Legalizing drug use made the problem worse. All of these camps are filled with stolen materials. Enforce the law. And yes, if that means locking up homeless people then do it. There is no right to live on the streets, and commit crimes and do drugs.
I listened to an editor from the W-Weekly and I was actually quite surprised with his take on the whole PDX homeless camp problem. The dude was to the Right of Lars Larson on this. They have a piece out now. We have laws against illegal chop shops but somehow the homeless have them set up and no one cares.
Public dumping, fires, stolen materials, there are any number of violations that you could be citing and prosecuting these homeless camps for. I don't have a problem using the jail system to incarcerate and institutionalize these people.
If you were a PDX homeowner and you decided to use your front yard as a garbage dump, how long before the fines start mounting and the city moves to declare your place a public health hazard?
You have homeless camps here where the garbage is just flowing down hillsides and nothing is done. Imagine the rats around these places. There have been seven homeless people who have burned to death when their place went up in flames. I've seen some shit driving through PDX and I just SMH.
