Does the U S Constitution prevent cities from clearing homeless encampments - Homelessness HEAD TOPICS
Does the U S Constitution prevent cities from clearing homeless encampments
10/21/2022 10:38:00 PM A Coalition on Homelessness lawsuit is built on a opinion it wrongly interprets
Homelessness İn The United States Homelessness
Source SF Examiner
OPINION: The City should treat people with dignity and respect, conduct outreach and provide advance notice, offer a direct pathway to shelter and independent housing, and connect people to services to help them succeed. A Coalition on Homelessness lawsuit is built on a opinion it wrongly interprets The lawsuit raises the question: How can the City resolve homeless encampments in a way that is both effective and legal?The timing of the Coalition’s lawsuit is curious. Recent public opinion polling confirms that residents continue to view homelessness as San Francisco’s top problem. Residents are fed up with the suffering on our streets and with the degradation of our neighborhoods and business districts. Earlier this year, the City passed the “A Place for All” legislation, which calls on it to provide sufficient shelter and housing for everyone who needs it within three years, and the Department of Homelessness is working on a comprehensive five-year plan. Read more:
SF Examiner » Oakland street, hub of unhoused RV campers, gets overdue clean-up Mobile police cracking down on panhandling downtown Neighbors use planters to dissuade homeless encampments Fort Worth homeless families still increasing, city officials say Wildfires Erupt in the Pacific Northwest
A series of recent wildfires ignited or spread this past week as warm, dry, and windy conditions—a rarity for the rainy Pacific Northwest. Read more >> Oakland street, hub of unhoused RV campers, gets overdue clean-upThe city of Oakland took action Wednesday, clearing out a longtime homeless encampment that some say has turned an entire block into a place of lawlessness. JFC took them long enough Yes on Prop 27 solves homelessness and provides housing for them yeson27 Clean it up and don’t let the street return to chaos. Oakland has to be determined not to be a magnet for irresponsible people. No more enabling these terrible conditions on the street. Mobile police cracking down on panhandling downtownThey want to make it clear that this isn’t a targeted effort against the homeless population Neighbors use planters to dissuade homeless encampmentsNeighbors in San Francisco 's Mission District are fed up with homeless encampments, and they're taking matters into their own hands. My elderly aunt lives next to an alley that is full of tents- leaves her entire apartment doorway full of trash, feces, urine, syringes and more. You can complain all you want & nothing gets done. It’s not safe. Fort Worth homeless families still increasing, city officials sayA city report shows that from July through September, an average 138 families were homeless, Texas has $$$ GovAbbott why ate our ppl homeless? Unbelievable how $$$ is raised for elections but not for social services. Why not a State lottery ticket $$$$ goes to support the homeless. Why not Abbot. Call me, let's talk. Anchorage begins removing remaining homeless encampments in Centennial Park CampgroundFor now, no one has been forced to leave Centennial Park Campground, but a spokesman for the mayor’s office said cleanup and clearing will start again tomorrow morning. On Sept.Oakland homeless encampment clean-up on Pearmain Street.WALA ) - Mobile police are bringing attention to what they call a growing problem.The city's homelessness crisis impacts just about every neighborhood. 28, the Coalition on Homelessness filed a lawsuit to stop the City and County of San Francisco from clearing homeless encampments. According to the Coalition, the City’s efforts to clear encampments violate the Constitutional rights of homeless residents, and the lawsuit aims to prohibit the City from moving anyone off the streets until it can provide shelter and housing for everyone on the streets. On Wednesday, crews focused on a block that area business owners say had gotten completely out of control. The lawsuit raises the question: How can the City resolve homeless encampments in a way that is both effective and legal? The timing of the Coalition’s lawsuit is curious. “If they do experience this themselves, please call us. Recent public opinion polling confirms that residents continue to view homelessness as San Francisco’s top problem. Curtis Nagengast owns Melrose Powder Coating company on Pearmain Street. Residents are fed up with the suffering on our streets and with the degradation of our neighborhoods and business districts. You have people that are 65-years old, 70-years old, they cannot even access with their wheelchairs," said Ari. Earlier this year, the City passed the “A Place for All” legislation, which calls on it to provide sufficient shelter and housing for everyone who needs it within three years, and the Department of Homelessness is working on a comprehensive five-year plan. He's not comfortable going any farther. Captain Garrett said police can only deal with it if it’s reported. As positive momentum builds, why is the Coalition seeking to stop the City from bringing unhoused people off of the streets? The basic approach to encampment resolution should be uncontroversial. The City should treat people with dignity and respect, conduct outreach and provide advance notice, offer a direct pathway to shelter and independent housing, and connect people to services to help them succeed. "They say, 'There's more of us than you!'" Over the past five years, a group of homeless RV dwellers took over the adjoining block of Pearmain Street, clogging the sidewalks with garbage and attracting crime to the neighborhood. In their lawsuit, the Coalition claims that the City violates these guidelines, for example, by providing inadequate notice to encampment residents, destroying residents’ property, and clearing encampments without offering adequate shelter. “It’s definitely not something that we’re going out looking forward to enforcing. These claims are serious, and we share the Coalition’s concern. Business owners have been frustrated by the lack of response from the city. Homeless advocates say the first step should always be trying to talk out any issues. If the City needs to improve its treatment of homeless people, we should know about these problems, and the City should fix them. We should pay special attention to the Coalition’s lawsuit not just because of its claims regarding encampment resolutions, but, most importantly, because of its novel and extreme application of recent legal precedent. Crews arrived in the morning to begin cleaning the street out. --- Download the FOX10 Weather App. In Martin v. City of Boise, a 2019 opinion issued by the federal appeals court for the Ninth Circuit, the court held that a city could not criminalize street sleeping if there were no sleeping spaces available in any shelter. "These people do not like us here running our businesses. The court reasoned that enforcement in these circumstances was essentially the same as criminalizing poverty, which would violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. "To really try to get the state the federal government and the local government all on the same page in truly addressing this issue. In the lawsuit, the Coalition requests an injunction prohibiting the City from taking any enforcement actions against anyone for sleeping on public property until the City can confirm that all of San Francisco’s homeless residents have immediate access to shelter." Those living in their cars and RVs said they were only given a week's notice. This is shocking. Why must the City offer shelter to everyone before it can enforce street sleeping bans against anyone? The Coalition’s complaint repeatedly quotes a specific sentence from the Boise opinion, which states, “We hold only that ‘so long as there is a greater number of homeless individuals in [a jurisdiction] than the number of available beds [in shelters],’ the jurisdiction cannot prosecute homeless individuals for ‘involuntarily sitting, lying, and sleeping in public. That included Tim Doyle, who has lived in the area for the past three years.’” The lawsuit’s requested injunction relies on the above quoted sentence to mean that a city cannot enforce street sleeping bans until the San Francisco government can offer shelter to all homeless individuals. This interpretation is incorrect. There's not a law against being homeless," said Doyle. The Boise court actually held only that a city cannot enforce a street sleeping ban against a particular individual if that individual has nowhere to go. In fact, the Boise opinion expressly permits enforcement of street sleeping bans against an individual who has access to shelter but refuses to accept it. The footage he showed you? That's old. The Boise opinion could not be more clear: “Naturally, our holding does not cover individuals who do have access to adequate temporary shelter, whether because they have the means to pay for it or because it is realistically available to them for free, but who choose not to use it.” What does this mean for San Francisco? Consistent with Boise, San Francisco may enforce street sleeping bans when people refuse to accept adequate shelter. We clean garbage up out here. The Boise opinion provides no support for the Coalition’s desired remedy of prohibiting any enforcement until everyone has shelter or housing. Such a rule makes no sense, either from a policy perspective or in terms of the Constitution. He admitted that there are those who don't care, and said he understands why the business owners are angry about all the trash. If a city enforces a street sleeping ban against a homeless individual who refuses adequate shelter — whether or not other homeless people have access to shelter — that individual’s Constitutional rights have not been violated. The Coalition’s interpretation of Boise and claim for relief in its lawsuit should be rejected."Ok, in general, it is us. We agree that the Coalition’s lawsuit appropriately focuses attention on whether the City’s actual conduct of resolving homeless encampments complies with its policies. If the lawsuit results in any improvements to how the City treats homeless people during encampment resolutions, we will welcome this outcome. I see that. However, the lawsuit goes too far in trying to prohibit all enforcement of street sleeping bans. It is Constitutional and reasonable for cities to require people to leave the streets when shelter is available. While Wednesday's cleanup seemed like a win for the businesses, on the issue of homelessness, solutions just don't come easy. Place a free digital obituaryWe provide a free service for you to honor your loved ones. Click below to get started. Business owners hope that will discourage the RVs from coming back. Place an obituary .