The most obvious answer seems to be to fine the offenders, but really, how do you fine a homeless person?
But I can easily imagine that out of 8 million people living in New York City, a certain number does not want to live at home and actually prefer staying outside.
Fining the homeless seems silly, and unlikely to serve as either a deterrent or as workable compensation for society at large.
Throwing them in a jail is even worse; it is unlikely to deter (part of the problem is that there are mental issues at work which are likely going to make _any_ deterrence ineffective, you need complete solutions for individual cases, or systems in place that reduce the incidence of homelessness and the mental issues strongly correlated to it) - and it is a giant cost to society, not a gain.
There are _NO_ easy answers, that's part of the problem. We can point at the elephant all day, but the current plan of 'lets squawk like a bird loudly' has proven ineffective at chasing the elephant out of the room and also makes no logical sense as to why that should lead to the desired result either. It makes sense to stop the squawking like a bird immediately, even if there isn't yet a plausible plan in place to chase the elephant out.
And you're right, there are some people who are homeless by choice, but they are a tiny, tiny minority, probably less than 1% of the homeless population.
I sincerely wonder why.
My "off-the-top" theory would be that these people are either indeed homeless by choice or they are such assholes that not a single shelter would tolerate them.
How wrong am I?
[1] https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/5948/2019-ahar-part-1-...
Very. Did you actually read the report? The answer is right there:
"On a single night in 2019, roughly 568,000 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States. Nearly two-thirds (63%) were staying in sheltered locations—emergency shelters or transitional housing programs—and more than one-third (37%) were in unsheltered locations such as on the street, in abandoned buildings, or in other places not suitable for human habitation."
So being unsheltered has nothing at all to do with being voluntarily homeless. These are completely orthogonal matters. In fact, the HUD report does not deal with voluntary homelessness at all, almost certainly because the number of such people is so small that they can be safely discounted for public policy purposes.
It is also really hard to assess whether someone is voluntarily homeless. My film was shot in Santa Monica, CA. One of the subjects I interviewed had reliable income, enough to pay the rent somewhere, but not in Santa Monica. Given the choice between being on the street in Santa Monica and being in a low-rent apartment in some random place far from home, he chose to stay in Santa Monica. But all else being equal he would have preferred to be inside. Is that person "voluntarily homeless"?
Additionally, giving them homes has strongly correlated with a reduction in drug trafficking. These programs did not require the participants to stay drug free or to join any programs, but often they were buying/selling for reasons that were addressed by the basic provisions of the programs.
These programs aren't meant for everyone that's homeless. Many people are only homeless temporarily and the existing shelter programs handle those cases somewhat acceptably, but the major contrasting factor with the issues we're currently discussing is that these programs had zero involvement of the police. The police were told explicitly to leave its participants alone and not only did the homelessness issues go away, but their state budgets decreased overall.
You make good points about not being able to fully decriminalize certain things, but there are nuances specific to circumstances that make treating many societal problems as crimes to be less effective and more expensive than properly implemented social programs.
As Americans, perhaps we should be calling for:
1/ Limits on the power of police to protect bad officers and change prosecutorial discretion.
2/ Limits on the number of interactions between the police and citizenry, which means passing fewer laws.
Look at what led to Eric Garner's death. A politician put a tax of $5.85 on a pack of cigarettes, driving smokes underground. When the police enforce this overcrimininalization, it exposes poor people to unnecessary interactions with cops and potentially violent confrontations.
Good point.
I do think there's potential for more mandated community service as a response to antisocial behavior. Structure it so people don't have to miss work.
A very large amount of the crimes we prosecute people for are either drug crimes or crimes because of poverty/economic inequality, and these are best addressed with public health and investment.
Even some of the remaining economic crimes - like selling untaxed cigarettes (what Eric Garner was killed for) if they still happen probably don't need public enforcement. Give those that pay the taxes standing to sue those who don't pay the taxes. If those who are paying it aren't bothered enough to pay for enforcement, I don't see why others should be.
Most of what we do in the name of policing is deal with problems that we'd be better off preventing or dealing with by someone other than a man with a gun. This is the low hanging fruit we should pursue immediately, and when we see what's left the opportunities and alternatives for further improvement should become clearer.