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Austin Homeless Free for All Ordinance


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1 hour ago, dcar00 said:

I wish we would end the war on drugs so that people can quit blaming everything on the war on drugs.   there are a ton of people that just like doing drugs and the harder the better.

Those people who just like doing the hard stuff, they are a part of that group that I think of as "we can't save/fix everybody and we just have to write them off."

But there's a shitload of people that get popped for non-hard stuff, and it doesn't take much to end any chance of decent future employment.

 

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1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

1) About 7000-8000 people experience homelessness over the course of the year. in Austin. Of those, about 2000 are permanently or chronically homeless. Of those, about 1000 are unsheltered on any given day. Again, virtually the entire permanent homeless population is mentally ill . Transitional housing in the absence of a range of supportive services doesn't work for that population. It works for the other ~5K. 
2) Veteran homelessness in Austin was virtually eliminated in 2016.

3) I don't think camping should be allowed in most places as I said, and I'm not sure what would be left. But I don't think the act of camping should be illegal. It's an important distinction. The first is about where the behavior should be permitted, the second is about whether the behavior is permissable.

As someone who has been camping at Walmart lately a fair bit this hits close to home. Not for me so much, but I’ve seen a lot of people pulling up and camping there in their car. It’s very sad. 

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1 hour ago, BradInATX said:

In a perfect world where cops weren't "cops", there would be officers trained to work with these folks and find acceptable places to camp and provide a contact for services, access, medical, etc. But we probably won't get there until there is no dog un-murdered in city limits. Priorities.

Here in Austin, there are.  I've dealt with them when dealing with guy in the neighborhood who was bipolar (his parents rented him a place nearby).  The first time I talked to 911, the operator told me that if it happened again, I should call 911 and immediately mention that it was a mental health situation, and that APD had a group that handles that.    They sent out a regular cop and a cop who was trained to work with the mental cases.

Of course, all three times I called 911, it was the same mental health cop - I don't know if they were stretched thin, or happened to have those cops assigned to certain areas or what (all three times were evening hours).  He told me some stuff about how it works, and on the one hand, they get him somewhere to get help, and not just throw him in the regular lockup.  But on the other hand, if he clears up/whatever, he can walk free after a certain amount of time.

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3 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Have you really never seen a police officer move someone along before? Have you ever been downtown? This isn’t complicated.

I assume you don't remember that police tried to do that and then people got all up in arms which is how we got to go ahead and camp anywhere. then they changed rules for downtown, probably because the mayor lives in the W, and now they are under overpasses, in watershed areas, greenbelts on the outer edges and there is shit everywhere.

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9 hours ago, dcar00 said:

I assume you don't remember that police tried to do that and then people got all up in arms which is how we got to go ahead and camp anywhere. then they changed rules for downtown, probably because the mayor lives in the W, and now they are under overpasses, in watershed areas, greenbelts on the outer edges and there is shit everywhere.

That’s not how we got here and the police could solve 80% of that under current law. They aren’t, take it to the public safety commission and ask the chief why they aren’t.

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11 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Why?  Aren’t evictions frozen for like a year (I assume you are talking Covid related?)

Eviction freeze expires next month. And I don’t think making landlords eat the economic cost of covid is good policy. I think it’s ultimately likely to accelerate evictions when the freeze comes off.

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5 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Eviction freeze expires next month. And I don’t think making landlords eat the economic cost of covid is good policy. I think it’s ultimately likely to accelerate evictions when the freeze comes off.

Oh, I agree completely. I guess I’m baking in an extension on the eviction freeze through at least the end of the year. But yeah- if it doesn’t get extended probably more evictions and more homeless. 

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16 hours ago, dcar00 said:

I wish we would end the war on drugs so that people can quit blaming everything on the war on drugs.   there are a ton of people that just like doing drugs and the harder the better.

And there are a ton of people who are addicted to drugs and do not like doing them at all.

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16 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

As someone who has been camping at Walmart lately a fair bit this hits close to home. Not for me so much, but I’ve seen a lot of people pulling up and camping there in their car. It’s very sad. 

Luckily, Walmart still allows it in many locations - that's why you see RVs and sprinter vans on the fringes of the parking lots.  And cars with the windows blocked out.  It became a problem for some, and they banned car-camping, but plenty of Walmarts still allow it.

Austin was actually talking about setting up some well-lit and policed parking lots, with restrooms, for those living out of their cars.  That was actually a legit good thing to do, and could be done cheaply.  Think it went nowhere.

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4 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Oh, I agree completely. I guess I’m baking in an extension on the eviction freeze through at least the end of the year. But yeah- if it doesn’t get extended probably more evictions and more homeless. 

Trump says he can do extend it through Executive Order, but it's highly doubtful, unless Congress gets their shit together and bakes in one helluva stimulus bill this week that benefits property owners.

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How much were these consultants paid?  Because somebody could have skimmed this thread and pulled some of this stuff out and put it in a report and sent it to COA and charged them a million or so.

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/consultants-call-for-more-organized-less-punitive-response-to-homelessness-in-austin/

Quote

According to several national experts on homelessness, Austin needs more organized efforts to end homelessness. 

Tuesday, Austin City Council received a presentation from consultants Barbara Poppe, Matthew White and Matthew Doherty. Their recommendations called for more low-barrier services, reducing the criminalization of homelessness and getting all entities in Austin in sync when it comes to their strategy to address homelessness.

Quote

Already in the city’s proposed budget are additional dollars to invest in the city’s strategy of using hotels and motels to help address the needs of people experiencing homelessness. 

Austin Public Health currently has four “protective lodges” — converted hotels designed to offer shelter for at-risk individuals experiencing homelessness during the pandemic. The city says a fifth “ProLodge” is expected to start taking guests this week, bringing the total number of ProLodge rooms up to 546.

As of Tuesday, Austin Public Health Director Stephanie Hayden said those ProLodges are housing a total of 300 people. From those ProLodges, she said, 17 people have exited and moved into permanent housing. 

Rosie Truelove, director of the city’s Neighborhood Housing and Community Development Department said the city achieved its vision of a hotel/motel conversion strategy by acquiring the Rodeway Inn last fall. Truelove said the city “is continuing to move forward with acquiring more properties for this purpose,” and council was briefed on something related to this during their closed executive session on Tuesday.

 

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4 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Oh, I agree completely. I guess I’m baking in an extension on the eviction freeze through at least the end of the year. But yeah- if it doesn’t get extended probably more evictions and more homeless. 

That stuff Trump was talking about:  "The Trump team agreed with that assessment and highlighted its offer to extend a moratorium on evictions from federally subsidized housing through the end of the year."

That was just for federally subsidized housing.  Looks like everything else is down to the state/local level.

 

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1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Luckily, Walmart still allows it in many locations - that's why you see RVs and sprinter vans on the fringes of the parking lots.  And cars with the windows blocked out.  It became a problem for some, and they banned car-camping, but plenty of Walmarts still allow it.

Austin was actually talking about setting up some well-lit and policed parking lots, with restrooms, for those living out of their cars.  That was actually a legit good thing to do, and could be done cheaply.  Think it went nowhere.

Yeah. They should do that. Definitely. Cost next to nothing I would think. 

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sounds legit.  

Petition to put Austin’s homeless camping ban on ballot fails, city clerk says

Austin City Clerk Jannette Goodall issued a ruling Wednesday that a petition by a local group to bring Austin’s camping ban to a public vote in November failed to include enough signatures to earn a place on the ballot.

Goodall wrote in her decision that her office initially received a petition from Save Austin Now, which is headed by Travis County Republican Party Chairman Matt Mackowiak, with 11,198 pages containing 24,598 signatures.

After the petition was handed in on deadline day, 60 people contacted the clerk to have their names withdrawn, according to Goodall. Save Austin Now also submitted 85 signatures from people who had signed who asked to be withdrawn.

Of those 145 signatures, the clerk located 96 and removed them. Discrepancies over language, however, led to 397 more signatures being thrown out, leaving 24,201 — still above the city’s threshold of 20,000 signatures or 5% of the city’s qualified voters.

“Upon review of the petition, it was discovered that the petition contained two versions of the language being proposed in the ordinance,” Goodall said. “A small number of pages had different wording than the main petition, and therefore, 93 pages with alternate wording and containing 397 signatures were removed from the submitted pages and not included in the number of submitted signatures, the random sample, nor verified.”

Through random sampling of 6,051 submitted samples, the city determined that an estimated 19,122 valid signatures were collected, which falls short of the threshold.

Of that sample, 1,147 were tossed out because they were duplicate signatures or for other reasons.

“The city is 95% confident that the true number of valid signatures on the entire petition exceeds 18,887, and is also confident that the true number is less than 19,356,” Goodall said. “The probability that checking all 24,201 submitted signatures would find a total of at least 20,000 valid signatures is less than three in 1 billion.”

https://www.statesman.com/news/20200805/petition-to-put-austinrsquos-homeless-camping-ban-on-ballot-fails-city-clerk-says?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Austin American-Statesman austin-breaking-news 2020-08-0521:34:08&utm_content=GCOX_AUS&utm_term=080520

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Whether indirectly via the city clerk or whether via ballot language there wasn't going to be any repeal.

Camping, everywhere, isn't going away in Austin.  It's a staple of the city and is going to continue to grow and expand.   The word is out and the welcome mat is in place.    

Laura Huffman needs to figure out a way to incorporate it into her flyers, whether she likes it or not.   

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16 hours ago, bschoolprof said:

sounds legit.  

Petition to put Austin’s homeless camping ban on ballot fails, city clerk says

Austin City Clerk Jannette Goodall issued a ruling Wednesday that a petition by a local group to bring Austin’s camping ban to a public vote in November failed to include enough signatures to earn a place on the ballot.

Goodall wrote in her decision that her office initially received a petition from Save Austin Now, which is headed by Travis County Republican Party Chairman Matt Mackowiak, with 11,198 pages containing 24,598 signatures.

After the petition was handed in on deadline day, 60 people contacted the clerk to have their names withdrawn, according to Goodall. Save Austin Now also submitted 85 signatures from people who had signed who asked to be withdrawn.

Of those 145 signatures, the clerk located 96 and removed them. Discrepancies over language, however, led to 397 more signatures being thrown out, leaving 24,201 — still above the city’s threshold of 20,000 signatures or 5% of the city’s qualified voters.

“Upon review of the petition, it was discovered that the petition contained two versions of the language being proposed in the ordinance,” Goodall said. “A small number of pages had different wording than the main petition, and therefore, 93 pages with alternate wording and containing 397 signatures were removed from the submitted pages and not included in the number of submitted signatures, the random sample, nor verified.”

Through random sampling of 6,051 submitted samples, the city determined that an estimated 19,122 valid signatures were collected, which falls short of the threshold.

Of that sample, 1,147 were tossed out because they were duplicate signatures or for other reasons.

“The city is 95% confident that the true number of valid signatures on the entire petition exceeds 18,887, and is also confident that the true number is less than 19,356,” Goodall said. “The probability that checking all 24,201 submitted signatures would find a total of at least 20,000 valid signatures is less than three in 1 billion.”

https://www.statesman.com/news/20200805/petition-to-put-austinrsquos-homeless-camping-ban-on-ballot-fails-city-clerk-says?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Austin American-Statesman austin-breaking-news 2020-08-0521:34:08&utm_content=GCOX_AUS&utm_term=080520

Had they submitted the petition sooner, would it have been reviewed before the deadline? Do they have an opportunity to get the few signatures they allegedly need?

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Whenever this thread spikes I think about jumping back in... but damn are yall truly are surly about homelessness.

If you do have legitimate q's about homelessness tag me in a post and I'll do me best to respond tonight after I get the kids to bed (stupid questions will be ignored)

Also per my employer I have to declare that my opinions don't speak for MLF or CFV lol

tumblr_on8utdogbN1um2igbo2_250.gifv

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I believe there is a plan for the homeless. imo it involves using them to purchase soon to be remodeled and then soon to be condemned hotels. There’s going to be a lot of dark money to be had from the start to finish on those projects.

Bingo.
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@RCRanger03 - I didn't want to tap you in earlier because you do this for a living, but what do you think of my idea to keep the act of camping legal, but prohibit camping in parks, sidewalks, near bus stops and schools, anywhere downtown, utility easements, along waterways, in public ROW like highways, etc? Basically the idea is to break up the big camps. The idea isn't to move them back to the woods but create a tool to break up the big camps and address the health and safety issues associated with camping. Thoughts?
I think you and I are on the same page with the need for more and larger programs like CFV, which I see as a model for the chronic homeless. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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On 8/5/2020 at 4:44 PM, bschoolprof said:

sounds legit.  

Petition to put Austin’s homeless camping ban on ballot fails, city clerk says

Austin City Clerk Jannette Goodall issued a ruling Wednesday that a petition by a local group to bring Austin’s camping ban to a public vote in November failed to include enough signatures to earn a place on the ballot.

Goodall wrote in her decision that her office initially received a petition from Save Austin Now, which is headed by Travis County Republican Party Chairman Matt Mackowiak, with 11,198 pages containing 24,598 signatures.

After the petition was handed in on deadline day, 60 people contacted the clerk to have their names withdrawn, according to Goodall. Save Austin Now also submitted 85 signatures from people who had signed who asked to be withdrawn.

Of those 145 signatures, the clerk located 96 and removed them. Discrepancies over language, however, led to 397 more signatures being thrown out, leaving 24,201 — still above the city’s threshold of 20,000 signatures or 5% of the city’s qualified voters.

“Upon review of the petition, it was discovered that the petition contained two versions of the language being proposed in the ordinance,” Goodall said. “A small number of pages had different wording than the main petition, and therefore, 93 pages with alternate wording and containing 397 signatures were removed from the submitted pages and not included in the number of submitted signatures, the random sample, nor verified.”

Through random sampling of 6,051 submitted samples, the city determined that an estimated 19,122 valid signatures were collected, which falls short of the threshold.

Of that sample, 1,147 were tossed out because they were duplicate signatures or for other reasons.

“The city is 95% confident that the true number of valid signatures on the entire petition exceeds 18,887, and is also confident that the true number is less than 19,356,” Goodall said. “The probability that checking all 24,201 submitted signatures would find a total of at least 20,000 valid signatures is less than three in 1 billion.”

https://www.statesman.com/news/20200805/petition-to-put-austinrsquos-homeless-camping-ban-on-ballot-fails-city-clerk-says?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Austin American-Statesman austin-breaking-news 2020-08-0521:34:08&utm_content=GCOX_AUS&utm_term=080520

Shocking Fraud is shocking. Lol at the city not being able to count the actual signatures, hmm. Sad thing is they purposely came with 25% instead of 20% knowing the city would do this. They did it anyway. 

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11 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Shocking Fraud is shocking. Lol at the city not being able to count the actual signatures, hmm. Sad thing is they purposely came with 25% instead of 20% knowing the city would do this. They did it anyway. 

If you're suggesting that the City Clerk count every single signature, that never happens. For petitions, clerks do a statistically valid sample and then extrapolate the results based on the sample. 

Edited by UrbanAchiever
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5 minutes ago, UrbanAchiever said:

If you're suggesting that the City Clerk count every single signature, that never happens. For petitions, clerks do a statistically valid sample and then extrapolate the results based on the sample. 

so how long did it take to do the 6051?  It would only be 4x the time to do them all.

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10 minutes ago, UrbanAchiever said:

If you're suggesting that the City Clerk count every single signature, that never happens. For petitions, clerks do a statistically valid sample and then extrapolate the results based on the sample. 

Couldn't they pull in some of the "artists in residence" who are "working from home" to help count?

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Signed more than once (a perfectly valid reason to dismiss):  41 people. 

"Other Reasons":  1,106    Uh...kind of a big number, maybe you could reveal your rationale for dismissing them ( nearly 1 in 5 signatures dismissed because of "other reasons"...that's a lot of citizen input to negate, and gets you conveniently right under the 20,000 person threshold).  

If you don't think there are 24,000 Austinites (save for a relative handful of redundancies) who have an issue with homeless camps on major thoroughfares, you're out of your fucking mind.  All that comes out of this fraudulent play by Adler and Council is they use it as fuel to buy another motel.  All we do is not help mentally ill people for another $10mm bucks.  That's all that happened today.  

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8 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Signed more than once (a perfectly valid reason to dismiss):  41 people. 

"Other Reasons":  1,106    Uh...kind of a big number, maybe you could reveal your rationale for dismissing them ( nearly 1 in 5 signatures dismissed because of "other reasons"...that's a lot of citizen input to negate, and gets you conveniently right under the 20,000 person threshold).  

If you don't think there are 24,000 Austinites (save for a relative handful of redundancies) who have an issue with homeless camps on major thoroughfares, you're out of your fucking mind.  All that comes out of this fraudulent play by Adler and Council is they use it as fuel to buy another motel.  All we do is not help mentally ill people for another $10mm bucks.  That's all that happened today.  

transitional housing is the key.  but yeah, gonna have to get about 48,000 to get to the 24,000 number.

Edited by dcar00
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1 hour ago, Lobo said:

Signed more than once (a perfectly valid reason to dismiss):  41 people. 

"Other Reasons":  1,106    Uh...kind of a big number, maybe you could reveal your rationale for dismissing them ( nearly 1 in 5 signatures dismissed because of "other reasons"...that's a lot of citizen input to negate, and gets you conveniently right under the 20,000 person threshold).  

If you don't think there are 24,000 Austinites (save for a relative handful of redundancies) who have an issue with homeless camps on major thoroughfares, you're out of your fucking mind.  All that comes out of this fraudulent play by Adler and Council is they use it as fuel to buy another motel.  All we do is not help mentally ill people for another $10mm bucks.  That's all that happened today.  

But they cited some academic journals and used SAS. It’s science. 

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3 hours ago, Lobo said:

 

If you don't think there are 24,000 Austinites (save for a relative handful of redundancies) who have an issue with homeless camps on major thoroughfares, you're out of your fucking mind.  

That’s not the question. The question is whether 24000 signed that petition. Based on where they collected sigs and the results, they seem not to have. 
 

what seems more likely: the city clerk committing  a felony or Matt Mackowiak and Mackenzie Kelly fucking up?
 

oh and another thing- if you think that the city clerks office has good relations with the mayors office right now I’ve got a housing/rail/art bond to sell you. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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7 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

what seems more likely: the city clerk committing  a felony or Matt Mackowiak and Mackenzie Kelly fucking up?

Crazy thing is, with just a little more work, he and fitlump could have hit up certain parts of town and gotten the necessary signatures.  Another day or two could have put them over the hump.

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4 hours ago, dcar00 said:

so how long did it take to do the 6051?  It would only be 4x the time to do them all.

This is the funny part to me.  They did a “sample” size to extrapolate an answer.  How many statisticians  “sample” sizes are 25% of the whole?  

They should tell us what their rules say is the required sample size percentage and also what sample size percentages they used in all other past submissions for the last 10 years.

Odds that it is 25%......fairly low would be my guess.

Austin, gonna Austin.

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On 8/4/2020 at 11:47 AM, ABSR said:

Solution is to make more lanes into bike lanes.   So we have camping lanes and bike lanes....but without widening the roads because that is bad.   Really the only solution.

#teamgondola

What about when they start camping in the air conditioned gondola cars?  

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Windsor Park getting cleaned up a bit.

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/homeless-austinites-work-to-pick-up-trash-at-encampment-that-sparked-recent-complaints/

Quote

An area near a homeless encampment in Windsor Park received a great deal of attention this week after a video made by a man who lives in a nearby home was shared widely online. 

While the video seemed to fuel yet another polarizing flash point in the ongoing debate in Austin on how best to address homelessness, the situation at that Windsor Park creek bed — like homelessness itself — is complex and nuanced. Thursday, KXAN learned people experiencing homelessness in Austin are now on the front lines of the effort to clean up that creek bed and to help to offer a solution to managing trash in the area.

Quote

Local nonprofit The Other Ones Foundation (TOOF) offers low-barrier employment for people experiencing homelessness and also has existing contracts with the City of Austin. Monday, the city reached out to TOOF, and since Tuesday the nonprofit has been at the creek bed, hauling out bags of trash. So far, the crew of 18 people experiencing homelessness have hauled around 3,000 pounds of trash from that location, TOOF said.

They hauled out 3,000 pounds of trash since Tuesday.  damn.

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3 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

What about when they start camping in the air conditioned gondola cars?  

When I was in high school, tried to make out with my gf in the gondola ride thing that went across Astroworld.  She got motion sickness.

So if you're gonna have them camp in those, better start stocking up on Dramimine as well.

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2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Windsor Park getting cleaned up a bit.

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/homeless-austinites-work-to-pick-up-trash-at-encampment-that-sparked-recent-complaints/

They hauled out 3,000 pounds of trash since Tuesday.  damn.

same thing happened under 183 overpasses in N Austin.  shit everywhere for 3 months.  then one day it was all cleaned up(tents still there but the crap all around was gone).  about 2 weeks later shit everywhere again.  they used Covid to put water/sanitizing stations/port a potties under a bunch of them.  probably because the businesses were bitching.

maybe we can have the homeless clean up each others homeless encampment and pay them so they can not be homeless?

 

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This is the funny part to me.  They did a “sample” size to extrapolate an answer.  How many statisticians  “sample” sizes are 25% of the whole?  


Lots. On 24,000 data points you can get to 90+% confidence with less than a thousand.
Problem is, they should have shot for better than the 95% confidence they did. This is governance, not horseshoes.
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3 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

maybe we can have the homeless clean up each others homeless encampment and pay them so they can not be homeless?

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But what if they earn enough to get a place, where does the chain of cleaning up after each other and getting paid end, because when when somebody earns enough and gets a place, that's one less person to clean up after, and if you are bringing up the rear, you could find yourself without anything left to clean and earn money, it's like a pyramid scheme.

spacer.png

 

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1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Crazy thing is, with just a little more work, he and fitlump could have hit up certain parts of town and gotten the necessary signatures.  Another day or two could have put them over the lump.

fify

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1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

spacer.png

But what if they earn enough to get a place, where does the chain of cleaning up after each other and getting paid end, because when when somebody earns enough and gets a place, that's one less person to clean up after, and if you are bringing up the rear, you could find yourself without anything left to clean and earn money, it's like a pyramid scheme.

spacer.png

 

exactly.  life is a circle.

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11 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

@RCRanger03 - I didn't want to tap you in earlier because you do this for a living, but what do you think of my idea to keep the act of camping legal, but prohibit camping in parks, sidewalks, near bus stops and schools, anywhere downtown, utility easements, along waterways, in public ROW like highways, etc? Basically the idea is to break up the big camps. The idea isn't to move them back to the woods but create a tool to break up the big camps and address the health and safety issues associated with camping. Thoughts?
I think you and I are on the same page with the need for more and larger programs like CFV, which I see as a model for the chronic homeless. 

@Bozo_Casanova I'm a firm believer (drawn from my own anecodotal experience working with these folks) that criminalizing homeless related behavior like camping, institutionalizes those experiencing it. It marks them taking away opportunities, it further dissolves their communal bonds except with those also experiencing homelessness, and creates a reinforcing spiral. All of that exacerbates the symptoms that we all associate with homelessness like alcohol/drug abuse, unchecked mental illness, and loss of social boundaries.

People want and need security. Period. Full Stop. People posting on Surlyhorns, people experiencing homelessness, we all need it. Camps spring up where ever some measure of it can be found, sometimes that is in the woods, sometimes it's by a highway when you're in that situation you're taking what presents itself. We think that CFV is a full expression of that search for security, but there are also public works level opportunities to offer intermediate levels of security to those still on the street. Public Restrooms and Showers would be a good start, water is THE essential human need. Next level would be night use only tent shelter structures with storage options and maybe Solar collected powercells all together in little micro KOA style pods spread throughout the city. We could bolster support to mobile resource teams like HOST to connect people there to transition opportunities. Maintaining spaces like that could be provided by groups that source work from that population like TOOF.

Obviously I'm ultimately in favor of the CFV model since I've spent the last 6 years on helping realize and manage it. We're growing our footprint to 500 homes with eyes on more (our 10 year plan started in 2017 has an end goal of 1000 - 1200 housed) , but I think there should also be a dozen different organizations running a dozen different CFVs serving all varieties of people in need in ways their best at. We focus on the chronically homeless, which is where we think we're the best at, but not everybody in need fits that or wants what we are offering.

 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, RCRanger03 said:

@Bozo_Casanova I'm a firm believer (drawn from my own anecodotal experience working with these folks) that criminalizing homeless related behavior like camping, institutionalizes those experiencing it. It marks them taking away opportunities, it further dissolves their communal bonds except with those also experiencing homelessness, and creates a reinforcing spiral. All of that exacerbates the symptoms that we all associate with homelessness like alcohol/drug abuse, unchecked mental illness, and loss of social boundaries.

People want and need security. Period. Full Stop. People posting on Surlyhorns, people experiencing homelessness, we all need it. Camps spring up where ever some measure of it can be found, sometimes that is in the woods, sometimes it's by a highway when you're in that situation you're taking what presents itself. We think that CFV is a full expression of that search for security, but there are also public works level opportunities to offer intermediate levels of security to those still on the street. Public Restrooms and Showers would be a good start, water is THE essential human need. Next level would be night use only tent shelter structures with storage options and maybe Solar collected powercells all together in little micro KOA style pods spread throughout the city. We could bolster support to mobile resource teams like HOST to connect people there to transition opportunities. Maintaining spaces like that could be provided by groups that source work from that population like TOOF.

Obviously I'm ultimately in favor of the CFV model since I've spent the last 6 years on helping realize and manage it. We're growing our footprint to 500 homes with eyes on more (our 10 year plan started in 2017 has an end goal of 1000 - 1200 housed) , but I think there should also be a dozen different organizations running a dozen different CFVs serving all varieties of people in need in ways their best at. We focus on the chronically homeless, which is where we think we're the best at, but not everybody in need fits that or wants what we are offering.

 

 

 

good plan.  there is a huge park downtown right on bus routes/mass transit where you can take care of the 2000 chronically homeless.  why doesnt the city just take part of that?  I think there are 2 other parks and that bmx park that can be used as well.  should be plenty of room.

 

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