The GOOD, Just & Practical Solution to the Very Real Problem of Unhoused People Camping in Unsuitable Public Places Is Simple, But Our Rulers Oppose It.
So we need to dump our rulers, not have laws making unhoused people criminals
There is an egalitarian revolutionary way to handle the very real problem of increasing numbers of people lacking an affordable home to live in and camping in public spaces that are not suited for such use, and it is NOT to make them criminals with oppressive laws!
The egalitarian revolutionary solution to this problem is simple to understand if not challenging to implement.
In the short run, let unhoused people who are physically and mentally healthy enough to live independently live in the vacant homes that already exist in greater numbers than unhoused people.
Here is the way to do this economically:
Here’s the law that needs to be passed:
Stop building luxury housing.
Also create and staff appropriate hospitals (mental and medical) to house and care for the unhoused people who are physically or mentally too ill to live independently.
In the longer term, replace a) our current dictatorship of the rich and the class inequality it relies on and enforces as it treats the have-nots like dirt, with b) genuine democracy in which the real power is held by the vast majority of ordinary people with the egalitarian values of no-rich-and-no-poor equality, mutual aid, fairness and truth.
In a genuine democracy people would be able to figure out and implement wonderful ideas about how to provide reasonable1 housing for all who contribute reasonably according to ability. I have written about this here and here and here.
In our current dictatorship of the rich, however, we are prohibited from implementing such ideas because they threaten the wealth and privilege and power of our ruling billionaire plutocracy.
This is not complicated. It only seems that way because the egalitarian common sense view is 100% censored in the mass and alternative media, so when one expresses it it sounds strange and exotic and un-real.
But is it possible to get a genuine democracy?
Yes.
Read here how YOU can help build the egalitarian revolutionary movement to remove the rich from power and get genuine democracy so people won’t be forced to live in tents in public places unsuited for that purpose.
Most people, whether they’ve ever heard the word or not, are egalitarians. Egalitarians, being reasonable people, will no doubt count children and retired elderly and people physically or mentally or for any other reason unable to work as "working reasonably" even though they do no work, and likewise deem it "reasonable work" when people care for their own or other children or for other sick adults or attend school or apprentice programs to learn skills so as to be able to work in the future. Also, being reasonable people, egalitarians will no doubt take into account, when deciding how much work is reasonable, how onerous or unpleasant or dangerous some kinds of work are compared to other kinds.
Unquestionably so!
You write repeatedly that this is simple, John, but I’m not so sure about that. In my little beach town in S. California we have a large number of homeless, the vast majority of whom have migrated here from other areas. As is the case everywhere else, about two thirds are mentally ill and two thirds are serious substance abusers. Almost none ever work and a large number don’t even desire housing. It’s not as if most or even a majority of these people are just temporarily “down and out” and it is even questionable how many can be rehabilitated to such a state. Many, if not most, will remain wards of the society, dependent upon others for their very survival. If they move into free housing, they and “their” housing would need to be maintained, at others’ expense. That all can be done; it’s just that there isn’t a blueprint for doing so and how it would be done would need to be determined by the local egalitarian assembly, I assume, in your model? I have a question as well. This is a pretty affluent area. There are no janitors on my street, for example, though everybody who lives either works, or has worked, for a living. Are we thieves?