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Feds: It’s unconstitutional to ban the homeless from sleeping outside
Washington Post ^ | 8/13/15 | Emily Badger

Posted on 08/13/2015 6:17:34 PM PDT by Objective Scrutator

We all need sleep, which is a fact of life but also a legally important point. Last week, the Department of Justice argued as much in a statement of interest it filed in a relatively obscure case in Boise, Idaho, that could impact how cities regulate and punish homelessness.

Boise, like many cities — the number of which has swelled since the recession — has an ordinance banning sleeping or camping in public places. But such laws, the DOJ says, effectively criminalize homelessness itself in situations where people simply have nowhere else to sleep.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: homeless; tyranny
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Sorry, Boise, but you're just going to have to let smelly vagrants and criminals pollute your streets with drugs, feces, and other foul concoctions! (One could always deport them to international waters, where they may techincally live without having to have a home; this is perhaps the simplest solution.)
1 posted on 08/13/2015 6:17:35 PM PDT by Objective Scrutator
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To: Objective Scrutator

The DOJ really is totally disconnected from what they’re constitutionally supposed to do. Have they never heard of vagrancy laws? How is it they just suddenly became illegal?


2 posted on 08/13/2015 6:20:52 PM PDT by Twotone (Truth is hate to those who hate truth.)
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To: Objective Scrutator

Under what article??


3 posted on 08/13/2015 6:25:12 PM PDT by SkyDancer ("Nobody Said I Was Perfect But Yet Here I Am")
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To: Objective Scrutator

If you see a homeless person offer to pay for a bus ticket to NoVa. Let them camp on the sidewalk in front of a million dollar house. Use the storm drains there as toilets.

Only rich liberals get to have clean neighborhoods.


4 posted on 08/13/2015 6:26:28 PM PDT by Bogey78O (We had a good run. Coulda been great still.)
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To: Objective Scrutator

My mother and I were homeless a few times during my childhood. She worked the entire time.

Not all homeless are druggies or losers. Some are just poor. Some have hit on temporary bad times.

Living in a car or camping out was better than a shelter (when they were available) any day.

Now days she would never have had the opportunity to get back on her feet. I would’ve been placed in foster care and she would’ve been ‘helped’ by the government into a hopeless situation.

In many cities right now the real estate and rents is simply out of whack with what people are earning. There are many homeless who are working, but just cannot make ends meet. It’s worse for single men. For them, there are no resources.

Increasing homelessness is a conviction of our current economy and government - not necessarily of the people.


5 posted on 08/13/2015 6:29:05 PM PDT by Marie
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To: Objective Scrutator
But such laws, the DOJ says, effectively criminalize homelessness itself in situations where people simply have nowhere else to sleep.

Nonsense. There are plenty of shelters. If the bums choose not to use them, that's on the bums.

6 posted on 08/13/2015 6:30:39 PM PDT by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: Twotone

YAY!!!

Now I can exercise my constitutional right to poop on the street.


7 posted on 08/13/2015 6:39:30 PM PDT by themidnightskulker (And then the thread dies... peacefully, in it's sleep....)
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To: Objective Scrutator


8 posted on 08/13/2015 6:42:51 PM PDT by JoeProBono (SOME IMAGES MAY BE DISTURBING VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED;-{)
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To: SkyDancer

perhaps seeing the homeless, hungry, poor issue up in the uninformed voter’s face is far, far, better than the EBT, HUD, homeless refugees we ALL fail to see today.

For me...if the time ever comes I can’t find a roof for my head...the public square is my last roof of refuge.

I’d love to say it was the church, but that is a far fetched dream these days.


9 posted on 08/13/2015 6:44:43 PM PDT by EBH (There's a sucker born every minute)
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To: Objective Scrutator

Used to be that they would take bums for a “ride” to the county line and gave them a swift kick and a don’t come back.

Now they have a right to be a public nuisance


10 posted on 08/13/2015 6:46:22 PM PDT by Ouderkirk (To the left, everything must evidence that this or that strand of leftist theory is true)
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To: Objective Scrutator

Based upon that logic the White House lawn, Congressional corridors, front steps at the Supreme Court, and all Federal Building lawns and entrances should be fair game!!!!!


11 posted on 08/13/2015 6:47:22 PM PDT by RetiredTexasVet (The cunning Venezuelan gov't has eliminated the toilet paper shortage by creating a food shortage.)
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To: Objective Scrutator

Are all homeless people smelly vagrants and criminals? In my experience with helping them they clearly are not all that way.


12 posted on 08/13/2015 6:58:26 PM PDT by ColdSteelTalon (Light is fading to shadow, and casting its shroud over all we have known...)
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To: Objective Scrutator

Give the bums $100.00 and a one way ticket to Washington DC.


13 posted on 08/13/2015 7:00:30 PM PDT by MCF (If my home can't be my Castle, then it will be my Alamo.)
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To: Ouderkirk
Meanwhile, back at the royal palace...


14 posted on 08/13/2015 7:02:30 PM PDT by Rodamala
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To: Objective Scrutator

This same line of judicial “reasoning” could apply to bans on sex in public places, couldn’t it? Wouldn’t such a ban also be unconstitutional?

These judges will go as far as we the people will tolerate. If our only response to these offenses to the Constitution is internet chatter, the decline of American culture will continue virtually unchallenged.


15 posted on 08/13/2015 7:14:08 PM PDT by BlueYonder
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To: Objective Scrutator

First, we need jobs. That will get some of them off the street.

Second, we need to deport the illegals.

Third, we need to undo the damage the liberal courts did when they made Reagan turn them out. So that we can get the mentally ill the help they need.

Fourth, We probably need more low income housing.


16 posted on 08/13/2015 7:20:26 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: Objective Scrutator

Ah for the good old days of Vagrancy Laws which prevented such things.

Now vagrancy laws are gone and the trash is mounting up in the cities and towns.


17 posted on 08/13/2015 7:28:16 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Let Baal plead for Baal because one has destroyed his altar!)
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To: Objective Scrutator

Where else would they sleep if they are homeless.

How about outlaw being homeless. mandate the purchase of a home.

That should work


18 posted on 08/13/2015 7:42:27 PM PDT by GeronL (Cruz is for real, 100%)
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To: Marie

A lot of pioneers to the west were homeless


19 posted on 08/13/2015 7:43:37 PM PDT by GeronL (Cruz is for real, 100%)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

20 posted on 08/13/2015 7:45:52 PM PDT by GeronL (Cruz is for real, 100%)
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