Louisiana Advances One of the Country's 'Cruelest' Anti-Homeless Bills
commondreams.orgThere is homelessness, and then there is drug and/or alcohol addiction.
> Those who are convicted of sleeping outdoors could be given the option to avoid jail time by instead entering into a mandatory treatment program for at least 12 months.
What happens if someone is homeless and not addicted to drugs or alcohol? Why assume everyone who is homeless is also an addict? It seems entirely reasonable that someone homeless AND addicted to drugs/alcohol should be required to enter into a treatment program.
Yeah, this is punishing people for being homeless, just like Boise (though their city rules were eventually overturned)...
They had a law that it was illegal to sleep outdoors as long as a designated shelter said they had a bed available. One of the more heavily Christian shelters said their policy was to always say they had a bed available, i.e. turn nobody away.
But to stay at their shelter meant mandatory church attendance, mandatory prayer and other religious observances.
So it became de facto enforced that the homeless could face religious indoctrination or jail as their options. Was eventually turned over by threats of or actual moves to challenge constitutionality.
Because this isn't about helping people. This is about punishing the homeless.
Or to be more generous, they are tired of seeing drug addicted people sleeping in the street.
My heart bleeds for the person who sees someone sleeping in the street and assumes the sight of it is the tiresome thing.
Your heart doesn't have to bleed for such a person but I think most people would agree it is tiresome to see homeless people in the street. It is also a public health issue. Doing heroin in the middle of the sidewalk and throwing the needle on the ground is obviously extremely un-hygienic and dangerous to everyone.
You write more but there is still not a hint of sympathy in your words for humans living in the street.
I'm not sure what sympathy has to do with anything we are discussing? People experiencing homelessness do not need sympathy, they need homes and community and support. It is a luxury to be sympathetic because the most sympathetic people are not the people dealing with issues associated with homelessness.
In my opinion the way the US deals with homelessness is a disaster because we have a disorganized, disconnected and dysfunctional social net. E.g., how is someone with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia able to treat their condition if they cannot get their medicine because they don't have health insurance? How can they get a home without a job or family support? The list of such issues goes on and on.
Telling people that they just need to have more sympathy and to accept seeing homeless people on the street is a losing strategy and not a solution. In my opinion the solutions include universal healthcare, robust social support systems and drug/alcohol treatment programs. These programs benefit everyone. At the same time it is not crazy to say, "I do not want to see drug addicted people on my doorstep every day."
Perhaps you also agree that these are part of an ideal solution but framing it as sympathy for the homeless is a losing strategy. Everyone would benefit from a social welfare system set up in a sane way, but somehow every discussion in the US turns into an "us-versus-them" mentality. It is like a reality distortion field and a victory of the media-propaganda complex.
Edit: to summarize, homelessness presents two problems, one for the individual experiencing it, and one for society. Solutions need to target both problems. But to deny the reality of one or the other is a critical error.
You write more but there is still not a hint of sympathy in your words for humans living in the street.
Inquire within.
exactly. nobody benefits from a government that doesn’t reinvest the wellbeing of it’s own people
I have to side with the other commenter, you're just waving the issue away while grandstanding. The article discusses jailing homeless people, which would remove them from the view of the public and... and what?
Do you think the flood of sympathy will then be unleashed, unhindered as it is by the disgusting view of the subjects of the sympathy? No, what will happen is that an issue that almost no one cares about (except, like you, in terms of it being a bother) is further removed from public view.
The chance of people being sympathetic and wanting to help those who suffer is much higher if the homeless people aren't removed from their view.
Yeah. I think the ugly thing that the world is going to learn about american's (people outside america think we've plumbed the depths of depravity--we haven't, yet) casual eliminationist views sooner or later.
Most (white) people I meet in the USA, even nice people, almost all operate on the idea that someone "going away" is a solution to problems and when you press they rarely have a care or concern for where that person goes or what happens to them.
Before this decade is out we'll see death camps in this country for indigence (among other things) and no one will give a shit.
I never said what I think about the law. I think we can agree that it does not address many of the fundamental issues that people experiencing homelessness face. The alternative, however, is not more sympathy but rather specific solutions like a sane health care system (which might include mandatory drug or alcohol rehabilitation) and social service support. Everyone has the right to live in dignity which includes a safe place to live.
> The chance of people being sympathetic and wanting to help those who suffer is much higher if the homeless people aren't removed from their view.
I disagree with this completely. I think seeing homeless people in the street every day makes people think the government is incompetent and unable to deal with a serious issue. This leads to people adopting more extreme measures like exactly the one we are discussing right now.
Yes, so instead of helping them, they want them to be imprisoned. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
The American mindset: “if they’re homeless, they clearly did something wrong and/or deserve it.”
Right, despite the biggest cause of homelessness: medical debt.
Citation needed.
Medical debt is the biggest cause of bankruptcies. I assume bankruptcy and homelessness are correlated, but I haven't seen stats on homelessness.
I certainly do not agree with that. My point is that this article itself conflates homelessness and addiction, which I think is a serious error.
I know. I mean this is the mindset that causes this conflation in the first place.
What specific information makes you think that?
> Those who are convicted of sleeping outdoors could be given the option to avoid jail time by instead entering into a mandatory treatment program for at least 12 months. The bill authorizes local governments to set up semi-permanent camps in remote areas, where defendants would be required to stay and receive treatment.
So basically state funded mandatory rehab for everyone ?
Doesn't the article say they have to pay for it themselves?
arbeit macht frei
While your quote is meant to be snarky, my understanding is that sign isn't at Dachau any longer
It seems strange that they removed the sign after the fact. Unless it was to prevent theft.
Copperhead Road in Johnson County TN (that Copperhead Road) is now known as Copperhead Hollow Road for that reason.
I'm pretty sure it was stolen, then apparently found in a parking lot in Norway. I don't know if they ever got around to putting the real one back up
> semi-permanent camps
they're just building concentration camps
and they're camps, not even buildings or treatment facilities. that's gonna get ugly in LA in the summer
> The bill requires homeless defendants to pay “all or part of the cost of the treatment program to which he is assigned,” ... the average cost for residential drug and alcohol rehab treatment in Louisiana is more than $4,400 per week
> According to the bill, those who cannot afford this steep cost would be required to perform unpaid labor for the state or a local community center in lieu of payment.
WTAF? So if you're homeless you are forced to a rehabilitation center (that part isn't so bad in itself) but for which you bear the cost of, and since you have no money (or you wouldn't be homeless), you have to become an indentured servant for a very long time.
funny how all of the most christian places (e.g. the deep south) are often the least christian
many places have resorted to giving homeless people money and or casual labour for there city/town, a very large percentage then unfortunately get stabilised and re oriented into productive roles and are no longer able to be monitised by the legal/beurocratic industrial complex
henceforth know as The Big Difficult