I don't even know what to do with myself, reading this. It's so fucking nightmarish. Why do we allow this hell to continue? That man should have been in a warm, safe bed. And he could have been if we didn't hate our own people so much.
Stoping this hell requires people to get off the Internet and possibly put themselves in harms way, or risk their livelihoods. Until people want a better life for their fellow man more than they want comfort for themselves, nothing will change.
Personally, I just don't see that happening in America.
I agree, but, I don't think you read the whole article? They were helping them move to shelters, and had relocated many. The social workers were familiar with the man who was killed, and we can probably assume they didn't know he was there when the bulldozers came through.
Here's a couple ideas for dealing with the housing crisis situation, one of the primary causes of the homeless issues in the first place. Since all we ever seem to do is fail at handling symptoms instead of of causes.
Foreign companies cannot own private housing.
Domestic companies cannot own more than say 2-3 private homes, this includes any companies that can be connected through another business or individual. This allows individuals to have second homes or a rental property but means rental businesses are dead, they handle larger condos and apartments. Separate homes are meant for families and individual households.
Tax vacant housing at high rates to facilitate homes actually being loved in. We have largely enough housing for everyone to have a place, but a lot of it sits unused as bullshit real estate holdings.
For larger cities, tax vacant retail and office space at a high rate and give incentives to remodel it for more housing. Have maximum vacancy time-frames to incentivize utilizing the spaces instead of just setting bullshit pricing no one will ever pay while "looking" for tenants year after year.
But none of this will happen. Because the oligarchs have their money invested in real estate holdings that don't move or get and use, so they require little to no maintenance. It's a large reason why half of NYC looks like a shit hole with boarded up retail spots for decades while a cupboard under the stars costs $1800/mo to rent.
"Just build" only helps the developers who get to build and thus profit more. They'll just build luxury condos and "investment properties" since that's the most profitable.
There's more expensive housing units sitting empty than there are unhoused people. The problem isn't a lack of housing, it's a lack of AFFORDABLE housing. That and it's WAY too easy for landlords to evict people.
Abolishing parking minimums, and, in fact, establishing parking maximums, would be a great, easy, and inexpensive step for most cities in the US. You literally can't build dense walkable places like old main streets anymore because of zoning codes and (chiefly) parking minimums. If you're like me, you probably assumed that these codes had their feet in good reasons for existing, but they actually don't. Parking minimums are often based on numbers that are essentially snatched out of thin air and not evidence-based, and many other cities simply copy what other cities are doing. Aggressive exclusionary zoning often has its feet in racism, and it's a big reason why only US cities seem to experience urban decay. This is something you can change! Go to your city council meetings, network with people there! Go to your city planning board meetings, read your city's zoning laws, and go give them very specific shit about it! These offices are infinitely more accessible and responsive than state and federal legislators, and you might be surprised to find that some of them even agree with you! It doesn't take much effort, it's pretty much free, and the cops can't stop you!
Of course nobody has been arrested or charged. Manslaughter? Murder? Come on, at least reckless endangerment? Not if the victim is homeless and the perp is the state, fuck no.
I swear bro, we're going to fix homelessness, just give me one more dozer sweep, bro, I swear it'll work this time, bro I promise we won't kill someone again, please, just one more dozer sweep it's got to work this time
This isn't even the first time something like this has happened. To my knowledge, this exact same thing happened in Modesto a few years ago. I sincerely doubt those are the only two. Dozer sweeps aren't cheap, either; I'm pretty sure the city could just house these folks for whatever they're paying to do the sweep. This is purely about flexing on our most vulnerable population.
No they're not. Don't buy that bullshit. There may be a couple (relatively unimportant) issues that they leave to the states, like cannabis legalization, so it looks like they're doing this. But in reality, they will use the federal government as a cudgel against states that do things they don't like.
They're already talking about making aid to CA wildfires conditional. These people have no ethics, no scruples, and lack basic empathy.
A handful of underpaid city staffers gently disassembling your home don't send the same message that 200 tons of steel and diesel barreling through it does.