I fought the law and got it struck down

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Pekka
How do you outlaw homelessness? Isn't that like a kick in the face? Umm you don't have a home? Here, let's go to jail, you criminal bastard!!

By outlawing it would indicate that the state has the obligation to give accomodation to homeless people, which doesn't sound like a bad idea either.

Where I live approach is pretty good or at least it was until this 9th circuit judge tried to outlaw vagrancy laws with a questionable ruling. City and numerous charities (some religious and some not) run programs to help transition people off of the streets by treating the causes of homelessness. Those causes are normally things like temperary bad luck (someone is living pay check to pay check then loses their job, gets divorced, or gets sick, etc), their to addicted to a substance to be employable, they are to mentally ill to hold a job, or they don't have the skills to get a decent paying job. The transition programs give them ways to get clean & sobber, a place to live rent free so they can save money to rent a place, and often job training in some employable skill (being a barber, learning construction, plumbing, etc...). If someone is in one of those programs then they have a roof over their head and time to get back on their feet.

If you break the rules by getting drunk, not showing up for your counciling or AA meeting, or similiar then you get kicked out of the program for some set length of time (typically 3 months for the first offense, 6 for the second, a year for the third, etc...) and you can't stay at the transitional house. There are then homeless shelters where these people can stay over night but during the day they must leave. You can be banned from a homeless shelter for fighting, doing drugs, or other such misbehavior.

Typically the ones you see on the streets are the ones who have already been kicked out of both of the transitional house and the temperary homeless shelters. They can't/won't follow the rules and choose to live on the streets instead of becoming sober or dealing with the issues they have. Those are the people the cops ticket for vagrancy, for illegal camping, and for loitering. The goal is to get these people to either leave the city or to convence them that their current choices are so bad that they really do need to do what it takes to stay in one of the transitional programs. It's tough love and for some people that's the only type of help that works.

[Dinner]

I'm firmly against people and programs which are just trying to enable homelessness. The ones who want to make it "nicer" (for lack of a better word) to be homeless. That won't convence these people to get in the helpful transitional programs or to follow the rules about being sober or taking their meds or going to the psychological counciling. Even San Francisco gave up on direct cash payments to the homeless because inevitably that money got spent on booze and drugs instead of moving people off of the streets and into productive rolls. The enablers don't solve any problems.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Doddler


No, it heats you up. Try it sometime

You feel warmer but the reality is you are more are more likely to get things like frost bite or hypothermia.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by VetLegion


...problems with landlords?

I am a landlord.

[Pekka]

I don't get the point. If we want homeless people out of the streets, obviously decreasing the value of the property and the neighbourhood, then what about just giving the opportunity to get into a shelter or those programs, OR just simply get a free ride out of the county (or similar) borders? Ticketing them wont' work anyway. OR if you end up in jail for being homeless and you didn't do anything bad other than that, I don't think that's a crime where you should pay the price by going to jail anyway.

Just ship them away if they don't want help, the ones who refuse help that is.

OR create an area where homeless people can go. After all, it's a free country, where's the freedom to be homeless? OK,. since there's a problem with neighbourhood and property values, we'll just create an area where they can go, state property. Or something.

[Dinner]

As far as I know they don't arrest people for being homeless but they do ticket people for vagrancy, loitering, and illegal camping. When homeless people get arrested it is typically because they have an outstanding warrent for not paying a fine in the past or for failing to appear for their court hearing.

Just ship them away if they don't want help, the ones who refuse help that is.

It is illegal to force people to leave the city limits. Thus cities adopt a tactic of harassing homeless people so much that they decide to leave and go some where else where they will not be harassed so much. This is the type of behavior which I believe the OP was complaining about and attempting to make illegal. The problem is it is also attempting to make it legal for anyone to "camp" in public parks, on sidewalks, or any where else they want. As we spoke about earlier this has several negative side effects which make it natural for cities to want to discourage those activities; namely there aren't toilets so the homeless anwser the call of nature where ever they please and other citizens lose their rights to fair use of public parks and side walks.

[realpolitic]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Nope. I want to make life on the streets so unappealing and unlivable that even the most hard core guy agrees to go to treatment and to stick to that treatment without relapse. Tough love is what most homeless people need not a law allowing them to camp were ever they choose.

It would be nice if the city can keep it's parks and streets clear of vagriants while doing that.

If this is the type of "treatment" you propose, I'll be the first to pick up a gun. I've seen "social engineering" scams as a volunteer, and they are just a "continuation of war by other means".

Vagrants in sleeping bags take up about 10 square feet to live, I'm sure you take up more, maybe they should bulldoze your house to make more park space.

[realpolitic]

Big O, just change the text here, and you'll have the perfect poster for your "solution"

[Dinner]

Originally posted by realpolitic

If this is the type of "treatment" you propose, I'll be the first to pick up a gun. I've seen "social engineering" scams as a volunteer, and they are just a "continuation of war by other means".

You posted a link about a former homeless guy who worked at a homeless shelter who commited criminal acts of negligence? Since when does the ever qualify as proper medical and psychiatric care? Nice red herring.

[Dinner]

OK RP, I know your a loon but I'll give you a fair shake. Tell me what your solution is. Allow everyone to lay around every where? Loiter all day long? Piss and crap every where they want? Do drugs and drink on the streets without the cops ever stopping them? I'm interested so please tell me your solution so that we can all compare the impacts of each suggestion.

[realpolitic]

No, that was the director, she was in there for 2 1/2 years until they got a mayor who wasn't a millioniare landowner downtown. After the director was there 2 weeks, a case manger refered to the director as "that cokewhore". Over time, everyone who knew the director agreed with thye label, and exfelons coorobrated it. Her purpose was to drive the poor out of town. Only the most Orwellian would call it toughlove..

Back to the case...

Here's what's public knowledge: the city manager has fraudulent numbers to say the number of beds exceeds the number of homeless. After living in Eureka for 6 years, I can say it's utterly rediculous, and we have an expret from a nonprofit to refute it. Their new ploy is a California Supreme Court ruling, Tobin, that says that because some of the homeless are unsanitary, they can outlaw homelessness. An attorney had once told me that State Supreme Court ruling get appealed straight to the US Supreme Court, so things may be pretty confusing. My attorney seems confident, it seems to me as if due process and equal protection means that I have a right to sleep if I can't afford other accomodations, and act in a sanitary manner, they can't lump me in with others, but this is becoming confusing.....

[Straybow]

I'm not sure I understand that poster. At first I thought it was about golf. The poor guy was obviously driven to a rage chasing after the damned little white ball. You can see how he bent his club, and even tied the handle into knots!

Then I realized it's about despair. The poor guy is down to his last four "thin mint" cookies and has to wait months before the Girl Scouts sell them again.

Oh, the humanity!

[realpolitic]

Oerdin, I've thought long and hard about your suggestion, and I'm just too burnt out on the issue to do it justice at this time. I started going to the city council on this issue starting last Febuary, then spent a fair amount of my own energy on the case (even though I have an enthusiastic attorney) There are plenty of facets to this issue and I can't do it justice now. I've been woken up in my van by "hunting parties" of 6 to 7 cops with bright flashlights, pounding on my van til it shook like a gong. It's hard to sleep for a month after one of those encounters, so I really need a break.

The trial is now over, the attorneys are making final motions. Both sides have said they'll appeal, the judge will probably decide 1/17. I've had strange things happen to me. We recused one judge, only to have him show up at the Aug. 9 pretrail, where constitional motions are normally heard, so we had to wait. 2 more months. The city attorney got a 2 month continuance. At that trial, there was a cop who had once tried to entrap into a resisting arrest charge. (I had a busted tail light, which I fixed), he pulled me over and started accusing me of neglegence, then yelled at me and my passenger "Are you mad?" repeatedly, then yelled at a complete stranger passing by "Is he mad?", "Is she mad?". A yes answer from anyone would have been enough to hold us 72 hours, and impound my van (rumor has it that the cops get generous kickbacks from the impound lots.) That cop had the look of a crockodile about to bite of the head of its prey. The county had "lost" it's record of the fixit ticket, and a few days later, a warrant was issued for my arrest.

Now for the trial:

My attorney said we've almost certainly won.

In hopes of weakening the chief's and cop's resolve, I started talking about how I helped counsel an ex football player who took to meth because he was despondant about his career ending, he'd blow his check in 4 days, then be so despondant, he'd be less capbile of even thinking of staying away at the beggining of the month.


In the closing arguements, the city attorney said of course sleeping for the involuntarily homeless must be protected, but not "sleeping activities" (that's how the ordinance is written). The judge looked very confused as to what "sleeping activities" were.

The chief testified that sometimes the homeless leave trash, excerment etc. at campsites. Tracy asked if the pictures he showed of dirty campsites had anything to do with my van. He said no. He said sometimes people complain about people sleeping in cars, an irrelevant argument. So I'm protected under the 14th Amendment, as I didn't do it. Tracy also asked if house people do the same things, and the chief said yes.

The arresting officer said noone had compalained, he looked in because he saw curtains on my car, maybe putting up curtains is a "sleeping activity".

I testified that the curtains were because I thought it would minimise neighbors alarm if sthey saw me there.

The other argument they had was that the city had enough beds. Tracy had the judge excuse the Recue Mission beds, when I testified, I'd been raised Jewish, and I believed an a God of harmony, and the Mission forced people to pray in a way we were uncomfortable. Our expert said that there were at least 3 homeless per bed of shelter & transitional housing. The C.A. tried to say that I hadn't checked for a severe shortage that night, the judge wasn't interested in the CA's argument. Most of those beds are also irrelevent, Tracy got our expert to say, as they're for drug and alcohol treatment. The cities expert didn't cite numebers, just that there were probably enough beds, and Eureka spends lots of money on it.

I also testified that I was homeless because of escalating rents, and the city evicted me and dozens others, so they could start the winter shelter for speed freaks that they had to because of a wrongful death suit.

[realpolitic]

"But Your Honor,
I swear I'm Guilty!"

The judge gave a ruling I probably won't be able to appeal:

Factually Not guilty


I got on the stand and testified I was sleeping! The cop said he thought I was sleeping, not one shred of evidence or anything the judge said except the verdict. The 3 other witnesses: the chief of police, our expert on the housing shortage here, and a city planner, all gave their POV on the constitutionality.

Translation - I didn't do it and so the judge didn't have to rule on its

The City attorney could, but I probably can't, and they didn't spend $30,000 on a $50 ticket because they wanted to prosecute me for sleeping that badly, but because I could have gotten the law declared unconstitutional. This is the second time this judge has done this on a constitutional issue in a 4 month period after the defendant took the stand to say he did it.

[Flubber]

Judges won't touch a constitutional issue if they can acquit without it.

Were you ticketed for sleeping in your car?? THat strikes me as very very odd. Aren't there quiter neighborhoods you could go to sleep where you would unlikely be disturbed or do you intentionally sleep in a known homeless area since you wanted to be ticketed to raise your issues.

I don't know your city but in mine there are any number of places I could park a car and sleep without it being likely that anyone would bug me