homelessness
A New Zealand homeless charity unknowingly distributed sweets filled with a potentially lethal dose of the stimulant methamphetamine in its food parcels after they were donated by a member of the public. Auckland City Mission said on Wednesday that staff had started to contact up to 400 people to track down parcels that could contain the sweets, which were solid blocks of methamphetamine enclosed in candy wrappers. Three people were treated in hospital after consuming them, but were later discharged, authorities said. The amount of methamphetamine in each sweet was up to 300 times the level so...
Euronews (English)
Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) - California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered the dismantling of homeless encampments on state land, one month after the US Supreme Court overturned protections for unhoused residents sleeping outdoors. The Golden State has long been reckoning with a homelessness crisis -- roughly one-third of the entire US homeless population live there -- in part due to lack of affordable housing. "The state has been hard at work to address this crisis on our streets," Newsom said in a statement. "There are simply no more excuses. It's time for everyone to do their...
AFP
Cities that want to hide homelessness can criminalize sleeping in public. They can even jail repeat offenders. The Supreme Court upheld these measures in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson on June 28, 2024. Grants Pass, Oregon, the city at the center of the decision, is not the only one testing how far it can go to address homelessness without violating the Constitution. Other jurisdictions have their own ways of keeping the housing problem out of sight. The police cracked down on jaywalking near a downtown homeless shelter in Salt Lake City, Utah. Code enforcers targeted a business owner after he...
Reason
A severe heatwave is scorching Hungary and putting its homeless population in life-threatening situations. To combat the heat and protect its population, the Hungarian government has issued a Code Red. This means that all social services must receive people on the streets to at least get water, take a bath and cool down. NGOs working with the homeless are also adapting to the emergency situation. "At this time of year, the care organisations try to discourage people from staying in the hot sun for longer periods of time, as this is the greatest danger," said Zoltán Aknai, director of the Shelt...
Euronews (English)
Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This past week is a rare one where all the major housing news is happening at the federal level. Major developments include: The announcement of the first round of "Baby YIMBY" grant awards, and housing advocates' disappointment at where this first tranche of money is going.House Republicans call for cutting federal housing programs, including total defunding of the enforcement of fair housing regulations.President Joe Biden's endorsement of "rent caps" in a debate performance made headlines for a lot of other reasons.But first, our l...
Reason
In a major opinion affecting how cities can address homelessness, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that an Oregon city's enforcement of a public camping ban against the "involuntarily" homeless does not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual" punishment. "The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause focuses on the question what 'method or kind of punishment' a government may impose after a criminal conviction, not on the question whether a government may criminalize particular behavior in the first place," wrote Justice Neal Gorsuch for the majority in the case of City ...
Reason
Can San Francisco be saved? San Francisco, the beautiful city on the bay, has become a national punchline. During his debate with Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom last year, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis displayed a map of citywide poop sightings, which were apparently reported to 311 more than 35,000 times in 2023, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Works. The city's population slumped starting in 2018, but has slowly crawled back. And a 2022 San Francisco Chronicle poll found 65 percent of respondents say life is worse in the city now than when they moved there...
Reason
Washington (AFP) - The US Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on whether cities can ban homeless people from sleeping outside, as the country grapples with increasing rates of Americans living on the streets and a lack of shelter beds. The case centers around regulations in the city of Grants Pass, in the western state of Oregon, which banned camping or using any kind of bedding on public property after its public parks became filled with tents, blankets and cardboard. Those breaking the rules face hundred-dollar fines and possible prison sentences for repeat offenders. Homeless advocates hav...
AFP
Portland (AFP) - It's 9 am on a weekday, and real estate employee Erica Hetfeld has just watched paramedics try to save the life of a man who has overdosed on the streets of Portland. "This is a tragedy," she says as three disheveled men smoke fentanyl near her office in a city that was once a byword for laid-back livability. Portland is a Democratic Party stronghold, a liberal sentinel in Oregon on the US West Coast that for years stood for social justice, empathy and tolerance. But an experiment in decriminalizing drugs and a hands-off approach to policing has left some bemoaning the fate o...
AFP
Los Angeles (AFP) - When Carlos Schmidt beds down on the hard streets of Los Angeles, he has nothing but a backpack and an old blanket, like thousands of other homeless people in one of the richest cities in the world's richest country. "At nighttime, I just find somewhere quiet like a park or a bus bench, where there's not a lot of chaos," the 37-year-old told AFP. "And I'll try to rest up right there for as long as I can." Schmidt is one of some 75,500 people living on the streets of Los Angeles and its sprawling suburbs, according to a January survey. The figure is up 70 percent since 2015,...
AFP
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