@ISIDEWITHQuestionsHousing IssuesStarted 3yrs agoActive 1 day ago

Should homeless individuals, that have refused available shelter or housing, be allowed to sleep or encamp on public property?

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Answer Overview

Response rates from 528 Independents voters.

27%
Yes
73%
No
16%
Yes
73%
No
9%
Yes, and create more social programs to provide free food, clothing, and medicine
0%
No, and make it a criminal offense
2%
Yes, but only in designated areas
0%
No, but create more social programs to provide free food, clothing, and medicine
0%
Yes, to sleep but not encamp

Historical Support

Trend of support over time for each answer from 528 Independents voters.

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Historical Importance

Trend of how important this issue is for 528 Independents voters.

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Other Popular Answers

Unique answers from Independents voters whose views went beyond the provided options.

 @B4BH7Y8from Ontario  answered…3wks3W

This is a ridiculous question. The real issue is providing housing - acceptable housing - for everyone. It's not black and white. No one wants to be in an encampment and nobody wants them to have to be there.

 @9VJLT3Zfrom Alberta  answered…7mos7MO

Homeless shelters need drastic expansion and improvement, and hostile architecture should be banned.

 @9VZT3KKfrom British Columbia  answered…6mos6MO

No, but we should assess the current shelters and housing to see why they may be refusing to use them.

 @9VF2RTRfrom British Columbia  answered…7mos7MO

Don’t want them on my private place. I have had enough of feeling unsafe in my community and home. Not fair as a tax paying citizen that I have no rights anymore for my safety

 @9FY56SG from Ontario  answered…2yrs2Y

No, we fund these welfare programs for their benefit and if they choose not to accept thats their problem

 @9VCMPDGfrom British Columbia  answered…7mos7MO

No, however creating alternative living solutions or proper areas outside of the “main areas” of denser populations/towns.

 @9WKCQFTfrom New Brunswick  answered…6mos6MO

We need to call it what it is: MENTAL HEALTH BREAKDOWN. These people need psych wards. They need to be helped. They need to know that they are wanted, loved, cared for. Not societies throw always.

 @B4SYMFRfrom British Columbia  answered…1 day1D

I don't think there's enough housing about available for the homeless people to make this a relevant question. I think the majority of people who are homeless would be sleeping in their homes if they had them. This is coming from somebody who has been homeless previously. Homelessness and addiction and mental health are very interconnected. At the time I was homeless, I was going to serious depression after somebody very close to me passed away and I fell into addiction. I was suffering from severe PTSD that limited my basic thoughts and functions and I could not take care of my ver…  Read more

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…6mos6MO

Drug Crisis Prompts Portland to Reboot City Government

In a sign of either hope or desperation, Portland voters decided to throw out their entire government structure and replace it with a weaker mayor, expanded City Council and ranked choice voting.A major driving factor was the passage of “Measure 110” decriminalizing all drugs in 2020, which was backed by 74 percent of Multnomah County’s residents. Voters couldn’t — or at least didn’t — anticipate how this policy change would reshape a city already strapped for money, dealing with a public health crisis and confronting rising rates of homelessness and fentanyl abuse.Drug use shot up, homelessness worsened and taxpayers fled.“Political rhetoric in 2020-2021 in the City of Portland was incredibly ideologically driven,” Gonzalez said, explaining that there was a “default conversation” on topics like homelessness or police reform that shut down an exchange of ideas.The City Council race, meanwhile, is mayhem. Portland is switching from four at-large seats to twelve seats representing four districts. The dozens of candidates include Black Lives Matter leaders, nonprofit advocates, business owners and police officers.There are 19 people running for mayor and 98 people seeking seats on the City Council. They’re nearly all campaigning on left-of-center platforms — this is Portland.Pandemic closures, protests, elevated crime rates and rising homelessness buffeted many liberal cities in recent years, including San Francisco and Minneapolis. But policy choices made by the city and state aggravated their impact in Portland.The ramifications are measurable: Nearly 12,000 people moved out of Multnomah County between 2020 and 2023, per data from Portland State University. The exodus between 2020 and 2021 alone took nearly $1.1 billion in taxable income out of the city, according to data analyzed by the Economic Innovation Group. Portland’s once bustling downtown is nearly empty, and a negative national reputation clouds its economic future.Drug decriminalization and the city’s open camping rules compounded the feeling of insecurity. Homeless encampments spread through empty public spaces and filled sidewalks during the lockdown, and some became epicenters for the fentanyl trade. Even Portlanders who voted for decriminalization and believe in a compassionate approach to homelessness didn’t feel as safe in their own neighborhoods.

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…5mos5MO

Texas Offers Trump 1,400 Acres for His Mass Deportation Dream

Officials in Texas have offered President-elect Trump a 1,400-acre ranch for his mass deportation plan.Dawn Buckingham, land commissioner of the Texas General Land Office, said in a letter to Trump Tuesday that her office was “fully prepared” to work with federal agencies that are going to be involved in Trump’s immigration plan, and specifically deportation.Buckingham offered Trump a 1,402-acre lot in Starr County. The lot is owned by the Texas General Land Office and is roughly 35 miles west of McAllen, Texas.She said the agency is ready to work with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the U.S. Border Patrol to build a facility on the land for “the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history.”“I am committed to using every available means at my disposal to gain complete operational security of our border,” Buckingham wrote.The letter and offering of land were first reported by The Texas Tribune. Last month, the state bought the land along the U.S.-Mexico border and has plans to build a wall.In the letter, Buckingham criticized her predecessor for not allowing a border wall to be built on the property. Those actions “enabled cartel members and violent criminals to sexually abuse migrant women and children on this land,” she said.On Monday, Trump signaled he would declare an immigration national emergency and use military assets to support his mass deportation plan when he returns to office.

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…3mos3MO

Supreme Court Clears The Way For Trump Sentencing

Donald Trump will face sentencing over his New York “hush money” conviction on Friday, after the US Supreme Court declined to grant him a last-minute reprieve.The decision will force the president-elect to face public proceedings in the criminal case that he has fought strenuously to avoid. His lawyers had appealed to the high court on Wednesday to postpone the proceeding, claiming that allowing it to go ahead days before his inauguration would create a “constitutionally intolerable risk of disruption to national security” and interfere with his efforts to get his 34 felony convictions overturned.In a 5-4 decision handed down just hours before the sentencing was set to go ahead in a state court in lower Manhattan, a majority of the justices declined to do so, saying “the burden that sentencing will impose on the president-elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial” especially as Trump was unlikely to face any prison time. They added that any issues with the evidence presented at trial — some of which Trump’s lawyers have claimed was inadmissible — “can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal”.Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined Chief Justice John Roberts and the three liberals on the bench in refusing to grant Trump’s appeal.Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he appreciated the Supreme Court’s time but vowed to continue fighting the case. “For the sake and sanctity of the Presidency, I will be appealing this case, and am confident that JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL,” he said.Lawyers representing Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Trump’s sentencing was repeatedly postponed while he mounted his third campaign for the White House and pursued various appeals against his conviction. Last week Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the “hush money” trial in New York earlier this year, finally set a firm date, in order to bring what he called “finality to this matter”.Trump will probably not face any punishment when he is sentenced, however, as the judge previously indicated he would not impose a fine or condemn Trump to prison time.

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…6mos6MO

Chaos in Europe: Germany’s Government Collapses As Trump Returns

Germany’s coalition government collapsed on Wednesday after Chancellor Olaf Scholz sacked his finance minister Christian Lindner, plunging the eurozone’s largest economy into political chaos hours after Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.Scholz told reporters he would table a confidence vote in parliament on January 15, which most observers expect him to lose. That will pave the way for snap elections in March.Lindner’s sacking and the departure of his pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) from the government brings the curtain down on a deeply unpopular coalition that had become a byword for discord and acrimony.It leaves a void at the heart of Europe just as concern is growing in EU capitals over what a second Trump presidency will mean for transatlantic relations.Germany and the rest of Europe now face a long period of uncertainty they can ill-afford as they brace for a trade war with the US while trying to fend off a growing economic threat from China.In a blistering statement delivered in the chancellery, Scholz blamed Lindner for the breakdown of the government, calling him “selfish” and “irresponsible”. He said he “cared only about his own clientele and the short-term survival of his own party”.The trigger for Lindner’s dismissal was a dispute over next year’s budget. The three coalition partners — Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), Lindner’s FDP and the Greens — could not agree on how to plug a €9bn hole in spending plans ahead of a meeting of parliament’s budget committee next week.However, the conflict became overlaid with deeper ideological divisions over how to deal with Germany’s economic downturn and how much public debt the government is legally allowed to raise.Scholz said he had asked Lindner to agree to loosen Germany’s “debt brake”, a cap on new borrowing which is enshrined in the constitution and which the SPD and Greens have long wanted to reform.That would have allowed Germany to take on more debt and so boost its support for Ukraine, at a time when fears are growing Trump might cut aid to Kyiv once installed in the White House.Scholz said he had also proposed capping network charges to bring down energy prices for industrial companies, creating incentives for businesses to invest, and passing a package of measures to safeguard jobs in the car industry, which faces more competition from China.

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Active 2 days ago

 @ISIDEWITH submitted…6mos6MO

Trump’s Puerto Rico Problem Erupts in Pennsylvania: Latino Voters Fire Back

Donald Trump has a serious Puerto Rico problem — in Pennsylvania.Many Puerto Rican voters in the state are furious about racist and demeaning comments delivered at a Trump rally. Some say their dismay is giving Kamala Harris a new opening to win over the state’s Latino voters, particularly nearly half a million Pennsylvanians of Puerto Rican descent.Evidence of the backlash was immediate on Monday: A nonpartisan Puerto Rican group drafted a letter urging its members to oppose Trump on election day. Other Puerto Rican voters were lighting up WhatsApp chats with reactions to the vulgar display and raising it in morning conversations at their bodegas. Some are planning to protest Trump’s rally Tuesday in Allentown, a majority-Latino city with one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in the state.And the arena Trump is speaking at is located in the middle of the city’s Puerto Rican neighborhood.“It’s spreading like wildfire through the community,” said Norberto Dominguez, a precinct captain with the local Democratic party in Allentown, who noted his own family is half Republican and half Democratic voters.“It’s not the smartest thing to do, to insult people — a large group of voters here in a swing state — and then go to their home asking for votes,” Dominguez said.The timing couldn’t be worse for Trump. Almost a week before Election Day, he’s pushing to cut into Harris’ margins among Latinos, especially young men who are worried about the economy. But the comments from pro-Trump comedian Tony Hinchcliffe Sunday night, referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage,” has reverberated throughout Pennsylvania and elsewhere, prompting even the former president’s Republican allies to defend the island and denounce the comments. And with the race essentially a toss up, every vote counts — especially in Pennsylvania.“This was just like a gift from the gods,” said Victor Martinez, an Allentown resident who owns the Spanish language radio station La Mega, noting some Puerto Rican voters in the area have been on the fence about voting at all.

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