Free Republic

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a case involving whether cities in Western states can ban homeless people from sleeping in public areas. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously ruled against anti-camping ordinances in Grants Pass, Oregon, saying it’s unconstitutional because it violates the Eighth Amendment of no "cruel and unusual punishment." Grants Pass appealed the ruling, with the backing of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose own state faces a homelessness crisis. The ruling applies to nine western states, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. *** Former MLB great and...

HOLLYWOOD, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Frustrated business owners in Hollywood are pleading with the city to help deal with a large homeless encampment growing in the area. The encampment is near Martel Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. The city cleared out the encampment roughly a year ago, but it's back and growing. One local business owner blames the city for not policing the area and letting homeless people move back in without any pushback. Other business owners are so frustrated, they've hired security. Business owners are not the only ones upset the homeless have moved back in. Hollywood resident Charlotte Duvall...

San Jose, Calif. has the highest ratio of unhoused young adults in the nation, according to a new study. The nonprofit United Way of the National Capital Area analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on the number of people experiencing homeless and vacant housing units in 100 major cities. The results of the analysis were broken down in a recently released report. There were 582,462 people experiencing homelessness in January of last year marking a .3 percent increase since 2020, according to HUD data. But while anyone can experience homelessness, there...

More residents of San Francisco are looking to relocate within the next year than people in any other major metropolitan area, according to U.S. Census data. Results of the most recent American Housing Survey conducted by the Census Bureau show that about 8% of the city's population plan on moving to a different city, The San Francisco Chronicle reported, while about 18% of residents in the SF metro area plan on moving from their home in the next year. At 7.2%, the Seattle area was the only metro comparable to San Francisco in terms of people thinking of moving away....

The remaining homeless people living along Echo Park Lake were given 24 hours to leave their encampment after protesters clashed with police Wednesday night. A heavy police presence was still in place on Glendale Boulevard and Park Avenue Thursday morning as a fence was put up to close off the park. Roughly 30 to 40 tents could still be seen scattered behind the fencing but the people living in those tents were told they would have to leave. LAPD later declared two unlawful assemblies and gave an order to disperse from Santa Ynez Street and Glendale Boulevard. Police said officers...

The theme song from “Barney & Friends” has been blaring 24 hours a day for weeks on Palos Verdes Street in San Pedro. There are about two dozen homeless individuals who have pitched tents on the sidewalk there, and they say the blaring kids’ music is a not-so-subtle way to get them to move. “It’s psychological,” said Danielle Nunez of Street Watch LA, a mutual aid organization that helps the homeless. “It is to keep people up. They can’t have a quiet space and it’s playing at nighttime so that people literally cannot sleep.” The vacant property is run by...

When the coronavirus emerged in the U.S. this year, public health officials and advocates for the homeless... ... scrambled to move people into hotel rooms, thinned out crowded shelters and moved tents into designated spots at sanctioned outdoor camps. [R]esearchers don’t know why there appear to be so few outbreaks among the homeless. More than 200 of an estimated 8,000 homeless people in San Francisco have tested positive for the virus, and half came from an outbreak at a homeless shelter in April. One homeless person is among the city’s 69 deaths. In other places with large homeless populations, the...

City crews are planning three large-scale clean-ups over the next week in areas where people experiencing homelessness have been camping. In an email, city spokeswoman Nancy Kuhn said the first would be Thursday along the Platte River around the intersection of 29th Street and Arkins Court, near the Salvation Army’s Crossroads shelter in Five Points. Kuh said clean-ups also were scheduled next Tuesday along Glenarm Place from 21st Street to Park Avenue West in Five Points and Wednesday around the intersection of Washington Street and East 13th Avenue near Saint John’s Cathedral in Capitol Hill. “We are seeing the areas...

A pair of tents housing coronavirus patients in Shoreline. (Chris Sullivan, KIRO Radio) Your tax dollars at work! As hundreds of thousands of people are newly unemployed in our region, you should know that your dwindling family budget is buying beer and cigarettes for patients at the Shoreline COVID-19 quarantine site. Dori: Ridiculous government ‘work’ continues during shutdown I got a tip Thursday from a nurse: The ‘patients’ are suspected or confirmed COVID positive homeless people awaiting test results or waiting out their quarantine periods. There is room for 140 patients with approximately 25 in house/tent now… they are GIVING...

The story of a woman who was fatally stabbed in December after reportedly giving money to a panhandler — a case that drew national attention and spread fear through Baltimore — was actually a ruse by her husband and stepdaughter, who have been charged in her death, police announced Sunday night. Keith Smith, 52, and his daughter, Valeria Smith, 28, were arrested by Texas State Police, near the U.S.-Mexico border while trying to flee the country earlier Sunday, acting Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said. Warrants charging them with first-degree murder in death of Keith Smith’s wife, Jacquelyn Smith, were...

This isn’t just “spare change.” The city’s homelessness crisis is so out of control that Upper West Side residents are shelling out $120 a month each for private security guards to patrol their neighborhood seven days a week, The Post has learned. A dozen apartment buildings are part of the desperation effort that’s costing a total $140,000 a year, and they all surround the former Hotel Alexander that the de Blasio administration recently turned into a homeless shelter.

Starbucks announced a new policy Saturday that allows anyone to sit in its cafés or use its restrooms, even if they don’t buy anything. The new policy comes five weeks after two black men who hadn’t bought anything were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks. Company executives have said its previous policies were loose and ambiguous, leaving decisions on whether people could sit in its stores or use the restroom up to store managers. […] The company said anyone can use its cafés, patios or restrooms without buying anything, but it noted workers should still call the police if someone is...

The arrest of two black men in a Philadelphia Starbucks started with a toilet: They asked to use the restroom. They hadn’t bought anything, at least not yet, which was reason for the manager to demand that they leave. Next came calls to the police, handcuffs, outrage, corporate apologies, plans for employee training, and conversations about race and policing that won’t end anytime soon. But it started with a toilet.

The San Francisco Police Department tweeted before-and-after images of a homeless encampment raid in the Tenderloin Wednesday, leading many to wonder where the people living in tents moved. In one photo, a half-dozen tents are seen in a row along a sidewalk on Ellis Street. In the subsequent image, the same sidewalk is shown clear of the encampment and hosed down with water. "'Tackled'? Are you for real? These are residents of our city and members of our community and we're supposed to thank you for hosing them away?" asked @lipstick_denim. "Where are these people now," Twitter user Cathy Reisenwitz...

Cops have busted a group of oddball poachers in Prospect Park — a band of vagrants that was trapping and eating ducks, squirrels and pigeons. Parks officers wrote four tickets — two for killing wildlife and two for illegal fishing — totaling $2,100 in fines during a two-day period last week. BoroDeal The city would not immediately release details of the incidents, which occurred on July 17 and 18 — just days after park-goers told rangers about a “Beverly Hillbillies”-like scene on the southeast side of the lake, near the ice skating rink. “This is a dodgy group,” said park-goer...

Santa Fe’s downtown business community says new panhandling controls aren’t working and is calling on city leaders to crack down on aggressive panhandling and vagrancy around the Plaza. In an April 22 letter to the mayor and City Council, the Santa Fe Gallery Association said there are an “overwhelming number of vagrants in the downtown Plaza area,” with “aggressive panhandling, public urination, threatening comments and cases of assault.” The situation “is instilling fear in local residents and tourists,” the gallery owners’ letter said. Elizabeth Pettus, of the Things Finer shop in La Fonda, wrote a similar letter on behalf of...

This Christmas, many Americans did not get a chance to enjoy warm hot cocoa, presents and a good meal. Many were forced to sleep on the streets or in crowded shelters and missions. Throughout America many are feeling the pinch of the economic downturn. But liberals, with their medeling and their compasion for those who are evil and degenerate are to blame for much of the homelessness on our streets. In the past several years, affordable housing units in particular, boarding houses have gone into decline. These places, flop houses, boarding homes, rooming homes, some just call them slums were...

Believe it or not, Rufus Terrill, owner of a downtown Atlanta bar named O'Terrills, has had it with the drug dealers, vandals, and other riff-raff that frequent the area around his business. So, he has done what any sane American man would do in this situation—build a robot out of a meat smoker to lay down the law. The "BumBot," as many of O'Terrills' patrons have dubbed it, is basically a meat smoker mounted onto a three-wheeled scooter. Armaments include a spotlight, loudspeaker, water cannon and an infrared camera. Plus, the whole thing is covered in rubber for protection. When...

City proposal targets aggressive panhandling Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:59 PM By Bobby Pierce THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Columbus' panhandlers might have to watch their step to continue soliciting in the city. Aggressive panhandling was the topic at a City Council public hearing tonight. Councilman Andrew Ginther moderated the testimony of 12 Columbus residents, as well as the deputy safety director, assistant city attorney and a police officer. “You can't simply throw panhandlers in jail,” Ginther had said last week. “Some are following people for blocks; in the University area, people feel badgered and threatened; they are coming up to people...

COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) - A police survey says panhandlers outside a Wal-Mart here can make $300 a day. Inside, it takes a clerk a week to make that much. Police say people who have a problem with that needn't look to the law--asking for money is considered protected free speech. "We are not going to target panhandlers," said Coos Bay Police Capt. Rodger Craddock, who spoke a recent gathering of business owners about panhandling. "We can't do that. But if they aren't getting money from us, they aren't going to stand on that corner." He said most panhandlers are...