Mayor: San Diego will step up enforcement on homeless (Encinitas: camp, living)

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

Sort of. But not so much as it would seem.

Beggars certainly do want / need to be where there’s lots of people and attention to be gained.

Transients are only about 10-12% of the homeless. And many of this group are trouble, for sure.

But the vast majority of homeless - everywhere … California and across the nation - are locals to their area. Plenty of surveys and studies confirm this.

At least 3 or 4 of our local homeless grew up right in this area.

[blockzilla]

Not in City of SD, but for the last 2 decades in Encinitas it was pretty rare to see any homeless. There would be a couple in the main business area of the 101 occasionally.

A year or so ago, a homeless safe parking lot was opened near downtown Encinitas. There's quite a bit of background as to how and why, and that is way off topic, but the end result is that now the homeless in Encinitas have grown exponentially and are spreading farther and farther inland (to avoid panhandling competition?). They're seemingly everywhere, and the safe parking lot is underutilized while they instead sleep in the parks, on sidewalks, and even setting up tents right on the beach sometimes.

I'm no expert on the root causes of homelessness, and I understand that the homeless population in general is expanding, but unless I'm missing some other variables at play here, since it happened so quickly this seems like a perfect example of "if you build it, they will come". It seems a few groups have a fascination with setting up homeless facilities in wealthy coastal enclaves where there isn't necessarily a strong local need, as shelters elsewhere in the county are underutilized.

As stated above there is no good answer, so realistically the only thing you can do if you lack compassion for the situation and/or just plain don't want to be around it is either A. Elect local leaders that won't tolerate it and fund law enforcement to have the resources to police it, which pushes the problem to someone else's neighborhood, or B. Move

[Axxlrod]

Originally Posted by blockzilla

Not in City of SD, but for the last 2 decades in Encinitas it was pretty rare to see any homeless. There would be a couple in the main business area of the 101 occasionally.

A year or so ago, a homeless safe parking lot was opened near downtown Encinitas. There's quite a bit of background as to how and why, and that is way off topic, but the end result is that now the homeless in Encinitas have grown exponentially and are spreading farther and farther inland (to avoid panhandling competition?). They're seemingly everywhere, and the safe parking lot is underutilized while they instead sleep in the parks, on sidewalks, and even setting up tents right on the beach sometimes.

I'm no expert on the root causes of homelessness, and I understand that the homeless population in general is expanding, but unless I'm missing some other variables at play here, since it happened so quickly this seems like a perfect example of "if you build it, they will come". It seems a few groups have a fascination with setting up homeless facilities in wealthy coastal enclaves where there isn't necessarily a strong local need, as shelters elsewhere in the county are underutilized.

As stated above there is no good answer, so realistically the only thing you can do if you lack compassion for the situation and/or just plain don't want to be around it is either A. Elect local leaders that won't tolerate it and fund law enforcement to have the resources to police it, which pushes the problem to someone else's neighborhood, or B. Move

We can all thank Catherine Blakespear for that homeless parking lot which as you say is a magnet for homeless people.

I've noticed an increase of homeless people pushing their shopping carts on Encinitas Blvd, and my wife was yelled at by a homeless guy in the Ralph's/Trader Joe's shopping center on ECR and Encinitas Blvd.

[stablegenius]

Originally Posted by blockzilla

A year or so ago, a homeless safe parking lot was opened near downtown Encinitas. There's quite a bit of background as to how and why, and that is way off topic, but the end result is that now the homeless in Encinitas have grown exponentially and are spreading farther and farther inland (to avoid panhandling competition?). They're seemingly everywhere, and the safe parking lot is underutilized while they instead sleep in the parks, on sidewalks, and even setting up tents right on the beach sometimes.

And this is what I meant by freebies. Provide food, provide parking lots for tents, provide the tents themselves, and you'll attract more of them.

Originally Posted by blockzilla

I'm no expert on the root causes of homelessness, and I understand that the homeless population in general is expanding, but unless I'm missing some other variables at play here, since it happened so quickly this seems like a perfect example of "if you build it, they will come".

Yes, this is human nature. Hell it's just animal nature.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by Axxlrod

We can all thank Catherine Blakespear for that homeless parking lot which as you say is a magnet for homeless people.

I've noticed an increase of homeless people pushing their shopping carts on Encinitas Blvd, and my wife was yelled at by a homeless guy in the Ralph's/Trader Joe's shopping center on ECR and Encinitas Blvd.

Well, um, ALL sorts of housed people yell at each other all the time, you know?

Homelessness is a sad, dirty, nasty catastrophe. Sure. But at least they aren’t starting wars, causing global warming, crashing the economy with sub-prime lending, peddling sugar addiction onto school children (and adults), destroying our planet with toxic chemical manufacturing, flooding the media and social media with disinformation, etc etc etc. You know: BIG crap like that.

Cheese Louise, folks … pick on someone your own size or bigger … this incessant whining about homeless is kinda like kicking starving cats while eating your 2,000 calorie bbq lunch in front of them.

[citizensadvocate]

Originally Posted by luv4horses

Well transients are going to want to hang out where camping weather is tolerable. And beggars want to be where people have lots of money and will hand them some. Meanwhile touristy areas have lots of walkers and slow drivers whose attention is easily gained. Hmmm. San Diego and coastal So Cal sounds perfect especially for the longer time homeless.

True TJ as well, likely why homeless in Mexico and central America all flee to this progressive sancturary city in Baja California instead of going into border towns abutting Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas.

Las Vegas and Phoenix had been known for literally closing shelters using the COVID social distancing excuse and threw their homeless out into blacktar parking lots to die in the oven like heat. Phoenix/Vegas + Heat black tar parking lot was totally shocking they do things this way especially when so many community centers and large buildings the city could use at will sat empty. I guess thats one way they almost eliminated their homelessness problem despite having a larger population than San Francisco or San Diego metro. And also for quite a while they threw homeless troublemakers i.e drug users/vendors into a tent compound instead of normal jailhouses to discourage them from trying to get three meals and a cooled cot as shelter. That was finally closed a few years ago though.

[Axxlrod]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

Well, um, ALL sorts of housed people yell at each other all the time, you know?

Homelessness is a sad, dirty, nasty catastrophe. Sure. But at least they aren’t starting wars, causing global warming, crashing the economy with sub-prime lending, peddling sugar addiction onto school children (and adults), destroying our planet with toxic chemical manufacturing, flooding the media and social media with disinformation, etc etc etc. You know: BIG crap like that.

Cheese Louise, folks … pick on someone your own size or bigger … this incessant whining about homeless is kinda like kicking starving cats while eating your 2,000 calorie bbq lunch in front of them.

None of those big picture issues can be controlled at the local level, and frankly have nothing to do with the homeless problem.

The Mayor of Encinitas pushing for a homeless parking lot/camp was a magnet for the homeless problem. It greatly exacerbated what was a small problem for our small beach town, into a much larger one that is now spilling over from the beach into the other parts of town.

I don't have the answers for the problem, but obviously inviting them here with a free place to stay/park just made it worse.

[TacoSoup]

Originally Posted by stablegenius

And this is what I meant by freebies. Provide food, provide parking lots for tents, provide the tents themselves, and you'll attract more of them. Yes, this is human nature. Hell it's just animal nature.

You forget the biggest “freebie”, and that’s the “freebie” of not being prosecuted (or even harassed) for their drug use, and to allow open air drug markets to flourish. Oh yeah, and the “freebie” to commit property crimes with impunity to support these habits. Crack down on these and you’ll see a lot of the problem go away.

[T. Damon]

Originally Posted by TacoSoup

You forget the biggest “freebie”, and that’s the “freebie” of not being prosecuted (or even harassed) for their drug use, and to allow open air drug markets to flourish. Oh yeah, and the “freebie” to commit property crimes with impunity to support these habits. Crack down on these and you’ll see a lot of the problem go away.

Exactly! The folks who throw up their hands that we’ve tried everything except actually invoke some tough love. As if should we actually impose consequences and crack down on illegal behavior there still would be scores of the same thieving homeless druggies gleefully destroying communities wherever they inhabit have minds as clouded as those fentanyl abusers. Homeless will respond to succinctly prescribed negative stimuli just like everyone else does.

Of course I support funding resources available to help those who still desire to transition out of living on the streets and parks but those all need enforced rules and screening to stop wasting those precious resources on the majority who do not. To those, we just need to enforce the rules that are already on the books and simply prove by a numbers game that the municipality does in fact have enough beds to those who would actually take them to satisfy the Ninth District Court of Appeals ruling, and then remove those who refuse to do so off the sidewalks, parks and canyons.

[malcorub16]

If T. Damon has had enough of this non sense, you know its gotten bad. Seems like a pretty tolerant guy given his post history t and a couple years ago, I felt some of his post down played homelessness.

Now he's mad as hell and ain't gonna take it no more.