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Notes -
Shelter beds aren’t that useful if you can’t require that people use them. In New York if someone set up a tent in Central Park the cops will intervene and let him know he can go to a shelter or go to jail. Until yesterday you couldn’t do that on the West Coast. If Mr. Tent doesn’t feel like going to the shelter, then he gets to stay put.
I'm fine with requiring people to use shelter beds (although I gather some of the debate is on what constitutes an acceptable shelter bed) and as far as I can tell, so is the Ninth Circuit. I assume there's some technicality making their ruling not actually do what it appears to? I thought this whole fight was because Grants Pass didn't have enough shelter beds.
The ninth circuit isn't okay with requiring people to use shelter beds unless the number of beds (and only certain types of beds—if they require various sorts of things, they don't count) is greater than the homeless population. Notably, that means that if you have 500 beds and 600 people, 200 of whom want to stay on the street, you have to leave 200 on the street, not 100, I'm pretty sure.
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