[Molitor5901]

I really don't like this ruling. My reasoning is that a public park, for instance, is public property available for use to everyone. Anywhere you go will either be private, or public property. The homeless cannot sleep on private land, fine, but it's coldly unreasonable to say they cannot sleep in the park at night. During the day, ok, move along, I can accept that but.. The homeless are humans and we should stop treating them as a general nuisance. Any one of us could just as easily find ourselves homeless, falling from great success.

https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-fail/

[analognoise]

On the other hand, the homeless being in the park generally leads to trash - needles, excrement, etc. The homeless occupying public lands and making them unfit for other people deprives those other people of their right to use the park.

I should be free to walk downtown without stepping in human shit. I should not have to worry about needles and detritus in the public park.

Agree society needs a better solution. Perhaps we can tax the ultra wealthy at an ungodly rate and simply build housing.

[Molitor5901]

I agree with you 100%. We need a better solution. A narrow tax on the wealthy specifically for homelessness would be fantastic.

I am deeply suspicious of "taxes on X" because that money rarely, if ever, goes to where it's most needed. It would be great to create a tax on the wealthy which may only be used for homeless accommodations, first, services for the homeless second, and everything else last. If there was a clear 1:1 application of those tax dollars I think it would receive wide support, but I doubt politicians would allow money to be so limited like that. Not when there are so many other...issues they would rather spend it on.

[UtopiaPunk]

You're not wrong, and neither is Molitor5901. As society currently stands, one group of people is fundamentally in conflict with another group of people. Neither group is doing anything wrong.

The proper solution is to address the needs of the homeless (specifically, provide them a home, or at the barest minimum, some safe place to sleep). Anything else is insufficient and cold-hearted.

[seattle_spring]

The behavior of the homeless people living in a public park often makes said park unusable for everyone except them. How do you reconcile that fact with your opinion that "public parks are for everyone"? A public park provides far broader use to the general public when used as a park for all, as opposed to a campsite, chop shop, or drug dealing hotspot.

[D13Fd]

Yeah but this point has nothing to do with the actual ruling.

The ruling is that the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the constitution does not prohibit the government from banning camping on public property. That's it.