want to work for a living in order to avoid starvation.

Since they were mistaken in that regard, what would be wrong at this point with a Bill of Duties or a Bill of Obligations to complement the Bill of Rights?

 

You mean specifically, white males.

 

What about them?

 

I bolded what I was responding to.

 

I don't get your point. I decline, however to get into some race based argument.

I just think it better on balance to focus on duties and limitations on government power than on individual "rights". For example, if the constitution doesn't give the government power to control firearms in the first place, why do we need the 2nd Amendment?

 

As we see one 'social norm' after another disappearing in our country, we have to default back to what is written, black-on-white, in the laws. And, even then, as numerous cities have seen, the 'homeless advocacy groups' and radical, Left-wing, pro bono lawyers do everything they can to fight the laws themselves!

Here in Colorado, we've had laws that strictly forbid camping in all unauthorized public places, but the homeless bums build squatter-camps there anyway, and get away with it, because it is argued that they have the right to find 'shelter' wherever they like! Same thing with building open fires. The homeless bums start completely illegal 'camp' fires, and often these fires get out of control and burn acreage, structures, etc. But, for some reason, they only get a 'hand-spank', or nothing at all for doing this, even though it presents great danger here in the drought-stricken West. Shall I go on? We've got laws that forbid sh*tting and pissing in the creeks and streams, but the homeless deliberately seek them out as ideal places to put their illegal squatter-camps. On and on and on....

Laws are our only lines of defense, but, as we have seen over the past few years, they're pretty ineffective and rarely really enforced....

 

So you do get my point.

Founding fathers only made the assumption that if its citizens didn’t watch the government, the government would start watching the citizens. They got that part exactly correct.

 

Your previous post referenced white males. That's what I'm not getting.

 

No it isn't. Welfare is a no strings attached model. My model has many strings attached - those you deliberately avoided in your response. And I never said they're rolling in money. They don't need to be. All they need is to stay alive til their next fix. Welfare allows them to do that - either via free food, free housing, or free money. My model gives NOTHING for 'free'. That's the whole point.

And it would absolutely solve the problem. It's the only model which can provide a just context for people to CHOOSE their future. They would be offered far more than they have access to now, and would be entirely free to accept or decline it as they see fit. That is the solution. Those who genuinely need the help, will benefit far more than they do now .. and those who aren't genuine will decline. Declining would exempt those individuals from Govt concern (via their own free will, remember) - something we should all want to see. A self-policing policy is the only just and fair kind, and the only approach which focuses resources into the hands of the genuinely needy.

FTR, the b@stards who seek to perpetuate homelessness and dissolution will never offer something like this. They will only ever provide what they know will lock people into their circumstances, and ensure more and more fall into those same circumstances. They offer free things, so that few bother to do what it takes to rejoin society. They allow street sleeping, so it comes to be seen as the only option. It's ****ing despicable, no matter how you look at it.

 

~ That is correct. Look at the abuse of authority by DOJ and FBI.

 

Its welfare. You might not want to admit it, but it is what it is.

Any type of government-sponsored assistance program is welfare.

If welfare has no strings attached, then how come I'm not receiving some? Of course it has strings.

 

Exactly. That's why it's so important to offer the option of housing etc (with sobriety strings attached because we care enough to want them to get better), before enacting any laws against street sleeping.

Those concerned about how/where they'll live once they're kicked out of cities and towns, will take up the offer and get clean etc. Those who aren't concerned about where they'll live, probably won't. BUT, they will have made an informed choice to take their chances outside cities and towns. They would be of no further concern than any other citizen at that point. Where they go and what they'll do is no more relevant than for the rest of us. Unless they declare themselves in need (and the homeless would have been given that opportunity under my proposed model), how they live is utterly irrelevant. They will do whatever they will, and do it within the law just like the rest of us.

 

It does not have strings. It has merely a net worth limit. The worst possible 'criteria' of all, because any @sshat can bankrupt themselves.

Stings should be predicated upon behaviour, because it's the only bona fide indicator of genuineness. If getting resources to the genuine, and out of the hands of those who abuse it, matters at all to you - you would never favour a net worth criteria. If solving the problem of dissolution matters to you, you would never favour a net worth criteria.

 

They made that choice as free citizens and they chose the cities.

 

But not to sleep on city streets!

 

This I think illustrates the need for an abuse of rights doctrine. Any right can be abused, and consequences should flow from it.

 

You said FF would assume everyone wanted to work. They had no such thinking. Back then it was assumed that black people wouldn’t work unless beaten not submission. Nobody thought silly women could keep thoughts in their heads long enough to do anything except make jam.

 

Fair point.

 

And, as law-abiding citizens, they certainly do have the right to choose the cities -- BUT -- like all the rest of us, they must (MUST) obey all the laws in those cities!

The right of our cities, counties, and states to make and enforce laws surrounding these homeless issues, among many others, would be so much easier for everyone to understand, and deal with effectively, if the 10th Amendment to the Constitution hadn't been reduced to near-impotency by Abraham Lincoln....

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." 10th Amendment, ratified Dec. 15, 1791.

 

end the war on drugs and crack down on public intoxication... 30 days in jail would sober them up, offer treatment upon release

you can't let this continue, it only gets worse

there will always be people that move to warm climates to check out from society

States that have freezing cold winters do not ave this problem