CDZ What do you care about?

[jwoodie]

Good Republican solution. Just make being homeless a crime, then lock them all up.

Read this and try again:

We know why it (homelessness) is happening: Mental illness, substance abuse and/or availability of free food and squatting space. (People who have simply lost their jobs can access plenty of temporary "safety net" resources.)

We also know the solution: Appropriate treatment programs and temporary camping facilities. However, our courts have prohibited mandatory participation in such programs and enforcement of vagrancy laws if the individuals involved not not have alternative housing available to them.

To deal with these restrictions, we need to make permanent housing available to these people so that we can enforce our vagrancy laws. Then offenders can be placed under court-ordered supervision and required to participate in appropriate treatment programs (under restrictive conditions, if necessary).

P.S. The argument that this would simply fill our jails with the homeless is unfounded. People who eschew homeless shelters are certainly not going to prefer jail to less restrictive housing.

 

[Circe]

Most of the homeless problem is happening because it is allowed, even encouraged. When cities did not allow vagrancy and public begging and sleeping on the streets, it didn't happen. If there are mental institutions and people don't want to be in them, MOST of them will figure out how to behave so they avoid that. The rest really need to be there.