Originally published at: Camping on public land to become a felony in Tennessee | Boing Boing
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Handy to have on the books, though, in the case of certain people (you know the ones 
), or when the private prisons are running below capacity.
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Jack: We’re sharing the load. It’s a bit of homeland security…
Liz: They still have that?
Jack: … Extreme weather preparedness, and the war on the poor.
Liz: You mean the war on poverty.
Jack: Yeah, okay, let’s go with that.
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A felony for being poor and unhoused?
They’re just looking for more legal slave labor.
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So we treat the symptoms not the cause. (‘treat’ in this context as hit it with a flame-thrower) The root cause is an overtly unfair economic system. One can work hard, be an upstanding citizen, and easily end up in a pitiless state of all but inextricable poverty. So, says impatient politician afraid of losing power: “Move them and their disquieting shambles out of sight!” Of course not addressing basic human suffering will eventually come home no matter how much it’s moved about, but by then, thinks Senator Igotmine, “I’ll probably be retired by then” (see also: climate change). @#$!!
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It’s been shown conclusively that the most effective solution is housing first.
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Party of Jesus, folks…
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they also get to shift voting power and tax dollars to white rural areas, so really there’s many benefits 
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There’s a rest stop near Chattanooga, and they’ve patrolled it for years to make sure nobody is sleeping in their cars. Which is ridiculous. Tired drivers aren’t “camping”, they’re trying to make sure they don’t fall asleep at the wheel.
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Jesus, it’s right there in the description of the facility.
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I am being priced out of my apartment. I don’t live in a great area. I hear gun shots in the summer. They are old apartments with few modern amenities, and a very shitty layer of BLACK vinyl siding added to them to make them look more modern. They want to raise my rent nearly 100 dollars with the new lease.
“It’S nOt Us RaIsInG iT, It Is ThE iNcReAsE iN mArKeT vAlUe!” is the reason I get for the increase. It has nearly doubled in the 6 or 7 years I have lived here.
So I need to move. I have a decent job, but would be spending half of my pay check on a shitty apartment!
I can not fathom someone making less living somewhere else. As frustrated and tired as I am, I have it GOOD compared to many people. They are either living in even worse neighborhoods, or have two incomes that still barely cover rent. And if people lose their jobs for one reason or another, then what?
We need affordable housing. Whether that is apartments, public housing, more houses, - whatever, we need more of it and we need to drive down the cost of living somehow. I know, everyone wants to protect their property values - unless they are retired and living in the same home for the last 20-30 years that they paid off, but can’t afford their property taxes now!
There are small homeless camps a couple miles from where I live. They aren’t nice. It is dirty, trashed, and there are stories of violence. But these people are there because they literally have no where else to go. With a law like this, you can imprison them for 6 years. Really? You want to spend the cost of a trial and then housing and feeding them for 6 years? Why don’t we house them for one year, with counseling and job training and help them re-enter society on their own. Or a safety net that would prevent them from being homeless in the first place.
The homeless problem doesn’t have a single cause. Some of it is a run of bad luck. Some of it medical conditions making it hard to work. Some of it is drug or alcohol addiction. Some of it is mental health related. Rounding them up out of camps and into jail doesn’t fix any of this. They are still screwed when they get out of jail later, only now with a “criminal record”.
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Because these laws aren’t about humanism. They’re about comforting the empowered. Those suffering from a lack of housing are not humans in the accounting of those in privileged positions; they are an environmental factor that needs to be controlled for, like weather.
[Edit: and as @Papasan points out below, the bonus is that you fill up those tasty tasty private prison contracts.]
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Come on, they built all those new shiny prisons, they got’a fill’m somehow… /s
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Came here for the Anatole France quote. Thanks.
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Speaking as a woman who often drives long distances alone (or with daughters), rest stops are crucial for personal safety reasons too. It’s a balance between being woken more often by the sounds of people parking next to you to go in to use the facilities and parking away from the noise and light, which means no witnesses if someone tries to break in.
Most people can’t afford to pay for a night at a motel just to catch an hour’s nap. Besides which, I’ve found myself driving through the night more than once because unexpected local events have filled all the motels for that particular weekend.
As already mentioned by @wazroth above, they’re called ‘rest stops’ for a reason.
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Poverty will be illegal soon enough.
But not in the good way.
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[clears throat meaningfully]
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Holy shit. Is this real, or an art installation?! Treating people as if they were pigeons!!!
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