"Public spaces belong to the public by right. And the unhoused public, who have the greatest need for public spaces, have therefore the greatest right"

Everyone is ok with homeless in tents till they set up shop in your street

If someone sets up a spot to sleep and keep their stuff close to your house, try talking to them like a person. I live in the City, so there are plenty of people I see all the time. Sometimes they ask for help, sometimes we just talk. I help when I can, but I also say no when I can’t. I stand outside and talk to some of the struggling people close to me for a while sometimes. They’re just people
- We need more of this right here in the world. Thank you for being an empathetic and decent human.
- The healthy homeless people struggling in my city get plenty of aid. The ones you find camping out are the ones who choose to be homeless, and the ones too mentally ill to seek help. But since we've become so sensitive, we just let them sleep outside instead of forcing them into programs. Until we accept that the mentally ill homeless who refuse aid need to be picked up and forced into it, things will never change.
I don't mind the homeless through no fault of their own camping on my street. But I've seen plenty of drugged out mofos camping in front of or near my work I wouldn't want anywhere near my house or those of my neighbors who have kids. I'm talking about the mofos who take apart cars and bikes and whatever else and then just leave everything when they move on. The mofos with piles of garbage that attract rats bigger than cats.
- Ah yes, because everyone in their right minds aspire to addictions.
See, this is part of the issue. Too many people recognize the problems, but as soon as any solutions to those problems inconvenience them, any empathy for those problems then goes right out the window....
- I remember this guy in my city set up fake signs for the opening of a new homeless shelter in one of the wealthier and more liberal neighbourhoods in the city, where the "provide for the homeless!" Crowd tend to live.
  The neighborhood was up in arms at the idea of the shelter getting set up in THEIR neighborhood. There's a video about it around somewhere.
Speak for yourself. The owner class has long gaslighted everyone that greed and shit behavior is the default for humanity.
- I'm not sure if I'm owner class since I live in a rented apartment but I dislike all the needles and feeling unsafe just going in and out of my apartment. Doubly so for my wife who gets harassed more than I do. So much so that she's afraid to go anywhere.
  It just sucks. Dunno if it counts as shit behaviour but I wish they wouldn't camp there.
You know what's worse than living near the homeless? Being homeless. You're only a few paychecks away from homelessness yourself.
- Maybe address that problem in a more direct way than letting tent cities be the solution? Here's a crazy idea: actually provide housing. Treat mental illness and substance abuse. Provide training and job assistance. Create an actual social safety net.
- A few paychecks?
  Look at rockSlayer Moneybags over here
  Jokes aside: I was homeless for 8 years, it really fucking sucked but I'd say that the worst part wasn't trying to stay warm when it was below freezing or trying to stay dry in the rain, it was being treated as less than human simply because I was worse off than other people.
  Even after I got a job and started building my life back up, when people realized that I was homeless they would immediately become either cold or hostile

i dont mind letting people use public areas as a place to stay for the night. but its not just a place to stay for them. its a place to do drugs, shit and piss all over the place, steal from and harrass and assault everyone around them, and let their trash pile up and attract pests. its a huge problem where i am and these people are fucking terrifying to be around. like, i dont want to be inhumane to anyone but where do we draw the line?

- There does seem to be way fewer public toilets around these days. We closed them (or at least lock them overnight) because people were doing drugs and having sex in them.
  So now they do those things outside, and I have to piss in the bushes when I'm out for a walk.
  The trouble with the homeless is that they need to be around the normal people in order to survive and get money for food and drugs, but the normal people want them as far away as possible.
  If we were rational about this, we'd set up communes where people would be fed, housed and clothed for free, given all the drugs they want, and help if they want to stop living like that. It would be way cheaper for society to deal with all in one place like that, drugs aren't really expensive to make, and the rest of us can go to their town centre without a psychotic toothless crackhead screaming at them for money. But we're not rational, and likely never will be. This isn't Star Trek, and the idea of somebody else getting something for nothing seems to fill about half the population with a frothing rage.
- their public toilet is the bathroom where i work im pretty sure. but they also use our parking garage and just kind of wherever around their camps.
, i dont want to be inhumane to anyone but where do we draw the line?
Imo we draw the line when someone who wants to be housed is threatened with being houseless and provide them with housing. Providing housing first is also the best way to deal with all the issues connected to being houseless like drug use, trauma from violence, mental health issues, etc
Imo the line has been crossed long ago and gets crossed every day and its important to keep in mind when trying to find solutions that are more like band aids on a broken system.
- yeah im not advocating to kill them all or arrest them all or anything. i dont have the answers. but its pretty much weekly that someone at my job is assaulted or cars are broken into daily or a kid finds a dirty needle or so on. and most of these people seem like they dont want help. they really do revel in being awful it seems. they steal and harrass us gleefully without a look of remorse in their eyes so idk.
It's always interesting to me how no one ever complains or overgeneralizes about people who are criminals, drug addicts, and/or severely mentally ill who live in houses. There are news stories daily about people losing their shit on airplanes. Every retail store and restaurant I've ever worked in had some kind of ongoing bathroom and/or dressing room issues where people can't be bothered to utilize toilets or put their menstrual products or kids' diapers in garbage cans. I've dated several people who were physically abusive to me and the people they dated before and after me. Yet, they are now parents with careers and, you guessed it, a mortgage or rent bill. I've also been around plenty of people who are either "functionally" mentally ill, meaning they are raging narcissists who don't hesitate to harm others in any way possible as long as they get what they want, or who are just raging fucking assholes, like the twenty something year old girls at my college who are so invested in being at the top of their class and kissing the professors asses that they put effort into sabotaging other students and talking shit about everyone around them.
Bit I don't hear anyone generalizing every single college student as being a self-obsessed sociopath just because there's a subset of them that are bitches. I don't hear anyone overgeneralizing every blue collar worker as being immature woman beaters with anger issues just because there's a subset of them who are like that. And you get my point.
In addition, I think dealing with the presence of unhoused people and their camps is far less impactful for me at least. Ok, so downtown is dirty and dangerous. Wtf else is new? My college campus has had a problem recently with fake uber drivers picking up female students and assaulting them. Somehow, I don't think any of the drivers were homeless. But I guess we should all stereotype uber drivers now as violent perverts, and outlaw all rideshare companies from the area. So it doesn't really matter whether you're downtown or near some camp or what have you. Crime is everywhere, and unhoused people are no different than the average population.
And what about car camping? I never hear anyone complaining about people who live in their cars being violent or dirty or crazy? If all unhoused people were all of those things, shouldn't car campers be a huge problem? Especially when they're not limited to doing all their crime in urban areas and can drive to wherever they want?
- ive worked in retail for 10 years. this job is the first job ive had where there are drug addicted homeless people camped all around it. its different then your average karen or douchebag kyle. and yes ik that bathrooms are perpetually disgusting. but this is not like that. its a special kind of fucked up idk.
they are alive, so they need to shit and piss. they consume things, so they will create trash. if they are addicted to drugs, they need a place to do them. if we don't provide for people public restrooms, public trash receptacles, and places to do drugs safely, they will do them in public where you can see them. nothing about any of these behaviors are unique to unhoused people, you just don't see housed folks getting high and shitting in the street because they because have a far more comfortable, safe place to do their private business. you don't see housed people's trash because they have a bin to put it in that takes all the trash to the dump. how are they supposed to do anything different when they have nowhere else to go?
this whole antipathy towards people on the street makes me so fucking angry. they can't go anywhere else. they have to keep all of their belongings out on the sidewalk, they have to shit on the fucking street, they have no other options but to live every moment of their lives in a public place, and we pass judgement on them when it doesn't look pretty. these are human beings you're talking about, not pests, not monsters, they're people that you're watching live in abject poverty, and all you can muster up is fear and disgust. its disgraceful.
- im not sure youre catching on to the nuance of what im saying here. i am not unaware that i am one or two missed paychecks from being in the same position financially as them. im not saying their subhuman because of their hardships. but the reality of their addiction is that they care only about getting their next fix. to the point they will rob and assault any one they need to to get it. there is a certain point where my concern for mine and my family and my friends and my coworkers well being outweighs the pity i feel for these people. again im not advocating for killing or arresting them or anything inhumane like that, but something has to be done about it. no one whos lived around these camps for any amount of time thinks differently than i do about it.
You don't want to be inhumane... but everything you just described previous to that is basically dehumanizing an entire segment of population...
- no its just the reality of the situation. youd say the same thing if you lived and worked around them like i do.

I disagree... public space is our space. No one's need is greater than anyone else's. The homeless need help, the pubic space that we use to get to the store, play with our children, buff highway noise is not the place to get that. Now, I'm not saying financially penalizing or jailing them are the only alternatives but safe camping/RV spots with access to access social services, Wi-Fi, gather for ac/heater, etc seems like a better approach.

I'd rather we just give them housing and a support network to prevent homelessness in the first place. Until then, homeless people have a right to access third spaces for as long as they don't have a living space.
- Where I live housing is provided but some homeless people are so because they trash the apartments or they can't or won't respect very basic rules of not constantly causing a disturbance and the like. Addiction is big part of that. There's lots of programs and services for that too but can't really force people to use those services.
  You can do a lot by offering help but some still refuse it. In that case I feel like it's fair to make sure they're not a disturbance to other people just wanting to go about their day.
need != convenience
Make it happen then. All those things you'd like to see instead of the unhoused finding shelter are great. But the hypothetical "better" solution is meaningless until it's implemented. Until then, decriminalize survival like the pic says.
- Seattle is working through it's shit albeit slowly and with many mistakes. Mental health funding was the ballot just recently, our homeless authority CEO was basically fired for incompetence, small homes and apartments available with more on the way, RV/camp sites are growing, anti-open use law is still in the works, camp removal is stalled due to too ambiguous definitions of "blocking". I live and work in the city and I'll be the first to vote on sensible laws and bonds. What I find no longer tolerable is bottomless unquestioned empathy.
- Seattle is working through it's shit albeit slowly and with many mistakes. Mental health funding was the ballot just recently, our homeless authority CEO was basically fired for incompetence, small homes and apartments available with more on the way, RV/camp sites are growing, anti-open use law is still in the works, camp removal is stalled due to too ambiguous definitions of "blocking". I live and work in the city and I'll be the first to vote on sensible laws and bonds. What I find no longer tolerable is bottomless unquestioned empathy.

If you agree with this, you've never seen public spaces taken over by homeless.

Perhaps it would make us want to... help them better.
- It does, but helping is not giving them free reign over public spaces.
- I'm all for helping but you can't expect people to tolerate being threatened, feeling unsafe, people trashing or stealing others' property, littering places with human feces and needles...
  Nobody should have to tolerate that. Offer help yes but you can't expect anyone to put up with that. Not the homeless or those with homes.

When those public spaces become shantytowns, crime rises in that area. So no- it’s not only about survival for the homeless. It’s not so cut-and-dry.

Those that live in those areas deserve to not be mugged. They deserve to feel safe in their homes.

Don’t act like it’s a right for people to become junkies that refuse help. Empathy is reserved for people who try and help themselves. Setting up a permanent encampments shows no intent to help one’s self.

A friend of mine once said "no one healthy wakes up one day and decides to try heroin, just for fun."
That really stuck with me. There are many reasons why people use substances, and there are many reasons why people may refuse help. This doesn't make them less than. You, as an outsider, have no knowledge or understanding of the circumstances that lead them to where they now are.
- A 30+ year long friend of mine overdosed and died a few months ago. Don’t talk to me about what makes people become junkies. The fact is- ALL of them chose to remain so.
- Those are the folks who need it most
- this is entirely valid. and our kids deserve to walk to school without getting stabbed by the needles all over the place.
  I think a balance needs to be found and the unhoused communities need to police their own residents; Seattle has had success with this and the tiny housing communities it's established - they give people an address to start seeking assistance for their issues, and don't tolerate violence and dangerous behaviors like leaving needles everywhere.
- I never said they don’t deserve love. I simply said they don’t deserve free sheltering if they are committing crimes and shrieking all night outside your window while slamming their shoes on the pavement.
The only way tent shelters will ever work without simply adding to the public health crisis, is to heavily legislate urban camping rules.
Make it legal to use an emergency outdoor shelter, provided it has a permit, to be renewed every week, confirms to size and placement regulations, is constructed from flame retardant materials, and (barring hazardous weather) that it's taken down every day from sunrise to sunset.
We then attach to the free permitting process, an identification check, automatic enrollment in welfare services, career counseling, etc. and immediate access to mental health and substance abuse rehabilitation.
Care for those who obey the rules and scrape up those that don't.
We can't just let people rot indefinitely, huddling half naked under a leaky plastic tarp, searching for that last good vein, and call it compassion.
- Oh look! Someone MAKING SENSE!
  Everything below is anecdotal, take it how you want:
  The major issue you'll have with implementation of a program like this, is having the neo-liberal agenda calling it "homeless-tagging" . Which, in their eyes, equates to tagging a wild animal so it can be traced. You better believe the next high influence, Tiktok warrior would make a scathing I comment on it without research.
  Like "Yeah, no shit, we tag animals to check on their well being and locations. All to necessitate the proper procedures for handling them when they need help or guidance. We tag ourselves when we get social security card or ID's, or when we take a Goddamn selfie with location settings on. The only difference is that social media and the government is handling you."
  It's getting out of hand here in Los Angeles. Venice was the worst. I DARE all the commenter's in this thread that say 'it's not that bad' to take a stroll underneath an overpass here in LA proper to ask if they need help. They don't want it. Trust me. I've tried. Multiple times. I've almost got myself killed.
  The suburb I live in is currently seeing a rise in homeless people just sleeping wherever they want sans tent. For example: Today I saw a dude sleeping right next to the driveway of a public plaza on the ground with a pookie in his hand. Half a block away.
  There was also another dude just sleeping in our laundry room 3 weeks ago. Strung out. I asked him if he needed help and he told me to "fuck off". So I called the cops, and said "hey this guy needs medical attention. I think he's on drugs and in and out of consciousness". You know what the cops/paramedic did? They came over, woke him up, told him to leave because this wasn't his property. EMT asked him a few questions, checked him out and he was barely coherent enough to say, "I don't want your help, go away". He told the cops to fuck off as he was leaving. EMT's followed him out and he left on a stretched after arguing with him for a few minutes. The cops said "he's gone now, call us when he comes back". Not "if" but "when". Sure enough, dude was caught sleeping there again a week later by a neighbor. This time sober, but belligerent. "I'm just charging my fucking phone! Leave me alone!" was his excuse.
  So the Manager called the cops again.. Rinse... Repeat. Happened again with different person this week.
  We tried the whole "Hey, come back during the day with the Manager's permission" thing or "Hey you want some food, we have plenty. Sooner or later it was like that book "If you give a mouse a cookie". They steal clothes from the laundry room and try to knock on people's doors to get cigarettes. Not food. Fucking. Cigarettes.
  On the flipside, a year ago we had a lady and her old, disabled dad just wandering the streets at 1 Am in front of our apartment. We asked them if they were OK and she had explained that her dad's medical bills made them homeless, She explained that they were just trying to get through the night without being attacked by other homeless dude. So my neighbors rallied together and gave them about 2 weeks worth of food and supplies. We all paid for a hotel room for a week to help them get some relief. Her dad passed away a few weeks later, but she was grateful for it as he was suffering. We gave her some resources on how to get some help locally. Haven't heard back from her after that.... Hope she's doing alright.
  What a clusterfuck this whole thing is.
- Well said.
Empathy is reserved for people who try and help themselves.
no
- Yes.
Most unhoused are mentally ill they are not junkies who do not want help.
- Got statistics to back that up?

With truly unused land you may have a point. Problem is nobody wants to camp in BFE.

Homeless camps in public parks is a real tragedy of the commons.

What's more important: a place to live or a recreation area?
Our unhoused neighbors have no choice but to live in a public space because society has denied them any private space to live.
People in need using the commons for their needs isn't a tragedy. It's the reason commons exist.
The tragedy is that shelter isn't considered a human right.
- In my view it's not about accessing the recreation area - I'd rather that space be used temporarily for occupancy while we fix up society. Having said that, ad-hoc homeless camps have very real safety risks associated with them. Often crime rates near these camps rise, and it's reasonable for residents to also want to feel safe in their neighborhoods.
  What we need is funding for real shelters with real long-term addiction and crisis counseling support. Blindly saying "any and all public spaces should be fair use for homeless camps" is not helpful to anyone.
- It's important that people don't feel threatened just to move in the public spaces. That includes homeless and those with homes.
- Thank you because I’m thinking the world is abundant, there is enough to provide more than the basics for everyone, but some humans are insatiable.

I basically agree but with a caveat: the majority of people would rather noone is camped in parks. More importantly, people needing to camp in parks is indicative of a far greater problem. I think it's imperative to address the root if we have a hope of effectively combatting homelessness.

Youtuber i seen with a trend of stealth camping in urban locations, had a video of camping overnight in the middle of a roundabout with a lot of shrubbery. And it had kind of a survival horror feel with cops patrolling around, and i remembered...this guy existing in a public space at night shouldnt be this terrifying or feel so taboo.

In general you're correct but camping in a roundabout should be terrifying. You never know if the next person to come along has never been in a roundabout, is raging at anything, is under the influence, or whatever else and might just go plowing through the middle of the thing.
- Yep I would never, just because the signs on the roundabouts near where I live are always in bad shape, so people must be hitting them somehow. Not like roundabouts are an unknown thing around here either, drivers are just notably worse here than other places (ik the bar is usually low, but it's even worse than that)
Guessing this was Steve Wallis? He can be a bit paranoid (sometimes for good reason) but he's one of the best on youtube https://youtu.be/OPDvLaXuSHQ
- That guy is simply the nicest person
  When I learnt what happened last year I was so so sad for him
Someone being in the middle of a roundabout is a safety issue though, I can understand why they would be moved along by police.
I saw that video

For a "Solar punk" instance, this community seems to have very little of the "punk" aspect, and in these comments it sounds more like a "Solar rich liberal" place.

The amount of slander towards homeless people, the propagating of stereotypes, and the removal of personhood in these comments really blows my mind. There are even people defending that homeless people should be sent to prison and have their life managed for them; others claim how it's their own fault they are homeless; some cry about "private property".

And of course a bunch of people claiming this isn't a final/permanent solution, and so it shouldn't be done... as if to say, until we come up with better solutions, these people should just go without shelter. What is really a priority to them, is not having to look at homeless people.

In a nutshell: "It's their own fault! They're probably all heroin addicts anyway. Someone else should come up with and implement better solutions, but in the meantime I don't want to have to see and walk by people who don't have a home!". A Solar ~~Punk~~ Neolib community.

When a post gets enough points, it does the Lemmy equivalent of "hitting the front page" and comment character becomes indistinguishable from a brigade. Most of the people commenting on this post aren't from the Slrpnk.net instance. Check out the locals who are though -- excellent people every one -- @stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net, @poVoq@slrpnk.net, @punkisundead@slrpnk.net, @j_roby@slrpnk.net. These people are making this instance great.
Also, a shout out to the the nice people from other instances - I see you, and you are awesome: @Timecircleline@sh.itjust.works, @ondoyant@beehaw.org, @257m@lemmy.ml, @TheFriar@lemm.ee, @Maeve@kbin.social, @rockSlayer@lemmy.world, @Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone - thanks for contributing.
- Thank you for taking the time to make some personal acknowledgements, especially for those who are visiting from other instances.
  You deserve one yourself too. Your contributions here help make this place great as well.
- Of course, you're probably right. It just really irked to look through these comments, and I had to get that out.
The amount of slander towards homeless people, the propagating of stereotypes, and the removal of personhood in these comments really blows my mind. There are even people defending that homeless people should be sent to prison and have their life managed for them; others claim how it’s their own fault they are homeless; some cry about “private property”.
And of course a bunch of people claiming this isn’t a final/permanent solution, and so it shouldn’t be done… as if to say, until we come up with better solutions, these people should just go without shelter. What is really a priority to them, is not having to look at homeless people.
It was absolutely heartbreaking to wake up and see a deluge of comments like what you described above... But please don't throw blame on our instance for that. The vast majority of the comments are from outside this instance.
And I'll accept responsibility too for having posted something "controversial" in a c/ that's lacking active moderation.
^(empathy ^shouldn't ^be ^so ^fucking ^{controversial)}
Yes, it's gross. And it's always something like, "oh I think everyone should have a home, but..."

You don't need to be an empathetic holistic person to get behind free housing for the homeIess. If you're a truly selfish and purely economically oriented person, then you have to admit giving the homless free homes is economically the best solution for all involved. Alternatives include the taxpayer eating the cost of all the damage they do seeking shelter and survival, or paying a ton of money to police to violently deal with them.

If you prefer those to giving them housing, you're choosing options that are more cruel and more costly -- I don't understand how that makes sense and yet plenty of people seem to choose that.

Because many people perceive homelessness as a proxy for moral failings (such as drug abuse) worthy of punishment.
Of course this is rarely the full picture or even true at all, but we need to get people to understand that this is not a problem that can be solved by punishing people.
- Totally agree, just frustrating to try to communicate with people who say they are pro-business and rational, and then they vehemently make emotional moral/spiritual arguments.

I'm fine with this in theory, but in practice the homeless/unhoused don't care whether the property is private or not. I have witnessed them trying to set up tents in people's yards multiple times. Not even big yards, we are talking condo yards.

Occupied condos or vacant condos?
"Private" property that's left vacant is a crime against the right to shelter, and as far as I'm concerned it should be open to squatting.
Squatting in the backyard of an occupied house when there's thousands of vacant houses in every city in America? That's not an action I would agree with, and that's also not what the average unhoused person would do, if for no other reason then because it's much riskier for them than squatting in a public space or a vacant house.
There's no epidemic of entitled dangerous homeless people setting up camp in innocent families' yards. And I certainly wouldn't generalize all homeless people as threats to people's homes.
- They are definitely occupied. They aren't trying to claim empty houses, they are literally trying to camp outside people's doors.
Unhoused? That's different from homeless?
- It just showed up a year or two ago.
  My understanding is that It partly differentiates housing (having a place indoors, a shelter, etc.) from having a home--an apartment, etc. So you could be homeless, living in a shelter, but still not unhoused.
  It's also sort of the "in" word.

"We make the community by defending it: Calling police on people that don’t have a house is a violent act to those seeking shelter in the community they belong to."

https://slrpnk.net/post/2172321

I also don't think people realize how much more space efficient tent cities are. If they buy a giant ass suburban that has a driveway half the size of the house and backyard of perfectly manicured grass that no one walks on it brings house prices up. If do actually want them to start getting off the street try your best to support them and be a good person. If not leave them the fuck alone and atleast don't make their lives more difficult than it already is.

Also some unhoused people do not want to be "in the system" so a tent city gives them a place to be while honoring the desire to not be tracked like that.
Tent cities are a public safety hazard. Needles, fires, weapons, toxic chemicals, shit everywhere, violence, etc. There are good reasons for cities not wanting them on city/public property.
Sure, some people are homeless. If they take care of their tent and the space around it to keep it safe, the rest of society won't have a fit when they and their closest hundred buddies move into a local community park.
- i mean, you have to know that isn't true, right? people call the cops on homeless people for just existing all the time.
  i get so baffled every time people talk about needles, fires, shit, and garbage around tent cities. why do you think unhoused people would set fires? because they get cold just like you. why do you think there's shit there? because they shit just like you. why do you think they're garbage there? because they make trash just like you. the only difference between people and unhoused people is that there isn't any infrastructure in place to give these people shelter, keep them warm, dispose of their trash, flush their toilets. why is there violence? because these people are living in abject poverty, in close proximity, and with very little privacy. why are there weapons? because they live in public. of course, your perception of these things is warped, a lot of times large camps will try to organize places to dispose of their waste, try to keep things tidy, and are relatively safe, but that isn't easy, and you only think it is because you have the invisible infrastructure of a modern nation holding up your standard of living.
  all the things society would "have a fit" over are things that you yourself can only keep under control with vast quantities of modern infrastructure. you have pipes to take your shit away from you, cans to put your garbage in that get picked up on a regular schedule, a power grid and gas pipes to heat your home when it gets cold, a home with locking doors, doctors offices with sharps container for shots, and on and on and on. the cleanliness and safety of where you live is almost never about how much you care. its about how much you have, and passing judgement on people for having less than you is wrong.
- I do agree there they are a fire hazard and have to be regulated but there are ways to mitigate that like gun control, installing porta-potties or public bathroom near tents, making sure tents are well spaced out, etc... People have to go somewhere and if they can't afford housing and you simply disband their settlement they will move somewhere and become someone elses problem. This does not solve the issue. Helping them does and so does making denser housing to bring down house prices.

This is like me being able to choose not to pay taxes for public areas I don't use.

I prefer we consider Michael Moore's proposal from "The Big One". He posited that we have all these empty spaces in wealthier communities in the form of golf courses. He suggested we convert those lands into public housing as they would not only have open space to build on but because the wealthier communities can absorb the schooling costs more easily.

Rich would leave and go elsewhere in 5 years
- So the city is degentrified as well, that's two birds with one stone
- 1 year

It's not actually homelessness people have a problem with, it's drug addiction.

Then surely those same people are working to destigmatize it and provide help right?
Right?
- Of course not; they just want the drug addicts and their harmful behaviors out of their sight and away from them. I agree that that's short-sighted, but having been homeless myself and seeing what some of the drug addicts do, I can't blame them.
  You can't reasonably defend addicts leaving dirty needles on the sidewalk where kids could get a hold of them, for example. Or arguing or fighting or conducting drug deals in neighborhoods with all of the violence and invective that brings, or intimidating non-addicted residents by being aggressive and violent toward them, or any of that shit.
  That kind of behavior is unacceptable whether housed or not and you are wrongly lumping those kinds of people in with all homeless people and then defending the larger "homeless" umbrella. That kind of snake like behavior is some shit some billionaire's PR agency would do, stop it.
  If you truly care about ending homelessness and not simply using them as a shield to defend drug addicts, you have to openly and explicitly separate the two yourself in your speech.
  Not all homeless people are the same, not all homeless people become homeless for the same reasons, so it is disingenuous to lump in, say, domestic violence survivors and workers priced out of a home with drug addicts under the same term when they're completely different people with completely different needs.
  That being said... society actually does need to come up with a better plan to deal with the drug addicts that doesn't involve jailing them for possession or use, or leaving them to struggle on the street. Other people don't want to be exposed to drug use and honestly, they have a right not to be, so you're going to have to balance the addicts' needs with everyone else.
  Building separate housing for drug addicts away from everybody else where they're given safe supplies and offered resources to get clean and be re-integrated back into society would probably be the best solution.
  Same with those who are unhoused and severely mentally ill. Those types likely need sanitariums where they're cared for the rest of their lives.
  Domestic violence survivors need to be relocated far away from their abusers and given housing and employment under new names.
  Those who are homeless because they are priced out of housing in the city where they work need to be given section 8 vouchers, or cities and states will have to pass laws forcing all landlords to lower their rent to either a percentage of renter income without being allowed to pick and choose whom they rent to, or a hard upper limit that just so happens to be <= 30% of the average worker's wage.
  Different problems require different solutions

I'm so sick of people talking about needles whenever homeless people come up. It's slander, plain and simple.

I used to live in Seattle directly next door to a homeless encampment. I used to walk by it every single day for 2 years. I have never ONCE seen a needle on the ground, day or night. You know what I did see a bunch of? People claiming that there were needles everywhere, without a shred of evidence.

This is one of those things that's gonna vary greatly based on location. Your experience doesn't change that other people may be experiencing something different
- Worth noting needles found in camps do not always belong to unhoused people there.
From first-hand experience, Vancouver downtown Eastside does have needles everywhere. Then again, nobody really walks through downtown Eastside, so I guess it's fine.
Uhhh...great? I'm happy you had a good experience? But the data and programs over the last few years disagree with your assertion here.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/more-than-32000-syringes-collected-in-pilot-needle-program/ (note why it was started)
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/citizens-group-that-cleans-up-used-drug-needles-is-fed-up-problem-grows/FSEEUYCOWBH63DDXPDLMLYGI2I/
https://mynorthwest.com/2361336/seattle-ramps-up-efforts-clean-litter-needles-graffiti/
Are all homeless folks users that leave needles lying around? Statistically, no, of course not. Is it a likely correlation? The data is above for you to draw your own conclusions.
- i mean, this is obviously a systemic problem though, right? like, if being caught with drugs can put you in jail, and there aren't places for you to properly dispose of needles, they're gonna go on the ground. if you don't stigmatize drug use, provide places for people to safely use, and give them places to properly dispose of their needles, they won't be littered anymore. its the same reason why unhoused people often live near garbage. if there isn't infrastructure for collecting garbage where people live, the trash is gonna go on the ground, and its gonna build up. the same thing would happen to people in houses if we didn't have our garbage picked up on a regular schedule.
The people by you might not be IV drug users and the people leaving needles around aren't necessarily homeless. Almost all of the opiate addicts I know are or were housed but the IV users would still use in public.
Those needles found in camps could belong to housed people who used near the camp or in the camp and do not live there.
Also worth mentioning unhoused people are not necessarily drug users. I know a lot of sober Iraq vets on the streets of NYC.

Can I ask where the image is from? It would make a great sticker.

I found it on mastodon somewhere not too long ago..

Honestly some of these comments really dont fit to the solar punk ideals and should get removed.

Especially because land squatting, building low tech communes and working together on problems is what happens in many of those camps and thats just so solar punk to me.

I don't really think injecting fentanyl in a tent on the sidewalk should be classed as 'building a low tech commune'
- Nope nope nope nope nope. How do you know what communities and organizations the people in the tents belong to? Or how they've organized their network of tents and mutual aid, what relationships they have with nearby homeowners and business owners, how they gather and share resources and make decisions?
  Squatters and the unhoused routinely, out of necessity, form partnerships and communities with other unhoused and insufficiently housed people. We'd call those communities "communes" if they were made of rich white people owning homes. And yeah, people in those communities use drugs just like people who own houses do.
  Thinking more deeply about it, I think you've identified by example one of the many ways neoliberal ideology encourages discrimination against unhoused people. Neoliberalism teaches us that every unhoused person is an individual whose individual choices are to blame for his low social and economic status. So we assume unhoused people are alone, that they don't belong to communities, that they have no family or social support, that they don't have a network of mutual aid - even though, when someone is unhoused, having networks of mutual aid are even more important than they are for people with secure housing. And that lets us dismiss the unhoused as people without social connections who only care about their personal self interest.
  But no, that dude in the tent shooting up fent probably is part of a commune. He meets with other unhoused people to pool money and buy food or take advantage of free meals at the local gurdwara or use a gym membership to take a shower. He advises newly homeless people, he seeks advice from elders in the community, he hangs out outside his tent or at a local meeting spot and chats with other community members. He's part of a network of mutual aid that shares intellectual and social and financial resources to help each other in their disadvantaged circumstances. And if he's not in a network of mutual aid which fits the definition of a commune, it's not because he can't be, but because he chooses not to be.
  Unhoused people are not animals. They are humans. That means they communicate with other humans. And that means the unhoused form the same networks of politics and society and economics and mutual aid as everyone else.
- So you're in favour of safe injection sites, yes?
- I am not denying drug use /abuse, but maybe stop bringing up your regional fentanyl problem which is not relevant in many parts of the world.

Your compassionate solution to homelessness is to lock them all up in... "prison lite"
yeah, okay lmao
- It should be illegal to be homeless.
  They should forcibly be provided shelter, protection, food, treatment, and skills until they are ready to live on their own. Of course they should be free to leave the facility each day, but if found camping out should be brought back.
  At the same time very affordable, very durable housing should be provided for them to graduate out to.
Sounds like your answer is to just continue to criminalize homelessness... the opposite of this post's intent.
How's that been working out currently?
It's being complicit in the rapes, assault, theft, and exploitation that goes on there.
Mate, the biggest criminals I’ve ever seen wore a suit and a tie, and we’re not doing anything about them.
There needs to be a "prison lite" where housing and services can be centrally distributed, and mental needs addressed; while law enforcement can also ensure safety, structure, and removal of problems to actual jail/prison.
Sanctuary incoming

Public spaces typically have intended uses. When those spaces aren't used for what they are intended, something needs to change. When the homeless set up 1000 survival spaces in a public park... the rest of us should suffer because of their bad decisions/luck? Use your energy to make a difference instead of an ineffectual post. Vote in better policy makers.

I agree, but is it a meme?

Yes, memes are viral thoughts, often utilizing fun to spread, but not necessarily so.
- It baffles me that anybody today would say memes aren't or shouldn't be political. I think politics and ideology are the primary reason people create and share memes today. The funny animal cheeseburger phase of meme culture is long over. As witness Reddit meming Trump into office and all the racist conservative memes your boomer relatives share.
- I think someone else would have to put their own twist on it for it to really count to me.
  Otherwise literally everything anyone posts ever is a meme.
- Fair enough

Love the message but still not sure it's really a meme on the truest sense. But no one seems to care about that here anyway.

Hahahhhahahaha

I would be cool with chill people setting up tents for a day or two or at night or whatever. But who's going to be picking the used heroin needles up out of the grass and wrangling the drug dealers and gang members when they start showing up? The reason peole don't want tent villages is this, not because they simply hate the "unhoused".

Making some pretty out there assumptions about the kind of people who are homeless, my dude...
Don't pretend like you've ever seen a needle on the ground. People that say stuff like that are too scared to even walk near a homeless camp, let alone look at the ground while you do so.
- There are literally homeless tent villages along the city bike/river trail I use multiple times per week. I ride by homeless people walking along, riding along, and camping a foot off the trail on a regular basis. Some of them have dogs which inevitably are off their leash, and they chase and try to attack me. I literally said I was okay with homeless people, but not the trouble that inevitably follows. And yes, I have seen needles on the ground, so stop making things up to feel like you've made a point lol. They also leave trash everywhere, turned over carts full of their belongings, and random clothes strewn about the grass. Some of them drive their cars along the bike path to get to the homeless village. There are people who obviously are gang bangers who go back into the woods too. It's silly.