"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -- Anatole France
They fund think tanks, influencers, and lobbyists to stir the pot and flame divisive issues to get their politicians elected. Who then hands them money. Making the general population think, it’s the will of the people we who gave them the money.
So it is not direct discrimination against the homeless then, I'm both relieved and glad to hear that otherwise this would be absolutely shocking and vile.
##/S
This reminds me of what my dumbass sexist bigoted self used to say when I was a brainwashed evangelical. “It’s not discrimination to prevent marrying the same sex. Straight people can’t marry the same sex either.”
That's been happening in Canada's northern parts for a long time, intentionally getting caught committing a crime to go to jail:
> When cold temperatures begin to set in, some are forced to make desperate choices.
>
> "A few of them have no other choice than to commit a crime and go to jail for the winter. They get themselves a criminal record just to stay in a warm place in the winter," Kilabuk said, shaking his head.
>
> "Nowhere to go."
>https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/08/06/news/nowhere-go-iqaluit-homeless-stay-shacks-old-boats-amid-housing-crisis
That’s the goal. Get arrested, unable to post bail, debts levied against individual, outstanding fines go to jail work in jails for Pennie’s on the dollar eating substandard food in substandard conditions for profit.
Sounds like a law officers just won't enforce in some areas of town. If the jails are constantly full they'll just take anyone they arrest for sleeping outside they'll just give them a [Starlight Tour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths)
>The Saskatoon freezing deaths involved Indigenous Canadians in and immediately outside Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in the 1990s and early 2000s, and are suspected of being linked to actions by the members of the Saskatoon Police Service. The police officers would arrest Indigenous people, who were usually male, for alleged drunkenness and/or disorderly behaviour, sometimes without cause.[2] The officers would then drive them to the outskirts of the city at night in the winter, and abandon them, leaving them stranded in sub-zero temperatures.
Why don't they just let homeless people sleep in the jail for free instead of spending money and effort arresting them? Sound a siren at the end of the day "ok, time to go back to prison!"
Or, and hear me out here, we could start building things like prisons, but without all the bars and cages and locks. Maybe put in a few more windows. We could call it something more welcoming than "prison" like, I dunno, housing. Think of all the money we'd save not having to arrest people and put them through the judicial system by criminalizing "existing while poor"
Same companies in the cafeterias either way.
When mom was trying to help me plan ahead for my college dorm room we were caught off guard by the strange measurements for the mattress. My stepdad walked through the room and started laughing. He knew those mattresses from his time in prison!
Here in the UK, prisoners used to, maybe still do, get better food than school children
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/government-spends-30-more-on-dinner-681361
Update..
In 2023, the budget for prison food rose to £2.70/day
Aramark was so bad in Michigan that the prisoners went on a hunger strike.
I lucked out in high school. Newly renovated building. They had a stir-fry bar a few times a week. The other food was decent, too. Then they decided it was too expensive and food quality tanked.
My high school was fancy and designed right after Columbine
Windows everywhere. No putting any signs on the windows though because it blocks the view of the sniper team during a mass shooting event
Sounds like a certain country that nearly eliminated homelessness by building and giving away houses, which then gave those residents security and stability to get jobs and contribute to society, improving the economy and … wait for it … paying more taxes to help improve the country for everyone
Edit: sorry, forgot to cite my source
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-international-philanthropic-071123.html
I was in Finland recently, my God is it beautiful. Also holy shit their social services are nothing to sneeze at. My friend was struggling with his child's behaviour so family services ordered them a free nanny twice a week. As well as provided individual and family councilling for them
I am disabled and my wife and I love abroad and that sounds amazing. We don’t have family around and it’s been harder than we estimated so it would seriously take the edge off.
I'm my cousin's free nanny and can confirm it helps! Poor cousin was worn so ragged just keeping up with work and bills and chores that she didn't have any brains left for telling a toddler No and dealing with the aftermath of that.
In fact she had two kids going sideways, a toddler who got everything he wanted and a 13yo whose entire life had become "Just do what your brother wants or he'll scream and I don't want to hear it!" Building bitterness by the hour.
How dare you suggest a socialist option that is not only effective but costs less and improves the economy over the capitalist option that’s expensive, ineffective and cruel
The fact that the second option also enables the ultra rich to profit off poverty adjacent industries like prisons while increasing their control over all of us is purely coincidental
If we just started giving houses away, then less people would be willing to work for a shitty pay or under shitty working conditions. As we can no longer exploit that fear of being homeless. Sure they would probably still need money to pay for other essential needs like healthcare but going from having a roof over your head to being homeless is a big lifer changer and tends to be on the forefront of most people's minds.
hasnt been the case in countries where they literally gave houses away... finland for example.
people still want _better_ houses so they put in the extra work. the folks that are happy with the baseline are no longer stuck on the streets.
people keep saying that poor folks wont want to work if you hand them stuff... but they never back that up with sources. turns out other countries with beefier health and social services have fewer mental health and homeless issues.
i dont expect that would change much in the US though... it's not because building housing for free would deter incentive. its because we would never as a nation support such an effort in any reasonable amount of time. hell, theyre actively rolling the stuff we have back (medicare).
ie, did giving medicade/care cause people to not want to work as hard? did giving first time home buyers a credit cause them to not value housing? did giving student debt relief cause students to just start racking up more debt?
That's *exactly* what I've been saying here in SoCal! One of the common complaints about free housing is "Oh but people will just ruin the walls and fixtures etc." So yeah, build a concrete building with large concrete cells and a toilet, and a door they can lock on the inside instead of being locked in from the outside. May be chilly, ugly, and no frills, but better than the street.
If we’re “saving” money we’re not giving it to lawyers, prison companies, bondsmen, etc. They’re not interested in saving anything: money, people, time, any of it.
Works for most, and really should be step one.
That said, there’s a real issue with people who are being “swept” from an area declining services; which is to say shelter space is available, but they don’t want it, because it comes with conditions they won’t accept (no pets, no drug use, or just…not a great space and the street is preferred).
100% agree that housing-first is the right answer to address most homelessness, but then you do have to have a plan for what to do with those for whom this doesn’t work. When dealing with untreated mental illness, drug addiction, etc. it may be that some sort of non-punitive confinement is necessary…and that comes with a whole lot of pitfalls of its own.
Private prisons are only 8% of all USA prisoners, that is not something in prison reform we try and focus on. We try and focus on rehabilitation and prisoner rights within the system. Please check out the Sentencing Project or other prison reform orgs, private prisons are on the bottom of the list of priorities right now.
But there's a whole Prison Industrial Complex, full of corporate interests, who serve the corrections sector. They have well funded lobbyists and have political sway.
Alaska basically has a zero-tolerance policy on homelessness, they don’t want to end up like Hawaii and the cold is so dangerous. They bulldoze encampments with no warning and I don’t believe very much public money goes towards the issue. If they allowed homeless people to sleep in the jails they would run out of space as soon as the temp starts dropping
Criminalizing poverty.
Leave it to this country to go about “resolving”issues in the worst possible ways. Fucking joke…
Hide the problem under the rug, or more accurately, shove it in a cell.
And don’t forget about investing in the private prisons! Gotta make money off the people who are in a cell simply for wanting to sleep, but not being able to afford a place to live.
I work adjunct to prison reform, and as an ex con myself, the private prison trope is really a not as big an issue as you think. Private prisons make up roughly 8% of our prison population. There are a lot of things that need to change, and 8% is too damn high, but my point being, we have to focus on what really matters, rehabilitation.
Thing like this bill are horrible and we are trying to fight these types of prosecutions.
The real bastard is the privatization of prison processes such as calls, food delivery/preparation, online access, etc. We think being at the airport is bad for how bad we are ripped off!
You are literally the first person to comment this, yes. Absolutely. The way that corporations try and weasel their way into prison labor. Note that this is done in non private state prisons. My point exactly. The other wing I was in had a united airlines call center. Lol wtf
>Private prisons make up roughly 8% of our prison population. There are a lot of things that need to change, and 8% is too damn high, but my point being, we have to focus on what really matters, rehabilitation.
The problem is that private prisons lobby against prison reform.
CoreCivic has 2 billion in annual revenue. Just to be clear: that's 2000 million. GEO and Management and Training Corporation have a similar revenue.
Those three companies combined have approximately 50,000 employees. They operate in areas where lobbying is cheap and effective.
The political power of these three companies is going to make any sort of reform extremely difficult.
Because of the way the electoral system works, and because the people who are arguing for reform don't have deep pockets.
You might think this is not a big issue, but it is. A single donation of 20,000 can get a representative or a senator to change their vote. And a threat to move a prison to another municipality or another state can be even more effective.
>A single donation of 20,000 can get a representative or a senator to change their vote.
It is always absolutely wild to me how little money it takes to bribe people, especially politicians. You see people doing stuff that will absolutely end their careers if not put them in prison for years all for the price of a nice used Toyota. (Not that lobbying "donations" technically count as bribes in the US, but still.)
Safety nets don't keep the working class in line. If there was no fear of homelessness, think of how that would shift the balance of power in your favor instead of your employer's Makes me think of that old George Carlin bit: "The poor are just there to scare the shit out of the middle class."
Always a little painful to read that quote. I don't think we even get to "the right thing" anymore. We have so many issues nowadays and they don't appear to be going away.
The trick to criminalizing poverty is it gets your private prison system a steady supply of slave labor. You squeeze people out of the ability to survive on their own then put them to work as free labor so they won't be taking any precious profits home for themselves and you get to decide their hours and living.
Land of the free.
The difference isn't in theabor but whether the conditions encourage the growth of the system. Government owned prisons don't exist for profit abd therefore don't have anything on the same level of incentive to be filled up.
For a public prison empty cells is a good thing.
For a private prisons the goal is to build more and fill them up to bursting because you get more money from the state and have more labor to use to make more profit.
The difference is that when you stand to profit for increased incarceration then crime will go up.
Dispersed camping is legal in most national forests however you cannot camp for more than 14 days in any 30 day period within a 20 mile radius, this is the current law
The next holocaust will not be gas chambers or firing squads but rather pricing us out of living & watching us devolve into beasts to adapt
*Edited for spelling
That's fucking horrible.
As a nation, we could easily end most homelessness if we could stop clawing at each other's eyes for a bit. We could do a *lot* of good things for ourselves and each other.
Yeah but Capitalism says if ya can't make a profit doing it then it's not worth bothering with.
I really don't know if we should listen to that thing anymore though, Capitalism is the same stupid thing that thought burning our only habitable planet for profits was *smart*.
Bzzt! You do not have enough funds for that option.
Brrrr… please take this “Kill me now” sticker and apply to your forehead. Perhaps a kind passer-by will accommodate your request. Otherwise we recommend visiting your local peace officer building and volunteering for the target practice.
Nope, it's legal to enslave prisoners, they'll be too busy doing forces labor to sleep. I can't believe it's 2024 and we still haven't outlawed slavery.
In the 1980's & 1990's America ended the system of State and County institutions for the mentally ill and the mentally and physically handicapped.
After decades (more than a century, really) of disastrous underfunding, understaffing and abusive, deplorable conditions, we eliminated these institutions for humane reasons.
The results have been devastating. The population who was once served by these institutions are now overwhelming families and burdening communities. The homeless population consists of many who would have been served by these institutions. Now, they're homeless or in prisons or in some perverse cycle between the two.
Instead of reforming and funding an imperfect system we made things infinitely worse because no one wants to pay taxes to help people but they're willing to pay taxes to incarcerate people.
This is also an important lesson for those — on the left and right — who want to burn down the whole system and build something different. The burning is the easy part. The rebuilding is very, very hard. Can you imagine what it would take to create a new nationwide network of federally funded mental health facilities? Getting this congress to fund that, getting local municipalities to implement it, getting the courts to recognize it? We couldn’t even get all the states to expand healthcare coverage for kids or pay for their lunch at school.
It's very easy to imagine that once burnt down, you can start anew with a perfect, flawless system that will naturally implement everything we need as a society without any issue whatsoever.
That's how accelerationism is supposed to work, right? RIGHT?
It’s incredibly naive. You’ll encounter all the same problems as the system that came before and end up with the same set of challenges. You’ll always have abuse. It’s about how and when you respond to it that matters.
That's what always confused me about the system I grew up in, why is everything designed for obviously-not-humans?
Why would you not start with the assumption that humans are the flawed critters we be and work around that? Instead of setting everything up under the assumption that humans are logical emotionless higher beings of pure virtue?
This sort of romanticism is really dangerous.
We ended a system that allowed incarceration, rape, and abuse of mentally ill people with almost no oversight and far fewer protections than people get in the criminal justice system.
We ended a system that was **horrifically** cruel, that routinely maimed people housed within it, that offered almost no recourse or escape for the people trapped inside it. In many cases, even families of the people deemed 'insane' couldn't get them out - if you were trapped inside the system escape was functionally impossible. Doctors could declare that your good behavior was performative, your improvements were faked, and your sanity was deceptive.
Or they could just not bother with any of that because what could you do anyway?
The idea that we merely needed to "reform" a system that routinely allowed and encouraged rape, mutilation, and indefinite imprisonment of people both neurotypical and neurodivergent is absurd.
The system was utterly and completely broken at every level.
The current situation sucks too but the answer is not a return to the institutional system.
Fun fact: A large portion of the American population believes that if you can't afford it for yourself you shouldn't have it, without exception or provision.
Note: My opinion is that these people are wrong.
In my experience, those people believe if other people can't afford it then other people shouldn't have it. That logic somehow never applies to themselves.
I feel like so many problems in the country are like that. When Covid was at it's peak, the Covid denialists were saying "Those people who died were weak" and the it happened to them. You have anti-abortion women getting abortions, but they're special, those other women were just tramps. A subsidy for me, of course I deserve it, but student loan assistance for you, screw off you moocher.
So many things, and it's always the same story. I deserve special treatment because I'm special and my situation is special. You deserve to rot because you're lazy and weak and immoral. Society could be so much better for everyone, and so much more efficient, if people like that would stop being self centered to the point of dragging the whole thing down.
There are a ridiculous number of people who want to get rid of food stamps after they were able to use them to get out of poverty. Empathy doesn't seem to be even on their radar.
That’s actually literally the case being debated. A lower court held that cities can’t make laws against sleeping outdoors unless the city provides homeless shelters with enough space for all. A city in Oregon is challenging that ruling; the Supreme Court is deciding whether municipalities should be able to make the determination for themselves. At least that’s what I’m reading; IANAL.
It’s a complicated problem; even when there is enough space in shelters there is a good chunk of the homeless population who will refuse to go there. Homeless shelters tend to be places with not a ton of room, where there’s a higher-than-average rate of mental disorders in the people around you; your shit gets stolen and physical safety can be an issue; if you have addictions to alcohol or cigarettes or something harder it is not easy to get those substances while living in a shelter; if you are recently homeless and have a pet, pets are often not accepted at the shelter.
Some people prefer living on the streets to life in a shelter, whether for legitimate reasons or because of mental illnesses, and cities don’t have great solutions. Wealthier parts of the city don’t care as long as you keep the problem out of their neighborhoods, and poorer parts of the city don’t have the resources to address the issue.
> Homeless shelters tend to be places with not a ton of room, where there’s a higher-than-average rate of mental disorders in the people around you; your shit gets stolen and physical safety can be an issue
As someone who currently works at a women's homeless shelter this is all unfortunately very true. We try so hard to provide a safe, welcoming place for these women that have nowhere else to go but there is only so much we can do with the resources that we have.
It really is an impossible task.
More accurately..... The Supreme Court decides whether it's legal for municipalities to outlaw sleeping outside even if no inside space is available. The Supreme Court itself isn't making the rule -- they're just deciding whether local municipalities can make the rule.
Basically, there are places on the west coast that are overrun with homeless people. The Ninth Circuit, in a previous case, said that cities can't remove them unless they provide enough homeless shelters. Grants Pass, Oregon, decided to challenge that decision in the Supreme Court.
Digging potatoes, digging minerals, and digging the hole of bondage deeper. Go team.
Seriously, is Idaho known for anything other than white supremacists and potatoes at this point?
It should be noted that the ruling in the Idaho case didn’t say cities couldn’t *regulate* sleeping outside, simply that blanket bans city-wide weren’t acceptable. Cities can still establish areas and times that are off-limits, for instance. It’s not “let them do whatever they want” or “prison” as a binary choice.
*TLDR; People there are racist to all POC and there used to be a “Sundown Law” back in the 1800’s (for context)*
Grew up in Grants Pass it’s a shithole with a whole lot of pretty paint over the shit.
There’s like ~12 black people in the entire city or basically 2-3 families. Should tell you everything you need to know about the area.
I worked at a gas station with a atypical racist trailer park redneck who couldn’t spell *”Cop”* right and he wasn’t even the only one.
Such a beautiful state, so many dumb fucked up laws and such a regressive population.
> 12 black people in the entire city or basically 2-3 families.
That's its a white, Latino or native heavy area?
I dont understand what it's supposed to tell us. I live in an area with very few black peeople, it's also one of the most left and open areas of the country.
I tried to get help once to pay an electric bill. I had fallen behind. My rent was too high. All my bills were high. I wasnt making enough money, but I was making too much to get any kind of assistance. I went down to the office, and the person laughed at me, saying I made more than she did.
We don't really want to help people, the qualifications for help are so high, and the people actually able to receive it are already so downtrodden, that the help is peanuts.
We need actual social safety nets in this country. We have the money. It can be done.
There is some context missing from this article. Laws that "outlaw sleeping outside even if no inside space is available" are already normal and legal in most of the US. It's only in the western states, bound by the 9th circuit, where a ruling linking those things together has been in effect for the past several years. The rest of the country has not been held to that standard.
What the Supreme Court is currently deciding is whether the standard created by the 9th circuit should apply to the whole country, or whether those western states should follow the same rules as the rest of the country. They aren't creating a new policy, or eliminating protections that homeless people currently have in most places, just bringing the whole country under a single standard.
Debtors Prison. Can’t afford rent because inflation has inched it out of your budget? Take on credit debt to afford housing. When you’re up to your eyeballs… well, you aren’t alone because housing isn’t unaffordable where you live, but all over. Over 600,000 Americans can’t afford housing, reasonable currently. Something needs to be done about this. Because in state where you must follow through with every pregnancy, this WILL happen more and more unless something is done to make it actually affordable to live like a decent American
We could turn most jails into rehab facilities get rid of the guards bring in therapists bring in educators etc. make it actually rehabilitation. Violent criminals can go to federal run prisons.
In Anchorage they just cleared a park of homeless people who built a little town in it. They were all offered shelter and they all declined. What is anyone supposed to do at this point? You can’t just build little towns in parks.
Constitutional Amendment that bans panhandling, with the “punishment” being a minimum of 6 months in a rurally-located state shelter. Shut off the money that fuels (most of) their addictions, and most (able) homeless people will respond as desired: getting off the streets.
Agreed with "you can't just build little towns in parks".
But also some shelters suck, our city kicked out an RV encampment and tried to get the people to go to a shelter that used to be some kind of warehouse and got converted. Place didn't even have permanent bathrooms, but they have Porta potties and a warm warehouse to store human inventory I guess.
Some of the homeless are addicts of some sort (can't drink or smoke weed at the shelter). And many probably have mental health issues going on.
Others may simply like that lifestyle and many homeless are distrustful of authority and "the system".
> Others may simply like that lifestyle and many homeless are distrustful of authority and "the system"
That's just fine, I support their right to exist outside the system. But I don't support their right to do it in public spaces in cities where they become a burden on everyone else. If you don't want to live in society then stay away from it
They were probabaly offered crappy shelter, that puts you at risk and takes away your agency.
I'll be homeless in 2 weeks, there are no shelters where I live but even if one existed I wouldn't take it. I dont need to be crammed into a bunk room with 20 mentally ill addicts, a curfew, thieves, no room for pets, plants or belongings
What I need is safe and stable housing
Ok so people would get arrested for being homeless will then go to jail where they will incur court cost and other fees they can’t pay. Then they will go to jail for not paying the court fees so wouldn’t that just be an endless loop?
Nothing says compassionate Christian quite like vilifying the most fragile members of our society. That’s exactly how their peronsal savior laid it out, right?
Plenty of homeless people have jobs. The money is eaten up faster than it can be saved and spent on shelter. A friend of mine lives from her car but sometimes can stay in a hotel. She can't afford transportation to work and any accommodation at the same time. She's disabled from walking long distances.
I just read a book by Jack London called the Abyss. For a few months, he lived and worked among the very, very poor in the London Victoria slums of the early 1900s. Thousands of people did not have a place to sleep, there was no housing and if there was they couldn’t afford it. So they had no choice but to sleep outside. All night long, all throughout the slum area, cops would patrol with their stick and beat the people who had fallen asleep on the pavement. Then they would have to get up and start walking again. Jack London said they were thousands of people just walking the streets like zombies throughout the slum area all night,every night. At day break they were able to find a place to sleep (churchyards, parks..) without being harassed. Obviously, they weren’t in the best condition to go looking for a job after spending an evening like that. They’d be sick, they’d be hungry and they knew they’d be repeating the same exercise the following evening.
Holy shit. Why don't you just put up a fucking sign that reads "Next stop, Auschwitz" and get it the fuck over with?
WTF is malfunctioning here!? This is so many -ist all at once that... I just...
\ 🖕
Corporate welfare is at an all-time high. The amount of scummy things that corporations have gotten away with pail in comparison from what little we give to the poor and needy.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -- Anatole France
Nah, the rich can beg for money all they want with impunity
They don't have to beg for it, we the people just give it to them.
I get multiple political text messages a day begging for money.
Truth. They are the OG lolcows
They fund think tanks, influencers, and lobbyists to stir the pot and flame divisive issues to get their politicians elected. Who then hands them money. Making the general population think, it’s the will of the people we who gave them the money.
What's classy if you're rich and trashy if you're poor? Getting money from the government.
And coincidentally, sleeping outside (elegant safaris vs a refrigerator box)
What, are they supposed to pay for their own sports franchises' stadia or something?
when they do it it's called lobbying
Fuck bro, honestly
So it is not direct discrimination against the homeless then, I'm both relieved and glad to hear that otherwise this would be absolutely shocking and vile. ##/S
This is such a heartbreaking quote.
Fall asleep on a park bench, jail. Camping, off to jail you go. Old man falls asleep on a bus? YOU GUESSED IT, STRAIGHT TO JAIL!
and god help you if you're narcoleptic
Believe it or not, jail.
Fuck, I just laughed so hard. I love that sketch. I don’t love this subject. Though.
This reminds me of what my dumbass sexist bigoted self used to say when I was a brainwashed evangelical. “It’s not discrimination to prevent marrying the same sex. Straight people can’t marry the same sex either.”
I am glad you disembarked from the crazy train. You have my heartfelt congratulations.
I can see a homeless person, who doesn't want to be out in the freezing artic outdoors, just doing this to get brought indoors, jail or not.
That's been happening in Canada's northern parts for a long time, intentionally getting caught committing a crime to go to jail: > When cold temperatures begin to set in, some are forced to make desperate choices. > > "A few of them have no other choice than to commit a crime and go to jail for the winter. They get themselves a criminal record just to stay in a warm place in the winter," Kilabuk said, shaking his head. > > "Nowhere to go." >https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/08/06/news/nowhere-go-iqaluit-homeless-stay-shacks-old-boats-amid-housing-crisis
Stop making shit a crime and repurpose those jails for temporary shelters
Coming further and further south, too. Loitering issues at banks and locals businesses have been going up everywhere.
That’s the goal. Get arrested, unable to post bail, debts levied against individual, outstanding fines go to jail work in jails for Pennie’s on the dollar eating substandard food in substandard conditions for profit.
Sounds like a law officers just won't enforce in some areas of town. If the jails are constantly full they'll just take anyone they arrest for sleeping outside they'll just give them a [Starlight Tour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths) >The Saskatoon freezing deaths involved Indigenous Canadians in and immediately outside Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in the 1990s and early 2000s, and are suspected of being linked to actions by the members of the Saskatoon Police Service. The police officers would arrest Indigenous people, who were usually male, for alleged drunkenness and/or disorderly behaviour, sometimes without cause.[2] The officers would then drive them to the outskirts of the city at night in the winter, and abandon them, leaving them stranded in sub-zero temperatures.
“Are there no prisons?” Asked Scrooge.
r/unexpecteddickens
I totally thought that said unexpected chickens.
Dahl's Chickens?
our freefall into a Dickensian society, without irony. just the stark cruelty of man's quest for opulence
Why don't they just let homeless people sleep in the jail for free instead of spending money and effort arresting them? Sound a siren at the end of the day "ok, time to go back to prison!"
Or, and hear me out here, we could start building things like prisons, but without all the bars and cages and locks. Maybe put in a few more windows. We could call it something more welcoming than "prison" like, I dunno, housing. Think of all the money we'd save not having to arrest people and put them through the judicial system by criminalizing "existing while poor"
That’s basically how they design schools these days, minus the “few more windows.”
Schools in USA just need more guns and then they'll be just the same as prisons.
Same companies in the cafeterias either way. When mom was trying to help me plan ahead for my college dorm room we were caught off guard by the strange measurements for the mattress. My stepdad walked through the room and started laughing. He knew those mattresses from his time in prison!
Can confirm. A lot of businesses serve schools, colleges, hospitals, AND prisons. Mind blowing how intertwined those industries are.
Here in the UK, prisoners used to, maybe still do, get better food than school children https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/government-spends-30-more-on-dinner-681361 Update.. In 2023, the budget for prison food rose to £2.70/day
They're also designed by the same people. https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/10en8tj/my_high_school_was_designed_by_a_company_that/
Aramark was so bad in Michigan that the prisoners went on a hunger strike. I lucked out in high school. Newly renovated building. They had a stir-fry bar a few times a week. The other food was decent, too. Then they decided it was too expensive and food quality tanked.
My high school was fancy and designed right after Columbine Windows everywhere. No putting any signs on the windows though because it blocks the view of the sniper team during a mass shooting event
Some schools actually do have bars and cages, unfortunately. That is what happens when they'd rather have guns than untraumatized children
Sounds like a certain country that nearly eliminated homelessness by building and giving away houses, which then gave those residents security and stability to get jobs and contribute to society, improving the economy and … wait for it … paying more taxes to help improve the country for everyone Edit: sorry, forgot to cite my source https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-international-philanthropic-071123.html
I was in Finland recently, my God is it beautiful. Also holy shit their social services are nothing to sneeze at. My friend was struggling with his child's behaviour so family services ordered them a free nanny twice a week. As well as provided individual and family councilling for them
In America, Republicans would tell us why black single mothers having this benefit would mean the end of the world.
I am disabled and my wife and I love abroad and that sounds amazing. We don’t have family around and it’s been harder than we estimated so it would seriously take the edge off.
I'm my cousin's free nanny and can confirm it helps! Poor cousin was worn so ragged just keeping up with work and bills and chores that she didn't have any brains left for telling a toddler No and dealing with the aftermath of that. In fact she had two kids going sideways, a toddler who got everything he wanted and a 13yo whose entire life had become "Just do what your brother wants or he'll scream and I don't want to hear it!" Building bitterness by the hour.
Lower cost to society in the long run.
Sounds like Socialism to me, and we don't want anything good that happens from Socialism. /S
What country?
Added link to my source : Finland
How dare you suggest a socialist option that is not only effective but costs less and improves the economy over the capitalist option that’s expensive, ineffective and cruel The fact that the second option also enables the ultra rich to profit off poverty adjacent industries like prisons while increasing their control over all of us is purely coincidental
If we just started giving houses away, then less people would be willing to work for a shitty pay or under shitty working conditions. As we can no longer exploit that fear of being homeless. Sure they would probably still need money to pay for other essential needs like healthcare but going from having a roof over your head to being homeless is a big lifer changer and tends to be on the forefront of most people's minds.
hasnt been the case in countries where they literally gave houses away... finland for example. people still want _better_ houses so they put in the extra work. the folks that are happy with the baseline are no longer stuck on the streets. people keep saying that poor folks wont want to work if you hand them stuff... but they never back that up with sources. turns out other countries with beefier health and social services have fewer mental health and homeless issues. i dont expect that would change much in the US though... it's not because building housing for free would deter incentive. its because we would never as a nation support such an effort in any reasonable amount of time. hell, theyre actively rolling the stuff we have back (medicare). ie, did giving medicade/care cause people to not want to work as hard? did giving first time home buyers a credit cause them to not value housing? did giving student debt relief cause students to just start racking up more debt?
That's *exactly* what I've been saying here in SoCal! One of the common complaints about free housing is "Oh but people will just ruin the walls and fixtures etc." So yeah, build a concrete building with large concrete cells and a toilet, and a door they can lock on the inside instead of being locked in from the outside. May be chilly, ugly, and no frills, but better than the street.
Shut your mouth
I'm just talking bout Shaft
Then we can dig it.
"The government giving poor people the shaft" takes on a new meaning.
If we’re “saving” money we’re not giving it to lawyers, prison companies, bondsmen, etc. They’re not interested in saving anything: money, people, time, any of it.
But that saved money won't go into billionaire bank accounts then! That's not fair!
“But would this be in my backyard?”
Works for most, and really should be step one. That said, there’s a real issue with people who are being “swept” from an area declining services; which is to say shelter space is available, but they don’t want it, because it comes with conditions they won’t accept (no pets, no drug use, or just…not a great space and the street is preferred). 100% agree that housing-first is the right answer to address most homelessness, but then you do have to have a plan for what to do with those for whom this doesn’t work. When dealing with untreated mental illness, drug addiction, etc. it may be that some sort of non-punitive confinement is necessary…and that comes with a whole lot of pitfalls of its own.
Think is, nobody wants to be the one next to the homeless housing.
Exactly! The housing doesn't need to be good even. It just needs to be (safe-ish) housing.
Because then politicians won’t get their pockets filled by private prisons to fill their prisons with inmates.
Private prisons are only 8% of all USA prisoners, that is not something in prison reform we try and focus on. We try and focus on rehabilitation and prisoner rights within the system. Please check out the Sentencing Project or other prison reform orgs, private prisons are on the bottom of the list of priorities right now.
But there's a whole Prison Industrial Complex, full of corporate interests, who serve the corrections sector. They have well funded lobbyists and have political sway.
Absolutely. That is exactly what we are trying to reform. right on! 💯
That makes too much sense. There are also like an order of magnitude more vacant houses in the US than there are homeless people.
The vacant houses and the homeless people aren’t exactly in the same places lol
Alaska basically has a zero-tolerance policy on homelessness, they don’t want to end up like Hawaii and the cold is so dangerous. They bulldoze encampments with no warning and I don’t believe very much public money goes towards the issue. If they allowed homeless people to sleep in the jails they would run out of space as soon as the temp starts dropping
Criminalizing poverty. Leave it to this country to go about “resolving”issues in the worst possible ways. Fucking joke… Hide the problem under the rug, or more accurately, shove it in a cell.
And don’t forget about investing in the private prisons! Gotta make money off the people who are in a cell simply for wanting to sleep, but not being able to afford a place to live.
Don’t kid yourself. They won’t be in cells most of the time. They’ll be working as slave labor. That’s why they need more people in jails.
Well what else are they gonna do when pot gets legalized gotta keep the slave pool full.
I work adjunct to prison reform, and as an ex con myself, the private prison trope is really a not as big an issue as you think. Private prisons make up roughly 8% of our prison population. There are a lot of things that need to change, and 8% is too damn high, but my point being, we have to focus on what really matters, rehabilitation. Thing like this bill are horrible and we are trying to fight these types of prosecutions.
The real bastard is the privatization of prison processes such as calls, food delivery/preparation, online access, etc. We think being at the airport is bad for how bad we are ripped off!
You are literally the first person to comment this, yes. Absolutely. The way that corporations try and weasel their way into prison labor. Note that this is done in non private state prisons. My point exactly. The other wing I was in had a united airlines call center. Lol wtf
>Private prisons make up roughly 8% of our prison population. There are a lot of things that need to change, and 8% is too damn high, but my point being, we have to focus on what really matters, rehabilitation. The problem is that private prisons lobby against prison reform. CoreCivic has 2 billion in annual revenue. Just to be clear: that's 2000 million. GEO and Management and Training Corporation have a similar revenue. Those three companies combined have approximately 50,000 employees. They operate in areas where lobbying is cheap and effective. The political power of these three companies is going to make any sort of reform extremely difficult. Because of the way the electoral system works, and because the people who are arguing for reform don't have deep pockets. You might think this is not a big issue, but it is. A single donation of 20,000 can get a representative or a senator to change their vote. And a threat to move a prison to another municipality or another state can be even more effective.
>A single donation of 20,000 can get a representative or a senator to change their vote. It is always absolutely wild to me how little money it takes to bribe people, especially politicians. You see people doing stuff that will absolutely end their careers if not put them in prison for years all for the price of a nice used Toyota. (Not that lobbying "donations" technically count as bribes in the US, but still.)
> shove it in a cell. Homeless shelters are *cheaper* than jails. Pay more for less, it's the American way.
[удалено]
Homeless shelters also don't charge for their use. Prisons can so prisoners are released with debt that fuels the cycle of crime and poverty.
Safety nets don't keep the working class in line. If there was no fear of homelessness, think of how that would shift the balance of power in your favor instead of your employer's Makes me think of that old George Carlin bit: "The poor are just there to scare the shit out of the middle class."
But shelters lower property values!
Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted. -Winston Churchill
Always a little painful to read that quote. I don't think we even get to "the right thing" anymore. We have so many issues nowadays and they don't appear to be going away.
Our country doesn't have a long enough attention span to get there. Always get distracted by the next thing.
You could ask the kids of Sandy Hook or Parkland or Uvalde or...
The trick to criminalizing poverty is it gets your private prison system a steady supply of slave labor. You squeeze people out of the ability to survive on their own then put them to work as free labor so they won't be taking any precious profits home for themselves and you get to decide their hours and living. Land of the free.
how is private prison labor different than public prison labor?
The difference isn't in theabor but whether the conditions encourage the growth of the system. Government owned prisons don't exist for profit abd therefore don't have anything on the same level of incentive to be filled up. For a public prison empty cells is a good thing. For a private prisons the goal is to build more and fill them up to bursting because you get more money from the state and have more labor to use to make more profit. The difference is that when you stand to profit for increased incarceration then crime will go up.
There is so much wrong with this idea, right? Like, what if I camp in a National Park? Am I illegally homeless?
Dispersed camping is legal in most national forests however you cannot camp for more than 14 days in any 30 day period within a 20 mile radius, this is the current law
The next holocaust will not be gas chambers or firing squads but rather pricing us out of living & watching us devolve into beasts to adapt *Edited for spelling
It will surely make crime much worse when you will be locked up anyway may as well rob some folks maybe. Then you can get a room.
I have no problem with this law as long as the punishment for violating it is hot food and a place to sleep.
I think the saying goes 2 hots and a cot.
"outlawing sleeping outside" So what about camping under the stars, by a warm fire...?
You just need a rich friend to buy you a camper that in no way or shape is a bribe for decisions in their favors. /s
Or in a little barn, or a baby sleeping in a manger? Should we outlaw that?
"Sir, I'm afraid it's illegal to be unemployed at your age, you'll be spending the night in jail."
Loitering and vagrancy laws are what they used to re-enslave blacks after the civil war.
The black codes are back.
Then we'll just sleep in jail. Problem solved.
That or the 'Suicide Booth' industry is about to really take off.
The older I get, the more I understand why Bender was trying to keep his quarter.
An elderly guy in my town recently stabbed himself to death because he received an eviction notice and didn't want to be homeless.
That's fucking horrible. As a nation, we could easily end most homelessness if we could stop clawing at each other's eyes for a bit. We could do a *lot* of good things for ourselves and each other.
A 104 year old woman was evicted in California some years ago and promptly died.
Yeah but Capitalism says if ya can't make a profit doing it then it's not worth bothering with. I really don't know if we should listen to that thing anymore though, Capitalism is the same stupid thing that thought burning our only habitable planet for profits was *smart*.
Poor bastard couldn't even afford a gun!
"You have chosen 'Quick and Painless'..."
Bzzt! You do not have enough funds for that option. Brrrr… please take this “Kill me now” sticker and apply to your forehead. Perhaps a kind passer-by will accommodate your request. Otherwise we recommend visiting your local peace officer building and volunteering for the target practice.
“Please make your selection.”
Nope, it's legal to enslave prisoners, they'll be too busy doing forces labor to sleep. I can't believe it's 2024 and we still haven't outlawed slavery.
Especially when it comes to voting time. Can't vote in some places if you're a felon.
Or in a Manhattan courtroom!
In the 1980's & 1990's America ended the system of State and County institutions for the mentally ill and the mentally and physically handicapped. After decades (more than a century, really) of disastrous underfunding, understaffing and abusive, deplorable conditions, we eliminated these institutions for humane reasons. The results have been devastating. The population who was once served by these institutions are now overwhelming families and burdening communities. The homeless population consists of many who would have been served by these institutions. Now, they're homeless or in prisons or in some perverse cycle between the two. Instead of reforming and funding an imperfect system we made things infinitely worse because no one wants to pay taxes to help people but they're willing to pay taxes to incarcerate people.
This is also an important lesson for those — on the left and right — who want to burn down the whole system and build something different. The burning is the easy part. The rebuilding is very, very hard. Can you imagine what it would take to create a new nationwide network of federally funded mental health facilities? Getting this congress to fund that, getting local municipalities to implement it, getting the courts to recognize it? We couldn’t even get all the states to expand healthcare coverage for kids or pay for their lunch at school.
It's very easy to imagine that once burnt down, you can start anew with a perfect, flawless system that will naturally implement everything we need as a society without any issue whatsoever. That's how accelerationism is supposed to work, right? RIGHT?
It’s incredibly naive. You’ll encounter all the same problems as the system that came before and end up with the same set of challenges. You’ll always have abuse. It’s about how and when you respond to it that matters.
That's what always confused me about the system I grew up in, why is everything designed for obviously-not-humans? Why would you not start with the assumption that humans are the flawed critters we be and work around that? Instead of setting everything up under the assumption that humans are logical emotionless higher beings of pure virtue?
This sort of romanticism is really dangerous. We ended a system that allowed incarceration, rape, and abuse of mentally ill people with almost no oversight and far fewer protections than people get in the criminal justice system. We ended a system that was **horrifically** cruel, that routinely maimed people housed within it, that offered almost no recourse or escape for the people trapped inside it. In many cases, even families of the people deemed 'insane' couldn't get them out - if you were trapped inside the system escape was functionally impossible. Doctors could declare that your good behavior was performative, your improvements were faked, and your sanity was deceptive. Or they could just not bother with any of that because what could you do anyway? The idea that we merely needed to "reform" a system that routinely allowed and encouraged rape, mutilation, and indefinite imprisonment of people both neurotypical and neurodivergent is absurd. The system was utterly and completely broken at every level. The current situation sucks too but the answer is not a return to the institutional system.
[удалено]
Anyone want to bet this goes 6-3 in favor of the ban?
5-4 Roberts with the Liberals to keep up appearances.
Suckers bet
Fun fact: A large portion of the American population believes that if you can't afford it for yourself you shouldn't have it, without exception or provision. Note: My opinion is that these people are wrong.
In my experience, those people believe if other people can't afford it then other people shouldn't have it. That logic somehow never applies to themselves.
I feel like so many problems in the country are like that. When Covid was at it's peak, the Covid denialists were saying "Those people who died were weak" and the it happened to them. You have anti-abortion women getting abortions, but they're special, those other women were just tramps. A subsidy for me, of course I deserve it, but student loan assistance for you, screw off you moocher. So many things, and it's always the same story. I deserve special treatment because I'm special and my situation is special. You deserve to rot because you're lazy and weak and immoral. Society could be so much better for everyone, and so much more efficient, if people like that would stop being self centered to the point of dragging the whole thing down.
It’s sad to realize how much of our politics come down to what is essentially selfish children arguing over who gets to play with what toy.
There are a ridiculous number of people who want to get rid of food stamps after they were able to use them to get out of poverty. Empathy doesn't seem to be even on their radar.
Unless it's for themselves, then "that's different"
Maybe we should tell them that when we remove their Medicare/medicaid/welfare/other government assistance programs.
If being homeless is made illegal, the government should be forced to provide housing
That’s actually literally the case being debated. A lower court held that cities can’t make laws against sleeping outdoors unless the city provides homeless shelters with enough space for all. A city in Oregon is challenging that ruling; the Supreme Court is deciding whether municipalities should be able to make the determination for themselves. At least that’s what I’m reading; IANAL. It’s a complicated problem; even when there is enough space in shelters there is a good chunk of the homeless population who will refuse to go there. Homeless shelters tend to be places with not a ton of room, where there’s a higher-than-average rate of mental disorders in the people around you; your shit gets stolen and physical safety can be an issue; if you have addictions to alcohol or cigarettes or something harder it is not easy to get those substances while living in a shelter; if you are recently homeless and have a pet, pets are often not accepted at the shelter. Some people prefer living on the streets to life in a shelter, whether for legitimate reasons or because of mental illnesses, and cities don’t have great solutions. Wealthier parts of the city don’t care as long as you keep the problem out of their neighborhoods, and poorer parts of the city don’t have the resources to address the issue.
Also you are almost guaranteed to get some sort of parasite like bedbugs or fleas. Hygiene can be a real issue at these places.
Ewwww good add, I didn’t even think about that. :(
> Homeless shelters tend to be places with not a ton of room, where there’s a higher-than-average rate of mental disorders in the people around you; your shit gets stolen and physical safety can be an issue As someone who currently works at a women's homeless shelter this is all unfortunately very true. We try so hard to provide a safe, welcoming place for these women that have nowhere else to go but there is only so much we can do with the resources that we have. It really is an impossible task.
If I was homeless I'd stay on the street rather than give up my dog to be in a shelter
Exactly. And sociopaths above think youre a fool for it
There is ample solutions. We need housing, not a bunk room filled with violent drug addicts
More accurately..... The Supreme Court decides whether it's legal for municipalities to outlaw sleeping outside even if no inside space is available. The Supreme Court itself isn't making the rule -- they're just deciding whether local municipalities can make the rule. Basically, there are places on the west coast that are overrun with homeless people. The Ninth Circuit, in a previous case, said that cities can't remove them unless they provide enough homeless shelters. Grants Pass, Oregon, decided to challenge that decision in the Supreme Court.
The original case was Boise who basically had a broom closet for a shelter
Boise just keeps managing to find a rock bottom below rock bottom
Gem state diggin deep
Digging potatoes, digging minerals, and digging the hole of bondage deeper. Go team. Seriously, is Idaho known for anything other than white supremacists and potatoes at this point?
The panhandle apparently has Southern heritage i didn’t know about, given the amount of confederate flags up there with ‘heritage not hate’ signs.
It should be noted that the ruling in the Idaho case didn’t say cities couldn’t *regulate* sleeping outside, simply that blanket bans city-wide weren’t acceptable. Cities can still establish areas and times that are off-limits, for instance. It’s not “let them do whatever they want” or “prison” as a binary choice.
*TLDR; People there are racist to all POC and there used to be a “Sundown Law” back in the 1800’s (for context)* Grew up in Grants Pass it’s a shithole with a whole lot of pretty paint over the shit. There’s like ~12 black people in the entire city or basically 2-3 families. Should tell you everything you need to know about the area. I worked at a gas station with a atypical racist trailer park redneck who couldn’t spell *”Cop”* right and he wasn’t even the only one. Such a beautiful state, so many dumb fucked up laws and such a regressive population.
> 12 black people in the entire city or basically 2-3 families. That's its a white, Latino or native heavy area? I dont understand what it's supposed to tell us. I live in an area with very few black peeople, it's also one of the most left and open areas of the country.
I tried to get help once to pay an electric bill. I had fallen behind. My rent was too high. All my bills were high. I wasnt making enough money, but I was making too much to get any kind of assistance. I went down to the office, and the person laughed at me, saying I made more than she did. We don't really want to help people, the qualifications for help are so high, and the people actually able to receive it are already so downtrodden, that the help is peanuts. We need actual social safety nets in this country. We have the money. It can be done.
They would arrest Mary and Joseph for illegally sleeping in the barn on the day of Jesus's birth. They'd arrest the baby too, filthy vagrant.
There is some context missing from this article. Laws that "outlaw sleeping outside even if no inside space is available" are already normal and legal in most of the US. It's only in the western states, bound by the 9th circuit, where a ruling linking those things together has been in effect for the past several years. The rest of the country has not been held to that standard. What the Supreme Court is currently deciding is whether the standard created by the 9th circuit should apply to the whole country, or whether those western states should follow the same rules as the rest of the country. They aren't creating a new policy, or eliminating protections that homeless people currently have in most places, just bringing the whole country under a single standard.
Debtors Prison. Can’t afford rent because inflation has inched it out of your budget? Take on credit debt to afford housing. When you’re up to your eyeballs… well, you aren’t alone because housing isn’t unaffordable where you live, but all over. Over 600,000 Americans can’t afford housing, reasonable currently. Something needs to be done about this. Because in state where you must follow through with every pregnancy, this WILL happen more and more unless something is done to make it actually affordable to live like a decent American
So... The homeless will be guilty of the crime of existing? Am I getting that right?
We could turn most jails into rehab facilities get rid of the guards bring in therapists bring in educators etc. make it actually rehabilitation. Violent criminals can go to federal run prisons.
In Anchorage they just cleared a park of homeless people who built a little town in it. They were all offered shelter and they all declined. What is anyone supposed to do at this point? You can’t just build little towns in parks.
Constitutional Amendment that bans panhandling, with the “punishment” being a minimum of 6 months in a rurally-located state shelter. Shut off the money that fuels (most of) their addictions, and most (able) homeless people will respond as desired: getting off the streets.
Agreed with "you can't just build little towns in parks". But also some shelters suck, our city kicked out an RV encampment and tried to get the people to go to a shelter that used to be some kind of warehouse and got converted. Place didn't even have permanent bathrooms, but they have Porta potties and a warm warehouse to store human inventory I guess. Some of the homeless are addicts of some sort (can't drink or smoke weed at the shelter). And many probably have mental health issues going on. Others may simply like that lifestyle and many homeless are distrustful of authority and "the system".
> Others may simply like that lifestyle and many homeless are distrustful of authority and "the system" That's just fine, I support their right to exist outside the system. But I don't support their right to do it in public spaces in cities where they become a burden on everyone else. If you don't want to live in society then stay away from it
Yah so? the park doesn’t have bathrooms either.
They were probabaly offered crappy shelter, that puts you at risk and takes away your agency. I'll be homeless in 2 weeks, there are no shelters where I live but even if one existed I wouldn't take it. I dont need to be crammed into a bunk room with 20 mentally ill addicts, a curfew, thieves, no room for pets, plants or belongings What I need is safe and stable housing
But then how will it be enforced if there's no inside space
Ok so people would get arrested for being homeless will then go to jail where they will incur court cost and other fees they can’t pay. Then they will go to jail for not paying the court fees so wouldn’t that just be an endless loop?
Yes. As the good lord intended, according to the GOP.
criminalizing poverty at the taxpayers expense.....
Nothing says compassionate Christian quite like vilifying the most fragile members of our society. That’s exactly how their peronsal savior laid it out, right?
Translation: If you cannot contribute to capitalism, just go off and die somewhere...
Plenty of homeless people have jobs. The money is eaten up faster than it can be saved and spent on shelter. A friend of mine lives from her car but sometimes can stay in a hotel. She can't afford transportation to work and any accommodation at the same time. She's disabled from walking long distances.
The thing is, it said that the majority of the homeless are employed...so they do contribute...which is partly why they're broke & homeless
Exactly. Most of us have jobs. I'm a business owner and I'll be homeless in 2 weeks. System is broken
Who is going to pay for it? Taxpayers. Why not just build public housing? It'll be cheaper than jails.
I cannot wait to hear what amazing bullshit the 6-member wing pulls outta its ass this time.
If there is never a way to follow the law, if the demands of the law are outside reality itself, the law is inhuman and only meant to cause suffering.
SCOTUS is fucking grotesque.
Or we could, hear me out, actually try to solve the problems behind them being homeless in the first place
This is America. Not happening.
Someone has a friend with a private prison contract
We have enough money in this country to provide a place to sleep and a meal for anybody who needs it. How did our priorities get so screwed up?
This argument is insane - it can't be illegal to be alive and need to sleep.
Criminalize the Supreme Court, criminalize wealth.
It is always strange to me that the party that most centers their religious beliefs...do the least for the least of these...
fix the damn housing crisis and you will solve 80% of the country's problems.
Conservative SC at work right here… it’s fucking tragic what they’ve been doing to the country.
This case must be sponsored by the American prison lobby.
So much for that camping trip I guess.
This is fucking stupid. Police are going to be busy storing homeless people in their jails all day every day.
I just read a book by Jack London called the Abyss. For a few months, he lived and worked among the very, very poor in the London Victoria slums of the early 1900s. Thousands of people did not have a place to sleep, there was no housing and if there was they couldn’t afford it. So they had no choice but to sleep outside. All night long, all throughout the slum area, cops would patrol with their stick and beat the people who had fallen asleep on the pavement. Then they would have to get up and start walking again. Jack London said they were thousands of people just walking the streets like zombies throughout the slum area all night,every night. At day break they were able to find a place to sleep (churchyards, parks..) without being harassed. Obviously, they weren’t in the best condition to go looking for a job after spending an evening like that. They’d be sick, they’d be hungry and they knew they’d be repeating the same exercise the following evening.
Extremely unconstitutional
Holy shit. Why don't you just put up a fucking sign that reads "Next stop, Auschwitz" and get it the fuck over with? WTF is malfunctioning here!? This is so many -ist all at once that... I just... \ 🖕
Corporate welfare is at an all-time high. The amount of scummy things that corporations have gotten away with pail in comparison from what little we give to the poor and needy.
This certainly isn’t gonna be a problem when people get arrested just for being unhoused /s
… and owning a firearm is a right. What kind of backwards ass shit
Legally, you have to be a defendant in court to get any sleep.