# Above the law?



## Lostngone

Why are the homeless above the law?
The police here don’t seem to really care what they do, to what degree I am not sure. From illegal camping to public drunkenness/drug use it appears they don’t have to bother following the same laws I do. Two days ago I was at an intersection and I witnessed a male publicly urinating in plain view of a police officer and nothing was done. If it would been me doing that I would have been arrested, charged, fined and more likely then not been required to register as a sex offender for the rest of my life.

Why is the inability to pay fine a reason for being allowed to break laws? I really can’t afford to spend more than 30 days in jail so should I be able to rob a bank and get a pass?!?!


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## Scepticalscribe

Why is there no - or insufficient - (publicly funded) provision of decent, affordable housing?


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## Lostngone

Scepticalscribe said:


> Why is there no - or insufficient - provision of decent, affordable housing?



Don’t know, Is there a law that requires that?


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## Renzatic

Man, I tell you, those homeless people got it MADE! They're the real elites of America. They can do what they want, when they want, how they want, and ain't no one gonna tell 'em otherwise.

Though in all seriousness, if they're urinating right in front of a cop, and nothing's being done, then I'm lead to assume that either...

A. They're crazy, and no one wants to deal with them. Or...
B. They're doing it to get free housing, and three squares a day, and the cops are cottoning on to it.


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## Scepticalscribe

Lostngone said:


> Don’t know, Is there a law that requires that?




I amended my post above; I meant to ask why is there an insufficient, or inadequate supply of publicly funded affordable, decent, housing?

I'm not American, so many of the belief systems of US society do not define my world or values.


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## Lostngone

Scepticalscribe said:


> I amended my post above; I meant to ask why is there an insufficient, or inadequate supply of publicly funded affordable, decent, housing?
> 
> I'm not American, so many of the belief systems of US society do not define my world or values.




It is a good question but I don’t see what it has to do with this thread? Many of the people I was referencing have free or almost free legal places to stay but choose for many different reasons not to.


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## Mark

Lostngone said:


> Why are the homeless above the law?




Atlas Shrugs (along with  Atlas' white friends who believe God rewards hard work with worldly riches) at these people, and, obviously even some people posting to this forum.

oh, and get prepared for a lot more homeless over the coming decades.

but remember, as trump is warning you, they will be coming into yr suburbs real soon. caravans are forming now.


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## Eric

Lostngone said:


> Why are the homeless above the law?
> The police here don’t seem to really care what they do, to what degree I am not sure. From illegal camping to public drunkenness/drug use it appears they don’t have to bother following the same laws I do. Two days ago I was at an intersection and I witnessed a male publicly urinating in plain view of a police officer and nothing was done. If it would been me doing that I would have been arrested, charged, fined and more likely then not been required to register as a sex offender for the rest of my life.
> 
> Why is the inability to pay fine a reason for being allowed to break laws? I really can’t afford to spend more than 30 days in jail so should I be able to rob a bank and get a pass?!?!



I think it's a bit more complicated than that. For example, if you drive through downtown San Francisco there are literally 15 or 16 city blocks going in several directions full of homeless people. Yes, many are drug addicts or alcoholics but they also have no place else they can go and there are no services to help them get off of it. In addition the median income necessary to buy a home there is over $300,000 and the inventory is extremely slim. Put simply, you have to wealthy to live anywhere there.

I can assure you, there aren't enough police in the entire state to enforce these petty crimes. It's a bigger issue that requires local Government to provide access services to help them get off of these substances and find them reasonable housing. Give them a path to a better life instead of locking them up and overwhelming the jails and prisons.

IMO this is like saying we need to just arrest all the Mexicans trying to cross the border instead of addressing the reason they're running in the first place. These are systemic issues that need to be addressed at the core.


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## SuperMatt

Renzatic said:


> Man, I tell you, those homeless people got it MADE! They're the real elites of America. They can do what they want, when they want, how they want, and ain't no one gonna tell 'em otherwise.
> 
> Though in all seriousness, if they're urinating right in front of a cop, and nothing's being done, then I'm lead to assume that either...
> 
> A. They're crazy, and no one wants to deal with them. Or...
> B. They're doing it to get free housing, and three squares a day, and the cops are cottoning on to it.




This reminds me of Tom the Dancing Bug’s Lucky Ducky strips... below is an example. You can find them all if you care to search for them online...


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## SuperMatt

niji said:


> it is not a crime to be homeless.
> 
> it is a crime to sleep on public property such as streets, parks, etc.
> 
> there were at one time laws that threw you into jail just for being poor - even if you didn't have any debts.
> 
> Atlas Shrugs (along with  Atlas' white friends who believe God rewards hard work) at these people, and, obviously even some people posting to this forum.
> 
> now, remember, homelessness is not a crime.
> nor living in a car with two children while you work cleaning toilets.
> but parking a car on a city street and staying in it overnight is against the law in many cities.
> 
> here is some advice fo you:
> 
> have a heart.
> take him in yr car to a place and show him where he can bathe and there are toilet facilities.
> show him where there is free internet so he can get call-backs from people who will hire him for day jobs.
> and stop complaining that homeless people urinate in places where your eyesight is offended.
> 
> especially during a pandemic.




I do have to say that in many cities there are programs that provide food, clothing, showers, and a place to sleep for the homeless. Often the people sleeping on the street have issues beyond being poor: drug addiction, mental health problems, etc. Educating oneself about these programs in your city is the best thing to do IMHO. Some churches in my city create pamphlets outlining all the various services with addresses and phone numbers. One can also volunteer for a service that helps those in need.

It is a sad reality that sometimes those asking for money on the street aren’t using it for the necessities, but for things such as drugs and/or alcohol that got them into the situation in the first place. I believe the organized programs for helping the homeless are much more effective than trying to solve the problems of a random stranger on the street yourself.


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## Lostngone

I am noting saying anyone should be singled out here. What I am saying is the law should be applied equally.

If the law/laws are not being enforced equally the simple solution should be to nullify them or at the very least decriminalize those laws. It seems pretty clear(to me) they are unable or unwilling to enforce these laws *equally *and the issue of that discrimination(in those cases) would go away if the law is removed, right?


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## Scepticalscribe

Lostngone said:


> It is a good question but I don’t see what it has to do with this thread?






You cannot divorce the question of the visibility of the homeless from the public provision of affordable, decent, public housing.  So, with respect, it has everything to do with this thread.

I am not familiar with matters relating to the provision of public housing in the US (or, rather, as I assume that this is not a federal matter, but, rather, is a matter where public policy decisions are taken more locally, how individual states, or, more likely still, how cities or counties run matters relating to the provision of public housing), but I find it far too easy to condemn the homeless without addressing deeper, structural issues of systemic inequality, such as poverty, ill-health, addiction, unemployment, lack of opportunity, and so on, the lack of affordability of decent housing in many US cities, and so on.



Lostngone said:


> Many of the people I was referencing have free or almost free legal places to stay but choose for many different reasons not to.




I wish I could believe that. 

My sense is that the "free" accommodation offered to the unemployed poor in the US takes the form of prisons.


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## Mark

Scepticalscribe said:


> ... I find it far too easy to condemn the homeless without addressing deeper, structural issues of systemic inequality, such as poverty, ill-health, addiction, unemployment and so on, the lack of affordability of decent housing in many US cities, and so on.
> ...
> My sense is that the "free" accommodation offered to the unemployed poor in the US takes the form of prisons.




both of these points are excellently written.

the concept of "economic privilege" and the blindness of most USAmericans to it, that you and i feel is at issue here, however, is an issue too far for most to understand.

even with the all the racial injustice, the concept of "white privilege" is not understood - even though it is easy to spot, point out, and describe.

a concept such as how generations of economic advantages give some economic classes of people inherent advantages is just too far for most to understand unfortunately.

to make matters worse, unfortunately in America there has been an evil religious linkage between "wealth"and being "favoured by God" - in tel-evangelism and trump's wealthiest of benefactors.
a linkage early proposed by Ayn Rand which is why my original post in this thread references Atlas Shrugged.

in the context of Atlas Shrugged, both @Scepticalscribe and @niji would be termed "looters".


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## Scepticalscribe

And I would add to "unemployment" something that I almost consider worse, namely, underemployed, or paying people wages that they cannot afford to live on.

The "working poor" are also very likely to be in a position where - despite holding down, two, or sometimes three - atrociously paid jobs - that they cannot afford rent, utilities, food, heating.

Personally, I cannot see why those who run businesses (and in some cases, make considerable profits with extraordinary dividend yields to shareholders) are not obliged to pay a decent wage for the labour (and time) of their employees. 

If you cannot afford to pay your employees a decent (living) wage, (even if, especially if, you use convenient fictions such as sub-contracting), - above all, if your company is profitable, you should not be in business.

To my mind, paying someone less than the living wage to work is both morally reprehensible, and economically egregious because it is both exploitative and utterly destructive of social fabric.


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## Lostngone

Blah, blah, blah, working poor, social injustice, to expensive, blah, blah

I’m not asking why these people are homeless I’m asking why these people are repeatedly allowed to break the law. The people I see are the same the police see. I don’t have some detector that knows someone social status or living status. I am talking about people that are stealing, camping on a sidewalk of a busy street street, drinking/drunk in public, Doing drugs, people using the side of a busy street as a toilet.

In another part of this very forum people are praising Oregon’s forward thinking about voting for the decriminalizing drug use. I am just asking why not do the same for camping on sidewalks, petty theft, drinking/public intoxication and public urination.


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## SuperMatt

Lostngone said:


> I am just asking why not do the same for camping on sidewalks, petty theft, drinking/public intoxication and public urination.




You just described the fans at every NFL game.


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## Lostngone

SuperMatt said:


> You just described the fans at every NFL game.




Okay well, I would hope the police write them tickets and/or arrest those people too.


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## SuperMatt

Lostngone said:


> Okay well, I would hope the police write them tickets and/or arrest those people too.




That’s just the thing though. They seldom, if ever do. But although you didn’t see it that day, they regularly force the homeless to take their tents and evacuate at a moment’s notice.

In both cases, you have a lot of low-level misdemeanors being committed, and the police can’t reasonably arrest everybody. They seem to make more of an effort to police the homeless than they do the rowdy sports fans though.


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## Scepticalscribe

Lostngone said:


> Blah, blah, blah, working poor, social injustice, to expensive, blah, blah




Come on, you can do better than that.  

Otherwise, I might be tempted to reply: "Blah, blah, arrest, charge, convict and humiliate, but be sure to punish the poor for their poverty, and then blame them for being poor, blah blah."

Paying people enough to live on, while ensuring that public housing is affordable and of a decent quality and standard will (largely) resolve the "problem" of those who are, or who find themselves, homeless.


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## Lostngone

Scepticalscribe said:


> Come on, you can do better than that.
> 
> Otherwise, I might be tempted to reply: "Blah, blah, arrest, charge, convict and humiliate, but be sure to punish the poor for their poverty, and then blame them for being poor, blah blah."
> 
> Paying people enough to live on, while ensuring that public housing is affordable and of a decent quality and standard will (largely) resolve the "problem" of those who are, or who find themselves, homeless.




Did I say I disagree and that we shouldn’t pay people a livable wage? I did not.

I do not want to debate this in this thread. My question is why isn’t the law enforced equally and if it isn’t why not get rid of the law?


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## Eric

Lostngone said:


> Did I say I disagree and that we shouldn’t pay people a livable wage? I did not.
> 
> I do not want to debate this in this thread. My question is why isn’t the law enforced equally and if it isn’t why not get rid of the law?



Priorities. Who really believes they have time to run around citing people for pissing on the streets, especially those who have no means to pay a fine and will just fill up your penal system. BTW this discussion puts debatable social services front and center, for example, if we had enough restrooms out there would an officer need to spend their shift  busting on people for using the street as a toilet?


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## DT

It's not that they're above the law, it's that criminal sanctions exist to punish, penalize, act as a deterrent against future behavior.

If you or I drank, got picked up for public intoxication/urination, the idea is, they don't want us to do it again, and we may very well not, we do not want to punished, have our family, house, car, wages taken from us.  In fact, the very threat of that punishment probably would deter us in advance of violating that law.  Not only do they want to prevent the behavior, they want us to continue to contribute to society, if they lose me, I'm a taxpayer, a voter, a property owner, I have "value".

It's not punishment for the homeless, and they have no value - they exist in a void.


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## Renzatic

Lostngone said:


> I do not want to debate this in this thread. My question is why isn’t the law enforced equally and if it isn’t why not get rid of the law?




The application of the law has always been at the discretion of the police. This isn't anything new.


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## SuperMatt

I sometimes have the same thought as lostngone when I’m driving and everybody is doing at LEAST 10mph over the speed limit.


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## Eric

SuperMatt said:


> I sometimes have the same thought as lostngone when I’m driving and everybody is doing at *LEAST 10mph over the speed limit*.



What?? Law breakers, every last one of them. What, are they above the law or something?


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## Scepticalscribe

DT said:


> It's not that they're above the law, it's that criminal sanctions exist to punish, penalize, act as a deterrent against future behavior.
> 
> If you or I drank, got picked up for public intoxication/urination, the idea is, they don't want us to do it again, and we may very well not, we do not want to punished, have our family, house, car, wages taken from us.  In fact, the very threat of that punishment probably would deter us in advance of violating that law.  Not only do they want to prevent the behavior, they want us to continue to contribute to society, if they lose me, I'm a taxpayer, a voter, a property owner, I have "value".
> 
> It's not punishment for the homeless, and they have no value - they exist in a void.




If you drank and got picked up for public intoxication/urination - well, I'm writing about Europe, not the US - as a white, middle class male, at most, you'd get a warning, a verbal reprimand, and then only if you were a danger to yourself or others.  Candidly, I very much doubt that you would even face a fine, let alone a charge or face imprisonment.


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## DT

Scepticalscribe said:


> If you drank and got picked up for public intoxication/urination - well, I'm writing about Europe, not the US - as a white, middle class male, at most, you'd get a warning, a verbal reprimand, and then only if you were a danger to yourself or others.  Candidly, I very much doubt that you would even face a fine, let alone a charge or face imprisonment.




Right, but my post wasn't really about the specific penalty (my example wasn't meant to imply some extreme criminality from taking a whiz behind a bar ), it was about the lack of policing the homeless, it's just a zero sum game, a non-result, they can't be punished, penalized, etc. I've talked to LEOs about this as we have a bit of a homeless issue around this small city.  They talk about picking the same person up over and over, they can't make bail, they have no assets, no NOK, the courts don't want to escalate it and stick them in jail, mental health facilities can't take them, an arrest winds up being 24 hours of paperwork.


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## Scepticalscribe

DT said:


> Right, but my post wasn't really about the specific penalty (my example wasn't meant to imply some extreme criminality from taking a whiz behind a bar ), it was about the lack of policing the homeless, it's just a zero sum game, a non-result, they can't be punished, penalized, etc. I've talked to LEOs about this as we have a bit of a homeless issue around this small city.  They talk about picking the same person up over and over, they can't make bail, they have no assets, no NOK, the courts don't want to escalate it and stick them in jail, mental health facilities can't take them, an arrest winds up being 24 hours of paperwork.




No, I understood that.  

It is just that the same incident can give rise to different responses from LEOs depending on one's class, ethnicity, and gender.  

However, if people were paid a decent wage, and had access to affordable healthcare and affordable, decent quality, public housing, I think that the vast majority (not all, I concede), of what is described as "the problem of the homeless" would be well on the way to being solved.


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## SuperMatt

niji said:


> hopefully not those in Orchard Park




Of course not - all us Western New Yorkers follow the law to the letter when we tailgate!


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## Lostngone

SuperMatt said:


> I sometimes have the same thought as lostngone when I’m driving and everybody is doing at LEAST 10mph over the speed limit.




Including the police!


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## Scepticalscribe

Lostngone said:


> Did I say I disagree and that we shouldn’t pay people a livable wage? I did not.




Okay, fair enough.


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## Lostngone

DT said:


> It's not that they're above the law, it's that criminal sanctions exist to punish, penalize, act as a deterrent against future behavior.
> 
> If you or I drank, got picked up for public intoxication/urination, the idea is, they don't want us to do it again, and we may very well not, we do not want to punished, have our family, house, car, wages taken from us.  In fact, the very threat of that punishment probably would deter us in advance of violating that law.  Not only do they want to prevent the behavior, they want us to continue to contribute to society, if they lose me, I'm a taxpayer, a voter, a property owner, I have "value".
> 
> It's not punishment for the homeless, and they have no value - they exist in a void.




We have soup kitchens that feed them, churches and other non-profit organizations that give them warm clothing. Here they get the yearly PFD and if they are Alaska native they get their corporation checks(and free government health care). I am not going to even get into other benefits they could get like EBT/EFT, unemployment, etc if they applied. As long as they aren’t high, drunk or violent there are beds for them to sleep in. The only times those ever all get filled up is the coldest days of the year and even in those cases the city/state has past ordinances that allow churches and other nonprofit organizations to ignore fire and occupancy codes/laws and open there doors as well.

*These people have no incentive to do anything.* I am not saying that living on the streets is some utopian Shangri-La but a lot of the people that I see that are drunk, high or committing petty crimes do not want to follow the rules and really have no reason to because there are no consequences for their actions.


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## SuperMatt

Lostngone said:


> We have soup kitchens that feed them, churches and other non-profit organizations that give them warm clothing. Here they get the yearly PFD and if they are Alaska native they get their corporation checks(and free government health care). I am not going to even get into other benefits they could get like EBT/EFT, unemployment, etc if they applied. As long as they aren’t high, drunk or violent there are beds for them to sleep in. The only times those ever all get filled up is the coldest days of the year and even in those cases the city/state has past ordinances that allow churches and other nonprofit organizations to ignore fire and occupancy codes/laws and open there doors as well.
> 
> *These people have no incentive to do anything.* I am not saying that living on the streets is some utopian Shangri-La but a lot of the people that I see that are drunk, high or committing petty crimes do not want to follow the rules and really have no reason to because there are no consequences for their actions.




If the homeless have it so easy, why not just give away all your worldly belongings and join them on the street?

Seriously though, what solution(s) do you think would help the problem?


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## SuperMatt

I just read this story about homelessness in Anchorage. Seems like a problem that isn’t easy to solve, and the coronavirus just made things worse.









						Special report: Anchorage faces a homeless crisis — and the challenges may be increasing
					

The impacts of the coronavirus pandemic have put further strains on a complex problem.




					www.adn.com


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## Lostngone

SuperMatt said:


> If the homeless have it so easy, why not just give away all your worldly belongings and join them on the street?
> 
> Seriously though, what solution(s) do you think would help the problem?




Start with equally enforcing the law. Again I am not saying target these people all I am saying is enforce the law. If they can’t or do not want to then remove that law from the books and then we don’t have any issue here.


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## Lostngone

SuperMatt said:


> I just read this story about homelessness in Anchorage. Seems like a problem that isn’t easy to solve, and the coronavirus just made things worse.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Special report: Anchorage faces a homeless crisis — and the challenges may be increasing
> 
> 
> The impacts of the coronavirus pandemic have put further strains on a complex problem.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.adn.com




Yep we can’t get the non-homeless to wear masks or self isolate so good luck getting the homeless to. I drive down the street and see parks full of people not self isolating and pull up to a street corner with 4 or 5 people on both sides sharing a bottle or joint or cigarette.

However about 50% of the homeless in Anchorage do have free federal healthcare.


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## SuperMatt

Lostngone said:


> Start with equally enforcing the law. Again I am not saying target these people all I am saying is enforce the law. If they can’t or do not want to then remove that law from the books and then we don’t have any issue here.




If most/all homeless people are breaking the law, what are the penalties for the laws they are breaking? Will they all end up in jail instead of on the street? Can the jails handle that capacity? Can the court system handle it? If the penalty is a fine, what are the chances they will pay it?

I don’t see how “enforcing the law” does anything to solve the homeless problem.

Why don’t the police arrest every single person who goes 1 MPH over the speed limit? This comes across as if you only want the law enforced when it comes to the homeless.

I’d love it if we started equally enforcing the law on executives of corporations. Wells Fargo committed massive fraud, stealing from thousands of their customers. They got a fine. Nobody went to jail. And yet, let’s lock up a homeless person for taking a leak because they don’t have a bathroom. What a jacked-up idea of justice.


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## SuperMatt

Lostngone said:


> Yep we can’t get the non-homeless to wear masks or self isolate so good luck getting the homeless to. I drive down the street and see parks full of people not self isolating and pull up to a street corner with 4 or 5 people on both sides sharing a bottle or joint or cigarette.
> 
> However about 50% of the homeless in Anchorage do have free federal healthcare.




Everybody in America has free healthcare if they go to an emergency room. Sure, the poorest of us might get billed for it, but everybody knows they won’t pay. If we actually accepted this fact, it might help people acknowledge that we should get a better universal healthcare system. Right now, hospitals bear the brunt of this care that never gets paid for, so they charge an arm and a leg to those who can pay.


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## Lostngone

SuperMatt said:


> Everybody in America has free healthcare if they go to an emergency room. Sure, the poorest of us might get billed for it, but everybody knows they won’t pay. If we actually accepted this fact, it might help people acknowledge that we should get a better universal healthcare system. Right now, hospitals bear the brunt of this care that never gets paid for, so they charge an arm and a leg to those who can pay.




I don’t know what you getting at but I am being serious. Alaska Natives have actual free federal healthcare. Their Medical campus in Anchorage is almost as large as the two major private hospitals footprints combined. As far as the the other 50% goes they might get free “emergency” health care but it is nowhere close to the other half not to mention and get preventative check ups and free dental.


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## Lostngone

SuperMatt said:


> If most/all homeless people are breaking the law, what are the penalties for the laws they are breaking? Will they all end up in jail instead of on the street? Can the jails handle that capacity? Can the court system handle it? If the penalty is a fine, what are the chances they will pay it?
> 
> I don’t see how “enforcing the law” does anything to solve the homeless problem.
> 
> Why don’t the police arrest every single person who goes 1 MPH over the speed limit? This comes across as if you only want the law enforced when it comes to the homeless.




First, most of what am describing/seeing the homeless doing are misdemeanors. Normally just a fine and less than 30 days in jail if any for first time offenders. However what that does is builds a record so when they are caught doing the same thing 10 or more times in a row they can be more severely punished. Right now nothing is being done so even if they wanted to do something they have no previous criminal history.

Second, why would you arrest someone for going over 1 MPH over the speed limit?!?! All I want are the laws enforced that are already on the books like for littering, public intoxication, drinking in public, loitering, illegal camping.
I am NOT trying to go overboard like you are saying at all.


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## SuperMatt

Lostngone said:


> I don’t know what you getting at but I am being serious. Alaska Natives have actual free federal healthcare. Their Medical campus in Anchorage is almost as large as the two major private hospitals footprints combined. As far as the the other 50% goes they might get free “emergency” health care but it is nowhere close to the other half not to mention and get preventative check ups and free dental.




Medicaid is what you're talking about? It's been around since 1965. Are you advocating for eliminating it?


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## SuperMatt

Lostngone said:


> First, most of what am describing/seeing the homeless doing are misdemeanors. Normally just a fine and less than 30 days in jail if any for first time offenders. However what that does is builds a record so when they are caught doing the same thing 10 or more times in a row they can be more severely punished. Right now nothing is being done so even if they wanted to do something they have no previous criminal history.
> 
> Second, why would you arrest someone for going over 1 MPH over the speed limit?!?! All I want are the laws enforced that are already on the books like for littering, public intoxication, drinking in public, loitering, illegal camping.
> I am NOT trying to go overboard like you are saying at all.




If you're going to arrest every homeless person for littering and loitering, then ABSOLUTELY YES you should arrest every single person who drives 1MPH over the limit. ENFORCE THE LAW NO EXCEPTIONS!!!! LAW AND ORDER!!!!


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## Alli

SuperMatt said:


> Everybody in America has free healthcare if they go to an emergency room.




And as I stated back when Romney was making his bid for president, since when do emergency rooms come equipped to do things like dialysis and chemo? I understand what you meant when you said it, but we shouldn’t ever say it.



Lostngone said:


> I don’t know what you getting at but I am being serious. Alaska Natives have actual free federal healthcare. Their Medical campus in Anchorage is almost as large as the two major private hospitals footprints combined. As far as the the other 50% goes they might get free “emergency” health care but it is nowhere close to the other half not to mention and get preventative check ups and free dental.




Alaska, then, is doing things FAR differently from the other 49. No other state gives anyone (other than their politicians) free healthcare. 

If we replaced 1/3 of the ED with Wellness Centers, we might have fewer sick people.


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## Alli

Lostngone said:


> First, most of what am describing/seeing the homeless doing are misdemeanors. Normally just a fine and less than 30 days in jail if any for first time offenders. However what that does is builds a record so when they are caught doing the same thing 10 or more times in a row they can be more severely punished. Right now nothing is being done so even if they wanted to do something they have no previous criminal history.




The problem is, the population you’re railing against would almost be better off by being “more severely punished,” because they can’t pay a fine. Jail turns into public assisted housing.


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## Lostngone

SuperMatt said:


> If you're going to arrest every homeless person for littering and loitering, then ABSOLUTELY YES you should arrest every single person who drives 1MPH over the limit. ENFORCE THE LAW NO EXCEPTIONS!!!! LAW AND ORDER!!!!




I don’t want to change any laws here. One of my ideas was to get rid of the laws NOT throw everyone in jail.

Why is this so hard for you...


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## Lostngone

SuperMatt said:


> Medicaid is what you're talking about? It's been around since 1965. Are you advocating for eliminating it?





No, not Medicare




__





						Alaska Native Medical Center - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org
				



“The largest hospital in United States Public Health Service history, the center was built with 168 million in federal funds secured by Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska after a thirty-year congressional battle.[4]”
—————————
Good ol Teddy.... If he would have been in office we would have gotten that nice bridge to nowhere.


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## Alli

Lostngone said:


> I don’t want to change any laws here. One of my ideas was to get rid of the laws NOT throw everyone in jail.




There are so many laws we need to get rid of. Like the one that says you can’t curse in a boat, or can’t walk a goose in town on a Sunday.


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## SuperMatt

Lostngone said:


> No, not Medicare
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> Alaska Native Medical Center - Wikipedia
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> en.m.wikipedia.org
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> “The largest hospital in United States Public Health Service history, the center was built with 168 million in federal funds secured by Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska after a thirty-year congressional battle.[4]”
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> Good ol Teddy.... If he would have been in office we would have gotten that nice bridge to nowhere.




That’s interesting - I always thought of Alaska as a pretty reliable Republican state. Didn’t know that had socialized medicine for much of their population.


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