I’m currently reading an excellent book, “The Man in the Mirror,” by Anand Giridharadas about the murder of Jordan Neely on a New York subway in 2023 by Daniel Penny. Neely a Michael Jackson imitator, who was homeless was causing a disturbance, evidently making people feel “uncomfortable,” and Penny, an ex-Maine put him in a choke hold until he died. The book deals a lot with homelessness in New York City. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I’ve written about it before. I live in San Diego where we don’t have to deal with snow or ice or extreme cold so my take is probably more amenable to the climate I’m used to.
The book makes clear that there is too much freedom in the system regarding how the homeless are treated. They are offered too many options to the point where they are like spoiled children throwing a tantrum. Do you want ice cream? No. Waaa. Do you want candy? No. Waaa.
So here’s my take. Fundamentally it’s an issue of sanitation, of public health. It’s not acceptable to have people sleeping on the streets because it’s unacceptable to have people urinating and defecating on the streets. I personally have seen two people pooping right on the sidewalk, witnessed the poop coming out of their bodies. It’s about sanitation, stupid.
At a minimum the city (in my case San Diego) should designate a lot, a field, multiple lots, multiple fields where it’s OK for the homeless to stay overnight. There should be multiple port-a-potties available at each location. In fairness to the City, they do have a lot, the O lot, near Balboa Park with 400 tents with a lot of services including rest rooms and showers. This is pretty much ideal although it is limited; however, there are still a lot of homeless on the streets. My (temporary) solution is a much stripped down version of this with at a minimum port-a-potties, and the homeless providing their own tents which most of them already have.
The main idea is to sweep the streets either by the police or the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT team) in order to make it unacceptable to sleep, urinate or defecate on the streets. The issue is public sanitation. I’m not saying this is the ultimate solution, only the minimum solution. Once this becomes normalized, the general population and businesses can rest assured that at least they have clean and safe streets
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