Summary
Transcript
Course, Supreme Court. So I got to talk about this. We just going to go over this really quickly. It’s just going to take ten minutes in order for us to cover this. The Supreme Court is addressing an issue of homelessness. So long story short, they’re trying to, or what people are basically saying is that the Supreme Court is ultimately criminalizing homelessness by fining homeless people or finding people that set up camp in publicly owned spaces.
All right, so take a look. I just want to keep y’all up to date on what’s going on out here in these streets. Sir James Brown, I’m definitely going to be reading that super chat shortly. I love you all. I appreciate y’all make sure y’all tap into the Patreon link is in the description as well as pins at the top of the chat this morning, the Supreme Court appears open to allowing cities and towns to criminally punish homeless people.
At issue, whether governments can ticket fine or possibly jail homeless people who sleep outside in public areas. Opponents argue that violates the 8th Amendment, which prohibits criminal, cruel, and unusual punishment. Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioning that claim. So it would not violate the 8th amendment to punish public urination and defecation. The case stems from the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, which has banned anyone who sleeps in public from using a blanket, pillow, or cardboard box think that it is harmful for people to be living in public spaces, on streets and in parks, whatever bedding materials, when humans are living in those conditions.
We think that that’s not compassionate. The case has nationwide implications amid the expanding problem of homelessness and public safety concerns. While many justices appeared sympathetic to the city, others pointed out the need for homeless people to sleep somewhere. It’s sort of like breathing. I mean, you could say breathing is conduct, too, but presumably you would not think that it’s okay to criminalize breathing in public. I would like to point to the federal regulation.
For a homeless person who has no place to go, sleeping in public is kind of like breathing in public. One question that justices will need to decide is whether homelessness is someone’s status or their conduct. Their ruling is expected in June. So this is going to be become a lot more complicated, I believe, over a period of time. And it does. It is a difficult issue to tackle.
I will say that in my personal opinion, I think that criminalizing homelessness or the Supreme Court, more importantly, taking up the issue of homelessness is a very, very difficult thing to tackle, especially when we consider what we seen yesterday on a 405 freeway. Or is it the 405? I don’t remember what the name of the freeway is over in Los Angeles the other day in which they basically built the house on the freeway.
Now, a lot of people will say, oh, oh, my God, that’s so bad. They can’t build a house on the freeway. They still own electricity, so on and so forth. And they built a whole residence over there. Right. But then at the same time, that would affect what was going on there, because it’s setting a precedent of what criminalizing homelessness looks like. On one hand, you can say, well, you don’t want to remove the person’s ability to be able to find some kind of shelter or sleep.
Absolutely. I 100% agree with that. On the other hand, it’s a lot of tense cities. It’s a lot of defecating. It’s a lot of taking over public spaces. We see what’s happening in Oakland and in California, San Francisco, and all across the board. And so my question is not necessarily whether or not we criminalize it, but how do you solve for the problem, especially when we consider that so many resources has been spent on from California? Specifically, they say that California, over the last few years, have spent over $28 billion on homelessness.
I ain’t seen it. Cause I’ve been paying attention, and I’ve been watching, and I’ve been, and I’ve been really observing, how do you solve for a homelessness crisis in a space where inflation is out of control? People are embracing van life, and more people than ever before are becoming homeless every single day. And we got a migrant crisis in which our borders are open, and we spending resources on that, too.
Let me give it to you from a different perspective. United States Supreme Court heard arguments today about whether city laws criminalizing the homeless for camping on public property are legal. The case originates from the town of Grants Pass, Oregon. Among other things, the city bans people who are homeless from using blankets, pillows, or cardboard boxes as shelter to camp outdoors. Within city limits, people who violate the law face fines of up to 295.
Listen. Look at that. You don’t see that? Did y’all see that? Look at this. This is crazy. This is insane. Look at this. In blankets, pillows, or cardboard boxes as shelter to camp outdoors. Look at that. Camping used to be reserved for people that was going through the woods, and they was in arvs, and they set up and camp life and all of that stuff and jeep life.
This is a normal. This is a normal way of life in a lot of places. This is a normal way. Have y’all seen a Home Depot let me see something. Have y’all seen at Home Depot situation and Oakland. Y’all haven’t seen a Home Depot or situation in Oakland, have y’all? I gotta pull that up for y’all. Let me play this while I pull that up. Within city limits, people who violate the law face fines of up to $295.
Now, challengers argue that it makes it a crime to be homeless in the city in violation of the 8th amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Meantime, the city argues the ordinance is essential to public health and safety. During court arguments, every justice did agree that the homeless problem was serious, but differed on how and who should tackle it. Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggesting it’s not up to the federal courts to micromanage homeless policy, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned what would happen if every city passed identical laws.
Where do we put them? If every city, every village, every town lacks compassion, are they supposed to kill themselves not sleeping? The Supreme Court’s ruling is expected at the end of June. The Supreme Court decision on this specific case will be closely followed by many right here in the Bay Area. KTV’s Christian KaPn live tonight in San Francisco. And Christian, the mayor, many more keeping an eye out close on this one.
Yeah, the city of San Francisco keeping a very close eye on this one, Mike. Right now, the city of San Francisco is in legal limbo. The city’s plans to address homelessness are held up in court. And the decision that the Supreme Court reaches in this grants pass case will have huge implications right here in San Francisco. The Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments over how cities manage the issue of homelessness.
While the case in question came from Grants Pass, Oregon, the case is drawing attention here in the Bay Area. Homeless advocates marched and rallied in front of San Francisco’s federal court building and through the streets of the city. Advocates saying the case will get to the heart of whether cities can criminalize homelessness. The reality is folks are out there because they have no other choice for almost everyone, and it’s not okay to then cite them and arrest them because they’re destitute.
That is, in essence, a pauper’s prison that we’re creating there. And I think we moved beyond that. Yeah, the problem isn’t whether or not you should find them or whether it would be productive for them to be able to find a space to live in and stuff like that. The real problem is, is how do you solve for homelessness to prevent people from being out and living in the streets in the first place.
I don’t even think it’s as much as housing or housing costs. I just think that that’s such a huge issue. If somebody really wants to tackle and fix the United States of America, if somebody wants to run on something in any city that’s truly affected by what’s going on, I think if you can figure out how to solve for homelessness, if you can put together a large policy, all encompassing or all inclusive policy, that solves for multiple factors, because what people have realized, or what we have realized through obviously, throwing money away, is that you can’t just throw money at the problem.
You can’t just take a large mall and build a homeless encampment or something like that. You can’t just do it by saying, well, we’re going to have affordable housing in order to make sure that we have. That’s not, that’s not a solution. You can’t just say, are we going to take all the money from the rich like they trying to do in Chicago, and we going to solve for the problem of homelessness? Well, what you’ll start to find is that the money will start disappearing.
They’re going to spend 90% to 95% of the resources on administrative costs and paying salaries and making sure that they fund this building. And 26 to the $28 billion is going to go to people in facilities cost. It’s going to be a bunch of companies that benefit as a result of it. They’re going to take a whole bunch of money from people that’s not supposed to be paying over an over amount of taxes.
$2 billion is going to be distributed by overspending on a bunch of resources and costs. Then everybody going to be living in these little mini sheds, and then it’s going to turn into a drug then. And then the carter is going to take over. It is a huge issue. It’s my passion project. It’s the thing that I was. I used to do a lot of volunteer work, and, and homelessness is such a weird.
A weird thing because the face of homelessness, it, it spans so many different people. It could be somebody that’s just one payment away from losing everything, and they got a medical bill. It could be somebody that lost their job. It could be a mother that got evicted. It could be somebody that’s on drugs. It could be somebody that went to Hollywood and they thought that there was going to be a star, and then they got turned out and they wanted to be on the streets.
They could be a part of the fentanyl crisis. It’s a lot of things that could affect homelessness. Right? But I know one thing is growing, is growing is it is becoming a huge thing, then it starts to take over and have tentacles when it comes to squatting. And now you got migrants over here. And that’s why it’s so hard for me to justify illegal immigration into the country because we got so many problems that we got to solve on our own.
We got so many issues. So I can’t take a particular stance on where the Supreme Court would rule when it comes to criminalizing. You can’t criminalize not having a home. That’s a difficult stance for me. But at the same time, you can’t have people taking a dump in a public space in front of children at a school, school ground. You know what I’m saying? You can’t have either.
You can’t have either. I’m curious as to what y’all think on this. I’m stumped. I’m stumped. I know what makes cities great. This is one of the very few issues where I don’t have one definite solution. If you ask me how to be successfully married, I could tell you that if you ask me how to make a million dollars, we can man that out. If you ask me how it is that we should vote and what policies is best for specific communities, depending on where you live, we can solve for that.
I don’t have a one size fits all solution when it comes to homelessness. I really don’t. And I’m okay with saying that I don’t know when I don’t know something. I usually only speak on things that I know. I don’t know as much as I think that I should know about cryptocurrency. I don’t know as much as I should know, you know, about certain things that happen when it comes to policies regarding war and things like that, when it comes to.
And homelessness is another one of those subjects. I know a lot about it. I’ve done a lot of research. I’ve done a lot of volunteer work. But I don’t know what the solution is for solving for homelessness because there is no one size fits all solution for dealing with it. It’s weird. It’s very, very weird. And it’s very, very complicated. It’s a very complex subject, and you can’t just throw money at it.
I don’t know. Y’all let me know what y’all think inside of the chat, but I did want to give you guys an update on what was going on as far as the Supreme Court and what issues they were taking up and what was happening. I. .
This one is simple. I wish I had the printer and resources to file an amicus with the Supreme Court. Maybe another reader can do it.
1. Denying utterly essential bodily needs is not merely “cruel,” it is so EXTREMELY cruel I wish I could physically and legally punch the face in of anybody selfish enough to advocate it.
2. It is not up to the Supreme Court to make Law. They don’t have to. They simply have to say that no jurisdiction may deny the rights to urinate, defecate, breathe, sleep, provide oneself a blanket and/or pillow for sleeping, or take shelter from the cold. What is “too cold” gets warmer with age or disease.
3. It is up to each jurisdiction to make laws that provide some way to satisfy these needs for free. This could include warehouses. There is no need to provide luxury or a middle-class or even a working class accommodation. There are different ways to provide such things without allowing a “San Franshitsco.” Public construction-style toilet facilities, for example, with toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Or require certain buildings to provide these needs with full compensation for what homeless druggies do to your bathroom.
4. Several years ago, a city provided motel rooms withOUT paperwork to all who needed them–and found that this saved them money on public health expenses. Jurisdictions should investigate such things, but the courts do not make the laws.