The way I was taught, you judge a man by his deeds, not his words. Take the case of Mayor Schaaf and the City Council. They profess to be shocked, shocked by the encampments, and determined to do something about them. That’s their words.
Their deeds, however, testify to a different motive. If Mayor Schaaf and the City Council truly wanted to clean up the camps, they would have done it a long time ago. They have the power. They can do pretty much whatever they want. So why don’t they?
Well, they hide behind all sorts of excuses. The main one is Martin v. Boise, a case in which the Supreme Court refused to consider a Circuit Court case that determined that municipalities, such as the city of Boise, cannot forcibly remove campers from public property, unless the city can offer an alternative place for them to set up their tents. Oakland, in other words, can’t tell the camper whose dirty tent is pictured below that he has to leave the Senior Center lawn, unless it can provide him another place to set it up.
Look, there are many places in Oakland where campers can safely be relocated. The former Oakland Army Base contains hundreds of acres. There are brownfields, abandoned parking lots and other large spaces where thousands of tents could be set up. So when the pro-homeless members of the City Council argue that they really can’t do anything about tents, even though they really want to, they’re lying through their teeth. It would be the simplest thing in the world to put sanitary facilities out at the Army Base, including running water, and move all the tent people there. Some of them might not like it, true; but none of us gets to choose where we live, unless we’re super-rich, which most of us aren’t. We have to make do with what we can afford. And that’s how it should be with homeless people. They’re not going to get a one-bedroom condo. If a clean, dry tent at the Army Base, with all the personal services provided to them that the city can afford, isn’t to their liking, then we have to insist it’s either that, or be arrested.
That sounds tough, I admit. But it’s really not. If you think about it, it’s the most rational and compassionate approach we can take. All services centrally provided. Security guards to prevent pilfering and violence. Absolute safety and peace of mind. They could even elect their own representatives to speak for them at city meetings. Sounds like a good deal to me.
But Mayor Schaaf and the City Council won’t do it, even though they’re legally bound by their own Encampment Management Policy. This is why I say, judge them by their deeds, not their words. They say they hate the camps and want to get rid of them. But when they have the opportunity and the duty to do just that, they do nothing. I can only conclude, hard as it is to believe, that, for some perverse reason, they actually like the camps.
Steve Heimoff