Illegal homeless camps realized as public safety threat?

Mahan isn't alone in restricting homeless encampment activity in SJ. City Journal's Judge Glock breaks down how many cities across America, of all political leanings, are fighting back against out-of-control unsafe, unsanitary, and unkind illegal camps.

Americans have stopped listening to the activists. Citizens and politicians of all stripes have recently taken steps to pass or enforce laws against public encampments, often in the same locales that once embraced a housing-only approach. They have begun to realize that the activists’ promises that encampments would be abandoned once the government provided enough handouts and housing were a mirage....

The first sign that Americans were fed up with the sudden explosion of camps came in liberal Austin, Texas, in 2021, when voters overwhelmingly reinstated a camping ban that the city council had recently repealed. The Texas state legislature, with a large bipartisan majority, also passed a law requiring cities to enforce laws against camping. The following year, Missouri and Tennessee passed laws banning public camping. Missouri’s statute included a ban on state funding for permanent housing for the homeless, with the funds instead going to shelter or services.

The states have continued acting on homeless encampments this year. Georgia’s legislature this spring passed SB 62, which requires cities to enforce local laws against street camping, mandates a performance audit for homeless spending, and prevents cities from dropping off the homeless in areas where they have nowhere to sleep. Despite activists’ pleas, the bill received bipartisan votes in the legislature. With Democratic and Republican support, Arizona also passed a bill to ban public camping this year, though the state’s new governor, Katie Hobbs, vetoed it.

Cities are taking action, too. Both candidates in Denver’s June mayoral runoff said that they wanted to enforce existing laws against street camping. Recent polling found that 57 percent of Denver voters endorse sweeps to remove homeless encampments; only 34 percent oppose them. Mayor Eric Adams of New York has cracked down on people sleeping on subway trains and moved to allow involuntary commitment for homeless people suffering a mental-health crisis.

This article originally appeared in City Journal. Read the whole thing here.

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