Normalizing street camping

The Portland City Council continues to takes steps to make it perfectly normal to pitch a tent and live on city sidewalks, along roads, and in parks. From a story in Willamette Weed:

One protocol the council cemented Wednesday: deprioritize sweeping encampments that are at least 10 feet away from entrances to residential or commercial buildings, so long as the building is not a school and the encampment doesn’t contain biohazardous waste, harbor criminal activity or consist of more than eight structures....

Weeke says Ryan’s office worked on the ordinance alongside the Oregon Law Center, Street Roots and all five commissioners’ offices to establish sweep guidelines.

The ordinance also decrees that campers cannot be required to move to safe rest villages once they’re built out—which will begin September.

So the city is actually negotiating with the tent-dwellers' lawyers now. They can put up eight tents 10 feet from your front door, no problem. No one can tell them where to sleep. They pick wherever they like, and the city supplies a Port-a-Potty.

It's truly insane. If you want to end people living on the streets, this is not the way to do it. It's pretty much the opposite.