Has any large city done so and if not, why not?
Has any large city done so and if not, why not?
Homelessness is not primarily an economic issue; it is a mental health issue.
Granted, not all panhandlers are doing it out of necessity...
My city has a population of about 220k people and they enforce it. The police kick out any homeless person the second they see them. It's not a major city but the result is the homeless and panhandlers go to the neighboring cities that do not enforce it.
My sense is if a major city enforced it, they would just go to a city that does not enforce it.
Realistically using the police to kick out panhandlers is a terrible use of their time when there's more dangerous crimes happening. My city has virtually no crime so when they see a homeless person they send at a minimum 4 police SUVs. It's actually quite funny.
sbeefyk2 wrote:
My city has a population of about 220k people and they enforce it. The police kick out any homeless person the second they see them. It's not a major city but the result is the homeless and panhandlers go to the neighboring cities that do not enforce it.
My sense is if a major city enforced it, they would just go to a city that does not enforce it.
Realistically using the police to kick out panhandlers is a terrible use of their time when there's more dangerous crimes happening. My city has virtually no crime so when they see a homeless person they send at a minimum 4 police SUVs. It's actually quite funny.
What city is this? It must be nice to walk the streets without getting harassed (should also apply to those hyper-aggressive charity fundraisers you see in some places)
theJeff wrote:
Homelessness is not primarily an economic issue; it is a mental health issue.
Granted, not all panhandlers are doing it out of necessity...
I don't see the relevance of this. I'd just like to be able to walk from a downtown shop to the bus stop without someone getting in my face, so I think these laws would greatly improve quality of life in urban areas.
FindingTheAnswer wrote:
theJeff wrote:
Homelessness is not primarily an economic issue; it is a mental health issue.
Granted, not all panhandlers are doing it out of necessity...
I don't see the relevance of this. I'd just like to be able to walk from a downtown shop to the bus stop without someone getting in my face, so I think these laws would greatly improve quality of life in urban areas.
Between my BART station and office, I would pass about ten people asking for money everyday and it didn't bother me at all. They were always polite and sometimes I gave them some money.
People will just find a way around it.
The whole "Will work for food" thing is a workaround for laws about begging for money/panhandling.
SDSU Aztec wrote:
FindingTheAnswer wrote:
I don't see the relevance of this. I'd just like to be able to walk from a downtown shop to the bus stop without someone getting in my face, so I think these laws would greatly improve quality of life in urban areas.
Between my BART station and office, I would pass about ten people asking for money everyday and it didn't bother me at all. They were always polite and sometimes I gave them some money.
That sounds horrible.
Theft would increase.
New York City tried this and it was ruled unconstitutional. It violates freedom of speech.
Hounddogharrier wrote:
New York City tried this and it was ruled unconstitutional. It violates freedom of speech.
There must be some way around this. It's akin to harassment which can't be protected speech.
FindingTheAnswer wrote:
SDSU Aztec wrote:
Between my BART station and office, I would pass about ten people asking for money everyday and it didn't bother me at all. They were always polite and sometimes I gave them some money.
That sounds horrible.
I've never understood why people are so offended or threatened by a few homeless people. People talk about not wanting to visit or live in the city because there are homeless? I worked in the SF Financial District for over 10 years and was never impacted or even inconvenienced once by a homeless person.
They are human beings, don't people have any compassion?
Law enforcement studies have basically shown that your city's low crime rate and your police swamping pan handlers are not a coincidence, and that the aggressive policing of minor crimes is actually partially responsible for your city's low crime rate.
The "Broken Windows" philosophy, put into action in NYC in the late 90s, holds that if criminally inclined people see a lot of broken windows and broken down houses and other signs of degeneracy and crime, they will feel more comfortable engaging in crimes.
If criminally inclined people believe that their environment is hostile to any crime and degeneracy, then the criminally inclined will be less likely to commit crimes.
Kind of like how low lifes don't think twice about littering on streets where litter is everywhere, but they're more likely to hesitate when on a pristine street.
Also, anti-social, criminally minded people will test an environment with small crimes before they progress to bigger crimes. So they might very well litter on a pristine street, just to test the resolve of the locals, and to mark their territory. If police pounce on litter-bugs, pan-handlers, and petty thieves, then the criminally minded will be less likely to commit more serious crimes.
Look at San Francisco, and you can see that nobody thinks twice about shitting on the sidewalk during rush hour, or sticking a knife in somebody's face. Even 99% of the mentally ill understand force and harsh punishment. They understand weakness as well.
killing floors wrote:
FindingTheAnswer wrote:
That sounds horrible.
I've never understood why people are so offended or threatened by a few homeless people. People talk about not wanting to visit or live in the city because there are homeless? I worked in the SF Financial District for over 10 years and was never impacted or even inconvenienced once by a homeless person.
They are human beings, don't people have any compassion?
Yelling and causing a ruckus on the sidewalks. Cooking heroin at the bus stop. Needles everywhere. Human poop downtown. Despoiling all public resources.
Good for you having a positive attitude. I am completely worn down and "compassion" isn't fixing the problem.
Scouts wrote:
Look at San Francisco, and you can see that nobody thinks twice about sh!tting on the sidewalk during rush hour, or sticking a knife in somebody's face.
I think most people in san francisco Francisco think twice about that. So that brings everything else you write into doubt in my mind, since you are either a willful liar or accidentally wildly inaccurate.
FindingTheAnswer wrote:
Hounddogharrier wrote:
New York City tried this and it was ruled unconstitutional. It violates freedom of speech.
There must be some way around this. It's akin to harassment which can't be protected speech.
Unless they physically accost you, there is nothing you can do.
You know exactly what I meant. No low life thinks twice about deficating on the sidewalk in front of people. The city government literally has maps posted online so that the public knows exactly what spots are the most frequent locations for sidewalk human feces.
The city employs dedicated full-time feces picker uppers.
https://i.redd.it/k0o1nwb329101.jpg
http://thedailychrenk.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sf.jpg
Opinion San Francisco
Why is San Francisco ... covered in human feces?
Nathan Robinson
People aren’t pooping on the streets because they unlearned basic hygiene. Rather, the incidents reflect shameful levels of inequality in the city
Sat 18 Aug 2018 03.00 EDT
Similar question to my original: Why can't San Francisco (or another city) banish or lock up anyone who shits on the street? It's disgusting and can spread serious disease. Surely there is not a constitutional right being violated here.
Hounddogharrier wrote:
FindingTheAnswer wrote:
There must be some way around this. It's akin to harassment which can't be protected speech.
Unless they physically accost you, there is nothing you can do.
So a food truck has to pay thousands of dollars to park on the street and sell hot dogs but a panhandler has the inalienable right to set up shop for free? Talk about a broken system.
theJeff wrote:Homelessness is not primarily an economic issue; it is a mental health issue.
Damn, that's twice in two days I find myself agreeing 100% with theJeff. I feel my world falling apart, just a little bit... :-)