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Paul Cantrell

Whenever we speak out against encampment evictions, someone always chimes in, “Well would •you• want homeless people living in tents near •you•?”

and I’m like, “What the hell kind of question is that?! I don’t want people to be homeless and have to live in tents •anywhere•.”

I mean, let’s just clarify this, my Nextdoorified Neighbor Dude: When you object to people living in tents near you…

…are you suggesting that it's fine if people have no home and no shelter as long as they’re •far away• from you?

Or is it that you object to these •people• being near you, whether housed or not?

In other words, are you advocating “out of sight out of mind,” or segregation? Which is it?

Now if the question “Would you want homeless people living in tents near you?” were followed up with “We have to build housing for these people immediately!” …well, then they’d have my attention!

But somehow that’s never the thought that follows.

(For the record, I have in fact had a tent encampment not too far from my house, right on the daily commute to my kid’s elementary school, for an extended period of time. I’ve also had an asshole lawyer in a McMansion, and I’ll give you exactly one guess which one has caused more problems for the neighborhood.)

@inthehands No, it's always "herd these smelly poors out of our neighborhood, who cares where they go as long as it's not here."

@inthehands

Well yeah, I think it is immoral to keep them on the street. A lot refuse housing aparently. I don’t think it is like this everywhere tho… we are having a hard time even when they are provided housing…. They just leave it.

Meth is the big drug over here…

@inthehands

A good chunk can be helped but not the majority like I previously thought…. I’m getting pretty sad about it.

@inthehands

Meanwhile disabled on fixed incomes who are not drug users and their housing crisis and the discrimination going on with rental units and vouchers and no taxable income is getting kinda ignored…. I’m growing annoyed…

@inthehands

Feeling the multiple systems failure and lack of prevention and the idiocy of always over exposing disabled to drug users under the banner of “behavioral health” while never providing anything for disabled who are not drug users and every program targeting drug users. And workers sayin they do have people who pretend to need to be sober but they already are just cause there are no options for people….

@inthehands I live by an encampment, and have unhoused folks digging in the dumpster for our building everyday. It's so disheartening listening to them sift through it, looking for recyclables. I don't want them there, not because I don't want it 'in my backyard.' I don't want them there because it's so dehumanizing for them. I want them to have a better life. There has to be a better way

@inthehands @iaintshootinmis I continue to be astonished how hard people resist just giving people housing - it's 100% effective at solving *not having a home*, and dramatically cheaper than all these other non-fixes

@darkuncle @iaintshootinmis
I mean, yeah, sure, it may seem dramatically cheaper and help people in the short term, BUT on the other hand it’s dramatically cheaper and helps people in the long term. So, you know…there are tradeoffs.

@inthehands @iaintshootinmis it’s almost as if there are other factors in this calculus besides costs and outcomes 🤔