Mine is one of them, only they banned “camping in public” because one of the council members who isn’t a jackass asked “so, we’re also going to fine people who nap in the park in business attire, right?”. They were trying to frame it as an act of compassion by saying that they’d give them the choice to go to shelter or take a fine, but when I reached out to the homeless court program here that’s over that, the guy running it told me that there were only half as many beds available as we need. He still thought it was a good idea. I went to the city council the night they passed it and pointed out that the city doesn’t have enough beds, and this is just going to end up being kicking people out of their tents and telling them to freeze. I got the standard “thank you” for my comment and they passed it anyway.

Well, at this last council meeting, a homeless woman showed up to tell the city that they trashed her tent and camping equipment and told her that it would be thirty days before any shelter was available. She asked them point blank “you guys who threw away my tent, you’re going back to sleep in a warm bed tonight, but what am I supposed to do?” The one council member who voted against the ordinance took the chance to gently kick the mayor in the nuts and diplomatically pointed out “I remember when the ordinance was passed, it was framed as a way to connect people with services. I guess I just don’t understand what services we’ve connected her with here.” He spoke softly, but it felt like he hit the rest of the council with a steel chair. A lot of people in the crowd started mumbling about how terrible what had happened to her was. Chef’s kiss moment. Now, thankfully, our PD has been working hard on being a direct connection between homeless people and services they need instead of just tossing them to the labyrinth of different disconnected aid groups, and one of the officers that was there got to work trying to connect her with some shelter, but that only happened because she showed up and called the council out.

I guess the point is, it’s worth your time to get involved in local politics.