One thing this article gets right is that allowing large homeless encampments is not compassionate. It’s neglect dressed up as empathy.
Where many people go wrong is confusing feeling bad with doing good. Refusing to enforce basic laws against camping, drug use, theft, and public disorder hasn’t produced dignity or stability. It’s produced human misery, addiction, crime, and unsafe public spaces. That’s not kindness. That’s abandonment.
Here in Texas it's far from perfect, but we have largely avoided the scale of humanitarian crisis seen in places like Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle precisely because we still believe in enforcing baseline standards of public order while pairing that enforcement with shelters, services, and treatment options. We aren't perfect but we're trying. And compassion without boundaries isn’t compassion... it’s chaos.
A society that will not enforce its laws ends up enforcing suffering instead. The result isn’t freedom for the vulnerable. It’s a slow-motion humanitarian failure played out on sidewalks and under overpasses which gets broadcast on the evening news while attempting to blame elected officials.
The article is good in spirit but weak in a very important detail: there aren’t enough shelter beds. I can’t speak about anywhere but San Francisco, but in this city there is a weeks long wait for a bed in a shelter. Until someone can get a bed on demand, it is inhumane to force them off the sidewalk.
We absolutely must build enough shelter beds for anyone who wants one. But we aren’t there yet. And once we are we can and should demand that people stop taking up public space that is meant for all.
“Someone with a serious mental illness may struggle to hold a white-collar job but manage shift work at minimum wage. That income may be able to afford rent in Tulsa or Memphis. It cannot in San Francisco or Seattle.”
I keep telling this to California Boomers and they won’t believe me. 😅 Apparently all those homeless people have been bussed in from red states and our housing market has nothing to do with the homeless situation.
That article about Minneapolis unused beds is from 2020. You cannot be serious with citations like that. Please find a current one, admit the year in the article, or drop the reference.
I'm curious about wealthy places having higher homeless populations. The obvious component is housing costs and I don't doubt that's the major factor, but what about affluent excess being an enabling factor? That is, does the presence of extra resources beyond what is necessary for survival and modern living essentially leak into the environment in rich places making it possible to live off the excess?
Thank you for writing this. I can imagine coming back to it over the next few years.
One thing this article gets right is that allowing large homeless encampments is not compassionate. It’s neglect dressed up as empathy.
Where many people go wrong is confusing feeling bad with doing good. Refusing to enforce basic laws against camping, drug use, theft, and public disorder hasn’t produced dignity or stability. It’s produced human misery, addiction, crime, and unsafe public spaces. That’s not kindness. That’s abandonment.
Here in Texas it's far from perfect, but we have largely avoided the scale of humanitarian crisis seen in places like Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle precisely because we still believe in enforcing baseline standards of public order while pairing that enforcement with shelters, services, and treatment options. We aren't perfect but we're trying. And compassion without boundaries isn’t compassion... it’s chaos.
A society that will not enforce its laws ends up enforcing suffering instead. The result isn’t freedom for the vulnerable. It’s a slow-motion humanitarian failure played out on sidewalks and under overpasses which gets broadcast on the evening news while attempting to blame elected officials.
The article is good in spirit but weak in a very important detail: there aren’t enough shelter beds. I can’t speak about anywhere but San Francisco, but in this city there is a weeks long wait for a bed in a shelter. Until someone can get a bed on demand, it is inhumane to force them off the sidewalk.
We absolutely must build enough shelter beds for anyone who wants one. But we aren’t there yet. And once we are we can and should demand that people stop taking up public space that is meant for all.
“Someone with a serious mental illness may struggle to hold a white-collar job but manage shift work at minimum wage. That income may be able to afford rent in Tulsa or Memphis. It cannot in San Francisco or Seattle.”
I keep telling this to California Boomers and they won’t believe me. 😅 Apparently all those homeless people have been bussed in from red states and our housing market has nothing to do with the homeless situation.
Humans aren't compassionate…..or we wouldn't extort each other for permission to share a planet none of us actually own.
Fucking HYPOCRITES!!!!
That article about Minneapolis unused beds is from 2020. You cannot be serious with citations like that. Please find a current one, admit the year in the article, or drop the reference.
I'm curious about wealthy places having higher homeless populations. The obvious component is housing costs and I don't doubt that's the major factor, but what about affluent excess being an enabling factor? That is, does the presence of extra resources beyond what is necessary for survival and modern living essentially leak into the environment in rich places making it possible to live off the excess?
Likely it is because higher incomes translate into higher demand for housing and lower vacancy rates.