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this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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You've read it backwards. I want our public spaces back by moving them up and out, not crushing them down. A basic place to sleep, warm and dry, and somewhere to store some possessions should be available to all. They should NOT HAVE to sleep in a public park. They should have a better place, funded by taxes, if necessary.
"I know, let's just let them camp in public parks." is NOT an acceptable policy to deal with homelessness. It's cruel and evil.
I think you're mixing the pragmatic with the ideological.
Of course we should move them up and out, however our governments at all levels are too "conservative" for the scientifically proven, cost effective policy of giving the homeless homes. This is what we SHOULD do, it's ideological.
Right now, many homeless people are in tents in public spaces. Our governments and police routinely evict them, which since they are homeless means they have to relocate, often losing all of their possessions. We should stop these government evictions. We should live with the homeless visible every day, and keep the public reminder of our societal failure instead of cruelly displacing them. I know it's certainly more cruel than giving them homes, but it's far better than kicking them out and forcing them to restart every few days/weeks. That's what we can MAYBE achieve in the short term, it's pragmatic.
I agree with you on the ideological, but it's important not to let "what we should do" stop us from doing everything we can in the short term.
FYI, I'm not American, and live across the pond. While we definitely have our issues, we don't have the large scale homeless camps America seems to have.
I find it horrifying that it apparently got that bad to begin with, let alone the shoulder shrug attitude of "We might as well live with it. It's very slightly less cruel than just kicking them out again and again."
It was the Victorians that realised it's actually cheaper to just provide a safety net, rather than deal with the costs of letting people suffer (police, theft, security, damage etc). You are literally paying more, in taxes, to make them suffer than just doing the humane thing and helping them.
I'm not saying "might as well live with it", I'm saying "can we please stop kicking them out". I don't want to live with it, but at the very least can we stop spending money and resources to further harm the homeless?