[sdunwoody]

This whole thing is pretty depressing (and would make me pretty angry if I lived in the USA).

But I was even a bit shocked in the first paragraph:

>He woke up to a police officer arresting him for violating the city’s ban on lying down in public places.

Is that legitimately something that can happen? If so, find it mind boggling that you could be arrested in America for falling asleep on the pavement/sidewalk!?

[hn_throwaway_99]

It's not really that shocking. In Austin Texas a little over two years ago the city council removed the ban on lying and camping in public places. The result was an explosion of tent encampments all over the city, so much so that just a couple months ago city voters reversed the decision in a referendum.

There are certainly valid points on all sides of the debate, and "lying in public" laws can definitely be abused to harass individuals, but there are also some valid rationale for why they exist in the first place.

[Gravityloss]

Encampment is quite different from falling asleep... And even then it should be enough to tell the person to move on, not to arrest them.

[ProAm]

Move on to where?

[gowld]

To a different jurisdiction where it's someone else's problem.

[pas]

Home, friends, family, shelter.

I mean if someone gets drunk and falls asleep they are not necessarily homeless.

[wombatmobile]

Where can people who have no home, friends, family or income shelter?

[hootbootscoot]

in all seriousness there is no backup beyond a few hundred beds in even the largest cities, with waiting lists, and not exactly the first thing you think of when things turn strange in your life and you end up on the street suddenly. You don't think that you are "one of them" and you just are "holding on for this or that" to happen. At some point, if you exit early enough, you can still transition to other societal levels. Left long enough, it changes you or at least you are considered differently and looked at funnily, to say nothing about the difficult in maintaining work and income to get OUT of said situation, etc.

[hootbootscoot]

under a bridge downtown.

[newsyyswen]

The park services have a similar problem, but the solution is simple:

* No permanent structures.

* You need to move every X days.

* You cannot stay in the park/forest/etc for more than Y days/month.

Cities could forbid tents and count hours rather than days. Criminalizing the act of napping in a park seems like a huge overreaction to peoples' fear of tent cities. If you've never taken an afternoon siesta along a local greenway, you should try it sometime. Bring a blanket and a book, but don't forget to check for sharps before you lie down.

[RIMR]

I don't think there are valid points on all sides of the debate. A disturbing number of people think that homeless people should basically be exterminated.

That's not a welcome idea at all, and it deserves no validity.

[sdunwoody]

So I think the problem there is that the root causes of homelessness need addressing.

Moving all these people to a different city/town/location is not "solving" the issue.

[jandrese]

Yes, in most places it is effectively a crime to be homeless. It is one of the many reasons it is so hard to break out of the trap of homelessness.

[munificent]

> If so, find it mind boggling that you could be arrested in America for falling asleep on the pavement/sidewalk!?

Yes, but it's a little more complex/subtle than that may make it seem. Some things to consider:

* Arrested doesn't mean convicted. A cop may take someone in ("arrest" them) to get them off the streets and give them a night in jail to sober up. Then they get let out without pressing charges. In some cases, this may end up being a net benefit for the person, in others it obviously isn't. Your country probably does the same thing. I assume "drunk tanks" are pretty universal.

* Police officers have a lot of discretion on which laws they enforce. There is a downside to this in that it lets them use that discretion in biased ways, but—ignoring that for the moment—it does mean that many times cops are more lenient and compassionate than the law implies that they should be. You rarely hear about those stories on the news but talk to a cop or do a ride-along and you'll see that they spend most of their time not arresting people and instead giving them warnings.

* Honolulu has a famously bad homeless problem, while also being heavily dependent on tourism for its economy. There are a lot of "beach bums" that move to Hawaii without any plan to provide for themselves and if Honolulu doesn't do anything about them at all, they can end up harming the place's overall economy, which would then make it harder for the city to afford the services these people need. Doing nothing is not as innocuous as it might seem.

* In general, a society must do some enforcement of public spaces. Otherwise, they cease to be public spaces. I live in Seattle which also has a lot of homeless people. Some of them build encampments in public parks. This means that, de facto, those are no longer public parks. They're private property because the public no longer has access to them—the squatters in the encampment will run them off.

The name for a place where you can choose to be and no one can kick you out is "private property". If you don't want all of your public spaces to turn into private spaces, then you do have to prevent people from unilaterally privatizing them to some degree. Of course, it's not black and white and there are good discussions to have about where you draw the line. Obviously people need to be able to spend some time in a public space. Is napping OK? Sleeping overnight? In a tent? In a shelter made from pallets and tarps?

Many of the laws that draw the line harshly are driven by the observation that when you give a little, some people (not all) will try to take more and more. So it's not so entirely that lawmakers are heartless sadists who don't even want to have to see a homeless person, so much as a fear that if you let someone take a nap, they'll sleep overnight. Let them sleep overnight and they'll build a structure. Let them build a structure and they'll start fires. And at that point, it becomes really hard to keep that place available to the public.

It is a hard problem and anyone who thinks it is black and white is choosing to not see all of the complexity.

[hootbootscoot]

Which sort of presumes that there are other places said people can shuffle off to. Their occupation of public parks is largely due to not having a designated place to go, or enough shelter beds, or a myriad of other problems.

One who has no home has fewer options on where to plop with all their things.

Individually, one could analyze each situation, collectively and systemically speaking, you will ALWAYS have homeless people when there is no housing safety net. there are a myriad of things can can occur in individual lives.

Homeless tourism is something that should be worked out between the desirable locations and the locations of origin that likely kick the responsibility can down the road in running homeless OUT of town, and hence to SF or wherever.

Honolulu and beach bummmery is something I've no knowledge of. Actual homelessness is something that doesn't occur much anywhere else I've seen in the world to the same level as it does in USA. I suppose that many places have folks migrating to the city from countryside regions in the hopes of a job and potentially falling on their face. I'm not sure where those folks are in many nations that I've seen (about 50, mostly Europe, South America, Asia, and North America)

[munificent]

> Which sort of presumes that there are other places said people can shuffle off to.

I think in general society and government does and should presume that people can figure out most solutions to their own problems. Our instutitions provide a framework for people to figure out how to live, and help them do with things that require scale, but I don't think it's reasonable to say that the government needs to give everyone a "designated place to go".

> Actual homelessness is something that doesn't occur much anywhere else I've seen in the world to the same level as it does in USA.

There are a few things uniquely driving homelessness in the US:

* The opioid epidemic thanks to Purdue pharma.

* The deinstitutionalization movement was stronger here than in other countries.

* Not having free healthcare.

Outsourcing, automation, and the shift to an urban service-oriented economy is probably part of it too, but I don't think that's a huge driver. Most of the homeless stories I hear start with one of:

"I got hurt at work, and was prescribed Oxycontin. I ended up addicted and when the subscription ran out, I ended up on heroin..."

"I was mentally ill and unable to hold down a job because of it..."

"I got cancer and once all the medical bills piled up, I ended up deep in debt and couldn't afford to pay rent..."

[closeparen]

It's really easy to imagine: think of a neighborhood of politically engaged homeowners, whose sidewalks are covered in sleeping homeless people around the clock.

The residents of that neighborhood don't have the power to end capitalism or the money to secure homes for all who need them (bare minimum $500k each). But they do have the power to get an ordinance passed.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Probably. People don't like to see the homeless around their nice little neighborhoods so they come up with all sorts of weird laws to harass them with.

[sdunwoody]

I find it really nasty.

I visited Los Angeles a couple of years back, one of the first places we went was a McDonalds. Some guy was dozing sat at a table (with a coffee in front of him). A cop came up to him and told him he'd be reprimanded if he caught him napping like that again.

In all my life living in the UK I've honestly never witnessed something like that. It may seem minor, but seeing an armed cop come up to someone and reprimand them for dozing off? I have no idea why a waiter couldn't have dealt with that. It's not like the McDonalds was even full or anything.

On top of this, the advertising boards saying stuff like "No homeless shelter in our community, keep it safe!" was just completely lacking in compassion.

I think a lot of people out there just don't see homeless people as deserving of empathy. At least, that's the impression I get.

I also find it profoundly ironic that America is supposedly the "land of the free", but you can get arrested/in trouble for:

- Drinking in public (even in parks or at the beach) - Sleeping in public (apparently) - Jaywalking - Eating on public transport

I just don't understand all these weird and arbitrary rules they have out there.

[rootusrootus]

> I just don't understand all these weird and arbitrary rules they have out there.

But you live in the nation that invented the ASBO.

> - Drinking in public (even in parks or at the beach) - Sleeping in public (apparently) - Jaywalking - Eating on public transport

These are local laws, not federal, so not universal across the US. And in all of the places around the US that I have lived, these sorts of laws are rarely enforced (at least not as a primary offense).

[hemloc_io]

Can confirm that the pandemic made laws like drinking in public functionally irrelevant where I live, and other larger cities across the country.

[lozenge]

> And in all of the places around the US that I have lived, these sorts of laws are rarely enforced [on white people]

Fixed that for you.

[vmception]

The "land of the free, home of the brave" quote came from a lawyer moonlighting as a poet watching actual brave people fighting in a war. It was catchy enough to become the national anthem 120 years later (after being used in the military for 30 years or so prior), but don't confuse that opportunistic indoctrination with reality.

It has nothing to do with anything, nothing to do with any legal reality, nothing to do with the constitution, the structure of the government, the declaration of independence from the UK, life in practice within the US, or any comparison to any other developed nation at the time it was written (1812) or now (2021). American exceptionalism relies on completely ignoring countries with Human Development Index or rights that are at parity or better, and relies on hyperbolic comparisons to the worst countries in the world.

Hope that helps you understand your experiences here! Without context, the cognitive dissonance (confusion from competing ideas and observations) can be very confusing!

[selimthegrim]

Also a slaveholder, which came through in the anthem as well

[tqi]

The UK is far from immune to this type of behavior.

"The Vagrancy Act was passed in the summer of 1824, which means it is now just shy of its 200th birthday. And if it held any relevance then, it certainly doesn’t now.

At its core, The Vagrancy Act is a way to punish people “in any deserted or unoccupied building, or in the open air, or under a tent, or in any cart or waggon, not having any visible means of subsistence”. Essentially, it criminalises homelessness. For homeless people, both begging and rough sleeping are things out of their control, and the Act does little to get to the root of why people are homeless in the first place."

https://centrepoint.org.uk/about-us/blog/everything-you-need...

Also: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/12/new-home-off...

[sdunwoody]

There's obviously room for improvement here too yes.

Although I really really doubt anyone here would be arrested for having a doze on the pavement.

[rootusrootus]

> Although I really really doubt anyone here would be arrested for having a doze on the pavement.

It seems to be declining, but according to the BBC, as of a few years ago there were more than a thousand people arrested for just that.

[Clubber]

Behind the veneer of what Hollywood wants you to believe, the US is an extremely cruel place.

[rootusrootus]

The US is not a Hollywood movie, sure, but neither is it anything like how foreigners on HN portray it. And for a supposedly 'extremely cruel' place, the US has by far the highest rate of charity in the world.

[FireBeyond]

> And for a supposedly 'extremely cruel' place, the US has by far the highest rate of charity in the world.

Only if you count religious giving.

And why wouldn't you, you ask?

Well, even churches themselves say that six per cent or less of religious giving goes to 'charity'. The rest goes to church upkeep and events, church childcare, etc.

In fact, an ECCU study (http://web.archive.org/web/20141019033209/https://www.eccu.o...) stated that "local and national benevolence" receives 1 per cent of religious givings (2% going to church adult programs, bible study, etc, and 3% to youth programs and evangelization).

So we should probably pump the brakes on patting ourselves on the back for "highest rates of charity", considering that some of what is characterized as charity is "erecting the world's largest cross two miles down the road from the church which has the current world's largest cross".

[GeoAtreides]

You have places like ADX Florence, worst place on Earth, you have the highest absolute numbers of prisoners, you used to execute children,you still execute people, you have long sentences, there are laws like above where even if you are exonerated of a crime, you still kept in prison, you are cruel and your country home to a literal gulag. Your society is merciless, your empathy gone. Please, learn some empathy. Please, turn away from your cruelty.

[skinnymuch]

Like someone already responded. How much is actually going to charity. Helping out your local church more than it needs to function does not and should not count as charity.

[ceejayoz]

> the US has by far the highest rate of charity in the world

How much of this comes from "tithe 10% to your church"?

[rootusrootus]

About a third of the population claims to go to church regularly. The amount who actually do is somewhat less, surely. And anecdotally, amongst my churchgoing friends & family, especially the non-elderly ones, tithing isn't particularly common. It's pretty common with LDS, though, I understand.

[Clubber]

I've never seen anyone do 10% of their income, I think that comes from the medieval period, or just wishful thinking. People usually drop a $10 or $20 in the plate whenever I've been.

[ceejayoz]

It’s quite common in some evangelical denominations. Mormons do it as well.

Even when it’s not a formal tithe, American charity skews heavily towards giving to churches.

[Clubber]

So here's some of the ways it's cruel. I assume you don't live here, or you are pretty well off:

1. Largest incarcerated population on earth. 2. No public health system until Medicare (60s). 3. Very difficult to discharge debt, for citizens, easy for business. 4. Impossible to discharge student loan debt. 5. Allowing of predatory loan practices to incur this debt. 6. Many public schools are absolutely horrible. 7. Mostly no recourse for violent and corrupt police. 8. Most if not all of the federal policies go to help the donor class at the expense of the citizenry. On the occasion where policies help the citizenry, it's a coincidence. 9. Systemic racism in many aspects of the government, particularly the justice system. 10. Very little social safety net for the poor. In fact, many poor are incarcerated. 11. Very strict justice system where just about anything is a felony. 12. No voting rights for felons. 13. Vicious drug war. 14. Patriot act. 15. Skyrocketing healthcare costs. 16. Skyrocketing educational costs. 17. MANY charities have a 90+% administration fee (meaning only 10% goes to the actual group in need). This is perfectly legal. 18. Many regressive taxes (gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, groceries). 19. Many instances where regulation isn't even done, or done so poorly, companies can do whatever they want (see nutrition labels for an example). 20. Not much done in anti-trust laws. 21. An insane amount of tax dollars goes to the war machine and soldiers get a minuscule amount. They are treated pretty horribly afterwards. 22. Government fully supports offshoring of jobs to slave-like conditions in China and elsewhere. 23. Loophole system where the well off pay very little taxes while the majority of the tax burden goes to the middle class (by income). 24. Massive income inequality and therefore political power and influence. 25. The amount of state funding for prosecution dwarfs the amount of funding for defense in most states.

These are just off the top of my head. I could probably do 20 more pretty easily.

Regarding charity, that's the citizenry. By and far the citizenry are decent people, it's the state that's cruel. Also we aren't "by far the most charitable country on earth," we're slightly about Myanmar, but we are still the top. In really poor states like West Virginia, the citizens are extremely charitable to each other. I would guess because they all need it desperately. Perhaps being so charitable is actually a symptom of the widespread cruelty of the state's policies.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-char...

[meowster]

I'm not discounting the other issues, but FYI #4 is incorrect.

[Clubber]

I should have said "near impossible," there's just enough there so that impossible isn't technically correct. Looks like they included some forms of indentured servitude in there. Ah the classics.

https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation