What if just all municipalities forbid homeless encampments? The result of this will be a race to the bottom, as more and more municipalities ban homeless camps, the negative effects will concentrate on fewer and fewer municipalities, making the issue worse and worse. This will in turn drive them to forbid camps as well.
Of course, eventually that will lead to a growing number of people just giving up and either accumulating tickets they will never be able to pay or actively draining city money by spending every other day in jail (which also happens to be temperature-controlled and have free food).
> What if just all municipalities forbid homeless encampments?
If all municipalities did this instantly and provided transportation to the homeless - either unincorporated parts of a state, or jail, most would choose jail. Nobody wants to try to survive in the wilderness.
How is that anyhow helpful? Jail is much worse for the homeless and it's actually much more expensive to society than providing a home. If the goal is harm reduction, provide them with housing and support. The cruelty of the law is the point.
You might not, but nobody? There are those that do. There are even TV shows, multiple reality shows for watching people do just that. It’s not easy living for sure but getting a cabin out in the woods and trying to live off the land is totally a thing people do.
For a real world example, you don’t go to the woods outside of Seattle because there are unhoused people living there and it's dangerous to go there.
Nobody does. Bear Grylls wouldn't be popular if the overwhelming majority of the planet didn't choose lounging on the couch watching TV over survivalist practice.
> but getting a cabin out in the woods and trying to live off the land is totally a thing people do.
And not a realistic option for the homeless unless you can afford land to live on. What kind of bizzaro country do you live in where this is remotely realistic or legal? The real world isn't Minecraft.
Allemansrätten is a Swedish word that means right to roam. What it means, is that as long as you respect nature, you're allowed to enjoy nature by walking, cycling, riding, skiing, camping, etc.
I'm not Swedish but I spent some time there. you can just go camping anywhere, just don't leave trash or mess it up. But the US has untold acres of unpatrolled national parks and private land that nobody is watching. Sure, legally, you can't just live there, but without anybody to enforce it, yeah you can.
If you live on a national park in the United States, whether you are kind to your surroundings or not, you will be arrested once discovered and escorted off the property. Trust me when I say there is no sliding window of self-sufficiency that makes this a legal (let alone feasible) option for America's homeless.
It's genuinely insulting to log onto this website and listen to people repeat travel magazine advice as their solution to homelessness.
You know what all of those shows have in common? The protagonist has thousands or tens of thousands to spend on setting up the basic infrastructure needed.
And they only have to survive three weeks. How is that relevant?
Edit: and looking over some episode summaries, it's not like they reliably came out in great health, despite going in in more or less peak condition. Unless your point was that even short periods of homelessness has severe health risks and consequences?
