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Hundreds of unsheltered people living in tent encampments in the blocks surrounding the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco have been forced to leave by city outreach workers and police as part of an attempted “clean up the house” ahead of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s annual free trade conference.

The action, which housing advocates allege violated a court injunction, was celebrated by right-wing figures and the tech crowd, who have long been convinced that the city is in terminal decline because of an increase in encampments in the downtown area.

The X account End Wokness wrote that the displacement was proof the “government can easily fix our cities overnight. It just doesn’t want to” (the post received 77,000 likes). “Queer Eye but it’s just Xi visiting troubled US cities then they get a makeover,” joked Packy McCormick, the founder of Not Boring Capital and advisor to Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto VC team. The New York Post celebrated the action, saying that residents had “miraculously disappeared.”

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[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 129 points 1 year ago

We shouldn't decide the morality of things based on it being legal or illegal. The law is at best an after thought around morality.

[-] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 48 points 1 year ago

I'll take "it was legal at the time" for a thousand, Alex.

[-] STRIKINGdebate2@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The law is a essentially the enforceable moral code of the state that enforces it. Most criminal laws were created to penalise acts that are considered morally reprehensible. I wouldn't say the law is an afterthought around morality but a reflection of the morality of the state. The laws are largely written by the capitalistic class and are a reflection of what they consider right and wrong.

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah but the problem with this sentiment is that it eschews responsibility for the state its self, a responsibility for which a people always ultimately are. A state legislature makes laws. City councils create rules. Dog catchers have policies. At any point you can work to take responsibility for those positions. Its not an abstract theoretical thing. These are real material positions.

We are responsible for the society we live in.

[-] STRIKINGdebate2@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Yes. Laws can be changed but in reality but don't really have that much say nor do they even pay that much attention. Let me ask how much people really vote with the homeless on their mind? How much people voted for Biden because they were genuinely excited for him or because he just was the only way to prevent Trump from coming back? The laws of the state are a reflection of what it deems to be moral and just there's no way around that.

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[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 13 points 1 year ago

When it comes to actions of government agents, though, following the law is the most basic form of accountability, and unaccountable governments are never good.

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[-] NewNewAccount@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

A philosophical argument that goes all the way back to Socrates.

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[-] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 92 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing had a 2022-2023 budget of $672 million dollars. This does not include EMT and police services. It's just what they earmark for homelessness.

In 2022, there were 7,754 unhoused people in San Francisco.

That's roughly $86,000 per person they spend on getting them housing, and still failing at it. The average rent for an apartment in SF is $3500 a month, or $42,000 per year. They're spending twice as much as they would if they just got apartments for people.

[-] Oka@lemmy.ml 34 points 1 year ago

Where is that money going, I wonder

[-] Furedadmins@lemmy.world 44 points 1 year ago

Housing is just one aspect. Food, medicine,, paying for employees (social workers, security, medical staff) etc. But even if say 75% of that was for housing it's not easy to just say rent them apartments; first off not enough apartment buildings are willing to take them in. It's difficult to even find cheap motels that will work with cities to temporarily house the homeless even though it's guaranteed money. Cities are looking at building shelters but then it's NIMBY time. Without dedicated facilities with mental health, addiction, etc treatment which the US doesn't have homelessness will be a forever problem.

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[-] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 26 points 1 year ago

BUT BUT BUT WE CAN'T JUST SOLVE PROBLEMS, WE VAVE TO MANAGE THEM.

[-] torknorggren@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago

7754 is the PIT count of people homeless at one given point in time. Many, many more cycle through homelessness in any year.

[-] Furbag@lemmy.world 41 points 1 year ago

Why do the right cheer as if it's a permanent solution? They'll be back as soon as the important people are gone. To say the problem is "fixed overnight" is like saying "Look Mom, I cleaned my room!" after you just finished sweeping everything underneath the bed and hiding it with the covers.

I do hope they fix the problem, but I don't know what else they can try other than just building houses and giving them the keys. That would probably be less expensive in the long run, but taxpayers evidently feel better paying for homelessness programs in perpetuity rather than giving people free shit one time.

[-] nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 29 points 1 year ago

Conservatives don't know how to fix or build anything anymore. They have no solution to homelessness and they don't care . Sending police to crack some skulls and patting themselves on the back for it is the best they've got.

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[-] MuuuaadDib@lemm.ee 34 points 1 year ago

Wow that sure is a shitty thing to do to humans....

Right-wing: "yay" on all shitty things.

[-] Repelle@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago

Were they moved into sanctuary districts? https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District

DS9 just seems to get more and more relevant with age. Sad we haven’t done any better than projected by the show.

[-] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

No, it seems like they just had their tents and possessions taken and then we're forced to find a different street to sleep on. The sad thing is something like Trek's Sanctuary Districts would take a government that is way less cruel to the homeless than we currently are.

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[-] nutsack@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago

republicans love the idea of a brutal authoritarian police state society

[-] Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 year ago

Also known as small government

[-] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 32 points 1 year ago

Housing needs to be a right. Every citizen should be able to go to a housing authority and have a roof over their head if they are unable to afford it.

[-] rosymind@leminal.space 27 points 1 year ago

Agreed. I'd go a bit further. Anything regarding sustenance should be a right:

Housing, healthcare, access to clean water, clean air, at least one hot meal a day, and emergency services should be a right.

I'll even go as far as arguing that internet access should be included in that list.

Better yet, college

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[-] Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works 26 points 1 year ago

I just do not understand why we are not addressing homelessness in more productive ways. We know it can be better managed as some countries have figured it out. Really crazy that we are not all on board with just doing the right thing and having a win win for all. We choose to suffer and we choose to sweep our suffering under the rug when guests come over.

[-] Asafum@feddit.nl 9 points 1 year ago

Because that would involve "giving someone something for free that they DiDn'T WoRk FoR!" You can't give anything to anyone except billionaires because it's "not fair to meeeee. I work, I don't get free stuff. They should just Get A Job!™©®"

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[-] dangblingus@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

Of course conservatives would cheer the continued marginalization and traumatization of society's most vulnerable. They touch themselves to the cruelty.

[-] Tygr@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

Illegal eviction and illegal failure to preserve tenant possessions. California let them move in and remain, now they must follow their own rules protecting squatters.

They will absolutely be sued for this.

It’s getting there but we’re still pretty far from critical mass. Need 10x more people to truly show the world how far US has slipped in favor of the 0.01%.

[-] the_q@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

Dear conservatives,

Why are you purposefully awful?

With love, Everyone

[-] verdantbanana@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

also no one on the left went live on any national tv broadcast to denounce it either

[-] Batman@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

An extrapolation to say the government could clean up the city over night of homelessness because they were able to relocate a portion a few neighborhoods for an event.

[-] kaffiene@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

Hmm Republicans being inhuman and Techbros saying hold my beer. Cool

[-] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago

At this point the homeless ought to try staging a camp in at the city hall. Get the headlines all over them being dragged out of there.

[-] Got_Bent@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

I remember homeless people doing exactly that in Santa Cruz back in the eighties to great success.

However, public sentiment over the past thirty years really seems to have swung aggressively toward the fuck you I got mine so die end of the pendulum.

[-] HorseWithNoName@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

Food Not Bombs did it there ten years ago too. They camped outside of city hall every week, getting arrested over and over. They were finally given a vacant lot next to the freeway to freely camp in after that. It started after SC passed anti-camping laws, making it illegal for any unhoused person to fall asleep.

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[-] braxy29@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

miraculously disappeared??? wtf

[-] GladiusB@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

They also miraculously appeared. San Francisco is a sanctuary city. There are countless cities that just ship off their homeless and make the residents deal with it. The weather does not help either. California is great for homelessness due to the lack of a true winter.

But as a resident it is hard to know how to help and still see them constantly coming.

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[-] reagansrottencorpse@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Who remembers that homeless encampment in Texas that was about to be ripped apart by cops, until a bunch of armed people turned up to defend it?

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[-] badbytes@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Lowest form of humanity, has to be near when you criminalize homelessness.

[-] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

I also noticed that after a recent sweep/camp cleanup of homeless encampments in Seattle, the local Sinclair station (KOMO) was quick to run footage of people (presumably to be representative of Seattle folk generally) basically gloating that AT LAST they did something

Yes, the right are going to do everything they can to give others the impression that everyone else also regards poor people to be vermin, to be purged... preferably violently. The purpose of this sort of language is always to condition its audience to accept, if not cheer for, violence.

[-] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago

I read the article, there doesn't seem to be any mention of where they went. The people vice interviewed seem to be playing coy and giving a bunch of carefully sanitized non-answers about what happened. ~~San Francisco just made 500 homeless people vanish?~~ No, excuse me, big ol' homeless camps just happened to up and vanish with no police intervention just in time for APEC? Yeah, fucking right. Dollars to dimes that they bussed them to the central valley. I know you can do better than this, California, get your shit together.

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this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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