>No one wants to live in a tent under the bridge when it is rainy and cold.
Not to deride from the rest of your comment which I thought was solid commentary but this particular line is not true. Yes it is true the over whelming majority of people have no intention of doing this. But it only takes one or a few people to transform a space. Stuff like boondocking, stealth camping, vagrancy, and alternative living is relatively speaking more popular than people would think and really only kept in check by the threat of the justice system and active policing.
> Stuff like boondocking, stealth camping, vagrancy, and alternative living is relatively speaking more popular than people would think and really only kept in check by the threat of the justice system and active policing.
I really hate when people feel the need to interject this kind of statement into a discussion about homelessness. Unless we had viable alternatives, it's impossible to know what percentage of people on the streets are just out there for a lark. My gut feeling is, it's an extremely low percentage. When it's sub freezing and I rider my bike past a 55 year old trying to sleep on a concrete bike path under a bridge with nothing but a couple of shitty blankets, I don't think he's a tourist. If I was going to do hobo tourism, I'd head for Florida or California, not Seattle or Portland.
But lets assume some number of these guys really, genuinely want to have sleep in half frozen mud puddles. We can still put up housing for the people who don't want that. Give people the option to get a decent roof over them.
Then once we're sure the people still sleeping on Main Street are doing it because they genuinely enjoy being outdoors, you can talk about active policing and the justice system on whoever is left.
Land use (especially in regards public access property) and homelessness go hand in hand. Most people don't care if someone can check off a box that says they have a home address, they care what people are doing in their parks, libraries, roadways, sidewalks, right of ways, etc.
>Then once we're sure the people still sleeping on Main Street are doing it because they genuinely enjoy being outdoors, you can talk about active policing and the justice system on whoever is left.
There are classes of people who have the means to be helped but choose not to. Which are still going to be there regardless of how much resources you throw at the issue, unless you think the future is a dystopian society where people no longer have free will.
Not to deride from the rest of your comment which I thought was solid commentary but this particular line is not true. Yes it is true the over whelming majority of people have no intention of doing this. But it only takes one or a few people to transform a space. Stuff like boondocking, stealth camping, vagrancy, and alternative living is relatively speaking more popular than people would think and really only kept in check by the threat of the justice system and active policing.