“No one wakes up and chooses homelessness”
But then there’s this guy, first person arrested under the new ordinance:
"Both police and city outreach workers had spoken with Macdonald “several times” prior, PPB said, and he refused to accept shelter or any other services.
On Friday, Macdonald was given a last chance to seek shelter, including access to a tiny home, police said.
“Macdonald was told his options would be to accept services or he’d be arrested,” PPB said. “Macdonald stated he would rather be arrested than go to the tiny home.”"
“Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office refused to book him.”
This dude would rather live in squalor on the public streets than accept assistance which has been offered multiple times.
Now, if we were only talking one guy, sure, not a problem. Keep an eye on him and arrest him when he inevitably commits some other crime. But there are upwards of 6,000 homeless in the Portland area and it’s having a major impact on their health, the environment, and the overall livability of the city.
Often times when the police say ‘refused shelter services’, this can mean one of the following:
The shelters they referred him to are already full, or he has already been deemed ineligible for them (are you a homeless single cis white man? good fucking luck, on the west coast most shelters prioritize women, families, non white ethnicity and non cis people) or he has been at them for their maximum allowable time and he now either cannot come back or must wait some period of time before he can attempt to apply to them again.
Or
The shelters he was referred to are unsafe, unclean, filled with violent drug addicts who will assault you and steal your phone or paperwork (documentation and identity verification is almost always required for most shelters), as well as your other belongings.
Or
The shelters are themselves staffed by people who are rude/abusive/incompetent, who either restrict access to your documents and belongings or just outright steal them (and then either steal your identity or sell your info to someone else who does that).
…
Reasons like these are why some people would rather be arrested than go to a dysfunctional shelter: jail is actually safer.
That or the cops just say ‘well we gave him a shelter number, we have no clue if its full or won’t accept him, not our department’
Tiny home communities are often little better than just straight up homeless encampments: You get a box with a tiny bed, probably no running water, no laundry, electricity is a loud diesel generator, you have times you are and are not allowed to enter and leave… etc.
Its basically a concentration camp, set up on a parking lot.
Source: Me, I used to be a data analyst for a large nonprofit assisting the homeless in Seattle, then a series of crimes reduced me to homelessness.
In the case of Portland’s tiny homes, the units look to be spartan but much better than a tent. They provide a locked door, heating/AC, grid electricity, showers, shared kitchenettes, laundry, nearby transit, and various social and medical services. Of course, I’m going off a web site, so I could always be getting a rosier picture than reality.
In this case, he was offered assisted services no less than four times including placement in a Tiny House and he refused each and every time.
The Tiny Home stuff has been working, he didn’t want it.
“Of the people who left the Safe Rest Village program between July 2022 and March 2023, 53% moved into permanent or temporary housing.”
I get your frustration. “Why won’t they accept our help dammit” is a common refrain. But it’s one that assumes that (a) homelessness is a simple matter of not being housed and (b) housed people understand the appropriate solutions. In fact not being housed is mostly a symptom and the issues at play are much more complex, ranging from lack of opportunity and generational poverty to substance and mental health issues.
And it’s also a cause… of shame, guilt, more mental health issues, more substance abuse. Often these mix in with the preconditions that come with offers of “help” to make it impossible to say yes.
I have refused housing because I didn’t think I could live up to the obligations it came with. I’ve refused housing because it was clearly unsafe. And I’ve refused housing simply because I was suffering from severe untreated depression and couldn’t handle being around people or even just accepting help.
So the truth is that yes, no one wakes up and chooses homelessness… but it’s important to understand that the lack of housing is only one component of homelessness. I didn’t choose to be born trans & gay and have to deal with all the mental health and societal issues that came with that. But I choose to not being housed at times because that was the only way I could even attempt to heal and deal with it safely and on my terms.
But I choose to not being housed at times because that was the only way I could even attempt to heal and deal with it safely and on my terms.
Yes. For example, I’ve known people who refused to be housed because they had experience of that type / area of housing, and had been very unsafe.
You might want to clear me off the street so bad you’ll put me literally anywhere. But I don’t want to be attacked just to make you feel better.
I’m more interested in the argument behind these links. You are for the supreme courts decision?
Most people look at the ruling and go “Hurr durr, Supreme court makes it illegal to be homeless” and that’s not what it’s about.
What Grants Pass wanted to do, and Oregon at large, really, also wants, is the ability to arrest people who are refusing help. The “Chronic Homeless”.
Most homeless people are BEGGING for help and eagerly accept it when offered. What this ruling is seeking to deal with are the inveterate homeless.
You’re homeless and your intent is to drag down the community you’re camped in? Yeah, fuck you. You don’t have the right to do drugs, throw around trash, and make other citizens unsafe.
Oregon is going to start getting better next month when drugs are re-legalized. No more fentanyl folding in public.
You’re homeless and your intent is to drag down the community you’re camped in?
And where is the evidence this is a widespread problem? Wouldn’t it be easier to simply criminalize whatever else these homeless do and not just sleeping outside?
You argument is exactly that of the wife beater beating the wife for making him hurt her… You argue we should not criminalize the beating, but the wife causing it
But the law criminalizes sleeping in the streets not arresting people for refusing help.
The law as it’s written must be discussed, and it’s not my opinion that the law criminalizes sleeping, it’s sotomayor’s.
I would like you to come around to understanding the fact that this decision doesn’t do only what you want it to do, what you hope it will do. The power they have, as it is written gives the government the power to scoop all the homeless into the penal system. All that’s left is to trust they’ll use this power for the common good, and the belief that it will never happen to you.
No one wakes up and chooses not having empathy for other living beings.
Or do they?
Empathy means wanting to get people the help they need, even when they wrongly assert they don’t need it.
Macdonald was told his options would be to accept services or he’d be arrested," PPB said. “Macdonald stated he would rather be arrested than go to the tiny home.”
Some people prefer freedom.
The freedom to live in a tent and shit into the sewer system that feeds the water supply is the same level of freedom that gives me a right to kill people without repercussions. Sometimes limitations on “freedoms” are acceptable because society has a structure. They can choose to live outside of that society, but they clearly enjoy living in places like LA… so they have a choice. Either accept somewhere to live and get out of the streets, or leave society as a whole.
You don’t even seem to have a basic understanding of how city water supplies work. No amount of people shitting in the woods makes your drinking water contaminated; where the fuck do you think animals shit?
Edit: there are absolutely public health concerns to be made about human shit being around where people do things, especially non porous surfaces which don’t offer opportunities for decomposition. But that’s a problem to be solved with better public restroom coverage, even housed people will pee/shit in public when there isn’t a restroom available
For the record, Portland’s water supply comes from the Bull Run Watershed. The sewer system is a combined sewer system, so if someone does poop down a storm sewer inlet, it goes to the same water treatment system as everyone else’s poop.
That said, people pooping on the sidewalk is a legit problem. I’ve had to report a couple of poops that were pretty clearly human.
