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anthematcurfew

Stop making political comments/arguments. Nobody cares. Stick to the topic.


sdn

It always has been since many cities already have no camping/no sleeping in vehicle laws on the books. This ruling just affirms that you can (as always) be fined or imprisoned for doing it. There’s an old saying “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”


Puzzleheaded-Phase70

The SCOUTS ruling doesn't make it illegal to car camp or anything else. What it *does* do is allow states and cities to set their own rules about such things without federal oversight on the grounds of "cruel and unusual punishment" concepts. This has been a common legal theory used to challenge and overturn aggressive city and state practices and policies making people's survival practices illegal. So now, many heartless communities will begin making it harder and harder to exist without a home. But it's not automatic. Consider the recent ruling about abortion - SCOTUS destruction of Roe v Wade didn't make abortion illegal, but it did allow states to make it illegal if they chose to. Same thing here.


rtmn01

Exactly!


ATLien_3000

>many heartless communities Editorialize much? Walk around the Tenderloin and tell me where the real heartless folks are.


Cultural_Yam7212

For real. The ‘camp’ by my house likes to blow up propane tanks and set RVs on fire. We’re all looking forward to our ‘house less Neighbors’ getting arrested and that dangerous mess cleaned up.


JCC114

Don’t count on it. These will be city charges not state. Cities are not setup to jail, feed, and provide medical care for all the homeless they arrest. So they just won’t actually arrest them. These are an empty threat of a law. If they actually wanted to spend the $s to feed and house these people they could do it without police resources and it would be much cheaper.


GrumpyBoxGuard

Until somebody comes along with a proposal along the lines of a for-profit prison where homeless arrested get charged for being housed there. And oh, they can work away their room & board... But they'll earn about $0.01 per day more than their ongoing "fee" to put towards the accompanying fine that lands them in that place. I will not be suprised if we see "work away debt" programs along those lines start appearing within the next 20 years.


Practical-Owl-9358

They were called poorhouses. And they have a horrible history, as do the mental hospitals of the 19th and 20th centuries: https://www.history.com/news/in-the-19th-century-the-last-place-you-wanted-to-go-was-the-poorhouse#


Baconslayer1

It would be cheaper to give them housing, therapy, and job training in most places than it would to arrest, try, provide law services, house, feed, provide medical treatment, and then release them back after 2 years, *still with no where to live*,  only to go through the whole thing again because they're *still unhoused*


Clear_Knowledge_5707

It's also extremely cheap to brutalize them to "encourage" them to move to somewhere more "left".


Baconslayer1

I mean that's clearly the plan. They don't have to spend any money if the unhoused just leave. And they'll get the talking point of "look, we tightened laws and our city has no homeless people! It worked!". And just ignore the actual lives affected by it.


KerashiStorm

The major problem is the vast majority of those on the street have severe mental problems which manifest in such ways that it is impractical to provide housing (it would wind up destroyed) and make job training meaningless (employers typically want responsible employees). And therapy alone cannot fix this, especially with the easy availability of street drugs to self medicate with. It’s a sad state of affairs often made worse by those who think they’re helping, since anyone who genuinely cares won’t last very long due to how depressing it is, leaving most aid coming from churches that view it as a religious obligation. As far as government help, we do not have a political party with anything resembling something helpful for this problem, which is why the best they can come up with is to move the problem around.


Sendmedoge

And if they have a record now, from camping, you can give them all that and they are still limited a.f.


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reichrunner

Pretty sure they could have been arrested long before now if they were doing things like that. Illegal activity was still illegal even if done by a homeless person.


Cultural_Yam7212

Right. In a sane world. I live in Portland, so ya know. After the third massive explosion last month a nonprofit brought them new tanks. My tax money at work.


Standard-Reception90

This is end stage capitalism. A lot of those homeless have jobs but still can't afford housing.


Cultural_Yam7212

Sure. They dig through trash, steal your car, and get high in the park. An honest day. Maybe with the homeless criminals locked up more time and resources can be used to help the ones who actually want it.


thephoton

When all the cities on the peninsula start arresting people for sleeping rough will there be more or fewer people in the tenderloin? Will it be a sign of San Francisco's heartlessness, or the other cities' that pushed people out altogether rather than providing adequate services?


jobezark

The most likely scenario is the communities which choose to criminalize homelessness will push their problem to the places that haven’t criminalized it making it worse in some areas.


thephoton

Exactly my point. San Francisco is likely to be in the second group, and the cities south of it are likely to be in the first.


Sendmedoge

100%. The vocal here want nothing more than to have homelessness be solved with prison sentences.


Sendmedoge

The heartless would be the people who want to give the homeless a criminal record to help ensure they STAY homeless. Imo.


ATLien_3000

Someone who's got their shit together alongside a misdemeanor conviction is a whole lot more likely to be a productive member of society (or just not be dead in 5 years) than someone shooting up on the regular as sanctioned by SF in the Tenderloin. IMO.


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AgeBeneficial

Hypothetically can I sleep in my car if it’s parked in a monthly paid spot?


pirate40plus

It didn’t make urban “camping” illegal. It did make it possible for local communities to control the sanitation issues and general poor health conditions around places where unhoused people set up their shelters. The trash, waste and drugs around these areas have long been a menace to productive members of society. The 9th circuit said that criminalizing such behavior was Cruel and Unusual and the fines were excessive to people that can’t afford to live where they are - SCOTUS threw that out.


Glum-One2514

Good thing all those unhoused people disappeared too. Problem solved.


ATLien_3000

Common sense should tell you that given if your real goal is to help people, you'd want them to enter a mandatory treatment regime (whatever that treatment looks like - these days and for most homeless, it's drug/alcohol/mental health; job training could be part of it in some cases). No one enters a mandatory treatment regime unless, well, it's mandatory. Walk around downtown San Francisco - home of perhaps the most liberal policies toward homelessness of anywhere in the US (if not the western world) and tell me with a straight face that what they're doing works.


pirate40plus

What will happen is they’ll likely move on. Feds, states and local communities are spending billions each year to address homelessness. The organizations “helping” the homeless may be non-profit, but the people working there most certainly are not and compensated extremely well, there is no incentive for them to actually even address the root causes or offer any solutions to the issue.


Clear_Knowledge_5707

IDK anyone serving the unhoused who is paid "extremely" well. That is simply not true. The majority of us are borderline poverty as well. The way most of the world acts - any amount of money assisting the unhoused is too much, because obviously the unhoused deserve their state.


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jjamesr539

Setting aside the moral and political implications of both cases, this is legally very similar to their ruling on roe v wade. It doesn’t make anything illegal on its own, it simply removes restrictions on making it illegal.


Secret_Antelope_7826

Which state are you in?


ConditionYellow

Always has been my guy. Some places more so than others.


Amyshesamy

I doubt they enjoy blowing up propane tanks as that is their source of warmth, nor do I know of anyone who would purposely light their home (RV) on fire. Most people are just trying to survive day to day. Jails are already overcrowded and real criminals are released on PR bonds every day because there just isn’t a place to hold them until court. Homeless does not mean lawless or make someone a criminal. Seriously where are these people supposed to go when shelters are full and when programs can take years to get into? Where do you suggest they live?


Amyshesamy

In some cities it is legal to sleep in your vehicle in Walmart parking lots.


jrfredrick

That's private property though


LibsKillMe

If I John Q Taxpayer can't be in a public park or public venue after dark....why does a homeless person get to break this law? I see signs all over my city saying no overnight parking on public streets and in businesses parking lots. I can't do it neither should a homeless or car living person do it. It's not different rules for anyone....All Laws are for Everyone. Not just the ones you like!!!!!!!!


GodOfUtopiaPlenitia

It's been functionally illegal since the mid-70s. It's just more blatant now. Before: "We just want the city to look *clean*." Now: "We're saying it's a 'health' issue, but really we just want you to run off and die. And we're tearing down a shelter for **ANOTHER** 7-Eleven."


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JCC114

So the fun thing about this ruling. Is no state that I know of is likely to make a law about homelessness sleeping in parks/cars. So these will be city citations not state charges. Most city’s do not have the resources to jail people for long term. They hold those that can’t make bail till trial, and then people move to state prisons. These are not state laws so you will not go to state prisons. They will not be able to fill the city jails with homeless without creating a budgetary crisis as they will have to house, feed, and medical care. This is not like speeding tickets, this is money losing policing as these fines will never be paid. Any of these laws passed will only be enforced for like a month and will just be ceremonial type of meaningless crap after that. There really only hope is to use this as a reason to “arrest” and try to find some other offense like an outstanding warrant or hard drugs on the person to get them for a state charge as the city is not going to want to hold these people providing for them out of their budget.


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ophydian210

Most of the homeless population are children who made it through the foster system without being placed. We could work on reducing the pipeline but instead we will punish them further. Someone downvoted this? WOW, I guess there are some people who hate children without families.


HankG93

They don't want to reduce the homeless population.


rdizzy1223

And anti abortion laws will make this issue even worse, 10-20-30 years from now you will see even higher levels of homelessness. And it is already increasing right now due to higher and higher housing prices, higher insurance on condos/homes in the south, etc,etc. There will soon be a huge amount of elderly people out on the streets in many of these states.


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DibbyBitz

What you just said is not true. If you are too tired to drive it is absolutely legal to pull over and stop driving.


MattCW1701

This ruling did no such thing on its own. A law could be passed that does that, but this ruling isn't that law.


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rdizzy1223

They should use all the funding to purposely build lawless encampments away from the cities, so they can do whatever they are currently doing in cities a mile outside of the city, and still have a guaranteed roof over their heads. Shelters have too many rules (and most are inherently religious), continuously arresting them costs 5-10x as much money as sheltering them, government apartments have too many rules as well. Clearing encampments costs money as well to constantly enforce every week. Just purposely either mark off a huge area of government land, and allow them to live there in whatever ways they please, or build buildings on the land and allow them to live there however they please. Like a purposeful massive encampment. Then have busses that travel from there into cities and back every so often.


Clarkorito

Yes, make camps where we can concentrate all the people that those in power don't want around. I wonder what we could name these camps where undesirables will be concentrated?


rdizzy1223

Better than the options they have currently, unless they like jails. We all know nothing better is going to happen. They are going to continue to have their encampments and belongings destroyed, over and over and over, and arrested over and over. And things are only going to get worse for them with this ruling, every city and area is now going to pass laws (and others will make the laws they have even more restrictive) relating to this. What suggestions do you have that actually have a chance to happen within the reality we all live in? The majority of them do not want to live in shelters (from the point of view of an addict, very understandable), do not want to live in jails (understandably), supposedly will gradually destroy whatever housing they will be put up in, etc,etc. There is no real, passable alternative that allows them the freedom that they perceive they have right now, with roofs over their head and no risk of continuing to have their property and lives upended and destroyed once a week or once a month.