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Austin Homeless Free for All Ordinance


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On 6/6/2019 at 5:23 PM, Paper_jam said:

Jeez, what do y'all want to happen exactly to these people? Just make them 'disappear'?

how many dirty smelly homeless flea bags have you taken into your home?  let sleep in your yard?  none?  but you give them a dollar at red lights because you’re a saint

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38 minutes ago, SDG said:

I posted that in a cr thread and the response was predictable...  I got the fuck out of Seattle as soon as I could.  It’s a shame such a great city is going to shit literally.   

Let those fuckers invite these folks into their neighborhoods, and see where they stand. Bunch of hot air. They don't really care, but it makes them feel better to act like they do.

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Just now, futureman said:

how many dirty smelly homeless flea bags have you taken into your home?  let sleep in your yard?  none?  but you give them a dollar at red lights because you’re a saint

Personally, I'd like to see my tax dollars go to provide them with housing, preferably the non-jail variety that seems to be so popular.

We're going to pay for homelessness one way or another.

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5 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Personally, I'd like to see my tax dollars go to provide them with housing, preferably the non-jail variety that seems to be so popular.

We're going to pay for homelessness one way or another.

I really wouldn’t mind that at all, just not in downtown austin.  I’m thinking somewhere east of del valle. 

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48 minutes ago, futureman said:

I really wouldn’t mind that at all, just not in downtown austin.  I’m thinking somewhere east of del valle. 

The infield at COTA. Then their attendance numbers would be more realistic. 

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5 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

There are definitely some with mental health problems who can’t function in normal society, and to be completely honest, never will. They need to be in a permanent mental health institution.

www.surlyhorns.com

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On 6/8/2019 at 11:32 AM, rage-a-holic said:

See where Austin is headed

 

 

Interesting story. 

i believe they are a bit simplistic on the causes and options. Did the city stop prosecutions because they didn’t have the funding to jail the criminals?   Without a doubt, the city and police need to be empowered to arrest and convict people who are habitual criminals.  It’s probably something like the top 5% of the property criminals are committing 50% of the crimes especially when they are almost immediately released upon arrest.

Personally I think panhandling should be against the law.  Even passive panhandling.  The downside is that it could very well increase property crimes as soon as the addicts can’t get their money.  Even violent crimes could increase. 

I don’t think there is a good answer short of putting people in prison forever.  I guess if there was a simple answer, we would be following it.

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On 6/6/2019 at 2:47 PM, CHAD BRISCOE said:

We have a Honeless in Pampa name J . T . He walk's around town all the time and people say HEY J . T .and he say HEY MAN and keep on walkin well one day I was driving tryina husle some of these Arby sandwich'es and i see J . T . Walkin outside he always wore a full Cowboy suit look like a Black Cowboy and I said HEY J . T . DO U NEED A RIDE  and he said NO MAN I'M IN A HURRY . so I left him I think he is dead now I havent seen him in a while .

Why did you kill him?  Whar the baudy?

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The LA Times actually had numerous write ups this weekend on the west coast issues with homeless.   When the media out there who in many cases are usually friendly to the prevailing political class and thinking start questioning the what is going on and start sounding like rabid right wingers, then you know with no pun intended shit is about to hit the fan.

https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-homeless-leadership-201908-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-homeless-county-letter-20190608-story.html

 

Reading all of this begs the question.   Why does Austin want to go down this road?    Away from the tourist areas in places where this has been tried before and is currently failing, the core of these cities like San Francisco, LA, Portland and Seattle are rotting away .      Fricken LA is exploding with cases of Typhoid, Typhus and TB thanks in part to the human excrement and people living on top of each other in these camps in Downtown and other parts of the city and burbs.   Wake the Frick up Austin!   

 

Not to make this a Red vs Blue issue, but we all know it's no secret Austin is a big Blue dot in a Red Sea of state. Even with it's blueish like tendencies, the  politicians on the local and state level used to know even the population as whole in Travis Co/Austin were not quite all in on the West Coast style of Blue and would pull back or not even go down the road some of the things being tried the enlightened meccas out there on issues such crime, gun control, etc.    And especially those which demanded hefty taxpayer funding because we all know politicians particularly in California think their constituents have an unlimited capacity to pay for their programs and projects.     And when they fail miserably like their current policies on homeless issues, they ended up throwing money at them again and its rinse and repeat because the fixes often fail.

 Seriously is it the out of state move ins mainly from the West Coast who are now driving the politics of the city and county?   I mean just five to ten years ago I don't think this stuff would have been tolerated even in Austin.   At least not to this extreme.   

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On 6/7/2019 at 9:35 AM, TKthunder2 said:

Since many of our mental health institutions have been closed over the past half century, and adding in the additional laws put in place to protect the rights of people that were being involuntarily committed its become harder to coerce the  mentally infirm into a facility.  I’m sure someone is more knowledgeable than me on this subject but from what little I know, the only way to force someone is if they are convicted of a crime or if the court is able to prove that they are an immediate threat to themselves or others; which doesn’t really apply to someone who has been peacefully living under a bridge for weeks.  So unless those laws/policies change the only way to get these people the help they need is through the court/correctional system.  It’s an unfortunate requirement but if the homeless are given jail time they can be forcefully remanded to a mental health institution.  I’m all for fixing the myriad of issues with our health/mental healthcare system, but within our current structure this is the only real avenue that can address the homeless issue while looking out for their mental health.

After undergrad in the mid 90's , my Wife  worked in the mental health field.  What you said is pretty much on target from the stores she told me about all the hoops and hurdles it took to get some committed to the system.  And then when they finally got the person in the system, keeping them there until they go on the road to recovery or some other long term fix was even a bigger chore.  And this where sometimes Judges were failed to use their discretion  to  keep a person there and just signed off on a discharge to family  to keep the docket moving.    It was the ultimate case of spinning wheels in the mud in many instances.  

What occurred in the 70's with our mental health system has hurt society more than helped.   We really threw the baby out with the bath water and now we are paying the price big time.  Not just with the homeless issue, but other issues like violet crimes (IE mass shootings) where some of these individuals under old rules could have been institutionalized.   This is in no way excusing the abuses that were occurring with in the system, but really the answer to fixing many of these issue is staring policy makers right in the face but they don't want to go there.  

Edited by Nueces River Rat
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On 6/8/2019 at 2:18 PM, Deej said:

Let those fuckers invite these folks into their neighborhoods, and see where they stand. Bunch of hot air. They don't really care, but it makes them feel better to act like they do.

I know douche bags like that. Will go on and on about the plight of minorities and the poor. Ask them when the last time they even spoke to anyone not white who wasn't a H1-B employee at their office and they give you a blank stare. 

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On 6/10/2019 at 8:13 AM, Nueces River Rat said:

The LA Times actually had numerous write ups this weekend on the west coast issues with homeless.   When the media out there who in many cases are usually friendly to the prevailing political class and thinking start questioning the what is going on and start sounding like rabid right wingers, then you know with no pun intended shit is about to hit the fan.

https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-homeless-leadership-201908-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-homeless-county-letter-20190608-story.html

 

Reading all of this begs the question.   Why does Austin want to go down this road?    Away from the tourist areas in places where this has been tried before and is currently failing, the core of these cities like San Francisco, LA, Portland and Seattle are rotting away .      Fricken LA is exploding with cases of Typhoid, Typhus and TB thanks in part to the human excrement and people living on top of each other in these camps in Downtown and other parts of the city and burbs.   Wake the Frick up Austin!   

 

Not to make this a Red vs Blue issue, but we all know it's no secret Austin is a big Blue dot in a Red Sea of state. Even with it's blueish like tendencies, the  politicians on the local and state level used to know even the population as whole in Travis Co/Austin were not quite all in on the West Coast style of Blue and would pull back or not even go down the road some of the things being tried the enlightened meccas out there on issues such crime, gun control, etc.    And especially those which demanded hefty taxpayer funding because we all know politicians particularly in California think their constituents have an unlimited capacity to pay for their programs and projects.     And when they fail miserably like their current policies on homeless issues, they ended up throwing money at them again and its rinse and repeat because the fixes often fail.

 Seriously is it the out of state move ins mainly from the West Coast who are now driving the politics of the city and county?   I mean just five to ten years ago I don't think this stuff would have been tolerated even in Austin.   At least not to this extreme.   

i've told this tsory before, but i think it bears repeating. 

i worked for the 2010 census here in austin. most of it was going door to door, to households that hadn't filled out their questionnaires and convincing them to give u the necessary data. this was harrowing enough, because you never know who is going to open that door and what mood they'll be in to see a goddamn census worker asking them personal questions.

anyways, that's neither here nor there. 

one of the big things to which our little brigade was building was the homeless count. we talked about the tactics for a couple of weeks prior to executing the fucking terrible plan. it was somewhat of a local controversy, with a local supervisor either getting fired for going public with the statesman or 360, or resigning publicly. basically, the idea was this:

we would count the homeless on one saturday night. we would end up with a lot of overtime, because when i say 'at night' i mean from midnight through the early morning hours. no shit. part of the brigade was going to all the homeless shelters and counting those inhabiting beds in the early evening - from whenever they filled up. these homeless people were given census t-shirts. why? i'll tell you in a bit. then we rallied at the ihop at 35 and slaughter somewhere around 6pm, and began to divvy up the sites where we would be counting. because of the controversy, our leader guy was cautious and told us to go ahead and start right then while we still had daylight on our side. the reason was some of the local controversy once the public found out census methodology for counting homeless people. this strategy was weeks in the making, and involved numerous local homeless advocates, mobile loaves, all the local players.

our strategy was this: from midnight, we would go find the homeless encampments and collect the data we needed by sight if necessary. 

that's right.

the census wanted us to go to where homeless people live and camp, shine flashlights into their sleeping areas, and see if they were male or female, white, black, or whatever, and assign them a john or jane doe name. sounds perfectly safe, right? jesus fucking christ. never in our wildest imagination would homeowners and renters put up with a census worker creeping around their bedding area, shining a flashlight into their bedroom at night and count them thus.

the idea was to do this so that we did not double count the homeless, and so we got an accurate count. we worked through the night little actual success, though we fond trash, bedding and other evidence of homeless living. i found a few passed out individuals at he locations we had been given. one group of homeless in the evening set loose their dogs on us. it was harrowing. howevre, we did not meet the number of homeless we had been told to expect. then we hit the soup kitchens in the early morning to finish the count. we identified those from shelters the night before by their census t-shirts. we ended up counting a few more hundred that morning.

but we were told by the homeless we did encounter that morning that APD had gone through and rounded everyone up the day before, because of the local controversy about the way we were to count. i suppose that after weeks of partnering with the census, old art got cold feet about our safety, and the safety of the homeless, and decided to run them into the city jail for loitering or whatever that day and night. this would explain why we didn't find the homeless population we expected, despite human evidence at every sight.

we did still count a lot of homeless folks, and i'll tell you, even in 2010, they were EVERYWHERE. pretty much every wooded area you see had encampments that had been abandoned. there was a little city behind the heb in oak hill. over at slaughter and 35, on the northwest corner, there was human evidence everywhere. over on east stassney, as well - all those wooded areas were homes for the homeless. there was even a man-made shack, with smoke coming out of an improvised chimney, clotheslines with clean clothes hanging, and kids toys and bikes outside in the industrial park woods on the east side. 

what we didn't have was these under-bridge tent cities. i do not know when this became a thing, but it seems recent. we counted 0 people under bridges. 

the whole thing sort of underlined to me how we view the homeless as half-people. and i think when you treat people that way, they'll more than fulfill your expectations. downtown is even more of a dangerous shit hole. go down there for lunch some time. bring a camera. you'll see trash, needles, shitting and pissing and fucking in the alleyways. fighting, aggressive pan-handling, and passed out people behind dumpsters with needles in their arms, within eyesight of the fucking police HQ. 

i'm not a fan of jailing homeless people, but something has to be done to clean up this city. it's worse than ever, and it hasn't ever been good since i got down her in 96. 

tl;dr: homeless have always been athing, but something has changed for the worse more recently.

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On 6/7/2019 at 2:28 PM, Red Five said:

I was driving to my parents’ place last Christmas Eve and came to the light at Mopac and 360. Homeless guy there holding up a sign, at like 5:00 pm on Christmas Eve. I rolled down my window and gave him some food and said something like “hey keep warm tonight”. He said “nah it’s ok, I’m parked around the corner and I’ll be driving home in a bit”.

"Oh, OK, well, enjoy the food, I never wash my hands before I prepare food so...."

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29 minutes ago, SwanderedTalent said:

I am willing to consider all options at this point, tell me more of this one

You give them one way bus tickets to other cities.  You just have to provide more tickets than all of the other cities that are doing the same thing.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study

 

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On 6/9/2019 at 10:15 AM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Interesting story. 

i believe they are a bit simplistic on the causes and options. Did the city stop prosecutions because they didn’t have the funding to jail the criminals?   Without a doubt, the city and police need to be empowered to arrest and convict people who are habitual criminals.  It’s probably something like the top 5% of the property criminals are committing 50% of the crimes especially when they are almost immediately released upon arrest.

Personally I think panhandling should be against the law.  Even passive panhandling.  The downside is that it could very well increase property crimes as soon as the addicts can’t get their money.  Even violent crimes could increase. 

I don’t think there is a good answer short of putting people in prison forever.  I guess if there was a simple answer, we would be following it.

The governments of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, LA... have made the conscious decision to allow/tolerate street camping, plain and simple.

Enforce the law.  Don't let people street camp/use drugs/commit larceny under the guise of compassion.  Yes, you have to make it hard on them.  Some will choose work and accountability.  Others need services and housing.

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I’m not sure when the tents-under-bridges thing started ramping up in Austin, but I’m seeing it all over lately - various underpasses near 35, saw some dudes in a big-ass tent near the Amtrak station by the downtown YMCA a month or two ago, etc.  It’s become very noticeable to me.   

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May have something to do with one of the larger camps (Ben White near Manchaca) being completely upended for a park n' ride station.  I'm also told that underpass camps may continue due to the fact that Austin is located 3/4 mile from the Sun and shade is preferred.  

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9 hours ago, Incredulity said:

The governments of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, LA... have made the conscious decision to allow/tolerate street camping, plain and simple.

Enforce the law.  Don't let people street camp/use drugs/commit larceny under the guise of compassion.  Yes, you have to make it hard on them.  Some will choose work and accountability.  Others need services and housing.

Yeah there are at least 4 camps here in North Portland

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You know the old Oregonian saying, “if you look around yourself in North Portland and can’t spot the homeless camp, you are the homeless camp.”  

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I believe so, and the ISA building is the one up for lease. It seems a little ridiculous that Joslin will continue to deal with the Sunrise church spillover and Dawson will have to deal with this being so close, but maybe they will both be eliminated in the school realignment saga.

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On 6/11/2019 at 3:08 PM, hayden_horn said:

what we didn't have was these under-bridge tent cities. i do not know when this became a thing, but it seems recent. we counted 0 people under bridges. 

That's because all the green spaces, no matter how small, are already at homeless capacity.  I was at a doctor appointment at the Seton office at Far West and Mopac and looked out the window and in that little sliver of space between the building and Mopac were a few tents. 

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