Here’s how to do it in your community, county, state. (You’re welcome.)
- Stop using the terms ‘homeless’ or ‘homelessness’;
- Address five distinct if overlapping categories of persons — criminals, drug addicts, mentally infirm, mentally retarded and shiftless;
- Approach each of the five categories of persons in terms of geographic architectural isolation;
- Build or improve a home for the mentally infirm. A gothic style building is entirely appropriate. Hire actual doctors and inspect. The facility should be located away from urban areas, a long way into the woods or on top of a hill if possible. Legislate to the effect that if a person with a clinical mental health problem is living out-of-code in a zone where building and occupation certification codes apply, that they can be removed and institutionalized.
- Build or improve on jails or prisons. Soviet Socialist concrete modern is an acceptable style. Hire more policemen, legislate strictness and deselect soft judges such that more criminals are thrown into the jails and kept there, suffering so that would-be/wannabe criminals think it not a nice place to be. The facility should be located with good fields of fire, away from urban areas if possible.
- Build or improve on drug rehab homes for public users of illegal drugs. Make it a felony for anyone to have knowledge of the identity or whereabouts of an illegal drug supplier without reporting same to law enforcement. In other words, even if recreational use is legal, withholding knowledge about the illegal drug supplier would not be. Make detention in a drug rehab center the penalty for not giving information to police regarding the source of the user’s drug. Do not allow drugs into the rehab home except as prescribed by a medical doctor. A gothic/soviet socialist postmodern hybrid design style is appropriate here. This facility should be located away from urban areas, not too far from the home for the mentally infirm if possible.
- Build or improve on a work farm. Keep this well out of town if possible. This farm, for the shiftless (aka bum, hobo, vagrant) should have a camping area. The architecture should be Civilian Conservation Corps/ National Forest Fire Outpost style. Good ventilation. It should not be hard from which to escape, but a resident’s returning to a zone of removal (see number 9) should be a misdemeanor, recidivism for which could earn classification into another category.
- Build or improve on school facilities and dorm opportunities for the mentally retarded and improve work placement opportunities and family outreach for these individuals. Keep them apart from the other four categories if at all possible. The architectural style should be as home-like as is affordable.
- Create zones of removal wherein camping (defined as sleeping in a structure not in accordance with local building and occupation certification rules or sleeping horizontally without a structure) is illegal [with the exception of sunbathing, provided one is wearing a bathing suit, has been watching their diet, working out regularly and is not old old]. Here’s hoping the Supreme Court comes through in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson.
If these people aren’t actually homeless and if these huge encampments are in progressive cities/states, why bother offering solutions?
My one bulleted solution: don’t live on the west coast
My hope is that one day America will re-take California.
Mexico beat us to that one.
Allowing lawmakers to “[l]egislate to the effect that if a person with a clinical mental health problem is living out-of-code in a zone where building and occupation certification codes apply, that they can be removed and institutionalized” is a dangerous slippery slope. Imagine a world where free thought, opinions, and actions are restricted based on the administration. We are already seeing this in both directions. Now, you are saying they should have the freedom to determine if someone should be institutionalized. No thank you.
Yes, you are right about government. Let me defend a bit, however. I like to seek geography-based and geographically specific solutions, as well as the most local possible solutions. I also do no think many social problems like this one are actually ‘solved,’ rather that the problem can be traded out for a better one. For you, government power over the individual should be presumed a bad thing, and extra government power not planned. I agree. In this case of the ‘homeless,’ however, I believe we are dealing with trespass. If I, through my chosen associations (or through local government I did not choose, but to which I concede) have rights in the use of a city park (we have a very nice one in my home county) I expect to be able to use it according to its intended purposes and with reasonable regulation to avoid stupid. After all, a little league depends for peace pleasure on some scheduling. So…my suggestion is that only if a person decides to camp illegally in our park that he could be legally referred and removed to another building far away in accordance with a category of challenge other than mere ‘homelessness.’ That power to classify and architecturally contain would have to be (in accordance with and respecting your valid fears) conditioned on rules that would provide for the removed person’s easy escape, but an escape in which his returning to the park is made ever more difficult. So, the US Constitution was indeed planned and contrived to concentrate power — the conditions and failsafe measures were emplaced because of the valid fear of that concentration, but the initiating purpose was to concentrate power because there was a need. Yes?