Seattle to fence out homeless

[SunsetBengal]

That's right, one of the most Liberal, people loving cities in America plans to fence out thousands of homeless people from their encampments.


http://themindunleashed.com/2017/11/seattle-plans-to-erect-miles-of-razor-topped-fencing-to-prevent-homeless.html

Quote:Seattle, the city with the dubious distinction of the nation’s third largest population of homeless people, plans to fight that fire of a crisis with gasoline, allotting more than $1.1 million — not toward services, shelters, and programs to help people find shelter — but to erect miles of razor-topped fencing to block underpasses, highway access, and other areas commonly used as transitory encampments.
“It’s a statewide issue,” Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) spokesman, Travis Phelps, told the Seattle Times of sizable camps which often return as soon as police perform one of the highly contentious ‘sweeps’ — wherein police force campers out and throw away all their belongings — purported to be for public safety. “We’re going to be collaborating with cities and other jurisdictions, to make sure that folks who are experiencing homelessness and other issues are not camping underneath highways and other spots, and putting themselves at risk.”

Here's how it's portrayed in the City's newspaper.

https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/closing-the-jungle-homeless-camp-begins-with-fencing-it/

Quote:THE lawless, fetid homeless camp known as The Jungle, along the western slope of Seattle’s Beacon Hill, has conditions you would expect in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, or Nairobi, Kenya.

More than 750 emergency calls, including 250 reporting fires, originated from the greenbelt along and under Interstate 5 over the past five years. Law enforcement says assaults, overdoses and rapes are routine — police responded to 17 violent incidents just last year, although most went unreported. Human waste flows from open latrines.

The recent killing of two homeless people and the wounding of three more awakened the public to the danger and immorality of allowing such a camp to fester right in the middle of this affluent city, as it has for decades.

How do some on the Seattle City Council respond to this awakening? By blasting a prudent response — to clean up and fence off the greenbelt — with a flat “no” and making an absurd analogy to America’s incendiary immigration debate.
“We shouldn’t be building a fence on the southern border and we shouldn’t be building a fence on the I-5 corridor,” said Councilmember Lorena González. Councilmembers Sally Bagshaw, Debora Juarez and Kshama Sawant joined the fray, alternately describing fencing of The Jungle as insane and a waste of money.
Seattle deserves better from its leadership. The humane response to The Jungle is to offer its squatters a wide-open exit door to shelter and human services. The city and All Home King County do deserve criticism for shelter options that don’t appeal to Jungle campers, including homeless couples, or those with dogs. Meeting those needs remains a work in progress.

[fredtoast]

The problem is that homeless shelters do not allow drugs and alcohol, and many homelss people have drug/alcohol problems.

No matter how many homeless shelters you have there will always be a certain group that will stay somewhere else. And that creates a public health and safety problem.

[SunsetBengal]

(02-07-2018, 11:21 PM)fredtoast Wrote: The problem is that homeless shelters do not allow drugs and alcohol, and many homelss people have drug/alcohol problems.

No matter how many homeless shelters you have there will always be a certain group that will stay somewhere else.  And that creates a public health and safety problem.

Yes, I understand all of that.  However, I find it just a bit hypocritical that in one of the most inclusive cities in America, they're going to fence the homeless out of their regular digs.

They're by and large against a wall on the Southern border, yet they want to "wall" off the homeless in their own city.  You don't find the slightest bit of humor or irony in that?

[fredtoast]

(02-07-2018, 11:38 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: They're by and large against a wall on the Southern border, yet they want to "wall" off the homeless in their own city.  You don't find the slightest bit of humor or irony in that?

No, because they have nothing to do with each other.

Lots of people who are in favor of a wall on the Mexican border would be opposed to a wall around their own prpperty.  Are those people also hypocrits?

[SunsetBengal]

(02-07-2018, 11:46 PM)fredtoast Wrote: No, because they have nothing to do with each other.

Lots of people who are in favor of a wall on the Mexican border would be opposed to a wall around their own prpperty.  Are those people also hypocrits?

On the first, I guess that is your opinion.  I found it quite ironic.

To the second, that is an individual choice.  I really don't think that your logic is applicable in this instance.  Just seems "faulty" in nature.

[Belsnickel]

(02-07-2018, 11:38 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Yes, I understand all of that.  However, I find it just a bit hypocritical that in one of the most inclusive cities in America, they're going to fence the homeless out of their regular digs.

They're by and large against a wall on the Southern border, yet they want to "wall" off the homeless in their own city.  You don't find the slightest bit of humor or irony in that?

Yeah, if you think that Seattle is very inclusive you are fooling yourself. The Pacific Northwest is more liberal than many places in this country in several ways, but they are more centrist than you may realize and have to deal with issues in a pragmatic way, just like everyone else.

This is one of the reasons that I focus much more on state and local politics in my real life. We don't have the benefit of enjoying an ideological hard line. We need to get shit done, and compromise, pragmatism, and evidence based policy are much more common.

[BmorePat87]

Sounds like this is a pretty major problem and uses a lot of resources in the city. I don't see an issue with this. They're fencing off underpasses and other areas where only city and state workers should be accessing. They're not fencing people out of the city.

The homeless problem in this country is also a mental health and substance abuse problem whose solution needs to be a nationwide focus.

[Johnny Cupcakes]

(02-07-2018, 11:38 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Yes, I understand all of that.  However, I find it just a bit hypocritical that in one of the most inclusive cities in America, they're going to fence the homeless out of their regular digs.

They're by and large against a wall on the Southern border, yet they want to "wall" off the homeless in their own city.  You don't find the slightest bit of humor or irony in that?

So are you for this or against it?

[SunsetBengal]

(02-08-2018, 12:18 PM)Johnny Cupcakes Wrote: So are you for this or against it?

On a serious level?  I support their efforts, other cities would benefit by following suit.

While I truly feel compassion toward the mentally ill, and feel like more should be done to protect them from themselves and society from them.  I also feel like they do not make up the Lion's share of the homeless population.  The addicts, derelicts, and fugitives from justice, I really have a lack of compassion for in general.  And, don't get me started on the phony homeless, the ones that do it as a job.  They are the worst.


On a lighthearted level, I just find humor in the irony that a Liberal Mecca like Seattle is combatting their homeless problems by fencing them out of where they like to live.

[treee]

(02-08-2018, 07:02 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: On a serious level?  I support their efforts, other cities would benefit by following suit.

While I truly feel compassion toward the mentally ill, and feel like more should be done to protect them from themselves and society from them.  I also feel like they do not make up the Lion's share of the homeless population.  The addicts, derelicts, and fugitives from justice, I really have a lack of compassion for in general.  And, don't get me started on the phony homeless, the ones that do it as a job.  They are the worst.


On a lighthearted level, I just find humor in the irony that a Liberal Mecca like Seattle is combatting their homeless problems by fencing them out of where they like to live.

Addiction is a mental illness in itself, imo.

[NATI BENGALS]

(02-08-2018, 07:02 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: On a serious level?  I support their efforts, other cities would benefit by following suit.

While I truly feel compassion toward the mentally ill, and feel like more should be done to protect them from themselves and society from them.  I also feel like they do not make up the Lion's share of the homeless population.  The addicts, derelicts, and fugitives from justice, I really have a lack of compassion for in general.  And, don't get me started on the phony homeless, the ones that do it as a job.  They are the worst.


On a lighthearted level, I just find humor in the irony that a Liberal Mecca like Seattle is combatting their homeless problems by fencing them out of where they like to live.

Crazy there is people committing crimes and they are not even immigrants and a local government is looking for solutions. Wild.

[*bfine32*]

(02-08-2018, 11:01 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Sounds like this is a pretty major problem and uses a lot of resources in the city. I don't see an issue with this. They're fencing off underpasses and other areas where only city and state workers should be accessing. They're not fencing people out of the city.

The homeless problem in this country is also a mental health and substance abuse problem whose solution needs to be a nationwide focus.

But can't they just tunnel under the fences or get ladders and climb over them?

[BmorePat87]

(02-08-2018, 07:46 PM)bfine32 Wrote: But can't they just tunnel under the fences or get ladders and climb over them?

I imagine most of them are concrete structures that prevent tunneling under, but ladders could work well

But given that these are simply underpasses around the city and not something like a 2,000 mile stretch of land, it should be easy for them to patrol them and find anyone who does hop over, especially since they'll be stuck in there. 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I read the title and immediately thought that the State of Washington and Seattle in particular was going to kidnap the homeless and sell them into slavery. You know the whole "Fence" part?

Anyway, who cares anymore about anything that goes on in this country?

According to whichever side you belong, the other is evil so it does not matter.

Do I agree with what the city is doing? No but no matter what, one side will like it while the other demonizes it simply because of that little letter in parenthesis at the end of their name.