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Homeless camps on public land will be felony in TN

Prison is not the answer to homelessness. Affordable housing and mental health services are.
Damn - between the homeless and those individuals committing gun violence, it sounds like we're all on board with revamping and boosting mental health services in this country to assist these troubled souls. Happy to see bipartisan support on something for a change! Hopefully we can get our noble and highly efficient elected officials working on this straightaway.
 
It's so simple! Makes you wonder why nobody has ever tried affordable housing and mental health services!
Because it costs money and the housing would have to go somewhere and NIMBYs will be NIMBYs. There are places who have seen success like Finland.
 
Damn - between the homeless and those individuals committing gun violence, it sounds like we're all on board with revamping and boosting mental health services in this country to assist these troubled souls. Happy to see bipartisan support on something for a change! Hopefully we can get our noble and highly efficient elected officials working on this straightaway.
Reagan destroyed the mental hospitals, only option really now, is the streets or jail
 
That always grinds my gears. How dare you lock me up and demand I pay for my imprisonment!

That really pisses me off because society isn’t footing the bill for their own laws. No wonder there are so many laws!

I would have “paid” (via lost wages) much more to be put into a regular 24/7 jail rather than into that work release facility.
 
Because it costs money and the housing would have to go somewhere and NIMBYs will be NIMBYs. There are places who have seen success like Finland.
Finland’s success is not a matter of luck or the outcome of “quick fixes.” Rather, it is the result of a sustained, well-resourced national strategy, driven by a “Housing First” approach, which provides people experiencing homelessness with immediate, independent, permanent housing, rather than temporary accommodation (OECD, 2020). A key pillar of this effort has been to combine emergency assistance with the supply of rentals to host previously homeless people, either by converting some existing shelters into residential buildings with independent apartments (Kaakinen, 2019) or by building new flats by a government agency (ARA, 2021). Building flats is key: otherwise, especially if housing supply is particularly rigid, the funding of rentals can risk driving up rents (OECD, 2021a), thus reducing the “bang for the buck” of public spending.


We tried that in Chicago Cabrini green, Robert Taylor homes, didn't work because of the crime rate
 
Typical Leftist advice from a comedian. Can't stand the thought of people spending their own money as they choose when it can be taken from them by an overreaching government to be used by the welfare state in another vote buying scheme. After all section 8 housing on a golf course surrounded by multi million dollar homes is a real incentive to work. Right?

Lovely racial stereotype of old white men plotting to steal money being the only ones playing golf. Can't be a Democrat without demogoguery. It's not divisive and toxic when the Left does it
Says a guy who thinks that reality tv is a good place to look for leadership....
 
Is putting them in prison for felonies going to help? What does it cost the taxpayer for every person in prison?
This was always a daft approach. It costs a lot of money to keep people in prison, and in the case of homeless people, we end up with the likelihood of them coming out as hardened criminals with little chance of rehabilitation. That said, leaving them on the streets presents its own set of challenges, and these camps have presented problems for communities in terms of crime and sanitation. I know in the NYC area the homeless preferred the street to the shelter because they often cited as shelters being less safe than the streets.
 
How very NIMBY of you.
What's more interesting about NIMBYism is it extends well beyond just homeless camps, and into the affordable housing that's been proposed in some communities. I know that the bluest of communities have opposed affordable housing/homeless shelters in their communities. The bottom line is some want the problem fixed, but not contribute to the solution.
 
What's more interesting about NIMBYism is it extends well beyond just homeless camps, and into the affordable housing that's been proposed in some communities. I know that the bluest of communities have opposed affordable housing/homeless shelters in their communities. The bottom line is some want the problem fixed, but not contribute to the solution.

Welcome to adulting.

If you live in an affluent community with good schools, a solid tax base, and a safe community the last thing you are going to do is look to change that negatively. That's just human nature. People don't voluntarily harm their families for some ideological goal.
 
What's more interesting about NIMBYism is it extends well beyond just homeless camps, and into the affordable housing that's been proposed in some communities. I know that the bluest of communities have opposed affordable housing/homeless shelters in their communities. The bottom line is some want the problem fixed, but not contribute to the solution.
Not in my backyard. As Carlin said, "No one has any interest in helping solve homelessness because there is no money in it.
 
Not in my backyard. As Carlin said, "No one has any interest in helping solve homelessness because there is no money in it.

That's not true, society as a whole has thrown tons of money at homelessness. It's not the money, it's the headache. People don't want rehab centers, shelters, etc in their communities because it drags the community down. You don't want your kids near homeless people, etc.
 
Not in my backyard. As Carlin said, "No one has any interest in helping solve homelessness because there is no money in it.
Or in the case of the NIMBYists, they're afraid of what those solutions will do to their property values. There are other more legitimate concerns that @bave's pointed out though, but those are issues that could be dealt with by policing/security in those areas if there is an issue with crime. Otherwise we're going to end up isolating the people we're trying to help, and that tends to just perpetuate the problem.
 
That's not true, society as a whole has thrown tons of money at homelessness. It's not the money, it's the headache. People don't want rehab centers, shelters, etc in their communities because it drags the community down. You don't want your kids near homeless people, etc.
Rehabs and private prisons are cash cows I guess low cost housing and mental hospitals are not
 
I live just south of Nashville in the most affluent town in the state. When I moved here 14 years ago there was never homeless beggers running around. Now they are at every highway on-off ramp, major intersections, everywhere. They step in front of cars in traffic, they have drug camps popping up, we just had a cop get stabbed when approaching a homeless camp. This isn't about a lack of economic opportunity, these camps are surrounded by help wanted signs for jobs offering $17-18/hr all over the place. You talk to the police, the hospital admin, the shelter operators, they are almost all addicts. Sorry, but the state has an obligation to do something when they represent a public safety issue.
Where are they supposed to go?
 
Where are they supposed to go?

At the end of the day, I don't particularly care. I am not going to be overly sympathetic to drug addicts. There are tons of programs to help people, but ultimately this is a choice at the individual level. The idea that I should tolerate homeless addicts coming into our community to cause problems isn't going to play well.
 




Brilliant, throw all of the homeless in prison, if they're private prisons, the institutions get paid by the state to keep those beds full. Business is good for the industry and no more unsightly ne'er do wells in public!
Not a bad idea. Most homeless people could become not homeless if they wanted to. It’s that they don’t want to give up drugs or alcohol or have to obey rules of family members in order to move in with them.
 
Sounds like what they need is an investment in mental health and addiction services, not prison.
You can get mental health and addiction care in prison.
 
Where are they supposed to go?
To mandatory treatment or out of that city. If every city aggressively enforced vagrancy laws then that leaves one option.
 
No what they need is affordable housing, not all homeless are mental or drug addicts
I definitely would use drugs if I were homeless under some bridge. I just don't think I could do it sober. It must be soul crushing to be homeless in the richest country on earth
 




Brilliant, throw all of the homeless in prison, if they're private prisons, the institutions get paid by the state to keep those beds full. Business is good for the industry and no more unsightly ne'er do wells in public!
Homelessness is a problem. The answer has never been to let them camp, pollute and harass the people in those areas.
I would hope that they look into and find a better solution than jail, but in the meantime, MOVE THEM.
 
This was always a daft approach. It costs a lot of money to keep people in prison, and in the case of homeless people, we end up with the likelihood of them coming out as hardened criminals with little chance of rehabilitation. That said, leaving them on the streets presents its own set of challenges, and these camps have presented problems for communities in terms of crime and sanitation. I know in the NYC area the homeless preferred the street to the shelter because they often cited as shelters being less safe than the streets.

Folks are shocked that the ‘homeless’ are also (mostly) the ‘jobless’ and the less physically and/or mentally healthy, thus depend on criminal activity to obtain cash to support their personal needs and wants.

The obvious solution is to give the (self-declared?) ‘homeless’ free housing, utilities, cellphones, appliances, transportation, furniture (including TVs and computers with HS internet and WiFi), medical care, mental health care and some (weekly?) cash to support their other miscellaneous needs and wants. That might reduce their crime rate quite a bit, but may well end up being as expensive as incarceration and certainly giving them more than is available to many current McWorkers and retirees (who would then be better off becoming ‘homeless’). Socialism rocks! ;)
 
i will be surprised if TN authorities enforce this law in any significant way

homeless people dissiminate information to each other very quickly and effectively
if there is a good soup kitchen, or giveaway program that serves their population, words about it spreads fast

if a community seeks to house the homeless with free shelter, that word gets out
and that community then becomes a magnet for a sizeable portion of those in need of shelter
there is no way any community can meet the demand
and positive efforts only attract more demand

thus, i suspect this law is a strategic effort of the TN legislature

word will get out that TN is not receptive to the homeless and that cohort will write off TN as a destination

think of this as being the opposite of the buffalo hunt, where communities offer financial incentives for corporations to locate their expanding facility in that community supportive of such growth
Which may be the end goal. IN which case all of the homeless will migrate to the cities which allow them free reign.
 
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