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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024

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Yep. See my comment here where the police will roll through at irregular intervals to make sure there's no nasty surprises or people hiding in the camps, but otherwise tolerate them when they're well away from civilization.

It WOULD be hard to formalize, because the way trespass laws work. The owner of a particular wooded, vacant parcel of land can tolerate a homeless camp but at any time can also have them all trespassed off if he wants to do something with it. So there could be 'tacit' agreement with the owner to tolerate them in the meantime, while reserving the right to kick 'em off if it becomes inconvenient. The other option is letting the city or county own the land but leave it undeveloped and just let the camp exist, but that opens up some potentially problematic optics. You don't want there to be any implied 'contract' between the land owner and the camped out homeless to ensure their safety as 'guests.'

The cops around here are also a bit more aggressive than average about enforcing panhandling laws, which has led to some 'interesting' tactics to evolve by the panhandlers to create some level of deniability as to why they're standing around at the intersection. Of course, summers here get hot and humid as balls so there is a natural deterrent in effect too. The panhandlers themselves are most likely to set up in places with shade.

Private landowners have many of the same worries, like liability and the condition of the property should they decide to do something with it in the future. But they also have to worry about squatter's rights in the medium term. I don't know if there are jurisdictions where they have to worry about tenant laws, but I would not be surprised.