https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2021-04-20/judge-carter-la-city-county-shelter-skid-row-homeless-fall?

Salt Lake already ran that experiment didn't they?
They built tiny houses for the homeless and cleared up Downtown parks of urban campers. Then word got around that SL was buying people free houses and they had a huge influx of homeless and now the homeless problem is worse than it was before.
It's the same here.
We have a whole tent city a bunch of them. If you drive up I-5 through Olympia you can see a small percentage of what you'll see ahead in Tacoma, Kent, Auburn, Renton, Seattle it just gets more and more crowded with homeless camps, the closer you get to the big bucks. Then you get into downtown Seattle and there are 28 construction cranes and Amazon has never been busier. Seattle is bustling. It was that way before the pandemic.
Now the homeless issue is about to confront many, many people, due to the pandemic.
I agree that we need to provide basic human needs, like housing, food and security, if they are incapable of obtaining any of that on their own. Then again, I'm a socialist, who believes we ought to have a basic right to Medicine too, but we're far from that fantasy world, unfortunately.
I wish we were like NZ, which had almost zero problem with Covid. But we're not socialist, so we have a pandemic in the middle of a homeless crisis caused by a whole long string of other crises we're experiencing as a society.
But obviously something is waaaaay out of whack with Billionaires building Space Stations while the rest of us are left down here dealing with Covid, homelessness, lawlessness, violence, racism, polution, poisoning, extinction of other species, how long will it be before we go the way of the dinosaur and get replaced by robots?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2021 04:41PM by schrodingerscat.

> how long will it be before we
> go the way of the dinosaur and
> get replaced by robots?


Is there a prize for the correct answer?

But isn't this really a contest without a prize?

Because the only way to know which entry was correct is to note the date the Earth is hit by a big enough meteorite to wipe out humanity! That is the fate suffered by the dinosaurs, right?

Oh, but wait! Unlike Dinosauria, there is a likelihood that we humans will see our fate coming! We may know the exact date and time of our destruction! So a prize can be awarded!

I bet those last weeks, days and hours are going to be interesting. If it's in the next few years, a lot of people are going to wish they'd listened to the Tesla guy.

And the people up in the Space Lab!! What a view they're going to have! Which would you prefer, dying immediately or dying a lingering space-death?

And once the end of Humanity is realized, it won't matter anymore that you refuse to hit the 'enter' key one extra time so as to create paragraphs. So there's at least one reason to look forward to going the way of the dinosaurs.

And the housing crisis will be over, so add that to the plus side, too!

Seattle and Washington doesn't want the problem to be solved. they just want to spend more money, create more government workers and wring their hands.

The state has a great facility, a former prison, McNeil Island. It can be used to house these people, provide drug and alcohol treatment, teach them life skills and trades.

It's isolated and could managed to keep the patients from relying on their previous life influences.

I agree and I’m a big fan of the idea of using McNeil Island for an actual self sufficient drug rehab facility. It used to be self sufficient. Part of the rehab was having Inmates grow their own food. They did the same thing at Western State mental hospital. Then psychotropic drugs came along and from that point on they let the farms go to seed and relied on drugs to sedate inmates.
Now the streets are our mental hospitals/drug rehab facilities and we pay $30k/yr per sex offender after they serve time, to house them indefinitely on an island in the sea, instead of on our streets.

I'm lobbying my neighbor to take all the homeless people and put them in one of his space colonies. He runs a little space colonization company, in the backyard of my hometown where I grew up. It's just his side job, but he's figuring out a day when 1 trillion people, all of humanity, x's 1,000, will live in self sufficient international space stations, which could produce their own food, climate and water, kind of like a spinning terrarium in space, spinning at just the rights speed and direction to keep it going forever.


You may have heard of him?

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/jeff-bezos-foresees-trillion-people-living-millions-space-colonies-here-ncna1006036

He's the Mr. Rogers* of the 21st Century.
Won't you be my neighbor?

*Richest man in the world, hosts most of the internet, controls the government's drones, has all of your information on file and will soon send drones to your home to deliver packages instead of humans.

And we wonder why some of us opt out?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2021 05:12PM by schrodingerscat.

Homelessness is a symptom of the economy.
You need to talk to former guy about that.

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Homelessness is a symptom of the economy.
> You need to talk to former guy about that.


Homelessness crisis was bad even before 5 years ago. I mean I hate Putin's Puppet as much as the next guy, but we can't start blaming everything on him.
I think it is a symptom of the drug epidemic and mental health crisis we've got going on, and on top of that, now it's people who can't afford rent. Average rent in Seattle is $2,100, which is not affordable on minimum wage or unemployment. A hell of a lot of people are STILL unemployed and can't afford rent. A lot more are behind on rent and will be evicted as soon as this pandemic is over. Probably some people here, part of this community. I care about those people experiencing homelessness, and I think there are models that do work in places around the country, but so far on the West Coast, the problem is just getting worse and the desperation grows more dire every day.
Now there's a solution.
Richest man in the world, gives them a free place to live in outer space on an off earth colony!
Seed your castles in the sky with the ones who we discarded on the side of the road.

Former guy destroyed the economy so talk to him.

The Carter administration had comprehensive mental health reform all worked out, but Ronald Reagan cancelled it. Our streets became the dumping ground for the mentally ill. The police are the orderlies. It’s the most expensive system of mental health care ever devised. Government isn’t the problem, conservatism is the problem.

bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Carter administration had comprehensive mental
> health reform all worked out, but Ronald Reagan
> cancelled it. Our streets became the dumping
> ground for the mentally ill. The police are the
> orderlies. It’s the most expensive system of
> mental health care ever devised. Government
> isn’t the problem, conservatism is the problem.

100% what he said^

I agree DJT (Putins Puppet) was bad (don’t get me started) but he only threw gas on the fire that was already burning before DJT took over as POTUS. Racism isn’t going away and what’s happened is huge job losses for women and minorities. These tent cities are not full of mountain men and loggers, they’re full of kids, women, old people and drugs, rape....the worst kind of violence. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
Downtown is a war zone at times, or has been this last year.
Portland is still a war zone. People are getting shot and killed or have in the past year both leftists and fascists. Then there's the anarchists, which are a pretty huge contingent in cities on the West Coast.
But somehow life goes on, even with raging pandemic, cops killing blacks, mass murder,
extinction, pollution.
Right now it looks like Hunger Games on the streets
Come Summer when the fires rage,
it will probably look more like the 2021 of Mad Max
Or India right now
With funeral pyres burning 24/7
And all of us distracted from the underlying cause of this reality.
5 million Americans skipped their 2nd dose of vaccine.
More than half of White Men say they will refuse vaccine.
We are too stupid to live.
Virus just use that half vaccinated person to adapt to the vaccine. They are smarter than us and they don’t even have brains. Which is why we can’t keep up with the common cold.
We still call 98% of DNA, ‘Junk DNA’
Kind of like calling 96% of space Dark Matter, the biggest fudge factor ever.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2021 04:03PM by schrodingerscat.

The Feds built POW camps in Utah for German ww2 combatants and did everything for them. Consider Indian reservations too. it was felt that Indians couldn’t/didn’t/were prevented from integrating into a capitalist society. For the most part, Indians are wards of the US Govt and are given housing, healthcare/other. The homeless you speak of are mentally ill/addicted/unable to work/other, and can’t cope in a capitalist system. A reservation system should be created for the homeless and in an area far from sources os drugs. Food, housing, Job Retraining and addiction services would be provided. That’s my 2 cents!

Every American should have his/her earnings turned over an appropriate government bureau on the 15th and the end of the month.

Then a week later, after the necessary tabulations are made, every person in America the same amount of money deposited into an account. The amount will be the total of the contributions, less the appropriate taxes, divided by the number of Americans.

So, yes, everybody gets the same income.

The incentive to be a big earner/contributor will be titles of royalty and having 'lesser' people bow or curtsey.



And there would still be homeless!! But they'd eat better.

Geeze. They want butter, EOD, not better.

Hey! Where’s the curtsy!

No one wants curdsy milk either, you dolt!

What's your problem with dairy products?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2021 06:17PM by Lot's Wife.

I’m whey in over my head!

You have udderly vanquished me.

I do!

I hereby vanquish you to the bovine barrio until you find God and are divinely permitted to return to the land of soy milk and artificial sweeteners.

You want to provide housing for the poor and the bums - YOU Pay for it.

It is not our responsibility. Let people like you and the churches do it.

We already pay way too much in welfare, health care and such to deadbeats and bums.

As a critic of welfare, healthcare, and other forms of official support that are not funded by the recipient, I trust you do not take your mortgage deduction and intend to forego both Medicare and Social Security. Right? Because those are largely unfunded governmental largess.

Or is your view that socialist subsidies are okay for the middle class but not for the poor?

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As a critic of welfare, healthcare, and other
> forms of official support that are not funded by
> the recipient, I trust you do not take your
> mortgage deduction and intend to forego both
> Medicare and Social Security. Right? Because
> those are largely unfunded governmental largess.
>
> Or is your view that socialist subsidies are okay
> for the middle class but not for the poor?

I wonder why they deducted money from my paycheck for Social Security and Medicare and my employer was obligated to remit funds for the same.

Weird.

Largesse is not what I thought it was.

It's not so weird if one is capable of basic arithmetic. For a system to be fair, the amount of money paid into it must cover the payments made out of it.

Are you with me so far?

By contrast, if it pays out--or will pay out--more than it collects, then it is a transfer payment. From whom? From future taxpayers.

Now that we have those basic mathematical facts in mind, what is the state of the social security system? In 2019 the unfunded liabilities in the system rose by $9 trillion. The total unfunded debt in the system in that year was $43 trillion and, given the impending retirement of the Baby Boomers, is going to continue rising at roughly $10 trillion a year for a couple of decades.

What that means is that people receiving social security now and for a long time into the future, are getting something they never paid for. And yes, that includes you.

Weird, huh?

Considering the small detail that there are quite a few contributors that will never collect the money they put in due to their early demise, I imagine the word “largesse” is not the correct description.

Rumor has it that there has been some ‘borrowing’ of Social Security funds by the government. This could be a reason for your math inequity.

Yep.

Weird.

Fascinating.

Actuaries--you can look that word up--know how to include those who die prematurely in their calculations of future trends. Amazing, I know, but it does explain how the insurance industry manages to exist.

As for borrowing from the funds, anyone with a basic understanding of finance would realize that those loans are considered assets on the social security balance sheet and hence don't create unfunded liabilities. So no, neither premature deaths nor the loans to the general budget will get the country out of its fiscal hole.

Maybe this picture will be easier to understand:

http://fiscalsolvency.com/images/$50%20Trillion%20in%20Liabilities_copy(2).png

Or this:

https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/cbo-report-echoes-trustees-medicare-social-security

Or this:

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/443465-social-security-just-ran-a-9-trillion-deficit-and-nobody-noticed

As you can see, you are not paying anywhere near what you drink from the government teat.

But hey, if you want to believe you are not living off your grandchildren, you can always convince yourself that Jesus is coming in a few years and the debts will be destroyed when the world is transformed into a flaming glass Urim and Thummim. It's a free lunch: you can take from the country anything you want because it's all pretend money anyway.

Or you can be honest.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2021 01:15AM by Lot's Wife.

So, the government just has money. It is not collected via taxation of the average citizen. The various excise tax, property tax, sales tax, inheritance tax, fees, permits, business licences, etc, etc. removed from our pockets is not enough. There is money made somewhere, though that the government has for us.

It's just there waiting for them to dole it out to me as they see fit and I need to kneel before the government and thank them for their "largesse".

Got it.

PS-If I recall correctly, the government did not give me a choice in participating in their Social Security or Medicare programs. The money was deducted from my pay-no questions asked. They used that money while it was in their pocket to their ends, for good or for bad. It was more useful to them to have it in their hands rather than allowing me to save for my eventual retirement and medical needs on my own.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2021 12:53PM by csuprovograd.

I'm a little surprised this is new to you. Everyone knows what's going on.

csuprovograd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So, the government just has money. It is not
> collected via taxation of the average citizen.

Have you ever had a mortgage? An educational debt? A credit card? In all those cases you create and spend money that you do not have. Sure, you promise to pay it back but often people fail to fulfill that promise and go bankrupt. It is exactly the same with governments, which routinely borrow and spend on the strength of future promises that may or may not be honored.


---------------------
> The
> various excise tax, property tax, sales tax,
> inheritance tax, fees, permits, business licences,
> etc, etc. removed from our pockets is not enough.

Yep. Voters elect representatives who cut taxes and increase promises and the system runs on credit until default becomes inevitable. The annual shortfall, which is bridged with debt, is the sum of the budget deficit and the increased shortfall in the entitlement accounts. All that information is available; it has always been available. No one is hiding the ball.

Vote for a politician who cuts taxes dramatically on the promise of magical trickles down, a la Reagan, and the gap gets larger. Give two trillion to billionaires a la the Former Joker, and the debt grows still larger. Conversely try to cut the deficit like George W Bush or Bill Clinton, and you get railroaded out of town because what Americans want is money now and the future be damned.


----------------
> There is money made somewhere, though that the
> government has for us.

Yep. Just like when you borrow from a bank, so too the government borrows through treasury markets. Is that "money made somewhere?" No, it's credit. Credit is spending today money that you hope will one day be available. The government works just like you, just like your mortgage or your car loan.

Is that really a surprise?


------------------
> It's just there waiting for them to dole it out to
> me as they see fit

No, the government doles it out as you and all voters see fit. You have already received that dole in subsidized help buying your home, in student aid, in government services that were financed with debt, in national defense. The point is the government has done as the electorate demanded because that's what government is: the collective will of the US population.


---------------
> and I need to kneel before the
> government and thank them for their "largesse".

Nope. The usual attitude is to take all the money--not from the government, which is us and our demands, but from future taxpayers, most of whom are not alive yet. But no, you needn't kneel and thank anyone for the money you have already taken as if you earned it. The American Way is to rob future generations and then demand them to thank us for our wisdom. No kneeling must occur.


--------------------
> Got it.

One would hope so.


----------------
> PS-If I recall correctly, the government did not
> give me a choice in participating in their Social
> Security or Medicare programs.

You never voted to fund those programs fully, did you. Name when you voted to hike taxes by 10% of GDP as a downpayment for your own entitlements.


--------------------
> The money was
> deducted from my pay-no questions asked. They used
> that money while it was in their pocket to their
> ends, for good or for bad. It was more useful to
> them to have it in their hands rather than
> allowing me to save for my eventual retirement and
> medical needs on my own.

That is an amusing anecdote. You are a member of the collective; you are a citizen. Votes represent the sum total of people's demands of the government. No administration ever decided it was better for them to hold the money than you. What happened was that voters demanded the money and refused to finance it. That was the only alternative. There was never any money for you to hold in your hands. The only way you, or anyone, could get it was by demanding that the government gave it to you and figured out how to finance it by itself.

Put simply, if the government hadn't given you the mortgage deduction, medicare, and social security, you would never have got it because no bank would have lent you that unsecured money. You wanted the healthcare, so you demanded it and financing be damned. If you or anyone felt an obligation to pay for what you demanded, you would never have cast a vote for a president who intended dramatically to expand the budget deficit.

Ever vote for Reagan? For Trump? If so, please don't complain about government deficits.

I imagine downtown LA is going to turn into a urban Burning Man this summer. Everybody from all over the country is going to go to live in LA in free housing! Fuck Yeah 'Merica!
We're #1! at pandemic deaths!

A prequel to Escape from LA? I love it! Can they bring back ‘Map of the stars’ Eddie and the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills?

JoeSmith666 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You want to provide housing for the poor and the
> bums - YOU Pay for it.
>
> It is not our responsibility. Let people like you
> and the churches do it.
>
> We already pay way too much in welfare, health
> care and such to deadbeats and bums.

You're not going to have a choice. The judge orders a city to do it, they do it and raise property taxes and sales taxes to pay for it.

Silly you!

A judge doesn't get the final say, does he. The city will appeal, and then if necessary appeal again, and lo and behold it's 2022 before it even gets decided.

But hey, if you want to freak out about this summer, let your freak flag fly!

In what kind of legal system does a judge get to direct a city to build housing for the homeless? Presumably this is some sort of interpretation or confirmation of an existing legislated requirement on the city?

https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/47/f7/c117263f4f03b6be5f1b5bef207d/injuction.pdf

See beginning on page 67 and particularly on pages 86 and following

On page 86:

"The California Welfare and Institutions Code provides as follows:Every county and every city and county shall relieve and support all incompetent, poor, indigent persons, and those incapacitated by age, disease, or accident, lawfully resident therein, when such persons are not supported and relieved by their relatives or friends, by their own means, or by state hospitals or other state or private institutions
Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 17000 (West 2020)"

Following this judge explains how in his opinion this requires LA to provide shelter for the homeless.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Silly you!
>
> A judge doesn't get the final say, does he. The
> city will appeal, and then if necessary appeal
> again, and lo and behold it's 2022 before it even
> gets decided.
>
> But hey, if you want to freak out about this
> summer, let your freak flag fly!

Apparently you are not familiar with the Mayor and City Council of Los Angeles.

The City will accept the task, after a half-hearted ‘protestation’.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2021 12:43AM by csuprovograd.

csuprovo, you should reread my post. You did not understand it.

So every homeless person is a deadbeat and a bum ?

I don't think a person has to be a socialist, to believe that the homeless should be helped out of their homelessness condition and in to being productive to the level of their abilities. The various levels of government should find ways to fund that process.

Right now, the the country has a shortage of housing. At the same time, we have an over-abundance of people needing a place to live. For several years, the greater Phoenix Arizona economy consisted mainly of Jobs that either directly involved home building or that served those that built the new homes. Growth itself fueled the economy. When you bring that home building to a sudden stop, you get what we have now. This is caused by mis-management, not by real shortages of resources. It's like an entire airline stopping all operations because someone forgot to buy the paper that the passenger's tickets are printed on (pre e-ticket days).

The homelessness now is probably the worst it's been since the Great Depression. We can watch old black and white newsreels of large amounts of nutritious food being dumped out in to fields while people were starving then.

The Soviet Union and China both have histories of intentionally starving large populations to gain political control in the name of socialism. Killing oil drilling jobs and ramping-up environmentalism aren't necessarily bad things. But where is the transition plan that has gained wide public acceptance and that is being executed right now? The people on Wallstreet that some people seem to despise are doing very well now for the most part. Average people working average jobs are the ones being hurt right now. If we're not going to make America great again, if we hate the concept of making America great again, it's working. Capitalism has not harmed us. The mis-management of resources and perhaps the abandonment of Capitalism is killing us.

OPie back posting ~



click bait trick ass click bait threds ~



do better OPie ~

Nobody has a gun to your head forcing you to click do they?
So take your own advice and do better.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2021 07:31PM by schrodingerscat.

See? How hard was that!? Way to go! It’s like you learned something! Bravo!

Although to be fair, asking Exmos for input/opinions on a problem the city of Long Angeles has with a federal judge does beg the question, regarding our role in the matter.

It’s a weird case. The judge says the city wasted time trying to find a solution that was a permanent fix. He opines that they should have looked for immediate, albeit, temporary solutions, and gave them the deadlines that he did.

The city has posted notice of their intent to appeal his ruling.



Did you know that the city of Beverly Hills does not have a homeless population?

I worked in BH for a few years. There are homeless people in various canyon locations within the city limits. They aren’t tenting on Rodeo Dr., however.

Is it fair to say that Beverly Hills does not have a 'visible' homeless people problem?




https://www.quora.com/Are-there-really-homeless-encampments-in-Beverly-Hills-California



Fascinating little read here: https://beverlypress.com/2020/01/beverly-hills-completes-2020-homeless-count/

17 homeless were counted in January of 2020, up one from the previous year. The article goes on to praise (themselves) for being so focused on helping these homeless individuals. But I'm still cynical enough to consider that most of the work in keeping Beverly Hills pristine is done by the B.H.P.D.

And no, I have no solutions for the problems of the homeless, and yes, NIMBY, please.

I believe each location, city or county, should give a strong preference to ppl born there for gov't housing.

- That would provide for more orderly selection


- that would tend to discourage opportunists from moving to a city with ability / opportunity.


'"Charity begins at home"

GNPE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I believe each location, city or county, should
> give a strong preference to ppl born there for
> gov't housing.
>
> - That would provide for more orderly selection
>
>
> - that would tend to discourage opportunists from
> moving to a city with ability / opportunity.
>
>
> '"Charity begins at home"

So are we saying that people from other US states shouldn't be able to move in to the city because of the magnet of free housing is not a valid reason to migrate to a new location with more free resources available to the poor?

Does this same reasoning apply to people moving in from South of the US border also? If not, why not?

Where is the compassion? Be careful, if you answer incorrectly there are people here who will call you a racist. But I think you'll probably get a pass if you only discriminate against American citizens.

No offense. I am just trying to understand the thinking on this one.

Your asking the question is not racist. Your assumption that the only freeloaders would come from south of the US is.

I view immigration issues as different than housing selection.

Aren't we all 'one people'?

Mormons, at least to me, are a nomadic people, that seems to be at least a potential conflict with family continuity, family support which I believe are important to society as a whole.


btw, 'if' we welcome only the most skilled, most able, most intelligent people here from other countries... That leaves their home country without the skills to develop & apply at their birth countries, I view that as not helpful in the long run.

for myself: I guess that admitting low-skill workers
(agricultural & others) for limited times is 'good' for all.

people who commit Serious or continuing criminal activities should not be allowed to be in the U.S. including DUI/DWI, drug offenses other than MJ (serious), ANY crime against another person, robbery (serious) or burglary.

(limited accounting & gov't knowledge)

the legislative bodies set tax rates & applications, not the courts.

Only a criminal or foolish treasurer would process payments not based on agreed budget items.

when the well runs dry, there's no more water available!

From SC's original post:

"Salt Lake already ran that experiment didn't they?
They built tiny houses for the homeless and cleared up Downtown parks of urban campers. Then word got around that SL was buying people free houses and they had a huge influx of homeless and now the homeless problem is worse than it was before."

What this quote suggests to me is that the homeless problem is much bigger than most people realize. And I conjecture that it is going to get bigger still, especially if more jobs, especially low-wage jobs, are automated, which is something I think is going to be likely, especially in the long term.

Personally, I like some of the reports I've read and heard about Stockton, California, and its guarantee of a minimum income for its poorest citizens, regardless of whether or not they are working. NPR has reported that early results of this policy have really assisted the people being targeted to lead "more productive" lives and plan for their own futures.

The logic in this post is compelling.

1) Homelessness is a bad thing.

2) Welfare is limited in scale, too temporary to affect long-term behavior, and economically destructive.

3) Homelessness will get worse because IT is designed to replace workers, primarily low-skilled but increasingly middle class as well.

4) The cost-effective solution that does not distort incentives is Milton Friedman's universal basic income.

Experiments like Stockton CA's are potentially very important.

I read it as humans having a natural tendency to be productive members of society. If they have basic security, they provide intangibles that reduce the burdens that otherwise plague the hard producers.

I've also wanted to follow up on our discussion about the ADA and its fate. blindguy may well know this already, but there's a woman named Haben Girma who was born in Eritrea during the civil war and was brought by her parents to the States as a refugee.

She's blind and deaf but has graduated from Harvard Law and works as an advocate for those with disabilities. She has contested a few suits compelling universities and other places to make minor accommodations like producing dining hall menus in formats that blind people can read.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyHUBrHPliQ

It's quite a story, indicating among other things what is lost to the economy and society when people are written off because of disabilities. In my estimation the ADA is one of the most important things Bob Dole shepherded through the senate over the course of his career.

"Salt Lake already ran that experiment didn't they?
They built tiny houses for the homeless and cleared up Downtown parks of urban campers. Then word got around that SL was buying people free houses and they had a huge influx of homeless and now the homeless problem is worse than it was before."

SC asks a question, and then answers it himself. He answered it incorrectly, which is really pretty poor, since he got to pick the question.

No, SLC has not built tiny houses for the homeless, though there is some talk about considering tiny one room apartments. That is just at the spitballing stage so far.

What was done is several (5?) resource centers were built around the valley to disburse the homeless population and work with separate groups (women, families, younger, older, health problems, etc) and to not overwhelm surrounding neighborhoods.

But SC never lets reality stand in the way of a good story.

[bringing this on topic]

Or they could simply follow the One True Church's example and plunk down a couple billion on a shopping mall. So inspired.

Follow the prophet, everyone! He knows the way!

the one thing that judges can't do is create funds, the legislative bodies must make decisions about revenue & expenses.

Judges can rule on financial matters, perhaps even order the expenditure of $$$, but the legislative body (state or local) still calls the $ allotments.

the whole legislature or city/county council in jail?
I don't think so.

'PUSH' sometimes comes to 'SHOVE'!

Not true. Courts can order the other branches to spend money until the fault is corrected.

I think my post, following, illustrates your point.

See, for example, Gannon vs. Kansas

the treasurer can only disburse funds that the legislative body & the executive have agreed to spend.

To vary from that plan would 'never' be forced on them, the state wouldn't allow it.

Courts can force changes in spending priorities, regardless of what legislatures want if the current priorities violate state or federal law or their respective constitutions. This has happened in the past in my home state of Arizona with regard to educational spending.

blindguy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Courts can force changes in spending priorities,
> regardless of what legislatures want if the
> current priorities violate state or federal law or
> their respective constitutions. This has happened
> in the past in my home state of Arizona with
> regard to educational spending.
Same happened here in WA, schools were ordered to improve test scores. If they didn’t, they had their funding yanked.

It was a Federal District judge who ordered Boston to desegregate the city school system, which the city School Committee had been mishandling for years--sort of like LA and its situation. The school system had been procrastinating integration for years (maybe decades), directing resources to white neighborhoods--and schools. Racism and city politics feeding off each other.

Finally Judge Garrity had had enough, and ordered the city to bus students all over the place. Children were spending up to an hour on their bus routes. And the violence! there were riots, attacks on buses, marches, you name it. The situation was an ugly mess, all avoidable had the city officials addressed it with a careful, piecemeal approach.

The crisis fed substantial "white flight" to the suburbs, plus growth in parochial (Catholic--Irish city, you know) and new "academies." Boston public education still sucks, even more.

Old school busing joke:
"Did you hear about Mickey? He went to an anti-busing demonstration, had to go to the hospital."
"What, somebody punch him out?"
"No, he tried to blow up a school bus, and burned his lips on the tailpipe."

My point: Let politicians avoid dealing with a growing problem (ideology, political scheming, crony "service providers," NIMBY-ism, funding issues, etc.) and what happens is somebody else will "fix" the problem for you, and probably make things worse.

Housing is expensive; private landlords don't like to loose (good) tenants to subsidized housing.


Money doesn't grow on trees, it starts with someone being productive by either labor or wise investing, NOT with court orders!

I was on a Habitat board in KING county, as a contractor, that was satisfying experience.


where I live now, I just saw a buildable lot advertised for $245K! I didn't check the details, but most lots here need septic systems (up to $100k!) and sometimes extensions of utilities (more $).

IOW, there's a limit on how much subsidized housing will be available & who will qualify for it.