https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/22/us/supreme-court-homeless-case-oregon.html
(“Supreme Court Seems Poised to Allow Local Laws That Penalize Homelessness”)
NIABY- Not in anyone's back yard.
That is the solution likely to come from the Supreme Court in addressing the homeless crisis in this nation.
There is a heartlessness, a cruelty at the core of such a decision. A determination that all lives are not created equal, that some don't have to be tolerated, at least not where I reside.
For those living on the streets, more accurately, surviving there, it is but one more reminder that their existence is but an inconvenience for many of those forced to witness it. They should just say "sorry" and move on. "Where" is not a question that need be answered.
We have checked our compassion, our morality, our human decency at the door as we walk into our bubble and walk away from the untidy mess that we step over to get there.
The conservatives on the Supreme Court fretted over the plight of the unhoused. And then asked them to get the Hell out of the way.
The court is hearing the wrong case. It should not be about whether local governments are entitled to punish the homeless or what jurisdiction they should or can have. The case should be about whether local, state, and federal governments sufficiently value people and whether government should bear a direct liability in causing homelessness. For decades, government allowed corporations to export a massive number of jobs for short-term corporate profits. We have failed to recognize that homelessness is correlated to unemployment, drug addiction and mental health. By ignoring these bigger picture societal issues, we have allowed a national security crisis to take hold. The public can no longer be placated with falsely calculated unemployment numbers designed to make the government look like they are doing an adequate job. One can only hope that Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo will re-prioritize things.--RE
What a horror.
Wishing you and your family a zisn Pesakh.