“You Have to Move!”
www.hrw.org
The 337-page report, “‘You Have to Move!’ The Cruel and Ineffective Criminalization of Unhoused People in Los Angeles,” documents the experiences of people living on the streets and in vehicles, temporary shelters, and parks in Los Angeles, as they struggle to survive while facing criminalization and governmental failures to prioritize eviction prevention or access to permanent housing. Law enforcement and sanitation “sweeps” force unhoused people out of public view, often wasting resources on temporary shelter and punishments that do not address the underlying needs. Tens of thousands of people are living in the streets of Los Angeles; death rates among the unhoused have skyrocketed.
  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    451·
    3 months ago

    What’s sad to me is how much effort, time, and research we have to put in to prove this to people.

    I could tell this was inhuman when I was a child, and all through my youth, I was given all kinds of excuses for it, usually amounting to “because capitalism.” Well I’m old enough to know all that bullshit was lies and I didn’t need a 337-page fucking report to figure it out.

    This isn’t meant to say anything negative about the people who would make such a report: they made the report because they give a damn. Good on them for putting the work in.

    It’s an indictment on the rest of humanity that we need to go to these lengths to prove to them that this isn’t just hurtful, it’s also backward, unnecessary, and causes great social harm that reverberates far beyond the homeless themselves.

    • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
      252·
      3 months ago

      Nah it’s more so police and politicians can look like they’re 'doing something about the issue" without actually doing anything but wasting everyone’s time. I’d say it could be cruelty but they probably don’t even think about these people as “people” but rather a way to boost their polling numbers.

      • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        3·
        3 months ago

        they probably don’t even think about these people as “people”

        This describes almost everybody in LA. That’s how cruelty becomes official policy.

    • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
      91·
      3 months ago

      It’s just icing on the cake that cruelty is more profitable for the entities being contracted out to service the various elements of our oppressive policies against the homeless.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
    132·
    3 months ago

    All cops are bad. They are all participating in a system that torments poor people. A lot of them even like it.