On May 12, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, demanded that cities throughout the state adopt anti-camping ordinances that would effectively ban public homelessness by requiring unhoused individuals to relocate every 72 hours.
While presented as a humanitarian effort to reduce homelessness, the new policy victimizes California’s growing unhoused population—approximately 187,000 people—by tying funding in Proposition 1 to local laws banning sleeping or camping on public land.
In his announcement, Newsom pushed local governments to adopt the draconian ordinances “without delay.”
There will be people who will, despite having the option to be moved into housing, refuse to move there because they prefer the freedom of panhandling for money, getting drunk and stoned, and being nuisances to people around them. If you think they should not be dealt with, then yes, we don’t agree, and you’re just as bad as the people that say no help for the homeless and just want them swept away. There is a reasonable position, and it’s not either your position or Newsom’s position.
Right…showing your prejudice. Just as i thought. Getting drunk and stoned is not the cause of homelessness. You’re just blaming the homeless for a problem they didn’t create. Funny how we never had a homeless problem back before housing prices started ballooning. Hell, go back to the early 19th century, and basically everyone had a place to live, even if it wasn’t a great place to live.
Yeah. You got me. I’m prejudiced against the idea that people can do what they want, without consequence. How heartless of me, eh? Make it difficult for me to remain civil to you, why don’t you?
Here’s the difference between you, AnalogNotDigital, and me: You both have staked out opposite but equally extremist ends. Let me reduce your position to its core principles.
People should be allowed to do what they want, when they want, without any consequence for their actions.
No. No, a thousand times no. I am not going to sit by and let people walk over me, because I’ve already dealt enough with people walking over me. I have to get up and do my 9 to 5 every weekday, and moderate my drug and alcohol use to a level that I can function in my job, to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. In no world will “in my opinion we should do literally nothing about them being there” be a valid option to tent cities with rampant drug and alcohol use.
To make this more stark, you engage in the same duplicitous and dishonest debate tactics the Right uses. Because of course if I want accountability for people, I must want homeless people starving in the streets. Let me make this clear for you. I want housing to be available to everyone. Said so multiple times, in fact, in this thread alone. But that housing needs to be contingent on people getting clean and becoming productive members of society to the extent their clean selves can be. I do not support any demand that unhoused people be swept in order to partake of Proposition 1 funding. That’s what I expressed in my second paragraph. I guess you skipped that in your rush to attack me for my first paragraph.
News flash, pal. I stand by what I said in that first paragraph. You do not have a right to society subsidising your drug and alcohol habit. You DO have a right to housing, but that right has a responsibility of putting your labour in for society. Your access to transitional housing should be contingent on you getting clean if you have a drug or alcohol problem. It should be clear that the alternative you are proposing, living a drugged, drunk life in a vermin-filled tent on public space, is not an option. If you put the effort in, we give you the carrot of subsidised housing to allow you to get back on your feet and make your way into the workforce. If you decide that’s too much effort, then the stick comes out until you rethink your bad decision and go after the carrot. That’s been my position all along, and I don’t appreciate you putting words in my mouth and bald-faced lying (no homelessness in the 19th century?! History lessons for you). No solution is complete without both the carrot and the stick, because people are jerks and will take advantage of you the first chance they get. There are jerks who are looking to take advantage of homeless people with the Stick Only approach. Then there are gullible fools who will be taken advantage of by some homeless people because they want the Carrot Only approach. I’m advocating for both because I want to minimise being taken advantage here, and you’re accusing me of being … prejudiced and making bald-faced lies that only need a tiny bit of research.
So, in the spirit of launching personal attacks, I see your prejudiced accusation and call you both naive and an asshole. Good day, sir.
Good talk, glad we sorted that out.