According to a Cal Matters report published in Noozhawk last week, the U.S. Supreme Court “granted cities more power to arrest, cite and fine people who sleep outside in public places — overturning six years of legal protections for homeless residents in California and other western states.”

We all know the ugly history of how unhoused people were allowed to freely set up camp on sidewalks, in parks, on utility rights-of-way, and any other space they chose to squat.

It was the ultra-liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled they had a vested right to soil the sidewalks, collect piles of trash, steal shopping carts, and erect non-permitted structures.

So now politicians are left with nowhere to hide. They have no more excuses for not clearing all these encampments; steam cleaning the sidewalks; removing all the non-permitted structures; and replanting the parks with fresh grass.

Now cities are left with another problem. Since they have allowed so many people to set up these camps, where do they put them? Or do they even have to provide them with somewhere else to go?

Speaking from my personal experience, the government never provided me or my family with a place to live unless I was serving on active duty in the military. Even then we had to pay for our quarters, keep the place clean, and follow a firm set of rules.
 
Since I have always thought the only way there can be a problem is if there is a solution to the problem you think there is, I would like to offer a suggested fix.
 
Local, state and federal governments should establish firm policies that state that camping can occur only in designated campgrounds.

In Lompoc there is only one campground at River Park on the eastern edge of town. Currently, there may not be enough sites at the park to absorb all the “urban campers” in the city, but that could be solved by thinking out-of-the-box, much like they did a couple of years ago when the city “cleaned up the riverbed.”
 
Once the unhoused are rounded up they would be required to “pay a fee” to stay in the campground just like anyone else camping at the park.

If they don’t have funds, then they could “pay the fee” by keeping the campground trash free, helping with landscape maintenance, and working on small projects to improve the campground. For this they would be paid minimum wage, minus the daily campsite fee.

They could also be provided on-site educational opportunities, such as qualification for a high school diploma, how to manage a small budget, and several marketable skills.
 
This sounds simple, but I am sure public employee unions would object and the unhoused would probably try to exploit their part-time employment by filing injury claims or demanding the same benefits other public employees have.

The other thing local governments could do is what they’ve done in the past – nothing. The government didn’t create the homeless problem, they only encouraged it through all the programs that provide free stuff, free housing, and K-12 public schools that don’t teach our youth how to become productive citizens.

It’s past time to clean up all those homeless encampments that have sprung up over the last decade. Let’s see what the politicians and their activist antagonists come up with next to prevent them from fixing this problem.

Reference:
Supreme Court Gives Cities in California More Power to Crack Down on Homeless Camps | Local News | Noozhawk