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If the Supreme Court rules on this, well, all I can say is it will be a really bad ruling that emboldens criminalization of the poor all across the US. (And it won’t be particularly effective.)

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The New York Times

@nytimes

· Dec 3, 2019

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to hear a case challenging a Boise, Idaho, law that makes it a crime for someone to sleep outside when they have nowhere else to go nyti.ms/2LgMRRt

Kim-Mai Cutler

@kimmaicutler

Dec 3, 2019

We tried this approach in San Francisco in the early 1990s under former mayor Frank Jordan, who was previously a police chief. He argued people should be sent to jail if they slept in the streets.

Kim-Mai Cutler

@kimmaicutler

Dec 3, 2019

SF voters even passed a measure making panhandling illegal, with penalties of jail sentences or stiff fines.

Kim-Mai Cutler

@kimmaicutler

Dec 3, 2019

Then there was the plan to take away people's carts.

Kim-Mai Cutler

@kimmaicutler

Dec 3, 2019

This was ostensibly in exchange for a bed. But of course there were not enough beds.

Nathan ‘Midnight Leader’ Harris, PhD

@NathanIHarris

Dec 3, 2019

You think with all that energy people could build some damn shelters

Replying to

and

Problem is each city is expected to have enough beds to house the nation's entire homeless population, or allow the nation's entire homeless population to camp on its streets. SF can't even build housing for people who can afford it. This requires a national solution, or walls.

6:14 AM · Dec 4, 2019Twitter Web App

Nathan ‘Midnight Leader’ Harris, PhD

Replying to

and

Of course it is really a problem where representational government really fails.