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posted by Fnord666 on Monday October 09 2017, @07:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the crappy-situation dept.

The Guardian brings us a disturbing story from Anaheim California:

Somewhere in the southern California city of Anaheim, less than five miles from Disneyland, three porta-potties – two pink, one gray – are locked in a city storage facility. It's not where they're supposed to be.

They were meant for a dusty homeless encampment that sprawls along the west bank of the Santa Ana river, and is home to hundreds of men, women and children in tents and other makeshift shelters.

But the toilets are sitting unused after being confiscated by the city, and the residents have nowhere to relieve themselves except in the bushes, or in buckets, or in the cramped privacy of their own tents. Activists are up in arms over the primitive conditions in which camp inhabitants are living, and which, in their view, the local government appears to have sanctioned.

"This is a public health crisis for the homeless community," said Mohammed Aly, a homeless advocate and lawyer who helped install the toilets. Not least it was a case, he said, of providing people with simple human dignity.

[...] The closest public toilet to the Anaheim camp is over a mile upriver from where many riverbed residents live. So when the porta-potties arrived in May, after being purchased and delivered by local activist groups, they were a welcome alternative to walking half an hour or more to use the bathroom, or taking the more popular route of relieving oneself in a bucket and dumping the refuse in the riverbed.

But just 72 hours after the toilets were installed, there was bad news: the council of wealthy Orange County insisted the porta-potties be removed from their land, saying their presence was unauthorized.

Aly subsequently moved them about 300 yards, out of the county's jurisdiction, and onto city land. That lasted a week, until the city, too, ordered them removed, citing local ordinances regulating the installation of porta-potties. When Aly and other activists didn't remove the toilets themselves, the city government confiscated them, and took them into storage.

[...] Aly said he's not giving up on the toilets. And if he can't work something out with the city or county governments to get them back in place, he knows what he's going to do.

"Our next step is to proceed anyways," he said. "To leave the portable restrooms on a trailer, park the trailer adjacent to the riverbed, and move it around every 72 hours."

If the city of Anaheim doesn't want the homeless to use toilets, perhaps city council members could offer their bathrooms instead.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @07:38AM (27 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @07:38AM (#579174)

    Arrest them, and lock them away until they can prove that they can and will provide adequate facilities for themselves.

    Put them in mental hospitals as necessary, and if they agree.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @08:19AM (20 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @08:19AM (#579186)

    Put these people to work.
    There are lots of parts of Orange County that look like an armpit.
    There are also lots of people in Orange County with more wealth than they could spend in 5 lifetimes--wealth that they derived by exploiting the non-wealthy and exploiting the public infrastructure.

    In finding a solution to the unemployment/homeless situation, the dots are very easy to connect.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by rylyeh on Monday October 09 2017, @08:46AM

      by rylyeh (6726) <{kadath} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday October 09 2017, @08:46AM (#579195)

      +1

      --
      "a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
    • (Score: 5, Touché) by c0lo on Monday October 09 2017, @08:52AM (18 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 09 2017, @08:52AM (#579197) Journal

      Put these people to work.
      ...
      In finding a solution to the unemployment/homeless situation, the dots are very easy to connect.

      Careful what you wish for.
      I can see a solution which perfectly fits your requirements and still implemented by the worst reactionaries. It's called: forced work camps.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @10:09AM (15 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @10:09AM (#579214)

        I was thinking "jobs" (FDR-style).

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday October 09 2017, @12:03PM (14 children)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 09 2017, @12:03PM (#579247) Journal

          Yes, I believe you.
          I'm not going to split the hair, but you'll have to admit that forced work camps still fit your wording [tvtropes.org].

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday October 09 2017, @10:36PM (12 children)

            by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday October 09 2017, @10:36PM (#579473) Homepage

            We should also do this with illegals. Labor camps in exchange for 3 hots, a cot, and perhaps a rec area and some basic medical care.

            Residents must be sober at all times but will be able to leave the camps at any time provided they lose those benefits and are kicked back onto the streets (homeless) or deported (illegals).

            Look, that's a pretty sweet fuckin' deal. I don't understand why people keep modding me down for suggesting that.

            • (Score: 4, Insightful) by KiloByte on Monday October 09 2017, @11:52PM

              by KiloByte (375) on Monday October 09 2017, @11:52PM (#579507)

              Residents must be sober at all times

              And here's the reason why homeless shelters tend to stay empty.

              --
              Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @11:53PM (7 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @11:53PM (#579508)

              You're an idiot to not see how that will go badly. I guess you don't quite understand human rights either, they must seem lime some idealistic nonsense to you.

              The fact that you don't understand the downmods says a lot.

              • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday October 10 2017, @12:09AM

                by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Tuesday October 10 2017, @12:09AM (#579513) Homepage

                Spoken like a true gated-community liberal.

                Invite them into your house and see how well that works out for you. Anyway, in my past screeds, I mentioned that the stipulation was that illegals would receive job training and, eventually, citizenship after 5 years in the 'camps with no trouble. I call that a win-win situation.

                I would have happily agreed to such terms to get Swedish citizenship back when it was actually a functioning country and before Merkel and the Jews decided that Nordic countries were too White and too good examples of society.

              • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:11AM (5 children)

                by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:11AM (#579556) Journal

                Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness doesn't necessarily give you the right to lay on the sidewalk, drunk. That's what a home is for.

                • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:30AM (4 children)

                  by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:30AM (#579566) Journal

                  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness doesn't necessarily give you the right to lay on the sidewalk, drunk.

                  Where's exactly the definition in which "to lay on the sidewalk, drunk" is banned from "the state of being happy"?

                  In other words, why is illegal to have the personal definition of "pursuit of happiness" as "attaining a state of perpetual drunkenness 'til the end"? Why are you asserting that a leaving-Las Vegas [wikipedia.org] person is being immoral/illegal?

                  --
                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:16PM (3 children)

                    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:16PM (#579802) Journal

                    Because the city sidewalk is public property, belonging to ALL OF US. If you pass out drunk on that sidewalk, you are depriving other people of their proper use of that public property. At the least, go to the park, and sit under a tree until you pass out.

                    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:50PM (2 children)

                      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:50PM (#579828) Journal

                      Because the city sidewalk is public property, belonging to ALL OF US. If you pass out drunk on that sidewalk, you are depriving other people of their proper use of that public property.

                      By that measure, anyone in the public space is depriving any other person by the space the one occupies.

                      What if I don't pass out drunk but stay put in the public space for some hours, am I depriving less of US? What if I'm moving though the public place for the same length of time: doesn't my presence deprive others of the use of the same amount of personal space? Is any of these two forbidden?

                      --
                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 10 2017, @05:38PM (1 child)

                        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 10 2017, @05:38PM (#579914) Journal

                        Most people, standing upright, occupy fewer square feet of ground than they do unconscious on the groung. The activities you have mentioned only require that you occupy those couple of square feet of ground. Enjoy yourself. Please don't intentionally become an obstruction, like that drunk bastard in front of the bakery.

                        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 10 2017, @09:25PM

                          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 10 2017, @09:25PM (#580073) Journal

                          Most people, standing upright, occupy fewer square feet of ground than they do unconscious on the groung

                          Do you want to oppose the rights to public space of morbidly obese people with those of laying on the ground (drunk or not)?
                          Does it make a difference in the occupied space if the said homeless is sober but keeps her/his belongings in a shopping trolley?
                          How about the disabled people that use an electric scooter for mobility, are they subject to "public space limits" too?

                          (come on, Runaway, like it or not, that drunkard is a human too. He may be the victim of those corporations and globalism too late in his life to start again. Don't use the righteous broad brush to paint all individuals you don't like as "undesirables", it's wrong even in principle - justice and fairness are meant to act on the specific of individual cases).

                          --
                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:20AM

              by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:20AM (#579559) Journal

              I don't understand why people keep modding me down for suggesting that.

              You kidding/trolling, right?

              (Just in case you are not) Because the things can get pretty quick out of control when dealing with people without means to defend themselves, especially when the labor camp administration have a great incentive to be as populated as possible.

              Imagine yourself, after a good - ummm - fueling session in which you lost control over yourself (or someone just helped by mugging you), being picked up from the street and thrown into one of those camps.
              With no way to communicate outside (equiv: "Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call when you are unable to speak?"), they'd be able to do to you whatever they want - you accidentally became "undesirable" and they have a pretty strong incentive to keep it this way.

              --
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
            • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:42PM

              by Pino P (4721) on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:42PM (#579772) Journal

              Ethanol-fueled (2792) wrote:

              Residents must be sober at all times

              How easily can someone who is "Ethanol-fueled" become sober?

              Less flippantly:
              What sort of treatment for substance dependence would these labor camps offer?

            • (Score: 1) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday October 10 2017, @03:10PM

              by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Tuesday October 10 2017, @03:10PM (#579839) Journal

              Meh, let's just summarily execute anyone who poisons their body with alcohol, productive or not. That'll solve the problem too, ok?

              --
              This sig for rent.
          • (Score: 3, Informative) by Pino P on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:38PM

            by Pino P (4721) on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:38PM (#579767) Journal

            you'll have to admit that forced work camps still fit your wording [tvtropes.org].

            From the linked page: "This is page #1 that you have viewed this day". This looks like a metered paywall. So here's an alternate source: Literal Genie [allthetropes.org]

            I've explained further in a journal entry [soylentnews.org].

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @09:39PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @09:39PM (#579443)

        It solves the problem without encouraging more. ("don't feed the animals" pretty much)

        If the situation gets too far out of hand, eventually people will demand something far more brutal. Remember that the Final Solution wasn't just Jews, and it was at least partly supported by ordinary people who were fed up with things.

        Angry people get desperate. Solve the problems with something like work camps before people demand death camps. Unimaginable you think? No. It has happened before and will happen again. Don't ignore the anger and frustration.

      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday October 10 2017, @03:01PM

        by Bot (3902) on Tuesday October 10 2017, @03:01PM (#579837) Journal

        - work three jobs because there is the mortgage on insanely priced real estate: all fine
        - county asks you to clean up some mess in exchange for some food it has been giving you for quite some time: SLAVERY!!!

        As usual, it's not evil when the bank is doing it.

        --
        Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Monday October 09 2017, @08:48AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 09 2017, @08:48AM (#579196) Journal

    Arrest them, and lock them away until they can prove...

    You serious?
    (good luck proving anything while locked away. Maybe... at most some math theorems if one can do it without pen/paper).

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Monday October 09 2017, @03:55PM (1 child)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Monday October 09 2017, @03:55PM (#579291)

    Arrest them, and lock them away until they can prove that they can and will provide adequate facilities for themselves.

    Seriously? You missed the part in the summary where that's exactly what they did, then the county/city took said facilities away?

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:56PM

      by Pino P (4721) on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:56PM (#579785) Journal

      lock them away until they can prove that they can and will provide adequate facilities for themselves.

      that's exactly what they did, then the county/city took said facilities away

      "Adequate facilities" include title to land. Without said title, facilities cannot be adequate in the city's view.

  • (Score: 2) by leftover on Monday October 09 2017, @04:21PM (2 children)

    by leftover (2448) on Monday October 09 2017, @04:21PM (#579302)

    This 'solution' might sound harsh on first glance, but think for a minute. We, as a society, treat intentional criminals better than we treat people marginalized by mental illness or by financial problems or even just bad decisions. The privatized prisons are so desperate for 'residents' that they are bribing judges to send people there. So hell yes! Go ahead and 'arrest' mentally ill homeless people! Send them to private facilities equipped to handle them. Then monitor the shit out of those facilities to maintain standards of care.

    This solution includes the magic "Capitalism!" tag to erase all doubts and concerns.

    --
    Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:20AM (1 child)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:20AM (#579560) Journal

      That idea is not to terribly far out in left or right field. Unfortunately, the implementation is unlikely to be much good. I don't believe that any people, or any agency is going to properly monitor conditions inside the jails/prisons/institutions.

      If decent monitoring could be guaranteed, I might just go along with the idea. It's no secret that some people do much better in a controlled, regimented environment, than they can do on their own. On the other hand, it's no secret that sadistic SOB's are attracted to jobs where they can exercise control over the helpless. Witness the mayor's treatment of the homeless . . .

      • (Score: 2) by leftover on Tuesday October 10 2017, @11:39AM

        by leftover (2448) on Tuesday October 10 2017, @11:39AM (#579733)

        Exactly. Hence my snark. Our inability to keep government services and oversight of services on track is an overarching problem.

        --
        Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.