The unbridiling

The members of the Supreme Court may be many things, but none of them are stupid.

They are well-aware that a City is capable of setting up nightly shelters for unhoused people akin to the gym-floor setups used for hurricane evacuations and other emergencies and this was in their mind’s eye when they affirmed the ruling in Martin v Boise.

There is nothing in Martin that requires meal service; there is nothing that requires showers or “wraparound services.” All that is required beyond a bed are health mandates for drinkable water, a toilet and a handwashing sink.

Cities persist in spending massive amounts of money to create small numbers of sleeping spaces, determined to “fix” people… .and resist simply providing an overnight space to sleep.

What would happen if a city used vacant municipal and commercial space to offer bare-bones sleeping areas that are only open during bedtime? The feeding programs, showering programs and storage-bin issues can be handled separately.

This arrangement would not solve homelessness, but the system we have been using is not doing so either! What this arrangement would do is allow unhoused people to solve basic needs and continue to function while the housing crisis is dealt with.

It is time to consider the Great Unbundling created by the bunglers: elected officials and city staffers who want to distract from their inaction on the housing crisis, and their culpability in it by allowing things like AirBNB, and by the high-profit non-profits that make their money off these entities.