Posted on 03/31/2018 7:52:42 AM PDT by rey
Homeless advocates filed a lawsuit Friday to block Sonoma County and Santa Rosa from shutting down the two large encampments that have grown in southwest Santa Rosa, arguing that forcing people out of their camps without providing an acceptable alternative would be unconstitutional.
The county has given homeless people until Tuesday to leave the two tent villages on Sonoma County Community Development Commission land behind the Dollar Tree store in Roseland.
The suit sets up a high-profile showdown between homeless advocates, who argue that local governments are doing too little to help people in need, and agencies that say they are trying to provide housing for the homeless but must close the camps because of safety concerns and future plans for the site.
“We’re not saying that everyone needs to stay there forever,” said Jeffery Hoffman, with California Rural Legal Assistance in Santa Rosa. “What we’re saying is we need to figure out a way to accommodate everybody in a fashion that works.”
A tent village originally took root on the site in 2015. The number of residents has grown to about 100 people since Santa Rosa began clearing out other long-time homeless camps and the October wildfires ravaged parts of the city.
ounty officials want to clear out the camps to move forward with a redevelopment project that envisions a 175-unit apartment complex, a public plaza and more. In advance of the shutdown, the county has been operating a housing navigation center on the property in an effort to find housing and other services for the residents.
But the lawsuit filed Friday contends those efforts have been insufficient, especially when it comes to people with disabilities. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by a group of attorneys with experience representing the powerless.
(Excerpt) Read more at pressdemocrat.com ...
These are all STATES’ issues. They are NOT constitutional issues and the feds have no say.
All power to bums.
What we’ve become.
Why do we just take it as axiomatic that it is the government's job to "help people in need?"
>>This is public property but I wonder what the eventual impact to private property owners will be when these folks camp out on private property or even refuse eviction from a property they had previously rented?<<
I know a BEAUTIFUL spot in Malibu I can pitch a tent tomorrow.
Sounds like sqautter’s rights wherever you toss your hat.
Grandad said beck in his day they were referred to as: bums, hobo’s, vagrants. Beat cops in NYC would keep them moving along not letting them stay more than ten minutes in one spot; until along came the ACLU and liberals.
The Judge just needs to issue an Order requiring ALL Members of these Groups to open up their own homes and wallets to care for these people.
It’s like a Steinbeck novel.
Pretty much. One of my favorite films we watch from time to time is: My Man Godfrey. Says it all about hobo camps.
“This is public property”
—
Unless public property = a federal open homesteading area, I don’t think a Constitutional argument is there.
“The suit sets up a high-profile showdown between homeless advocates, who argue that local governments are doing too little to help people in need...”
This tells me everything I need to know.
Send the campers to Nancy & Paul’s house....
Plenty of room in the vineyard to pitch a tent or two.
Did some remodel work out in Santa Rosa December before last. Stayed at the Best Western. There was a Kmart behind us, so we would walk there to shop. Could not go 20 yards past the motel property without seeing or stepping near a little homeless campground.
The only one I helped was the guy with a guitar and a blues singing heeler dog named Buddy.
Another thing. It’s bad for business. That includes big businesses like Dollar Tree. Do you think the local managers to these places are entitled to express their concern? Far away CEO’s don’t care. How many 99 cent scans do the cashiers do in an hour just to make sure they are not one of these people? Needles, syringes, excrement and the advocates think they’re entitled to more. Send in the cops. Then watch what happens when those ‘advocates’ interfere with them.
Process them all for county welfare. Either they’re eligible for Section 8 housing and all the goodies or they’re not. Done.
Why not put the genuinely incapable people into mental institutions, as we used to do?
Oh, yeah, liberal groups like ACLU filed suits against mental institutions on the basis that they amount to incarceration without due process. Declaring it unconstitutional to commit those who are incapable of taking care of themselves does not, of course, make them suddenly capable. Hence, the huge increase in homelessness.
"We" do not take that as axiomatic.
But the "products" of current America's public education system think there is such a right...just as they think their lives matter because of their race.
So vagrancy law enforcement cannot be carried out unless the government relocates the homeless at a Holiday Inn Express indefinitely, and provides laundry and storage for their property?
“So vagrancy law enforcement cannot be carried out unless the government relocates the homeless at a Holiday Inn Express indefinitely, and provides laundry and storage for their property?”
Perhaps we should treat them like skunks; pack them and all their crap in a bus and drop their stinking butts in the woods out of town.
Here locally in Seattle the governing bodies tell the businesses to clean up their own parking lots from the “homeless” - like they camp on Walmart property and they’re told to clean up the mess rather than the government doing something other than collecting taxes for “the homeless”; then too, just because they’re ‘homeless’ doesn’t mean they have to live like pigs.
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