Judge rules Seattle homeless man’s truck is a home
seattletimes.com
seattletimes.com
1. Pay for the time your vehicle is in city deposit and the fine
2. Do nothing and wait for your vehicle got auctioned.
You end up with the second option because you don't have any money (or the car wouldn't be impounded in first place). So you now have: a fine to pay and no car.
And no place to live.
But asylumseekers and refugees get some money from the state they are doing the legal asylum/refugee process.
Oh, and you can push a car by human strength. Preferably at night, to somewhere else.
for 72h straight your truck stay parked in some street
"When officers saw the truck, which was not operable, they called a city parking enforcement officer, who tagged it and told Long he had to move it within 72 hours (of the tagging)... Long tore off the impound sticker... and left the truck in place. The parking officer waited at least four days before having the vehicle towed, giving Long extra time to buy a part needed to get it running. When the enforcement officer returned Oct. 12, the truck was still there but Long was not, and the vehicle was towed."
The officers didn't know initially that it was outright inoperable. Simply pushing the vehicle (or having it pushed) to the next adjacent space complies with the letter of the law; he may have volunteered that it was inoperable hoping for an empathetic extension (which he received), yet he still didn't move or fix it. Since its release, it's right back on the street, inoperable.
Sympathetic to the plight of the homeless, but there needs to be enforcement of laws and respect to the neighborhood that you are living in, whether or not you are homeless.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/meeting-draws-hund...
It's not fair to the residents of the neighborhood, or people living in vehicles that are respecting the law and minding their own business.
http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/seattle-business-owner-frust...
Do you see that you're putting a value judgement on ownership of a home and attributing them with some ownership of the "neighborhood" while denying that broader sense of ownership to people choosing to reside in that neighborhood in their vehicles?
That's, if true, entirely the fault of how your state allocates revenue from vehicle license fees, not the people living in (currently licensed) cars.
I didn't say anything about the level of VLFs, I said something about the distribution of funds raised thereby.
But, yes, it's zero-sum: but if vehicles that are used more as houses are having tax revenue distributed as if they were being used more as transport, then people sleeping in cars are subsidizing drivers.
The reality is the law, as always, is lagging behind reality. Things have changed substantially in the last few decades in terms of how realistic it is to live a fairly normal and connected life from a vehicle. There is essentially no practical need for a mailing address or land line anymore for example, smart phones, internet, efficient solar panels...
Drug addicts/cooks living in squalor who happen to be in vehicles will be committing myriad obvious and easily policed crimes. Why those police are not doing their job is entirely orthogonal to if a vehicle should be considered a potential legal residence.
What incentive do people have to not lie about that? When someone loses their home, are they obligated to go to the DMV and update their registration and throw in a bunch of extra money? How do you police this? Do you have the police capacity to handle this?
How do you enforce violations? If someone is living in their car but didn't pay the registration, do you tow their car? Doesn't that get right back to the original problem?
> This could even translate into states providing facilities for pump outs and showers for those registered for vehicle dwellings to improve the sanitation of what's going to be happening regardless.
In the Seattle area, at least, there are free RV hookups for people to dump their waste. Many people just don't use them. Their vehicle may not actually be that driveable, or maybe they can't afford the gas, or maybe they simply don't care.
> There is essentially no practical need for a mailing address or land line anymore for example, smart phones, internet, efficient solar panels...
Yes, a well-adjusted, committed person can leave reasonably from a vehicle. But what about the people who live in vehicles in part because they aren't doing the work required to keep the social contract and be a participating member of society?
> Drug addicts/cooks living in squalor who happen to be in vehicles will be committing myriad obvious and easily policed crimes.
Many of these crimes aren't easily policed, actually. Drug possession requires a warrant to search a vehicle. Finding discarded paraphernalia isn't enough, nor is a witnessing drug use. Littering and waste dumping are almost impossible to police — you have to be caught in the act by a police officer.
Ignoring that, the reality is that Seattle isn't policing these.
My point is that it's a reasonable stance for people who contribute to the upkeep of a neighborhood in the form of property taxes to have a greater claim to that neighborhood than people who decided that it would be a good place to park their car or camp for the night. Not sure if you live in a neighborhood where people regularly camp out and live out of their cars, but I do and there are tons of problems with it:
1. At a fundamental level, it is unfair. People who own or rent homes in the neighborhood spend lots of money (our property taxes are $600/month) in order to contribute to the the upkeep of the neighborhood. They also generally clean up after themselves and don't steal stuff.
2. People who own or rent are also tied to the neighborhood in a way that people who camp or live in cars are not. If the neighborhood goes to shit, it's easy to pull up camp or start your car and leave; you can be out in a few hours. If you rent, it's at least a few months to find a new place to live. For homeowners, you could be looking at years, plus many thousands of dollars in broker and moving costs.
3. It's not just that homeowners contribute to the well being of the neighborhood, it's that people who camp and live in cars actively do the opposite. After the city of Portland clears the regular camping spots in my neighborhood, a team of cleaners has to come in to dispose of waste. Many people, and thus, much taxpayer expense is involved. This happens every 6-8 weeks. Guess how many times the city has ever had to clean up in a similar way after homeowners... zero.
4. But it's more than just the clean up. Campers bring tons of crime with them. There is a tent at the campsite down the street from me that is actually a bicycle chop shop! And then there's the stolen cars that get stripped and abandoned in our neighborhood on a weekly basis when there is an active campsite. Oh, and there are tons of hypodermic needles all over the ground near the campsites.
So, yeah, I think it's pretty legitimate to not think it's fair for people who follow the rules, work hard, and contribute to society to have to watch their neighborhood get torn apart by people who are A) completely uninvested in the wellbeing of the neighborhood, and B) actively contributing to it's decline.
Being a citizen is not a license to do whatever you want. Nobody argues that people should be able to ignore posted parking restrictions when it suits them. Yet the negative externalities from people camping and living in their cars are way more significant than from parking in a loading zone or not paying the meter. Just ask anybody who lives in a neighborhood with a significant homeless presence.
No, they aren't, mostly. There are probably a few that are conscientious, but over the past years, almost every RV that's gone through my neighborhood has brought problems with it.
Part of living in physical housing is that there are sewer lines to it and trash pick-up. RVs and cars don't have that. Most of those denizens are not driving halfway across town to drain their blackwater tanks or paying to dispose of their trash. Instead, the dump it out on the street before relocating.
In addition to the obvious health risk of literal human shit being dumped on the street and grass, that trash more often than not contains used needles, used toilet paper, and other dangerous stuff.
On top of that:
1. Along with piles of trash that had been jammed into the bushes, my neighbor found a discarded gun. (Fortunately he found it before his toddler did.)
2. My wife interrupted someone squatting and shitting on the ground in our alley. Multiple times.
3. We see and hear screaming matches and fights between people in and near RVs on a pretty regular basis.
4. Property theft is constant. Most of us don't ship things to our homes anymore. One friend has a giant bin with a lock on it for package delivery people to lock things in.
5. Our car has been broken into twice.
6. Someone once climbed our back fence and was wandering around the yard babbling incoherently.
7. A gas can was stolen out of the back of my truck.
> How do you know the people living in homes are respecting the law?
Let's not play the whataboutism game. That won't solve any problems.
The people living in their vehicles need real help. The city (and the country at large) has profound systemic problems around inequality, housing, healthcare, and drug addiction.
Pretending that the people living in their vehicles are law-abiding citizens whose homes happen to have wheels denies the full reality of their experience. Most of them, in addition to experiencing homelessness, are also experiencing drug addiction, often have mental illness, and are living in an environment that lacks the sewage and trash infrastructure needed for humans to live safely.
All of that needs to be addressed. These aren't just free spirits living the dream out of their VW bus. (If they do want to do that, more power to them. But they still gotta find a place for their shit and trash.)
When examining the causes and effects of issue that you'd rather not take place in your neighborhood it is essential to look at all the intersections of those issues and look at other situations where those issues are also present.
If you don't recognize the fact that a majority of those issues you listed are committed most frequently by traditionally housed people, in other neighborhood than your own, then you'll be blind to the larger systemic issues that need to be addressed to fix the problems. You'll also be much more likely to support a short-term solution that fixes your problems but not the larger problem.
I certainly didn't depersonalize or "deplatform" people.
> If you don't recognize the fact that a majority of those issues you listed are committed most frequently by traditionally housed people, in other neighborhood than your own, then you'll be blind to the larger systemic issues that need to be addressed to fix the problems.
I certainly never claimed homeless people are the only ones who commit crimes, but I am pretty confident that the homed neighbors around me do not get into screaming matches in the street, shit in my alley, jam trash in my bushes, or dump blackwater on the street.
It's not because they're better people. It's because they have access to sewers, trash pickup, and soundproof walls. Any "solution" for homeless people that lets them continue to live in an environment without the physical infrastructure — shelter, sanitation, and trash — needed to live safely isn't a real solution.
http://mynorthwest.com/152391/seattle-business-shoots-video-...?
Certainly, there is no practical way to enforce not littering. Are you going to have undercover cops patrolling around waiting for someone to drop something on the ground?
I live in a formerly-quiet neighborhood in Seattle. When my kids were 4 and 6, I had to teach them what a used needle looks like and to never ever touch one because trash like that started showing up on our street corner near parked RVs.
1. There are definitely some people living in vehicles that are not part of the drug trade as consumers and producers, and I'm very sympathetic to their plight, and supportive of them living in their vehicles if that's all they can afford.
2. There are definitely people living in vehicles that are drug addicts. I'm sympathetic to their plight, but it doesn't seem like letting them live without treatment is good for them or the surrounding community. This is a profoundly hard problem — how as a society do we deal with people whose addiction prevents them from making good life choices and upholding the social contract? How much agency should someone have when they use that agency to harm themselves and others?
3. There are definitely people living in vehicles that are drug producers and sellers. They should go to jail.
People who have strong opinions on this seem to believe only one of those categories exists, and then imagine solutions that deny the existence of the others. That's not practical. My experience from my street is that there are all three kinds, though unfortunately not many in the first group.
I care about the rights and life of people in these dire straits, but I also care about my own rights and those of my family. I'd like my children to be able to play in the yard without worrying about them rolling onto a dirty needle. I'd like my wife to be able to garden without finding trash and sewage in the bushes.
Even if someone is 100% supportive of letting people experiencing homelessness get by however they can, I hope they understand that it's not biologically safe for humans to live in areas without sewage and trash infrastructure. That's how you get cholera, hepatitis, etc.
wow, how widely is this belief held? is there a name for it?
It's not a particularly popular model, even though it was influential in developing views that remain popular today.
To put it another way, the people living in RV's are also residents of the neighborhoods and they are not homeless, just houseless.
The municipal services, in the US, are generally funded by property taxes
Doubtful, if you have to sat "I am x but" that means you understand you are about to disprove your own position
Like saying "I support freedom of speech but..." No you do not...
>>there needs to be enforcement of laws and respect to the neighborhood that you are living in, whether or not you are homeless.
There needs to be respect for the individual and if a person is not causing physical harm to another person they need to be left alone.
"Respect" is a nebulous subjective concept that the government has no business attempting to enforce with law
"The Law" is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
I'm still puzzled at how our society affirms our Right to Life, while simultaneously affirming food, water, and shelter as Essential to Life, yet will never make the logical conclusion that food/water/shelter are necessarily included in our right to life.
1. All men are entitled to life.
2. Food, water, and shelter are essential to life.
3. Fuck you, get a job or freeze to death.
the nth order effects of these programs need to be considered.
I think negative rights are the way to go. Once you start having positive rights, then you place obligations on others which ultimately require force or the threat of force to make people do something. In addition, positive rights has a tendency to keep on growing - for example a right to Internet access. The downside of that is that rights then do not become something that is stable across time and space but just a synonym for something someone arbitrarily decided to call a right.
Which the government conveniently forgets.
The government is quite aware - and works within the framework established for it. It's up to us as citizens to challenge it (or remove it) if we feel it isn't abiding by the rules.
Sadly, most of the populace can't even be bothered to vote, let alone stay engaged on these issues.
I see rights as those things that most people would not give up in order to have their rights protected by society. The right not to be hit for no reason is valued by most people. But having a right to hit anybody you want is not more highly valued by most people, as it also means you will be hit a lot.
That doesn't mean people shouldn't help each other or accept help or participate in mutual aid associations. But such voluntary aid has CONDITIONS. You have to be a decent person to get it. A right to help doesn't require good behavior.
And compulsory help is not practical either. Eventually, costs of providing it rise until quality has to be sacrificed and options have to be limited and often the opportunity cost of the free help is greater than the cost of paying for it yourself.
Do you see this as the same as the golden rule?
Mandatory reporting laws throw a crimp in this logic--for various sorts of crimes, some or all people may be obligated to report these crimes depending on state/federal laws as well as their profession. At least 18 states have no restrictions on profession, meaning anyone suspecting crimes such as child abuse is obligated to report.
https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/manda.pdf#Page=1&view=F...
Enforceability isn't something I'd know. Just making a point that we have plenty of cases where people are obligated to go out of their way to save someone else's life.
TIL: There is no concept of "Duty to rescue" in most Common Law countries such as the US. Seems really strange.
Rights are mainly seen in the US as negative rights.
Until people understand that personal responsibility doesn't stop people from falling into poverty, these issues will continue.
Could greater personal responsibility have kept everyone out of homelessness? highly unlikely.
For every person who is able to climb up using their bootstraps, as they say, are more resources freed up to help those who truly can't help themselves? Yes!
And that money has to come from somewhere. The poor need a lot of helping hands (most people are a few paychecks away from living under a bridge) but a blank guarantee of food, shelter and utilities is not, IMO, the right way.
Give fish vs. teach them fishing.
In some places, the homeless quite commonly register intersections or similar locations as their stationary home location. Then things like notices are delivered to them there. This, as grandparent implies, is not so straightforward with a mobile vehicle.
What does that leave? A requirement to constantly update your location of record with local government? Overbearing surveillance to track the homeless so government can reach them? All-electronic systems relying on devices and services the homeless almost certainly can't afford? None of these are great solutions. All are clearly problematic, in the damning social justice sense.
Again, you're completely correct. We need to admit, accept, acknowledge, and embrace our unhoused friends and neighbors. It's just possible that a truck and a tent under a bridge might pose slightly different levels of difficulty for addressing-type needs.
What about those that don't?
You don't have to be homeless to lack a permanent address.
Those who have relative means will often maintain a mailbox of some sort. There are services that accept mail and scan it for you and other ways. Few of which are available to the homeless, due generally to a lack of financial means.
Lacking a real permanent address doesn't inherently make you uncontactable by governments. It's the combination of lacking a permanent address and lacking the means to work around it that creates a perfect storm.
Also, this ruling isn't precedential, because it's not in a court of appeals. Practically speaking, this means it only really applies to this single case, and possibly other Washington state courtrooms, but nowhere else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domicile_(law)#United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residence
For example, you can use a mailbox service if you live out of your car.
Judging by the amount of leaves, gunk, and other crap that accumulates underneath the parked cars on my street (Which were also in the same place day, after day, after day), this is another one of those rules which is enforced incredibly selectively. If it weren't, half the cars on Capitol hill would be in impound.
This isn't Soviet Russia, it's not like I'll get an extra ration and a pat on the back for turning my neighbour in.
[1] This has gotten better since they've added a parking permit requirement.
This is really good for anyone who owns a towing and impound company in Seattle.
Thinking like a politician, one of the implications might be- since we can count a car as a home, all the people living out of their cars aren't homeless anymore. With this huge reduction in homeless people we can cut the budget to the shelters because they are serving fewer people. They'll definitely win re-election because they simultaneously reduced homelessness and cut spending, and they didn't even have to put forth any effort. Total win for the politicians.
"If your neighbor is poor and gives you his cloak as security for a loan, do not keep the cloak overnight. Return the cloak to its owner by sunset so he can stay warm through the night"
Deuteronomy 24:12
EDIT: I misunderstood the point, sorry
The submission links to an article at fox13memphis.com. The user I'm replying to suggests a "much better" article at seattletimes.com because it includes content which I'm pointing out is already contained at the submission link.
Sadly, this is not an exaggeration. Tens of millions of Americans really do believe all of the above.
Then I was thinking "What happens if tomorrow I get injured and cannot work for 12 months".
- I lose my place of living because I can't afford the bills
- I move into my parent's house
- My family loses their health insurance entirely.
- I have to pay for COBRA... but I don't have a job...
- I may need to take out loans to just get by for some time till I can get my health back in order.
Yeah we have ZERO social safety nets.
Nobody is responsible for anything. If anyone is in a bad circumstance (health, money, job, housing, debt, drugs, addiction, abortion, sex, crime) it was not their fault; it can't be. It was therefore a failure of the system, and therefore the system needs to fix it. Either they didn't get the proper mental health care they needed, physical health care, or education, or <insert system failure>.
I'm sure plenty of Americans that I have not encountered do think this, but they are in a negligible, near-non-existent minority.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S...
This study shows religious tend to donate more to charity.
https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Religious-Americans-Giv...
It turns out jerks are jerks, and the church bashing is unwarranted here.
/s/Jesus/trickle down
I think that fixes it
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16531067 and marked it off-topic.