Florida officials move to ban people from sleeping on public property

As far as Knoxville is concerned it appears most of the services come from the nonprofit sector and there's only so much we can do. Too many of those in need are falling through the cracks.

 

It’s obviously designed to be opaque. It’s not serious policy. Is there even any state funding in the bill? Nope. Mandatory spending with no funding. Good luck!

The “enforcement” side isn’t the only issue. Who is to say what level of effort is sufficient to avoid a lawsuit? So even if a big city has facilities, if there’s still homeless (100% gauranteed since this literally does NOTHING to address homelessness, it means they defacto failed and some rando citizen gets to sue)? Guarantee basically all the “lawsuits” will be brought by nutjob activists with shady political funding.

 

The state budget is $115 billion. They take that money from FL taxpayers. You think the state should collect $115 billion and get to wash its hands of issues and leave it to cities to collect more? Interesting take, and you probably fancy yourself as a conservative.

The funny thing is the state puts limitations on what municipalities can do in terms of property taxes, and also controls sales taxes. So it isn’t even a simple matter of them simply “funding it themselves”.

Let’s put it this way. How many homeless shelters could have been constructed instead of funding Desantis stupid lawsuits against Mickey Mouse, doing stunts with migrants or sending state troopers to TX? This govt is more interested in stunts for rubes and political payback. If they were serious they would allocate some funding back to the cities so they can build shelters and also fund some sort of programs to assist homeless get back on their feet (whether that is drug rehab, mental health, or just simple housing or job assistance). Instead, you get a bill that enables political activists with no standing to bring frivolous lawsuits against municipal governments. I’m sure some connected right wing lawyers will get a few paychecks out of this, which I suspect is the actual intent here.

 

Again, I personally agree that this particular legislation is likely doomed to fail to help anyone. I don’t think that in itself is proof of a bad intention. Censorship is also a bad policy, IMO, but that doesn’t mean censors don’t have good intentions. It may simply be that the authors of the text (which I admittedly haven’t even read) have a different model of societal function. In that case, the clash would be an intellectual one over how to help people, rather than the moral one that you are seeing regarding whether these people even deserve help.

 

Hopefully to use eminent domain to seize the property of whichever whiner filed the lawsuit and use that property to house the homeless. I mean, it is the conservative/Christian thing to do anyway, right? That person should be more than happy to surrender his or her property to walk the way of Christ and provide comfort to his or her fellow citizens. We should not need lawsuits with all of these "Christians" that we have walking around thumping on their chests.

 

Did you read the bill? I don't want to ruin the surprise for you, but sadly you won't be able to cash in. Only the lawyers will make money. The counties, however, stand to spend a lot of money defending separate lawsuits and paying attorneys' fees and costs if the plaintiffs prevail.

Here's a link to the actual bill since the OP didn't include the proposed law in his post.

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2024/1365/BillText/e1/PDFhttps://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2024/1365/BillText/e1/PDF

 

The designated homeless property can't be contiguous to ANY residential property according to the bill. Per Section 2 of the bill the homeless are apparently negatively impacting the "...aesthetics of Florida communities."

They need to be kept out of sight.

 

I mean, does anyone want homeless people sleeping next to their residential property? When you consider the high number of homeless that have mental illness and criminal records, I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to try and avoid.

I'm not saying to outlaw homelessness like this bill is trying. But there's a middle ground

 

I was addressing @ncargat1's comment about seizing property and using it for the homeless.

 

You left one out...using state money to help fund FSU's lawsuit against the College Football Playoff Committee.

 

Gotcha. My B

 

One thing I can tell you, if the county designate areas as homeless camps, but don’t provide food, the nearest grocery stores are going to be shoplifted into oblivion…

 

Homelessness is a tricky problem. I am not sure if there is an answer institutionalizing them is expensive and ineffective. Reagan closed the institutions and sent the people to the street. Most of the homeless I met at the time were happier on the street than in institutions. The homeless or either addicts or crazy and self medicating (is there a difference). DeLand and Volusia County try to build shelters but they try to place them in the middle of nowhere. The homeless don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere. Someone smarter than me may have a solution but i doubt it.

 

There’s definitely a NIMBY aspect, and just providing a tent city or structure in no way solves homelessness. It’s a temporary solution. No individual homeless person should be able to take up permanent residence at a shelter. Yet, the shelters need to be there permanently. Seems to me the best place for shelters are in the general area where there are already homeless.

The permanent solutions for the individual are the ones that point people towards turning their lives around or help them independently maintain an apartment or home. For the truly mentally ill or drug addicted, might involve institutionalized treatment.

 

You get into areas of freedom of choice if they don’t choose treatment do we have a right to force them into it? Drug treatment only works when people want to be off of drugs. I am not sure the homeless want that.

 

I don’t believe you can criminalize a persons existence. But for the ones with drug issues or serious mental health issues, a) they are probably committing crimes to maintain their street existence b) they may not actually have the mental competence to have freedom of choice.

It’s a difficult issue and cops are definitely not qualified as arbiters, but if there were mental health facilities at least that would be an option a cop could take a person rather than just hassling them or putting them in jail.

 

Jigh IQ question that should be asked more often.

 

lol, so you think that we are going to spend the money to actually properly treat these untouchables? This is a Christian nation. There is no charity for the unstable. Have any Christians who support Trump and Desantis ever read the words attributed to Jesus.