Urban Poverty is Increasingly Criminalized...

[Bluewolf]

Shep bring's up one instance of an insane homeless person, therefore all homeless people must be as bad. Who would of thought that some are still sane and would love the chance to get somewhere.

I am not saying that homeless people can be insane yet Shep is dragging the argument on another path. Its not unreasonable assume that some people here know bad homeless people can be.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I think a reasonable question to ask is if the homeless man in question ever received that notice - aren't most such notices sent by mail, which, with no fixed address, is difficult for the homeless to receive?

I'm sure he was cited and then given a copy of the citation by the arresting officer and then allowed to go free...

Even better, how was he supposed to get to the courthouse exactly? He had no car, and in many places the homeless are not permitted on public transportation, even to the extent that they managed to beg (which is often illegal) bus fair off of someone.

So SIth, what exactly is so horrible about sharing food with the homeless that it needs to be illegal?

Alyrium, since I haven't been discussing the subject of the sharing of food with the homeless I don't really know what you're talking about...

[Kamakazie Sith]

Of course, the position of the police when dealing with the homeless probably isn't helped by them being the people that have to enforce bullshit laws

Police do have discretionary powers but those powers are often taken away when the city council and the general tax paying public want something done about it so then we end up doing things that we don't like to do like arresting homeless for petty crimes. Another issue is when you're dispatched to a homeless man that's sleeping on the street he becomes your responsibility if he's too drunk to walk. So, you can't leave him there and most departments don't transport to the shelter probably because they don't want to set a precedent.

True, though a useful part of keeping the peace sometimes involves picking up waifs and strays and delivering them to somewhere they're not going to cause any trouble. I myself was on the recieving end of this treatment from the Police once, when I'd just moved to a new city, was drunk off my face and completely and utterly lost at four in the morning, as students are wont to be, they helpfully gave me a ride back to somewhere I recognised, from where I could make it home.

Yeah, but you're definition of "drunk off your face" is probably no where near how drunk some of the homeless get and transporting them to the shelter carries liability concerns and I've seen the shelter turn away heavily intoxicated individuals. There is detox but they don't have the beds available to deal with large numbers of intoxicated individuals so the only choice is to book them into jail for public intoxication.

It's not "enforcing the law", but it's a good preventative action in the whole "keeping the peace" thing that Police forces get up to.

It depends on the options but yes it can be.

[Simon_Jester]

And I'm sure living on the streets was real fucking helpful in letting him cope with living with whatever brain fuckup he had.

You know, in a sane world, these people would be locked up in mental asylums, kind of like how they were, before "reforms" in the late 70s closed a lot of state mental hospitals, and turned out the inmates into the cruel world.

Ah... that raises a few questions.

First:
Were there no homeless people before the late '70s? Because if all homeless people are crazy, and if state mental asylums were good at locking up people who were crazy then, state mental asylums would lock up all the homeless people. If they didn't, then clearly there must be some homeless people who weren't crazy, right?

Second:
How can you tell the difference between someone who is homeless because they are batshit insane and someone who is batshit insane because they are homeless? I don't know about you, but if I were forced to live like a bum (or a tramp (or even a hobo)) for a few years, I'd be pretty damn insane myself. That doesn't mean that I was insane before I was homeless, or that I would be insane if I'd had somewhere to go to start getting back on my feet instead of being totally screwed.

Third:
How the hell do you know what homeless people are like from a sample size of one?

[Vendetta]

Another issue is when you're dispatched to a homeless man that's sleeping on the street he becomes your responsibility if he's too drunk to walk. So, you can't leave him there and most departments don't transport to the shelter probably because they don't want to set a precedent.

Yeah, but you're definition of "drunk off your face" is probably no where near how drunk some of the homeless get and transporting them to the shelter carries liability concerns and I've seen the shelter turn away heavily intoxicated individuals. There is detox but they don't have the beds available to deal with large numbers of intoxicated individuals so the only choice is to book them into jail for public intoxication.

Almost certainly, however if someone's too drunk to be safely left in a shelter or in situ it would be helpful if there were a way to take them in to sleep it off in the cells, and then direct them to somewhere to get help the next morning, without it ever becoming more than an on the spot warning. Give the police a way to deal with it without criminalising it, and without making it an adversarial thing between police and the homeless.

Once again though, of course, we're back to the position of needing effective support systems in place to keep people off the streets, because taking drunks in to sleep it off in the cells on an ongoing basis isn't an effective use of police resources, so there needs to be rehab and rehousing projects available to hand them over to in the morning. I remember someone posting an article regarding a project where homeless alcoholics were given a permanent residence with no strings attached, and it turned out cheaper and more effective in getting them off of drink than treating them as criminals and putting them through judicially mandated rehab, but it's not "tough on crime", so it doesn't appeal to middle class voters or politicians.

[Broomstick]

I lived 15 years in Chicago, and I used to get pissed at people who would call the police because a homeless person was sleeping on a park bench or in a train station, or bathing in Lake Michigan in the summertime. I wasn't thrilled to witness homeless people in such situations, but as long as said homeless weren't causing ME a direct problem I'd let them be. (For goodness sake - don't complain about how bad homeless people smell if you chase them out of public bathrooms or even from lakes. Good lord, don't stop them from washing up! Don't harass them for using the toilet, either, I mean the have to piss and shit, too, and should be allowed to do so in public toilets!). A lot of it has to do with more affluent people not wanting to see unpleasant things, like homeless people. Out of sight, out of mind, if they can't see it, it doesn't exist to them.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Alyrium, since I haven't been discussing the subject of the sharing of food with the homeless I don't really know what you're talking about...

This: In a somewhat sideways way...

I hate to say it but with the homeless comes an increase in property crimes such as general theft, burglary of businesses and vehicles, shoplifting, and vandalism.

So answer the question: What justifies the mistreatment of homeless people to the point that giving them food should be illegal and enforced by the police?

You also did not address the other point. Failure to answer a summons due to a lack of transportation.

To those of you who think that these people are just hapless people who had something bad happen to them...<Snip shep's self-centered almost sociopathic rant>

Has anyone told you that you are a monster shep? No. Really. Do you think that this poor guy's being crazy was his fault? Maybe instead of being put in prison, he should have been treated? The situation you describe is exactly what you bitch about us thinking the homeless are. A person with scitzophrenia, or PTSD is the definition of a hapless person who had something bad happen to them. Many of them are veterans of the wars you jerk off to at night. Others are the victims of shitty genetics, or childhood trauma. Other homeless people are not crazy, they just got kicked out of their homes (70% of the homeless youth in some areas are gay or trans) and had to resort to survival prostitution to live, and drugs to cope.

You know, in a sane world, these people would be locked up in mental asylums, kind of like how they were, before "reforms" in the late 70s closed a lot of state mental hospitals, and turned out the inmates into the cruel world.

Have you ever been to a state mental institution? The word "cesspit"does not properly describe it. A nice private hospital* or one in a european country** can help someone get the treatment they need and give good followup to ensure good outcome for patients. However, the mentally disturbed homeless in the US dont have access to those. Instead they get the chronically underfunded state hospitals that are not better than prisons. I know you cant seem to grasp the concept, but the mentally disabled are still human beings and deserve our compassion... and they still have basic human rights.

**Private hospitals that are contracted by the state do not fit this criteria. They tend to take in the same patients, namely the poor ones that would otherwise get put into a state run hospital... but because they have an incentive to cut corners in the name of profits they can be worse than the same underfunded state hospitals.

***If we had an actual healthcare system like the europeans do, the problems with our remaining state hospitals would not exist to the extent that they do currently.

Oh and Shep:

FUCK YOU

[The Yosemite Bear]

I recall 15 years ago, trying to find work with my minor mental problems. I went to EDD every day, sent out resumes, coverletters, checked my phone machine (which was usually full of people calling to order pizza from the restaurant that had the number before they closed 3 years before I got it), every day. I talked with lots of people who were living off the dole in my job hunt.

[loomer]

You know, Shep, my father was homeless for most of his teen years. Was he insane? Not from what I can gather, and these days he is entirely sane as well, so my sample size of one conclusively proves no homeless people are insane. Oh look at that, my personal anecdote has just countered yours, you fucking right wing lunatic.

[Kamakazie Sith]

So answer the question: What justifies the mistreatment of homeless people to the point that giving them food should be illegal and enforced by the police?

Again, Alyrium nobody is talking about giving food to homeless being illegal. I haven't commented on such action at all and neither does the statement of mine you quoted. My statement does comment on why the legislature creates laws such as illegal camping, trespassing on business property or on city property.

Furthermore, I'm not aware of any regulation that makes feeding the homeless illegal.

You also did not address the other point. Failure to answer a summons due to a lack of transportation.

In Utah a person has 5-14 days to appear when issued a misdemeanor citation. Furthermore, in the event that you aren't able to appear a phone number to the court is provided. Though the other option is to not violate those infractions, but I can only speak from the perspective of my city which doesn't have every single area posted no trespassing.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Hey Shep!

I was homeless for a month after I ran out of my dad's home literally the first day of 2k1. Only reason I'm here to post about it and regale you and everyone else here with my ship designs and admittedly wacko lefty politics is (get ready for it):

I GOT LUCKY.

Simply put. If it weren't for a horny old man and a drunk American Indian eight years ago, I'd have never met Dave, gotten a home, a job, and some measure of self-respect. I'd still be slaving away for that Jewish guy at his hubcap shop or homeless or in jail or dead of AIDS. I'd be nothing but a burden on society and you know it, Shep. That stinky bum you see sleeping on the park bench in the French Quarter, or Times Square, or Roosevelt Park, or anywhere? That bum could have been me.

Or he could have been you, especially with your mental illness and jail time. Yet you still champion the insane greedy corporate bastards who for a modest sum of filthy lucre would see us all fucking dead in the streets, either in some nameless city in the Middle East, or here in America.

So yes, Shep, FUCK YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON. It's time we serve these corporate Robber Barons notice that it's time they help the rest of us before we very firmly ask Uncle Sam to do it for us. Oh wait, we already have.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Well in 97 I spent a week in a Red Cross Shelter, after I lost my job and my home to a natural disaster.

[Norade]

Hey, Shep too echo the sentiment go fuck yourself, shoot yourself in the face, and die somewhere you worthless sack of shit. I ended up homeless for a few days because my landlord was a dick and my family couldn't help me out quickly enough. I also had the misfortune of being in foster care and most of those kids, through no fault of their own, are a half step from being shoved out on the street too. Seriously, deal with the fact that some human beings are blessed with the good fortune to never experience what it's like to be a step from the streets on any given day, or good forbid actually have to sleep on a park bench because the shelters are closed, or aren't even open most summers.

[Big Orange]

I heard an American from another forum say that socialism is for "losers" - with that kind of ingrained negative mindset about a social safety net, no wonder the homeless problem in America seems worse and more inadequately handled than in most other advanced nations.

We've got Ronald Reagan to thank for having streets inhabited by the demented tramps that Shep mentioned, with corner cutting in the mental asylums leading to the mostly non-violent inmates getting dumped out in the street - but they're still unemployable and have severe behavioural problems, so roughing it is inevitable for them. Since the 1980s they got buggered by the same short-sighted, rightwing economic thinking that is buggering EVERBODY now...