Is there a solution for ending crime, homelessness & mental health crisis in DC?

[Anonymous]

A modest proposal...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The council just voted to declare homelessness a “protected class”. San Francisco here we come.

What are you talking about? No it hasn't.

You apparently do not follow the news. Enjoy the descent.

I'm hoping my unhoused personal injury clients still have my business card. Now I can sue business owners for refusing entrance/service to the unhoused as well as property owners refusing to consider renting to them.

This is the future folks. It is now illegal in DC to deny a person who is caked in feces, erratically yelling and scaring off your paying customers from entering your establishment. You will also not be able to call the police to remove unruly homeless people from your establishment as trespassing.

Does anyone have any details on this!

Someone literally spewed their poorly imaginative 💩 on DCUM and now you're asking for details of their poorly imaginative 💩? I sure hope it's a Friday

One purpose of adding homelessness as a protected class is to protect the rights of the homeless to public accommodation. That includes commercial establishments such as hotels, restaurants, department stores, etc.

Some may think that’s a good thing. Others may not. But that is indeed the thing that’s happened.

Commercial establishments are for commerce. They only exist to serve PAYING customers. No pay, plus you harm revenue, GTFO. Period.

Does our City Council not understand this? I think it's funny that instead of building and managing day sheletrs, the Council has vans drop the homeless off at libraries every day and for the rest of the spillover is content to let Starbucks and Whole Foods provide the "services" they won't.

And it shouldn't be the job of DCPL to babysit the homeless either. Face it, many of the homeless don't just have a lack-of-housing issue, they have drug issues, mental health issues, etc. To deal with that, many of DC's homeless need 24h wraparound services. And, DC should start taking legal action against those who ship their homeless here. DC should not be the dumping grounds of the nation. And if I had my way, they shouldn't be given the choice, if they absolutely refuse drug treatment and rehab to be functional member of society again, bust them for those drugs and give them 3 hots and a cot in prison and mandatory program to get cleaned up of the illegal drug habit, either that or take them to a bus station and pay the fare to vacate themselves back home to where they came from or to a jurisdiction more amenable to their way of life.

All libraries in DC are stocked with methadone and librarians basically have reviving addicts in their job description. You can't make libraries a public shelter and then change your mind later, especially when the homeless are a protected class.

Protected for what, specifically? They are above the law and can legally use drugs that are illegal for the rest of us? They can expose themselves, vandalize property, assault people and face no consequences? If that's the case then we need to start throwing out the officials who think that's OK.

Protected class as in equivalent to race, creed, gender, etc.

So basically when a homeless dude accosts you and exposes himself, you can't say anything or else it's discrimination. Got it.

Just like when a woman hits you it's legally allowed because of gender protections.

/s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's really not that hard. Prosecute crime, prosecute vagrancy, prosecute open-air drug use. Make it clear that DC is not a free-for-all.

Or instead of prosecuting it, address the causes of it, and solve the root cause of the issue, not the symptoms.

I work in the DFS, and I strongly believe that people who think like you should volunteer for a few months with CASA or Legal Aid to really understand how this is not a personal choice but a systemic/generational problem over which individuals have 0 -ZERO!!!- control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The council just voted to declare homelessness a “protected class”. San Francisco here we come.

What are you talking about? No it hasn't.

You apparently do not follow the news. Enjoy the descent.

I'm hoping my unhoused personal injury clients still have my business card. Now I can sue business owners for refusing entrance/service to the unhoused as well as property owners refusing to consider renting to them.

This is the future folks. It is now illegal in DC to deny a person who is caked in feces, erratically yelling and scaring off your paying customers from entering your establishment. You will also not be able to call the police to remove unruly homeless people from your establishment as trespassing.

Does anyone have any details on this!

Someone literally spewed their poorly imaginative 💩 on DCUM and now you're asking for details of their poorly imaginative 💩? I sure hope it's a Friday

One purpose of adding homelessness as a protected class is to protect the rights of the homeless to public accommodation. That includes commercial establishments such as hotels, restaurants, department stores, etc.

Some may think that’s a good thing. Others may not. But that is indeed the thing that’s happened.

Commercial establishments are for commerce. They only exist to serve PAYING customers. No pay, plus you harm revenue, GTFO. Period.

Does our City Council not understand this? I think it's funny that instead of building and managing day sheletrs, the Council has vans drop the homeless off at libraries every day and for the rest of the spillover is content to let Starbucks and Whole Foods provide the "services" they won't.

And it shouldn't be the job of DCPL to babysit the homeless either. Face it, many of the homeless don't just have a lack-of-housing issue, they have drug issues, mental health issues, etc. To deal with that, many of DC's homeless need 24h wraparound services. And, DC should start taking legal action against those who ship their homeless here. DC should not be the dumping grounds of the nation. And if I had my way, they shouldn't be given the choice, if they absolutely refuse drug treatment and rehab to be functional member of society again, bust them for those drugs and give them 3 hots and a cot in prison and mandatory program to get cleaned up of the illegal drug habit, either that or take them to a bus station and pay the fare to vacate themselves back home to where they came from or to a jurisdiction more amenable to their way of life.

I made a similar comment just now. You say these things as if they are easy to accomplish, but they are not. Please, if you have time, go volunteer in schools (where children of unhoused people or people dealing with substance use disorders are enrolled) or at legal aid, or whatever organization suits your schedule. Seeing what these people have gone through, and are going through, and what life for them is like, will be a paradigm shifter. Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is the cruelest lie we've been told, and all you need to do is peel a single layer of the onion to see how near impossible it is for people dealing with these issues to pull themselves out of it.

[Anonymous]

-affordable housing
-jobs
-job training and readiness skills
-education and educational support

DC has changed a lot in the past 20 years or so, and gentrification has made both housing and the paths to jobs that will allow people to afford housing and to support stable living situations and neighborhoods more difficult for many to access.

Most people with secure living situations and community embedded access to recreational and social opportunities lead stable, crime-free lives, with less of the stress that exacerbates mental illness, (non-white collar) crimes, and homelessness.

There will then be groups of people with chronic, serious mental illness, chronic substance abuse problems, and chronic criminal behavior. Each of these issues would need to be addressed with focused, long term, inpatient services and/or prison, and the prison systems need to have adequate mental health, medical, socialization, education, and job training resources.

[Anonymous]

The Wawa in Columbia Heights just shuttered cos it's unsafe. They are still paying the lease to run a shuttered store. 15 years ago metro and "vibrant urban density" aka built overnight condos came there with much fanfare. If you don't have sound policy and attention to livability to go with it, you are just creating denser problems. Like the kind even a convenience store won't put up with .

[Anonymous]

Yep. Reap

[Anonymous]

Ok, the Starbucks comment was deleted, whatever

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, the Starbucks comment was deleted, whatever

Well, to paraphrase - Starbucks CEO says for safety reasons Starbucks can no longer operate as day shelters.

[Anonymous]

Step one: stop blindly voting for Democrats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's really not that hard. Prosecute crime, prosecute vagrancy, prosecute open-air drug use. Make it clear that DC is not a free-for-all.

Or instead of prosecuting it, address the causes of it, and solve the root cause of the issue, not the symptoms.

I work in the DFS, and I strongly believe that people who think like you should volunteer for a few months with CASA or Legal Aid to really understand how this is not a personal choice but a systemic/generational problem over which individuals have 0 -ZERO!!!- control.

You make it sound like "addressing the root causes" hasn't been thought of before. For over 40 years now DC has been spending lavish amounts of money on violence interrupters, homeless services, mental health, affordable housing, and so much more.

Truth is, we need to do both, address the root causes AND smart policing. Because people live in the here and now. If you commit serious crimes or pose a threat to others, you need to be prosecuted and/or sent to mandatory mental health treatment. We can't just sit back and wait another 40 years to see whether the root causes will eventually work themselves out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's really not that hard. Prosecute crime, prosecute vagrancy, prosecute open-air drug use. Make it clear that DC is not a free-for-all.

Or instead of prosecuting it, address the causes of it, and solve the root cause of the issue, not the symptoms.

I work in the DFS, and I strongly believe that people who think like you should volunteer for a few months with CASA or Legal Aid to really understand how this is not a personal choice but a systemic/generational problem over which individuals have 0 -ZERO!!!- control.

Lol the DFS that lost its accreditation and has become a laughingstock ? Yeah, I’m shocked that this is your thought process

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's really not that hard. Prosecute crime, prosecute vagrancy, prosecute open-air drug use. Make it clear that DC is not a free-for-all.

Or instead of prosecuting it, address the causes of it, and solve the root cause of the issue, not the symptoms.

I work in the DFS, and I strongly believe that people who think like you should volunteer for a few months with CASA or Legal Aid to really understand how this is not a personal choice but a systemic/generational problem over which individuals have 0 -ZERO!!!- control.

Sure, no choice whatsoever. Step two to solving these issues is marginalzing the ideas on display in your post.

[Anonymous]

Enforce drug and vagrancy rules

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Enforce drug and vagrancy rules

We've been enforcing laws for hundreds of years and that hasn't worked.