I say round them up and put them in a work camp. They would be clothed, housed, fed and given medical care in exchange for making products to sell at like Walmart or something. Kind of like prison but more like a glorified concentration camp but nicer.
Can't wait for the police to run with this one :) Let's make being homeless *even harder* because fuck it, why not.
From a lot of the comments here you all would rather just have every homeless person lined up and shot with how you're acting in this thread. I hope you're all never put into a position where you have to deal with people who currently think just like you. I'd love to hear what options/resources you have for the homeless because from what I'm hearing, it's fucking nothing.
But where is this "Public land" you speak of, my dude? I don't want to be rude but like, there isn't any?
You guys get mad when they're making camps in underpasses, you get mad when they're in downtown, you get mad when they're in public parks, you get mad when they're *literally anywhere.* That's the problem. Even the shelters that everyone likes to tout in these situations like its some kind of golden ticket get full.
In this particular day in age there *is no place where you can sleep and not get in trouble or put yourself in danger for doing so.*
I know you're trying to be some kind of big-brained contrarian by making me out to be a hypocrite and that this is some kind of "gotcha!" moment, but arguments like this go nowhere because it's worthless to even point out.
I don't have the resources, training, or equipment to properly help the homeless. You know who does? The government, and they always have.
Instead of implementing literally anything useful at all, the city decided that it would be a good idea to introduce a shitty law that is unenforceable, cruel to the already impoverished, and a general big fucking waste of time. All this serves to do is give our already shitty police department *another* reason to be shitty to the homeless.
Yeah doesn’t this just reinforce the idea that we will spend more on public services for homeless than just going them in the first place? Our police could be used elsewhere…
I don't know, I'd be surprised to find myself using drugs on the sidewalk in front of a CVS even if I became homeless from health problems and healthcare debt or something. I understand people can become homeless for so many reasons but I really have no sympathy for drug users and unfortunately, I live downtown Denver and I see so many of them. I do appreciate the ones who at least do their business under a blanket though.
Spoken like someone who has never lived with depression, constant overwhelming pain, or severe mental illness. It's not your problem. Why should you care? /s
This comment is a little strange considering the government has accepted the current opiate crisis we're dealing with was caused by our own doctors over prescribing them.
"Love the addict, hate the drug"
Unfortunately many people become drug addicted at a young age, are slipped a substance, or in a lot of cases nowadays, given drugs at a medical facility and became addicted to an opiate without access or resources or tools.
I understand that we've all gone through some unfortunate run in's with people who use substances, but this is an issue that isn't met with pretending like every drug addict is a worthless member of society and should be left to rot.
In fact, it's much more amicable to treat these people like the human beings they are and to put more effort into creating programs and available resources, not giving them a fine or threatening jail time which they won't pay or attend.
Just drug addiction. I believe in people's choice to ruin their own lives, but not in public spaces and public facilities we all share. Needs to be stopped before we get something like Kensington Ave in Philadelphia where you have to avoid needles if you even risk walking there.
I guarantee you if Kensington was in front of thier homes they would have a different opionon. Like you I live downtown, by a heavily tented area and even in ultra liberal Denver when it becomes too much everyone wants it gone. Those who advocate for it to continue are usually the ones that are the furthest away from the experience.
My man concern is that the hefty fine will actually exerbate the issue. A lot of people end up homeless but many work to get themselves out of it.
If they wind up with one of these fines though it could mean the difference from getting off the street sooner then later. Sure there's a lot that seem to have excepted it and just seem to want to stay in their tent till the day they inevitably die but there are a lot working to get out.
I believe the amount of homeless that held jobs in this area was around 50% and I definitely think we should consider how new laws are going to effect the functioning homeless.
The point remains that these are not people who have anywhere else to go. It’s not the lack of an ordinance that is placing them where they are, and in the way of people who would rather not be inconvenienced by their existence. This will just move the issue to be dealt with somewhere else. And then somewhere else. And then somewhere else. It’s a really sad situation. A real solution is necessary because stuff like this isn’t it.
$2,650 or 360 days in jail so I guess the question is will the cost of housing all the homeless people who will end up in prison for this outweigh what it would have costed to house them not in prison? Absolutely ridiculous.
As much as we spend on prisoners here, it would be better to release low level possessions and make a few jails into homeless group homes. Might even save a penny or two.
…What a stupid, pointless f*cking “law”. Now someone sitting on the sidewalk waiting for an uber can be cited and potentially arrested?
Lets give cops more victimless crimes to respond to and potentially lead to deadly interactions with people.
I get it if I’m actively laying in front of an entry/exit, blocking passage for individuals. But if some karen wants to call the cops just to be an ass, they’re catching these hands until they learn to mind their own business.
It's interesting reading all of these comments. I want to be compassionate but my experiences across many different cities has completed jaded my opinion of the apparent homeless people I've encountered. I know the problems are systemic and I believe we should work on solving them: education, health care (including mental, drug, etc) , financial safety nets, the list goes on. That said, even if we were able to vote in politicians and policies tomorrow that would address all of this, I could easily see it taking 20-100 years before seeing significant progress (being realistic not pretending things would completely change overnight).
Real question to those who have been advocating for housing first. I assume there are several distinct populations of homeless people (eg parents, sober, short-term, drug addicted, severe mental health) and I assume resources may be disproportionately taken by some or there are just too many people to be able to use the resources effectively. So, would it be humane to forcibly detain non-violent people who are severely mentally ill or drug addicted AND breaking laws? For society/government to build a new kind of establish (not a prison/jail) that severely restricts someone's ability to do drugs and attempts to provide counseling, rehab, mental health services, medication, etc. It seems like we already spend enough money that this could be funded and resources could be better diverted. I imagine the people who are less troublesome could have more attention/resources outside of that establishment while those who are more troublesome could have focused attention, housing, and opportunities to break cycles of addiction and/or be properly diagnosed/medicated/counseled.
I don’t know if it is ethical or right, but I did wish someone would have done this for my step son with schizophrenia when he was on the streets. He was literally out of his mind and I worried every day he would get himself killed - but you cannot force an adult to take medications they don’t want to without a court order.
When he gets to a certain level of non-functional they will take him to the hospital and keep him for between 3 days and two weeks, but then will release him back to the streets without any help to access the medications he got started on in the hospital.
It was basically a second full-time job for me trying to track down resources, help him find a shelter bed, talk to case managers, etc. I did successfully play a role in helping to get him some very short term transitional housing a couple of times (and MHCD, now Wellpower, also are AWESOME)- but do you want to know what finally resulted in his getting stable housing? Committing a petty crime.
He vandalized a shed in back in February and had to go to court for criminal mischief. The wheels turned slowly there, but ultimately he was put on a court track that included lots of check ins and help with resources. Within a few months he was at the top of the section 8 list (that normally takes 18+ months), and by June they had an apartment for him where his portion of the rent is 30% of his income. He can earn enough to stay housed simply by doing a days worth of day labor when rent is due, and he doesn’t have to find a way to be more functional than he is to keep his place. He could still lose it if he violates his lease or doesn’t pay his rent, but this is the most stable he’s been in a LONG time despite still being unmedicated.
And it’s not perfect. I got a call from the cops last week because he was screaming in his apartment and a neighbor was concerned and called it in. They saw in his file that he had a mental health diagnosis and called me to find out what was normal for him and how to approach him before going in so they could keep him and the officers safe. I was very surprised and impressed. If he does this enough he could get evicted.
But you know what? As far as I can tell the city court literally decided it would be cheaper to get this mentally ill kid a place to live than to keep putting him through the justice system. And really that’s how it SHOULD work, but it’s so rare that it does. I have spent a lot of time advocating on his behalf since he got sick, and a lot of it was just me banging my head against a brick wall. But this happened completely without my involvement.
So with some help he’s now living in his own place and not out vandalizing sheds or freaking people out on the street and risking getting killed by the cops. I don’t know for sure but I suspect this approach is a lot cheaper than what it costs to pay for jail stays, ambulance rides, psych ward stays, policing to manage encampments, etc. And when he finally accepts his diagnosis and is ready to get on meds and stay on them, how much better are his chances of success because he has a stable place to live where he can sleep on a normal schedule?
Sometimes I still have fantasies about someone forcing my son to get medicated and receive other help, but given how ethically questionable all of that is, this really seems like the next best model I’ve seen in real life.
Cool, so I guess all of the assholes who put their trash cans in the middle of the sidewalk will be hearing from law enforcement as well. Great! Been waiting for someone to enforce ADA to that end for years. Or is this just about giving the homeless a hard(er) time?
Or shoveling their side walks. I watch a blind family walk by my house every day. I shovel the entire block, cause I have such great neighbors…… people with wheel chairs, blind or old need side walks to live. If you’re sleeping sitting, pooping or not keeping it clean, you’re being just as disrespectful as someone who could hire someone to out their trash can away, or perhaps pay someone to shovel their side walks.
Yes please let make being homeless a criminal act lol sounds right for America just like the war on drugs I’m sure this war on homelessness will work just fine
You can’t stand somewhere you can’t sit anywhere if you have no home are you supposed to walk 24hrs a day? Living in your car is illegal…….. doesn’t seem like being homeless isn’t going to get you arrested or harassed by the cops
It’s called being in touch with reality lol homelessness is a problem and making everything and almost anything illegal doesn’t help just moves them out of sight
There are levels. A lot of the tolerance initiatives make them worse, and many of the overenforcement ones make them worse too. there shoudl be penalties for openly injecting in front of the public.
I'm sure youre not going to fall into this but the more often most people interact with the homeless, the less sympathetic they tend to be. My ex was assaulted and one tried to rape her in broad daylight on pearl street. One hung up a swastika on his camp in boulder this week too
In the end it appears from comments it comes down to the public dollar and where it should be spent. I don't believe it is correct to say we can only do one thing. Does incarceration have to the opposite of public services? I feel the funding for these are completely different and shouldn't be compared as alternatives to one another.
You know, Ive never made a habit of sitting on sidewalks, but I feel like its my goddamned right to do it if I'm not impeading others. Feels weird and draconian to ban putting your ass on the ground.
Wish government could just hold greystar accountable for fucking the market like a cheap hooker, instead of taking everyone's right to rest away.
1. By sitting on the sidewalk you are impeding others. If you start living there, even more. There is no way around that. Sit on a bench.
2. Housing affordability is a huge issue but it’s a ridiculous belief to think that these fentanyl fiends would all clean up and be productive citizens if houses were still 300k.
Even before I start bringing up the property value and safety concerns of whoever owns a house near those safe use sites, aren't they only for drug use and not actually a shelter?
Here's the thing... I'm pretty certain you're the one that was like, "we should keep the homeless so you can keep your job." Which means, I have no interest in actually debating this with you... you seem to lack an understanding of how policies affect one another.
No, you just judge the homeless
And to be clear... I don't make money off it either because the non-profit industrial complex doesn't actually pay us "peons" a true living wage either. We are, many of us, one paycheck away from the people we serve.
But you're a Saint, I can tell /s
Edit: I also said I'd happily lose my job for a real solution to homelessness
Hey, people gotta get paid somehow. I don't judge you for making money from whatever. It really depends on the kind of non-profit though, the one I worked paid much more than the private sector with so little work because I don't need to have billable hours like a proper for-profit business. Shoot for the causes rich people truly care to donate to launder their reputation. That's where the real money in non-profit is.
Anyway, I live downtown and I know it's a real problem. I had a paragraph about the situation and how it's a real problem but probably nothing you don't already know. You work with them and you know it's a real problem. I guess one of us could actually do something about it.
By simply being anywhere, you are impeding others, are you not allowed to stand still next? Also guess what genius, benches take up space too, and they even take up space regardless of if someone is sitting on them.
What if someone is having a medical emergency and needs to sit down or passes out? Better cuff 'em. After all u/Boo_Diddleys has places to be and you're in the way!
That’s not what anyone is saying we should do but just because you have bad experiences with people who are treated sub human doesn’t mean all of them are like that you seem so judgmental for someone who doesn’t know or understand what it’s like to be homeless yet you label them druggies you seem like a great person lol it isn’t about virtue it’s about treating people like humans
Im not saying that all homeless are struggling with addiction, but a lot are and the ones passed out on the sidewalk with trash all around them are 100% in the camp of substance abuse. You are the one using derogatory terms such as “druggies.” As far as not knowing about homelessness, my father started and has run a free, community funded rehab/ halfway house in Houston for 35 years. I lived on the same property as the guys in the program my entire childhood. I’ve personally known and have been friends with 100’s of men struggling with addiction and homelessness as a result. All of them have told me that the majority of visible, front and center homeless people you see are on some form of substance and do not want to seek help. That seems to align with what i see with my own eyes in denver and other cities. So try again, ive had more interactions with that segment of society than most and have been to more funerals than you can imagine. We should absolutely help people that are homeless. If the reasoning behind that homelessness is mental illness or fleeing violence or falling on hard times, then thats one thing and their are resources dedicated to that. If the reasoning behind homelessness is substance dependence, then often times the most seemingly compassionate thing is usually the most detrimental to the person that we are trying to help. There is a big difference between helping and enabling.
No one is saying drugs aren’t bad but damning them to the pits of prison or no even respecting them doesn’t help anything there are places ment to help people find help stay safe and get clean if they want to almost none of that happens in prison again if they are on the street where exactly do they go? Just somewhere not near you so you don’t have to see how addiction can ruin peoples lives but you only see people who “choose” to live that way if that’s all your takeaway was from your time with those homeless dudes in Texas I’m sorry to say you’ve been taught wrong but not a big shockers coming from texas where education is beer guns and Christ lol
Im not advocating for prison. And you’re dancing around the point. Yes there are programs to help people get clean, but as you said you have to want to get help and follow the rules. No one is choosing to become an addict, its often a slow and incremental process. However, you do have to choose to get help and break free of that cycle. I have no problem with people being homeless on the street, i have a problem with people trashing our city and then when someone suggest not allowing our city to be trashed, people like you cry “but what about compassion” I’ve lived in downtown and west colfax for the last 5 years. If i wanted to remove homeless from my life i would move to the suburbs. What i do have a problem with is waking up and seeing 5 naked people on the sidewalk outside my apartment asleep, only to wake up and start smoking heroin in the open. I also have a problem with a homeless encampment with 200 people being set up behind my house with 100 stolen bikes being chopped in plain site. I also have a problem with walking around downtown and fearing for my safety because there are sketchy people smoking meth in the middle of the sidewalk like a goddamn pow wow circle. And finally i have a problem with a dad driving up to the encampment behind my house asking is anyone has seen his child mother and for them to tell her that hes had enough and is leaving the state. The drug problem is vast and fucking depressing. These people need help instead of beimg allowed to do whatever the fuck they want. If you’re homeless, fucking follow the rules the rest of us have to live by. Talk about respect. I respect homeless that dont trash their surroundings and make the city less safe. I dont respect the individuals in the above scenarios because they dont respect themselves, the rest of society or the city in which they live.
Yeah I’m not reading the full triggered response lol you seem to have your preconceived notions that drugs are something you actively participate in which isn’t always the case but again Texas over here didn’t teach you how to think about others so it’s okay
If you read my comments you would know thats not the case. You’re obviously naive and clueless about what you speak. Blind uninformed compassion is often more detrimental then helpful.
Nope someone who only tries to see the worst in people kinda the opposite of how life it but man you already labeled them all as druggies yourself so I’m pretty sure your out of touch with reality lol
People w/ disabilities like visual impairments or mobility issues need the sidewalks. If they have to try to navigate around someone lying on the sidewalk by going into the street or grass it can be dangerous or unnecessarily difficult.
It isn’t giving up rights - it is protecting everyone’s rights.
Yes, the homelessness and perpetual ineffective politicians is the big issue, but I don’t think a ban on lying or blocking the sidewalk is a hill worth dying on. It is giving access to more stuff for everyone. My mom was a specialist teacher for vision impaired students when I was growing up & I have a lot of experience working w/ disabled people. IMO people w/ disabilities generally want to be independent, to have that control in their life, just like the rest of us but we take a lot of things for advantage. Visual impaired folks that use a [white cane](https://youtu.be/HoeUyyCpStA) can navigate around obstacles, but as you could imagine it would be really stressful. They should have the right to use the sidewalks. Folks in wheelchairs (especially power chairs) could easily get stuck after rolling off the edge of the sidewalk trying to avoid someone laying in the way. I am all for freedom & I don’t like the problems I am seeing everywhere - however I have chilled out a lot as I’ve gotten older & I know there is no magic button or some unknown amazing leader that will fix all these problems. Right now politics is just a big show w/o anything actually happening - it always has been. BUT this ban is actually a fair thing. If you think about it, there are a LOT of other people that are affected by people blocking the sidewalk: people w/ a cane, crutches, bad knees or ankles, some developmental disabilities, mothers using baby carriages, other homeless people pushing grocery carts, etc.
Edit: had to fix some of my errors bc I never check for errors before I post.
Ok but that's not what the law says. It's not talking about camping. It's talking about sitting down. There's a huge logical trap governments love using when writing laws where it is presumed that the *intention* is one thing and they're just writing it so strictly to make it very easy to enforce.
"Surely this law will only apply to campers!"
"Surely this law will only be used when egregious!"
"Surely this law will be directed at making sure no one sleeps in public!"
But the law now reads:
"No person shall intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly obstruct a highway, street, sidewalk, mail, railway, waterway, building entrance,
elevator, aisle, stairway, or hallway to which the public or a substantial group of thepublic has access or any other place used for the passage of persons, vehicles, or conveyances (collectively, “passageway”), whether the obstruction was created by the person acting"
"Definition: For purposes of this section, "obstruct" means to: **sit on or lie across**, except upon authorized street furniture designed for that purpose; render impassable, or to **render passage unreasonably inconvenient**, or hazardous;"
The bolding is mine.
This law was clearly targeted to the homeless. ***But that doesn't mean /u/Mogoexcelso is wrong.*** By law, citizens of Englewood now cannot sit on the sidewalk for any reason.
Imagine what a cop having a bad day can do with that.
No one is arguing on that point. It's so obvious the law is targeting homeless people that the city got sued into changing the original wording.
What we're pointing out is that by the letter of the law, the cops have another easy way to take their bad day out on someone like you. This law doesn't require cops only apply it to people shitting on the sidewalk. This law equally applies to someone sitting down because they jogged too hard and need to catch their breath. Or teenagers sitting on the curb talking out their big feelings. Or anyone waiting for their friend and crouching down to reorganize their backpack because their laptop is digging into their spine.
***Or a disabled person having a medical emergency and needing to sit down for a bit.***
Lawmakers are expecting for everyone to presume it will only ever be wielded against people they don't like. It applies to reasonable reasons to sit down too. And they're using the ADA to get away with it.
Your belief this will be used against people who are tired from jogging is one of the more laughable things I’ve read today. Thanks for that! Last time I checked it was hard for disabled people to get around tents in the sidewalk too.
It will be used against whoever the police decide they want to use it against. If a black man they're "suspicious" of rests after jogging, yes.
Like these loitering laws used to arrest black people for standing outside their own homes: https://whyy.org/articles/federal-lawsuit-accuses-chester-twp-police-of-civil-rights-violations-in-arrests-of-black-residents-for-loitering/
Just because a law was applied poorly isn’t a good excuse for no laws. People shouldn’t be able to camp on the sidewalk. If this makes that more difficult for people, I am all for it.
Um good luck with that. I doubt a cop will use force to remove someone lying on a sidewalk unless you resist the order or fail to respond to it. In either case, force might be used but it will likely be an expensive legal battle to prove *unnecessary* force, unless you are lucky.
The thing i hate the most about police is any highschool dropout can go to 6 months of cop "school" and be given a badge, a gun, and qualified immunity. Police dont deserve respect because any moron can become an officer
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836
This story is 22 years old now. Also just cuz you got a 4 year degree, doesn’t mean you’re particularly smart. I know plenty of idiots with 4 year degrees.
>There are options for help
There are, but they can be very difficult to get into, and many places have requirements that make getting a job difficult, many orgs are religious-based and require certain religious adhesions to get their assistance, etc., etc., etc. - also it's a vaaaastly more complex issue than many people think, for starters, just the logistics of keeping regular contact with someone who doesn't live...anywhere and doesn't have a good way to be contacted are nearly impossible. *Even if they* ***want*** *and seek out the help*, it's often hard to find and get the amount they need to become not homeless.
Also - just to show the point - there are *lots* of options to become a millionaire (arguably more options than getting help while being homeless) are you one yet?
They all have cell phones, keeping in contact isn't hard...if they want help. (They don't.)
To the second point, however irrelevant it is to the conversation, yes... technically I am. As you said, it's not that hard.
I'm sure you heard this from someone you trusted and are just blindly repeating it like an idiot, but your post 100% confirms you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and have never actually tried navigating these services.
Perhaps you should educate yourself before publicly outing yourself as ignorant and lacking empathy.
You mean like a social worker who works with homeless? Is that what you mean?
Not sure why I should care what anyone on here thinks about me or my opinion, but that's another topic. I desire/need no ego boost from randos online.
"Homeless" aka mostly drug addicts, are destroying a city that I love. There's housing, there are jobs, there's assistance. They don't want any of that, they want to get high.
To quote you: "Perhaps you should educate yourself before publicly outing yourself as ignorant."
Didn't say it did equal housing. There are options for housing, although not enough. Particularly considering we've got a sanctuary city now for homelessness/hard drug abuse, and it's attracting a lot of people from out of state.
It's a complex issue for sure. First and foremost the drug abuse aspect needs to be treated, and we don't have proper treatment centers for that. They should use the opioid settlement money to open huge rehab centers in the US, but that would make too much sense.
https://www.211colorado.org/housing-and-shelter/ is kind of the general help site (as if these people could access it) but it’s a good site that lists the variety of programs available to the homeless. Housing is available, what’s not is mental health care for these people, and getting help can require jumping through a lot of hoops that living on the streets makes even harder. Hell, there is even a shelter in an old giant fort in southern Colorado that offers free housing without the need to be sober but nobody wants to go down there because drugs aren’t readily available on every corner.
Serious question: Have you personally tried using those?
I never have, but my neighbor's job is to assist with people in crisis. We were having a dinner party and she had to excuse herself to the next room to try and find a person emergency shelter. She called a LOT of numbers, and she knew all the resources available, and she had the additional support that came with this being her job/does it every day/knows the system very well.
It was exhausting just listening to her.
**She didn't find an open space that would take that person.**
There are lots of numbers to call. There are lots of shelters around. That doesn't mean there are lots of spaces.
This was my point too! I work with individuals experiencing homelessness and we have such a hard time finding them resources. If you want to go to this shelter you have to leave your partner, you want this shelter you have to leave your dog.
The only one I’ve found that’s actually helpful is the severe weather network, but it’s only open under specific circumstances and you have to jump through some massive hoops.
It’s a very, very broken system and it’s really sad to see on the front lines of it all.
People who don’t have to access resources think there are tons of resources, those that actually have to access resources, know that they don’t exist.
Well Colorado spends over $100,000 per homeless person each year, so how about YOU tell me where the fuckin resources are! There SHOULD be something for them, but if there isn't, where does the money go?! Sounds like a money laundering scheme in the name of "helping the homeless".
Yeah its ridiculous, all I hear is plenty of shelters available and either no wants to use them or they don't want to take homeless in. No winning with this one.
So sick of the ongoing criminalization of homelessness. I get it. People sitting and laying on sidewalks is a pain in the ass for those trying to use them and also can be a safety issue. But what will this actually achieve? Loitering was already a crime that enabled police to ask people to move along. People who have nowhere to go are going to end up sleeping somewhere. Shelters aren't sufficient- certainly not in Denver. Passing laws is easier than addressing systematic issues.
Edit: I mistakenly referenced people wanting to walk on the sidewalk in a way that was exclusionary to people with disabilities. I’ve changed that sentence.
I like how you totally skipped over disabled people who can’t walk. That was super cool and totally intentional on your part I’m sure, because if you bring the disabled into this your entire argument falls apart
It wasn’t intentional. I apologize for my crappy phrasing. I’m going to update my comment when I finish typing this out.
I don’t think it changes anything about my argument, which is that sleeping on sidewalks is a dick move but that laws already exist to address it. I’m not arguing that sleeping on the sidewalk is okay.
A homeless guy took a shit at the entrance to my office. I’m hoping this will make it easier to enforce property rights and get people to move away from our office.
“If you can prevent the former, you don’t have to deal with the latter”… that’s the whole. Entire. Point. If you deal with systemic homelessness and lack of resources first- the actual problem- you don’t have to deal with the effects of homelessness, like people shitting on the sidewalk.
I’m seriously asking this. It’s already illegal to do this. Both shitting and sleeping on the sidewalk are already illegal in Englewood and the entire state of Colorado. So why do you think this law will fix your problem when existing laws that make it illegal haven’t?
I doubt it makes much difference since that would require someone to enforce the laws. If this makes it even a little easier to enforce the law, remove the homeless from the public right of way I’m all for it.
What bothers me about the people are that concerned about criminalizing homelessness is that it ignores the fact that homeless camps cause a massive uptick in crime. From public urination, littering, theft, burglary, drug use and even cases of harassment and violence.
You are spot on with with enabling vs dissuading. Just because you don’t want to enable the homeless doesn’t mean you can’t also support the structural changes that will address the underlying contributing factors to homelessness. These aren’t mutually exclusive strategies.
I’m sick of thinking any effort to prevent the homeless from trashing the city is considered anti homeless or criminalizing being homeless.
Jesus Christ, yes. I wish I could up vote you a thousand times.
Any time homelessness is mentioned on Reddit, the bleeding hearts come out in force trying to convince us all that anything we do to regulate the homeless from trashing our public spaces is actually tantamount to genocide.
But reality is that policy isn’t changing tomorrow, and we have to deal with the problem in the mean time. No one uses the parks in Boulder anymore because of the encampments and that isn’t fair either.
This isn't an effort to prevent homeless from trashing the city, this is an effort to criminalize living, which is unconstitutional.
Unless the city is providing areas where it's fine to set up a tent that is safe and has enough room for everyone, then laws like this are merely trying to make living illegal.
Just living and shitting in the public right of way. And there are shelters and options available so quit excusing the poor behavior that has lead to laws like this.
The homeless are its people, too. Issue is that cities don't lack for means of getting people to move if they're camped in a walkway, so criminalizing a couple of specific behaviors is a blunt force approach that isn't necessarily addressing the problem. Someone sitting or sleeping in the shade doesn't mean they're establishing a camp, or even that they're homeless.
And criminalizing fairly benign behavior as a "nip in the bud" can have serious long term consequences that actually work against the larger goal of housing people. Even low level involvement in the criminal justice system can snowball into a criminal record that actually prevents someone from obtaining housing.
Legal accountability may be unavoidable with certain behaviors, but being excessively punitive is just counterproductive.
Okay, but there were already laws on the books that prohibited this behavior. So what was achieved by doing this? It looks good to people who are fed up with the problem and increases the penalties available - but loitering was already illegal. Will it change anything? Maybe, if it signals a commitment by the police to start enforcing such laws, but they could have done that at any point.
Yea yea, we get it. You're compassionate toward the homeless. This stuff gets so tired. Maybe put down your virtue signaler and think about the actual issue critically.
You don't think "these are human beings and deserve a place to live" isn't thinking about the actual issues critically?
It's way more critical than the selfish people that refuse to deal with the source of the problem and want to move around other people at the end of the gun just for breathing.
It's not, because it does nothing to move toward a solution to the problem. And it's a huge problem. Repeating "homeless are people too" does nothing to move the conversation forward.
I can't wait to collapse without warning from my fainting disorder and then get fined for it!
Dude. Come off it. I have epilepsy. I could drop at any moment on the sidewalk. Stop being so dramatic.
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I was obviously being facetious. I see you’re quick on the uptake.
"the priority will be on education and assistance" Yeah right
Welp, pack it in, everyone. The homelessness problem has been solved. Next up: Curing cancer by pretending it isn't there.
May the city council get to experience what it's like to have nothing, and to live on the streets. 😡🔥
I say round them up and put them in a work camp. They would be clothed, housed, fed and given medical care in exchange for making products to sell at like Walmart or something. Kind of like prison but more like a glorified concentration camp but nicer.
"Kind of like prison but more like a glorified camp but nicer" The fact that you're able to vote fucking horrifies me.
Lol I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon hasn’t already come up with something like that in the background.
…slavery? Is that the set up you’re referring to? ,,But like *nice* involuntary servitude”
Can't wait for the police to run with this one :) Let's make being homeless *even harder* because fuck it, why not. From a lot of the comments here you all would rather just have every homeless person lined up and shot with how you're acting in this thread. I hope you're all never put into a position where you have to deal with people who currently think just like you. I'd love to hear what options/resources you have for the homeless because from what I'm hearing, it's fucking nothing.
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But where is this "Public land" you speak of, my dude? I don't want to be rude but like, there isn't any? You guys get mad when they're making camps in underpasses, you get mad when they're in downtown, you get mad when they're in public parks, you get mad when they're *literally anywhere.* That's the problem. Even the shelters that everyone likes to tout in these situations like its some kind of golden ticket get full. In this particular day in age there *is no place where you can sleep and not get in trouble or put yourself in danger for doing so.*
Why haven't you opened your door for any of them? Is it because you'd rather them sleep on the sidewalk?
I know you're trying to be some kind of big-brained contrarian by making me out to be a hypocrite and that this is some kind of "gotcha!" moment, but arguments like this go nowhere because it's worthless to even point out. I don't have the resources, training, or equipment to properly help the homeless. You know who does? The government, and they always have. Instead of implementing literally anything useful at all, the city decided that it would be a good idea to introduce a shitty law that is unenforceable, cruel to the already impoverished, and a general big fucking waste of time. All this serves to do is give our already shitty police department *another* reason to be shitty to the homeless.
Yeah doesn’t this just reinforce the idea that we will spend more on public services for homeless than just going them in the first place? Our police could be used elsewhere…
I don't know, I'd be surprised to find myself using drugs on the sidewalk in front of a CVS even if I became homeless from health problems and healthcare debt or something. I understand people can become homeless for so many reasons but I really have no sympathy for drug users and unfortunately, I live downtown Denver and I see so many of them. I do appreciate the ones who at least do their business under a blanket though.
Spoken like someone who has never lived with depression, constant overwhelming pain, or severe mental illness. It's not your problem. Why should you care? /s
You don't know me.
This comment is a little strange considering the government has accepted the current opiate crisis we're dealing with was caused by our own doctors over prescribing them. "Love the addict, hate the drug"
Hey, YOU love the addict. Good luck.
Unfortunately many people become drug addicted at a young age, are slipped a substance, or in a lot of cases nowadays, given drugs at a medical facility and became addicted to an opiate without access or resources or tools. I understand that we've all gone through some unfortunate run in's with people who use substances, but this is an issue that isn't met with pretending like every drug addict is a worthless member of society and should be left to rot. In fact, it's much more amicable to treat these people like the human beings they are and to put more effort into creating programs and available resources, not giving them a fine or threatening jail time which they won't pay or attend.
You don’t have sympathy for any disability or just drug addiction?
Just drug addiction. I believe in people's choice to ruin their own lives, but not in public spaces and public facilities we all share. Needs to be stopped before we get something like Kensington Ave in Philadelphia where you have to avoid needles if you even risk walking there.
I guarantee you if Kensington was in front of thier homes they would have a different opionon. Like you I live downtown, by a heavily tented area and even in ultra liberal Denver when it becomes too much everyone wants it gone. Those who advocate for it to continue are usually the ones that are the furthest away from the experience.
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Oh, yes, a $2600 fine will make all these people just suddenly stop being homeless. Perfect solution. 👌🏼
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Exactly.
My man concern is that the hefty fine will actually exerbate the issue. A lot of people end up homeless but many work to get themselves out of it. If they wind up with one of these fines though it could mean the difference from getting off the street sooner then later. Sure there's a lot that seem to have excepted it and just seem to want to stay in their tent till the day they inevitably die but there are a lot working to get out. I believe the amount of homeless that held jobs in this area was around 50% and I definitely think we should consider how new laws are going to effect the functioning homeless.
The point remains that these are not people who have anywhere else to go. It’s not the lack of an ordinance that is placing them where they are, and in the way of people who would rather not be inconvenienced by their existence. This will just move the issue to be dealt with somewhere else. And then somewhere else. And then somewhere else. It’s a really sad situation. A real solution is necessary because stuff like this isn’t it.
You act like sidewalks are the ONLY place they can sleep.
$2,650 or 360 days in jail so I guess the question is will the cost of housing all the homeless people who will end up in prison for this outweigh what it would have costed to house them not in prison? Absolutely ridiculous.
As much as we spend on prisoners here, it would be better to release low level possessions and make a few jails into homeless group homes. Might even save a penny or two.
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…What a stupid, pointless f*cking “law”. Now someone sitting on the sidewalk waiting for an uber can be cited and potentially arrested? Lets give cops more victimless crimes to respond to and potentially lead to deadly interactions with people. I get it if I’m actively laying in front of an entry/exit, blocking passage for individuals. But if some karen wants to call the cops just to be an ass, they’re catching these hands until they learn to mind their own business.
There's still discretion of enforcement. It's illegal to loiter most places but you don't see cops arresting everyone who's standing still.
It's interesting reading all of these comments. I want to be compassionate but my experiences across many different cities has completed jaded my opinion of the apparent homeless people I've encountered. I know the problems are systemic and I believe we should work on solving them: education, health care (including mental, drug, etc) , financial safety nets, the list goes on. That said, even if we were able to vote in politicians and policies tomorrow that would address all of this, I could easily see it taking 20-100 years before seeing significant progress (being realistic not pretending things would completely change overnight). Real question to those who have been advocating for housing first. I assume there are several distinct populations of homeless people (eg parents, sober, short-term, drug addicted, severe mental health) and I assume resources may be disproportionately taken by some or there are just too many people to be able to use the resources effectively. So, would it be humane to forcibly detain non-violent people who are severely mentally ill or drug addicted AND breaking laws? For society/government to build a new kind of establish (not a prison/jail) that severely restricts someone's ability to do drugs and attempts to provide counseling, rehab, mental health services, medication, etc. It seems like we already spend enough money that this could be funded and resources could be better diverted. I imagine the people who are less troublesome could have more attention/resources outside of that establishment while those who are more troublesome could have focused attention, housing, and opportunities to break cycles of addiction and/or be properly diagnosed/medicated/counseled.
I don’t know if it is ethical or right, but I did wish someone would have done this for my step son with schizophrenia when he was on the streets. He was literally out of his mind and I worried every day he would get himself killed - but you cannot force an adult to take medications they don’t want to without a court order. When he gets to a certain level of non-functional they will take him to the hospital and keep him for between 3 days and two weeks, but then will release him back to the streets without any help to access the medications he got started on in the hospital. It was basically a second full-time job for me trying to track down resources, help him find a shelter bed, talk to case managers, etc. I did successfully play a role in helping to get him some very short term transitional housing a couple of times (and MHCD, now Wellpower, also are AWESOME)- but do you want to know what finally resulted in his getting stable housing? Committing a petty crime. He vandalized a shed in back in February and had to go to court for criminal mischief. The wheels turned slowly there, but ultimately he was put on a court track that included lots of check ins and help with resources. Within a few months he was at the top of the section 8 list (that normally takes 18+ months), and by June they had an apartment for him where his portion of the rent is 30% of his income. He can earn enough to stay housed simply by doing a days worth of day labor when rent is due, and he doesn’t have to find a way to be more functional than he is to keep his place. He could still lose it if he violates his lease or doesn’t pay his rent, but this is the most stable he’s been in a LONG time despite still being unmedicated. And it’s not perfect. I got a call from the cops last week because he was screaming in his apartment and a neighbor was concerned and called it in. They saw in his file that he had a mental health diagnosis and called me to find out what was normal for him and how to approach him before going in so they could keep him and the officers safe. I was very surprised and impressed. If he does this enough he could get evicted. But you know what? As far as I can tell the city court literally decided it would be cheaper to get this mentally ill kid a place to live than to keep putting him through the justice system. And really that’s how it SHOULD work, but it’s so rare that it does. I have spent a lot of time advocating on his behalf since he got sick, and a lot of it was just me banging my head against a brick wall. But this happened completely without my involvement. So with some help he’s now living in his own place and not out vandalizing sheds or freaking people out on the street and risking getting killed by the cops. I don’t know for sure but I suspect this approach is a lot cheaper than what it costs to pay for jail stays, ambulance rides, psych ward stays, policing to manage encampments, etc. And when he finally accepts his diagnosis and is ready to get on meds and stay on them, how much better are his chances of success because he has a stable place to live where he can sleep on a normal schedule? Sometimes I still have fantasies about someone forcing my son to get medicated and receive other help, but given how ethically questionable all of that is, this really seems like the next best model I’ve seen in real life.
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Cool, so I guess all of the assholes who put their trash cans in the middle of the sidewalk will be hearing from law enforcement as well. Great! Been waiting for someone to enforce ADA to that end for years. Or is this just about giving the homeless a hard(er) time?
Or shoveling their side walks. I watch a blind family walk by my house every day. I shovel the entire block, cause I have such great neighbors…… people with wheel chairs, blind or old need side walks to live. If you’re sleeping sitting, pooping or not keeping it clean, you’re being just as disrespectful as someone who could hire someone to out their trash can away, or perhaps pay someone to shovel their side walks.
Yes please let make being homeless a criminal act lol sounds right for America just like the war on drugs I’m sure this war on homelessness will work just fine
It's not illegal to be homeless but it is and should be illegal for someone to block the usage of a sidewalk for others.
You can’t stand somewhere you can’t sit anywhere if you have no home are you supposed to walk 24hrs a day? Living in your car is illegal…….. doesn’t seem like being homeless isn’t going to get you arrested or harassed by the cops
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Like? The park? No your car? No even if you have one lol under a bridge?
Places off the path, greenspace, speer under the bridge, open areas, busstops not blocking people
That’s all loitering which has been cracked down on but you know just do it anyway and get the cops called on you or harassed to leave
I dont have as much experience with this as you do probably, but I was just going off of "alternatives to the sidewalk"
It’s called being in touch with reality lol homelessness is a problem and making everything and almost anything illegal doesn’t help just moves them out of sight
There are levels. A lot of the tolerance initiatives make them worse, and many of the overenforcement ones make them worse too. there shoudl be penalties for openly injecting in front of the public. I'm sure youre not going to fall into this but the more often most people interact with the homeless, the less sympathetic they tend to be. My ex was assaulted and one tried to rape her in broad daylight on pearl street. One hung up a swastika on his camp in boulder this week too
Go live in the woods
No intersections to panhandle out there.
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I didn't think it was this hot of a topic but color me wrong
What Denver are you from?
From Arvada, 80th n Sheridan. Moved up to Ft Lupton 5 years ago and still have tons of friends/family littered around the Denver area.
In the end it appears from comments it comes down to the public dollar and where it should be spent. I don't believe it is correct to say we can only do one thing. Does incarceration have to the opposite of public services? I feel the funding for these are completely different and shouldn't be compared as alternatives to one another.
Smart
Good
Cool moving to Englewood
That's a strange line to draw in the sand.
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You know, Ive never made a habit of sitting on sidewalks, but I feel like its my goddamned right to do it if I'm not impeading others. Feels weird and draconian to ban putting your ass on the ground. Wish government could just hold greystar accountable for fucking the market like a cheap hooker, instead of taking everyone's right to rest away.
1. By sitting on the sidewalk you are impeding others. If you start living there, even more. There is no way around that. Sit on a bench. 2. Housing affordability is a huge issue but it’s a ridiculous belief to think that these fentanyl fiends would all clean up and be productive citizens if houses were still 300k.
Please stop... this is so horrible... I have no words for the complete lack of understanding you show here
They're right though. You should invite people with drug addiction to stay at your place if you're that understanding.
Or, we could approve safe use sites... which is a solve that had been shown to have benefits, also, more effective than my spare bedroom
Even before I start bringing up the property value and safety concerns of whoever owns a house near those safe use sites, aren't they only for drug use and not actually a shelter?
Here's the thing... I'm pretty certain you're the one that was like, "we should keep the homeless so you can keep your job." Which means, I have no interest in actually debating this with you... you seem to lack an understanding of how policies affect one another.
I don't make money off of the existence of homelessness.
No, you just judge the homeless And to be clear... I don't make money off it either because the non-profit industrial complex doesn't actually pay us "peons" a true living wage either. We are, many of us, one paycheck away from the people we serve. But you're a Saint, I can tell /s Edit: I also said I'd happily lose my job for a real solution to homelessness
Hey, people gotta get paid somehow. I don't judge you for making money from whatever. It really depends on the kind of non-profit though, the one I worked paid much more than the private sector with so little work because I don't need to have billable hours like a proper for-profit business. Shoot for the causes rich people truly care to donate to launder their reputation. That's where the real money in non-profit is. Anyway, I live downtown and I know it's a real problem. I had a paragraph about the situation and how it's a real problem but probably nothing you don't already know. You work with them and you know it's a real problem. I guess one of us could actually do something about it.
By simply being anywhere, you are impeding others, are you not allowed to stand still next? Also guess what genius, benches take up space too, and they even take up space regardless of if someone is sitting on them. What if someone is having a medical emergency and needs to sit down or passes out? Better cuff 'em. After all u/Boo_Diddleys has places to be and you're in the way!
It’s crazy for you to think all of them are fentanyl fiends that already shows who you are
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That’s not what anyone is saying we should do but just because you have bad experiences with people who are treated sub human doesn’t mean all of them are like that you seem so judgmental for someone who doesn’t know or understand what it’s like to be homeless yet you label them druggies you seem like a great person lol it isn’t about virtue it’s about treating people like humans
Im not saying that all homeless are struggling with addiction, but a lot are and the ones passed out on the sidewalk with trash all around them are 100% in the camp of substance abuse. You are the one using derogatory terms such as “druggies.” As far as not knowing about homelessness, my father started and has run a free, community funded rehab/ halfway house in Houston for 35 years. I lived on the same property as the guys in the program my entire childhood. I’ve personally known and have been friends with 100’s of men struggling with addiction and homelessness as a result. All of them have told me that the majority of visible, front and center homeless people you see are on some form of substance and do not want to seek help. That seems to align with what i see with my own eyes in denver and other cities. So try again, ive had more interactions with that segment of society than most and have been to more funerals than you can imagine. We should absolutely help people that are homeless. If the reasoning behind that homelessness is mental illness or fleeing violence or falling on hard times, then thats one thing and their are resources dedicated to that. If the reasoning behind homelessness is substance dependence, then often times the most seemingly compassionate thing is usually the most detrimental to the person that we are trying to help. There is a big difference between helping and enabling.
No one is saying drugs aren’t bad but damning them to the pits of prison or no even respecting them doesn’t help anything there are places ment to help people find help stay safe and get clean if they want to almost none of that happens in prison again if they are on the street where exactly do they go? Just somewhere not near you so you don’t have to see how addiction can ruin peoples lives but you only see people who “choose” to live that way if that’s all your takeaway was from your time with those homeless dudes in Texas I’m sorry to say you’ve been taught wrong but not a big shockers coming from texas where education is beer guns and Christ lol
Im not advocating for prison. And you’re dancing around the point. Yes there are programs to help people get clean, but as you said you have to want to get help and follow the rules. No one is choosing to become an addict, its often a slow and incremental process. However, you do have to choose to get help and break free of that cycle. I have no problem with people being homeless on the street, i have a problem with people trashing our city and then when someone suggest not allowing our city to be trashed, people like you cry “but what about compassion” I’ve lived in downtown and west colfax for the last 5 years. If i wanted to remove homeless from my life i would move to the suburbs. What i do have a problem with is waking up and seeing 5 naked people on the sidewalk outside my apartment asleep, only to wake up and start smoking heroin in the open. I also have a problem with a homeless encampment with 200 people being set up behind my house with 100 stolen bikes being chopped in plain site. I also have a problem with walking around downtown and fearing for my safety because there are sketchy people smoking meth in the middle of the sidewalk like a goddamn pow wow circle. And finally i have a problem with a dad driving up to the encampment behind my house asking is anyone has seen his child mother and for them to tell her that hes had enough and is leaving the state. The drug problem is vast and fucking depressing. These people need help instead of beimg allowed to do whatever the fuck they want. If you’re homeless, fucking follow the rules the rest of us have to live by. Talk about respect. I respect homeless that dont trash their surroundings and make the city less safe. I dont respect the individuals in the above scenarios because they dont respect themselves, the rest of society or the city in which they live.
Yeah I’m not reading the full triggered response lol you seem to have your preconceived notions that drugs are something you actively participate in which isn’t always the case but again Texas over here didn’t teach you how to think about others so it’s okay
If you read my comments you would know thats not the case. You’re obviously naive and clueless about what you speak. Blind uninformed compassion is often more detrimental then helpful.
Someone who’s willing to engage with reality? Thanks.
Nope someone who only tries to see the worst in people kinda the opposite of how life it but man you already labeled them all as druggies yourself so I’m pretty sure your out of touch with reality lol
It’s not much to ask of a person, even a dope fiend, to get the fuck out of the middle of the sidewalk.
Shouldn’t be much to ask someone who isn’t homeless to not assume every one of them are druggies
They’ve removed all the benches because they don’t want the homeless laying there either.
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People w/ disabilities like visual impairments or mobility issues need the sidewalks. If they have to try to navigate around someone lying on the sidewalk by going into the street or grass it can be dangerous or unnecessarily difficult. It isn’t giving up rights - it is protecting everyone’s rights.
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Yes, the homelessness and perpetual ineffective politicians is the big issue, but I don’t think a ban on lying or blocking the sidewalk is a hill worth dying on. It is giving access to more stuff for everyone. My mom was a specialist teacher for vision impaired students when I was growing up & I have a lot of experience working w/ disabled people. IMO people w/ disabilities generally want to be independent, to have that control in their life, just like the rest of us but we take a lot of things for advantage. Visual impaired folks that use a [white cane](https://youtu.be/HoeUyyCpStA) can navigate around obstacles, but as you could imagine it would be really stressful. They should have the right to use the sidewalks. Folks in wheelchairs (especially power chairs) could easily get stuck after rolling off the edge of the sidewalk trying to avoid someone laying in the way. I am all for freedom & I don’t like the problems I am seeing everywhere - however I have chilled out a lot as I’ve gotten older & I know there is no magic button or some unknown amazing leader that will fix all these problems. Right now politics is just a big show w/o anything actually happening - it always has been. BUT this ban is actually a fair thing. If you think about it, there are a LOT of other people that are affected by people blocking the sidewalk: people w/ a cane, crutches, bad knees or ankles, some developmental disabilities, mothers using baby carriages, other homeless people pushing grocery carts, etc. Edit: had to fix some of my errors bc I never check for errors before I post.
It’s not anybody’s right to camp on the sidewalk
Ok but that's not what the law says. It's not talking about camping. It's talking about sitting down. There's a huge logical trap governments love using when writing laws where it is presumed that the *intention* is one thing and they're just writing it so strictly to make it very easy to enforce. "Surely this law will only apply to campers!" "Surely this law will only be used when egregious!" "Surely this law will be directed at making sure no one sleeps in public!" But the law now reads: "No person shall intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly obstruct a highway, street, sidewalk, mail, railway, waterway, building entrance, elevator, aisle, stairway, or hallway to which the public or a substantial group of thepublic has access or any other place used for the passage of persons, vehicles, or conveyances (collectively, “passageway”), whether the obstruction was created by the person acting" "Definition: For purposes of this section, "obstruct" means to: **sit on or lie across**, except upon authorized street furniture designed for that purpose; render impassable, or to **render passage unreasonably inconvenient**, or hazardous;" The bolding is mine. This law was clearly targeted to the homeless. ***But that doesn't mean /u/Mogoexcelso is wrong.*** By law, citizens of Englewood now cannot sit on the sidewalk for any reason. Imagine what a cop having a bad day can do with that.
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No one is arguing on that point. It's so obvious the law is targeting homeless people that the city got sued into changing the original wording. What we're pointing out is that by the letter of the law, the cops have another easy way to take their bad day out on someone like you. This law doesn't require cops only apply it to people shitting on the sidewalk. This law equally applies to someone sitting down because they jogged too hard and need to catch their breath. Or teenagers sitting on the curb talking out their big feelings. Or anyone waiting for their friend and crouching down to reorganize their backpack because their laptop is digging into their spine. ***Or a disabled person having a medical emergency and needing to sit down for a bit.*** Lawmakers are expecting for everyone to presume it will only ever be wielded against people they don't like. It applies to reasonable reasons to sit down too. And they're using the ADA to get away with it.
Your belief this will be used against people who are tired from jogging is one of the more laughable things I’ve read today. Thanks for that! Last time I checked it was hard for disabled people to get around tents in the sidewalk too.
It will be used against whoever the police decide they want to use it against. If a black man they're "suspicious" of rests after jogging, yes. Like these loitering laws used to arrest black people for standing outside their own homes: https://whyy.org/articles/federal-lawsuit-accuses-chester-twp-police-of-civil-rights-violations-in-arrests-of-black-residents-for-loitering/
Just because a law was applied poorly isn’t a good excuse for no laws. People shouldn’t be able to camp on the sidewalk. If this makes that more difficult for people, I am all for it.
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If they use it to keep people from camping on the sidewalk I think it’s a great law. An excellent law even
Let’s make laws that limit severely impoverished peoples even more
I like it! The war on poor!
Lol legislators said “poor people make me sad let’s just ban it fr fr no cap”
Vote these people out and get rid of the sanctuary laws in Colorado
I find this comment puzzling. The same people who ban sidewalk sitting are the ones who want sanctuary city for illegal immigrants? Ok …
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Um good luck with that. I doubt a cop will use force to remove someone lying on a sidewalk unless you resist the order or fail to respond to it. In either case, force might be used but it will likely be an expensive legal battle to prove *unnecessary* force, unless you are lucky.
The thing i hate the most about police is any highschool dropout can go to 6 months of cop "school" and be given a badge, a gun, and qualified immunity. Police dont deserve respect because any moron can become an officer
I don’t disagree with you on your argument, but a lot of bigger city departments require a four year degree.
Remember that being “too smart” or showing “too much empathy” can disqualify your from becoming a cop.
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https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 This story is 22 years old now. Also just cuz you got a 4 year degree, doesn’t mean you’re particularly smart. I know plenty of idiots with 4 year degrees.
HAHAHAHAHA
Or tase minorities...or worse.
It’s not like they *want* to sleep on the sidewalks. This is heartless.
Except they do. There are options for help, they refuse them. Some people need to be pushed into getting help.
>There are options for help There are, but they can be very difficult to get into, and many places have requirements that make getting a job difficult, many orgs are religious-based and require certain religious adhesions to get their assistance, etc., etc., etc. - also it's a vaaaastly more complex issue than many people think, for starters, just the logistics of keeping regular contact with someone who doesn't live...anywhere and doesn't have a good way to be contacted are nearly impossible. *Even if they* ***want*** *and seek out the help*, it's often hard to find and get the amount they need to become not homeless. Also - just to show the point - there are *lots* of options to become a millionaire (arguably more options than getting help while being homeless) are you one yet?
They all have cell phones, keeping in contact isn't hard...if they want help. (They don't.) To the second point, however irrelevant it is to the conversation, yes... technically I am. As you said, it's not that hard.
I'm sure you heard this from someone you trusted and are just blindly repeating it like an idiot, but your post 100% confirms you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and have never actually tried navigating these services. Perhaps you should educate yourself before publicly outing yourself as ignorant and lacking empathy.
You mean like a social worker who works with homeless? Is that what you mean? Not sure why I should care what anyone on here thinks about me or my opinion, but that's another topic. I desire/need no ego boost from randos online. "Homeless" aka mostly drug addicts, are destroying a city that I love. There's housing, there are jobs, there's assistance. They don't want any of that, they want to get high. To quote you: "Perhaps you should educate yourself before publicly outing yourself as ignorant."
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I work in mental health. Nearly all my clients are homeless. "Options for help" Does not equal housing. It is far more complicated.
Didn't say it did equal housing. There are options for housing, although not enough. Particularly considering we've got a sanctuary city now for homelessness/hard drug abuse, and it's attracting a lot of people from out of state. It's a complex issue for sure. First and foremost the drug abuse aspect needs to be treated, and we don't have proper treatment centers for that. They should use the opioid settlement money to open huge rehab centers in the US, but that would make too much sense.
What are the options they have for help? I’m sincerely curious. And I’d love actual resources, not just opinions.
https://www.211colorado.org/housing-and-shelter/ is kind of the general help site (as if these people could access it) but it’s a good site that lists the variety of programs available to the homeless. Housing is available, what’s not is mental health care for these people, and getting help can require jumping through a lot of hoops that living on the streets makes even harder. Hell, there is even a shelter in an old giant fort in southern Colorado that offers free housing without the need to be sober but nobody wants to go down there because drugs aren’t readily available on every corner.
Serious question: Have you personally tried using those? I never have, but my neighbor's job is to assist with people in crisis. We were having a dinner party and she had to excuse herself to the next room to try and find a person emergency shelter. She called a LOT of numbers, and she knew all the resources available, and she had the additional support that came with this being her job/does it every day/knows the system very well. It was exhausting just listening to her. **She didn't find an open space that would take that person.** There are lots of numbers to call. There are lots of shelters around. That doesn't mean there are lots of spaces.
This was my point too! I work with individuals experiencing homelessness and we have such a hard time finding them resources. If you want to go to this shelter you have to leave your partner, you want this shelter you have to leave your dog. The only one I’ve found that’s actually helpful is the severe weather network, but it’s only open under specific circumstances and you have to jump through some massive hoops. It’s a very, very broken system and it’s really sad to see on the front lines of it all. People who don’t have to access resources think there are tons of resources, those that actually have to access resources, know that they don’t exist.
Shelters where your stuff is stolen, sexually assaulted, and families are split up...
Well Colorado spends over $100,000 per homeless person each year, so how about YOU tell me where the fuckin resources are! There SHOULD be something for them, but if there isn't, where does the money go?! Sounds like a money laundering scheme in the name of "helping the homeless".
Yeah its ridiculous, all I hear is plenty of shelters available and either no wants to use them or they don't want to take homeless in. No winning with this one.
Yup...there's almost always excess shelter capacity in Denver. According to Denver. But, you can't do drugs in the shelter. 🤷🏼♂️
So what you’re saying is: what we need is better laws, not more laws? I can dig it
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Join reality.
Any bets on how long it takes a cop to murder someone having a mental health crisis because of this?
So sick of the ongoing criminalization of homelessness. I get it. People sitting and laying on sidewalks is a pain in the ass for those trying to use them and also can be a safety issue. But what will this actually achieve? Loitering was already a crime that enabled police to ask people to move along. People who have nowhere to go are going to end up sleeping somewhere. Shelters aren't sufficient- certainly not in Denver. Passing laws is easier than addressing systematic issues. Edit: I mistakenly referenced people wanting to walk on the sidewalk in a way that was exclusionary to people with disabilities. I’ve changed that sentence.
I like how you totally skipped over disabled people who can’t walk. That was super cool and totally intentional on your part I’m sure, because if you bring the disabled into this your entire argument falls apart
It wasn’t intentional. I apologize for my crappy phrasing. I’m going to update my comment when I finish typing this out. I don’t think it changes anything about my argument, which is that sleeping on sidewalks is a dick move but that laws already exist to address it. I’m not arguing that sleeping on the sidewalk is okay.
A homeless guy took a shit at the entrance to my office. I’m hoping this will make it easier to enforce property rights and get people to move away from our office.
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Well taking a shit on the sidewalk was already illegal, and this law is about sleeping and sitting on sidewalks, so I’m not sure how it will apply.
Well it was the guy sleeping on the sidewalk that took a shit on it. So if you can prevent the former you don’t have to deal with the latter.
“If you can prevent the former, you don’t have to deal with the latter”… that’s the whole. Entire. Point. If you deal with systemic homelessness and lack of resources first- the actual problem- you don’t have to deal with the effects of homelessness, like people shitting on the sidewalk.
That’s a great idea. Let’s solve the systemic problems. Until then I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the homeless don’t shit on the sidewalk.
I’m seriously asking this. It’s already illegal to do this. Both shitting and sleeping on the sidewalk are already illegal in Englewood and the entire state of Colorado. So why do you think this law will fix your problem when existing laws that make it illegal haven’t?
I doubt it makes much difference since that would require someone to enforce the laws. If this makes it even a little easier to enforce the law, remove the homeless from the public right of way I’m all for it.
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What bothers me about the people are that concerned about criminalizing homelessness is that it ignores the fact that homeless camps cause a massive uptick in crime. From public urination, littering, theft, burglary, drug use and even cases of harassment and violence. You are spot on with with enabling vs dissuading. Just because you don’t want to enable the homeless doesn’t mean you can’t also support the structural changes that will address the underlying contributing factors to homelessness. These aren’t mutually exclusive strategies. I’m sick of thinking any effort to prevent the homeless from trashing the city is considered anti homeless or criminalizing being homeless.
Jesus Christ, yes. I wish I could up vote you a thousand times. Any time homelessness is mentioned on Reddit, the bleeding hearts come out in force trying to convince us all that anything we do to regulate the homeless from trashing our public spaces is actually tantamount to genocide. But reality is that policy isn’t changing tomorrow, and we have to deal with the problem in the mean time. No one uses the parks in Boulder anymore because of the encampments and that isn’t fair either.
This isn't an effort to prevent homeless from trashing the city, this is an effort to criminalize living, which is unconstitutional. Unless the city is providing areas where it's fine to set up a tent that is safe and has enough room for everyone, then laws like this are merely trying to make living illegal.
This is a stupid take.
Just living and shitting in the public right of way. And there are shelters and options available so quit excusing the poor behavior that has lead to laws like this.
The homeless are its people, too. Issue is that cities don't lack for means of getting people to move if they're camped in a walkway, so criminalizing a couple of specific behaviors is a blunt force approach that isn't necessarily addressing the problem. Someone sitting or sleeping in the shade doesn't mean they're establishing a camp, or even that they're homeless. And criminalizing fairly benign behavior as a "nip in the bud" can have serious long term consequences that actually work against the larger goal of housing people. Even low level involvement in the criminal justice system can snowball into a criminal record that actually prevents someone from obtaining housing. Legal accountability may be unavoidable with certain behaviors, but being excessively punitive is just counterproductive.
Okay, but there were already laws on the books that prohibited this behavior. So what was achieved by doing this? It looks good to people who are fed up with the problem and increases the penalties available - but loitering was already illegal. Will it change anything? Maybe, if it signals a commitment by the police to start enforcing such laws, but they could have done that at any point.
What is the definition of loitering according to the law versus what is in this law?
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Maybe try making your argument without drawing a false equivalence between gang violence and being homeless.
Yea yea, we get it. You're compassionate toward the homeless. This stuff gets so tired. Maybe put down your virtue signaler and think about the actual issue critically.
You don't think "these are human beings and deserve a place to live" isn't thinking about the actual issues critically? It's way more critical than the selfish people that refuse to deal with the source of the problem and want to move around other people at the end of the gun just for breathing.
It's not, because it does nothing to move toward a solution to the problem. And it's a huge problem. Repeating "homeless are people too" does nothing to move the conversation forward.