Knowledge is Power

JunkieTown in Motion Edition

Now that PrettyPrettyGavin [K]Newsome has proclaimed upon the land an Executive Order, Calizuela counties and cities are floppin’ around slithering toward the scent of Freeee Moneeeys™ my Precioussss.

Here’s an example — one among many — sent by a pal:

There is a 2.5 mile bike trail between Santa Rosa and Sebastopol which became a JunkieTown. What started as a few bums snoozing under a tree near cheap groceries and begging corners grew into a 2 mile long, tarp/garbage-crusted “camp trail.” It’s not “just country” out there; the trail borders established and new housing developments with more currently being built.

So, at a cost of $2Million the county proposed to move them …elsewhere. One option was into a parking lot at the County Center — right where those making the decision work. Suddenly a “Day Care Center” for “At Risk Children” appeared in the area which disqualified the site. …funny, that.

The only other site to be found in the whole, rather large, county?!?

A county property parking lot out front of some abandoned [asbestos] buildings 6+ miles from any shopping/starbucks/7-11/anything, smack in between a pair of high-end wineries. Along a narrow and dangerous highway with 6″ shoulders.

Official count is 250 tarp-tents in the current location. No official count of how many actual people. Who will be chosen for the 60 coveted places in aluminium garden sheds with “laundry and food service, a warming center, showers, a service hub, dog run with kennels”? [That there is a lotta infrastructure for what they call a "temporary emergency shelter."]

Those at risk of death[aren't they/we all?], exploitation or physical abuse [is this social worker speak for "the nice ones"? or for "the ash-oles"?], plus seniors and those suffering from severe or persistent mental illness [differentiate between 'mental illness' and 'the behavior demonstrated with long term IV drug use' plz] or medical conditions [8 (eight) miles from a hospital] would be given priority…

But more telling is the location of the site, a few hundred feet from: the County Juvenile Hall, Juvenile Court, County Probation, Juvenile Justice Center, and the “Children’s Home” for children headed into the foster system [yanno: "at risk"]. All involuntary wards of the state. hm…

Is that the role .gov has selected for the CaliZuela Bum/Junkie population: Dependents of The State?

Or actually Dependents By Choice, as no one can be compelled to accept offers of shelter. A nice balance to the 9th Circus decision that no one can be prevented from “camping” on public streets without the .gov has “a bed available” for them. [whatever that means]

This is being sold to the voters as a “temporary emergency shelter due to close in 90 days.”
[[2/1-4/30/20] Just No One mention there’s an election in March, eh?]

What then? Where they gonna make [for a vague value of "make"] these people go in April? Back to the bike trail? To some abandoned county buildings in some other poor slob of a taxpayers’ neighborhood? Are taxpaying citizens expected rotate the Crime, Rats and Disease [CRD™] on a quarterly basis all over town?

What happens if they all refuse to go anywhere?

Whadda world.

Weaponized Bum Edition

[PrettyPretty]Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Wednesday that would fast-track the use of government land near highways, travel trailers and vacant state hospitals to urgently get people off of California’s streets.

Here’s how from PrettyPrettyGavin’s “Executive Order N-23-20″ “urgently gets people off of California’s streets.”
[NB: it's a copy/paste disabled PDF][subtle, eh?]

[Calatrans]shall develop a … template to allow cities and counties to use Caltrans property adjacent to highways or state roads … on a short term emergency basis to provide shelter for individuals who are homeless. …

“Short term basis.” Kinda like those taxes they tell us will expire, eh. JunkieTown right along the freeway.

This is what happens when “Quality of Life” crimes are ignored or made so inconsequential as to be de facto legal. Theft valued under $950 is a citation misdemeanor. Breaking into a car is the same. Aggressive begging, screaming at lamp posts and passers by, frightening children and parents, assault with minimal bodily harm are all de facto legal.

If all that is hunky dory with Joe Citizen [or at least with Joe .Gov] other things will be just fine, too; congregating and/or drinking in public spaces, graffiti, public urination, panhandling, littering, sleeping in other people’s doorways, shooting up drugs in public, loosing consciousness in public, setting up housekeeping in tents or tarps on the sidewalk — or any place not actively defended, selling drugs out of some of those tents and having one’s own “security force” to protect one’s growing “small business.” See how quickly this devolves into Barbarian Apocalypse? That’s why they’re called Quality of Life Crimes.

So how does Calizuela respond to this devolution of Civilized Standards of Behavior? By encouraging it.

By purposely mis-identifying the situation as a housing problem instead of a substance abuse problem and breakdown of Western Civilization. The .gov has a grand plan to throw increasing piles of cash — Other People’s Cash — into the burgeoning JunkieBum/Bureaucracy Complex. Apparently they neither expect nor desire any Civilized results as they are doing all the things that have proven to make matters worse..

Let’s not even mention [for the nonce] how inhumanly cruel it is to encourage a junkie to pursue his addiction. Let’s not even begin the discussion of Individual Freedom -vs- Encroachment on the Rights of Others raised by leaving the mentally ill to fend for themselves and argue with lamp posts.

Instead let’s merely address the “side effects” on the regular working tax payer. Rats, Insects and other vermin. Disease. Burglary. Robbery. Assault. Loss of use of public goods like parks, trails, rivers, sidewalks, streets, and shopping areas. Loss of control over and ‘quiet enjoyment of’ private property. Loss of the expectation of Reasonable Safety — which is the only condition under which basic business can be conducted, goods and services exchanged, jobs maintained.

It’s a Civilization Buster, this one.

This example comes from Sacramento [TheSac], but is becoming as common and familiar as a strip mall to CaliZuelans. The vid was taken bicycling along the American River; really top quality public lands …once.