When the state’s not busy creating new homeless individuals it’s waging war against them. Continuing in this fine tradition Nevada City now requires individuals to obtain a permit before becoming homeless:
A police chief says he’s found a one-of-a-kind way to manage a growing problem in his city, and it’s putting the homeless on the hot seat.
A new law would give Nevada City the power to hand out permits to a small group of homeless, which would give them permission to sleep in public. While the new ordinance would give some homeless a place to stay, it would tell others, mostly the troublemakers and the criminals, to stay away.
I’m not sure what message the police chief is trying to send. Homeless people, by definition, are relegated to sleeping in public places. They don’t have homes and generally can’t afford to pay rent on even a modest apartment. What is a homeless person without a permit supposed to do?
It’s ideas like this that make me rage whenever somebody claims that the state helps the poor. How is forcing homeless individuals out of major metropolitan areas helping them? At most it makes those individuals somebody else’s problem. Lawmakers and law enforcement agents don’t even stop and think long enough to determine if the rules they’re making and enforcing are logical. Telling a homeless person they can’t sleep in public is like telling paraplegic to get up and walk around.