Louisiana Advances One of the Country's 'Cruelest' Anti-Homeless Bills (Common Dreams, 4/18)

[highplainsdem]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/louisiana-homeless-bill

The Louisiana House of Representatives voted this week to pass what the National Homelessness Law Center says is “one of the cruelest anti-homeless bills in the country.”

-snip-

Those who are convicted of sleeping outdoors could be given the option to avoid jail time by instead entering into a mandatory treatment program for at least 12 months. The bill authorizes local governments to set up semi-permanent camps in remote areas, where defendants would be required to stay and receive treatment.

The bill requires homeless defendants to pay “all or part of the cost of the treatment program to which he is assigned,” a steep cost for many, as the average cost for residential drug and alcohol rehab treatment in Louisiana is more than $4,400 per week, according to the addiction referral service directory Addicted.org.

According to the bill, those who cannot afford this steep cost would be required to perform unpaid labor for the state or a local community center in lieu of payment.

-snip-

In effect, isolated slave labor camps for those committing the "crime" of being homeless.

[Joinfortmill]

1. Draconian

[SamKnause]

2. Sick, twisted, evil mother fuckers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What if you are homeless and you don't drink or do drugs ???

What 12 months of training do you need ???

I bet some good ole Jesus and bible shit is in the mix.

[BigMin28]

9. They assume

Every homeless person is an alcoholic, drug addict or both.

[rampartd]

3. add to an economy which produces homelessness at record levels.....

[slightlv]

15. Just another way for trump to grift money from us useless eaters! nt

[Whiskeytide]

4. Someone is running these tent centers, and ...

… stands to make a lot of $ on a govt contract. The homeless won’t be able to pay, so the taxpayer will.

It’s a grift.

[peggysue2]

5. So, the remedy for homelessness is . . .

Enslavement!

What a brilliant idea and a source of endless, unpaid labor because you know at $4400 per treatment week, these already broken souls will be forced to work for years to pay off the debt.

There's cruel, and then there's just plain ole evil.

[flvegan]

6. What if one is homeless but doesn't require "treatment" of some kind?

Not every person who is homeless is hooked on dope or booze. Some are just, like, broke. Mandatory treatment for a problem they don't have and then enslavement to pay for it?

So then once out of the 12 month "program" then what? Back on the street, start all over again, back into treatment/enslavement? How many lather, rinse, repeat cycles will we have here?

[lame54]

7. Maggie's Farm

[Bettie]

8. So, Louisiana is bringing slavery back

they've just decided to pretend its' indentured servitude.

I expect that most of these unpaid workers will be...well, not lily white.

[slightlv]

16. While you have a very valid point,

I don't think it'll make any real difference what color they are to trump and his minions. If you're poor and out in the open where you can be seen, you'll pay the price. And believe me, women who are already at risk in that environment will pay an even heavier price.

[Prairie_Seagull]

10. My guess is.

This is designed to chase the homeless of Louisiana to other states. As horrible as homelessness is this infers it is going to get worse.

[stumpysbear]

11. Blatantly unconstitutional

[Crunchy Frog]

12. But not everyone who finds themselves in that situation needs "treatment".

Sometimes people are just down on their luck, especially in a bad economy.

Are they saying that even if a person doesn't have a mental health or substance abuse problem they still need a full year of "treatment"? And that's everyone even without a medical evaluation or diagnosis?

And what does this "treatment" involve? Is this the same thing as RFKJr's "wellness camps"? How can something like this even be legal?

[AverageOldGuy]

13. Poorhouse

"A Christmas Carol," Ebenezer Scrooge speaks:

“Are there no prisons? ... And the union workhouses?”.

“If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population”.

“I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”

[Bayard]

19. First thing I thought of too

"Convict leasing," is still a thing, where they're paid pennies.

If the homeless had $4K for, "treatment," they wouldn't be homeless.

[popsdenver]

14. It would be a lot easier

and even less humane to put them in cattle trucks and transport them to some blue state and have them become homeless there.

I can only imagine the Veteran groups are going to have something to say about this, since many veterans are homeless....

[Initech]

17. Wouldn't it be easier to tax the shit out of the billionaires who are stealing our money?

[Old Crank]

18. How very Christian of them.

[jmowreader]

20. Response from the Homeless

Fm: The Homeless
To: The Louisiana Legislature
Subj: Your Anti Homeless Bill

1. A bill currently making its way through the Louisiana Legislature requires that in order to not go to jail for the heinous crime of sleeping outdoors, a homeless person must voluntarily enter a "treatment program" for a period of one year. Further, the homeless person must pay for this treatment.

2. "Treatment programs" cost, on average, $4400 per week. In a four-week month, "treatment" will cost the homeless person $17,600. Over the course of a year "treatment" will cost the homeless person $228,800.

3. The Louisiana Legislature should be made aware that if a homeless person could scrape together that much money HE WOULDN'T FUCKING BE HOMELESS! A quick search on the popular real estate website Zillow shows that if you're willing to not live in New Orleans a person in possession of damn near a quarter-million dollars can easily buy a home in this state.

4. Guys, you really need to rethink this.