How do you solve the problem of mass homeless encampments taking over cities and making life miserable, if not also dangerous, for taxpaying residents of those cities? Easy, you enforce the laws making camping out on public property and private property illegal. Give the bums the boot.
That’s what one town in northern California did. By getting rid of the vagrants, many of whom are addicted to illegal narcotics, by enforcing the law, Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey solved the homelessness problem for his city. It now boasts the lowest homeless population in the entire state of California.
Speaking about that on “Fox & Friends First,” Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey said, “The policies that are in place at the regional and statewide level that are tolerating this type of behavior that is personally destructive and also destructive to the surrounding communities are really enabling this situation to increase throughout our entire state, and throughout our entire region.”
Continuing, he added “Changing these policies will actually have a major impact.”
Specifically, it’s the strict enforcement of non-encampment ordinances and strictly punishing violations like urinating in public that have worked at cleaning up Coronado’s streets. Speaking on that, he said:
“We also make it very clear that we don’t tolerate encampments along our sidewalks, and we don’t tolerate other code violations such as being drunk in public or urinating in public or defecating in public. We just simply don’t tolerate these basic code violations. What ends up happening is an individual either chooses to get help or they end up leaving.”
He then noted that those among the homeless population who do actually want help are given it, while those who don’t want help and just want to break the law are treated as any lawbreakers should be. In his words:
“The fact of the matter is there, although there are a myriad of reasons that people end up homeless, they eventually only fall into two camps — those that want help and those that do not want help. And if those that are refusing to get help… shouldn’t be granted additional the ability to break laws such as tent encampments on the sidewalk or urinating or defecating in public.”
“We need to be enforcing these policies to ultimately kind of help them get into that other camp that eventually get help.”
Mayor Bailey’s policies stand in start contrast to the rest of California and many other blue states, where homeless encampments have popped up in many a public area and made life miserable for residents. Whereas the streets of LA, DC, and San Francisco used to be beautiful to walk along, they’re now strewn with human waste, passed out or raving drug addicts, and drug paraphernalia because cities refuse to clean up the streets and kick out the vagrants.
But his policies show that the solution is simple: just enforce the laws and kick out the vagrants to make cities beautiful, walkable, and liveable again. Unfortunately, common sense policies seem like a step too far for the looney left.
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