Saw this in the paper today, the latest on the never-ending struggle to do something about the homeless in the city. It is, of course, impossible for someone to do something about the homeless in this city despite the fact that it's one of the biggest problems in the city. It's a pretty, loud, smelly problem in this city. But any proposal to do something meets very loud, vocal resistance from Homeless Advocates. Homeless advocates seem to have two main reasons why the oppose any sort of measure to do something about them.

1) That it's a Constitutionally mandated right to be able to be homeless, get drunk shout things at people, and take craps in some persons door. Free country and all that. Hell, it's not just a Constitutional right, it's a Human Right. And to do something like, oh, making it so that homeless people have to go to a shelter would be oppressing them. That would be bad. Oppression is bad.

2) The other reason is that homelessness is a systematic problem inherant to capitalism. Therefore, if you really want to do something about the homeless problem, you have to first destroy our capitalistic system. And to do anything without first destroying capitalism would be wrong. So, homelessness can only be morally dealt with once we've established a socialist state.

So, as result of that thinking, nothing's done against the homeless. We just have a hodgepodge of programs and policies. Nothing consistent, nothing great, just a bunch of band aids.

But wait, our supervisors have figured out a way to solve the problem. According to the Chron:

Supervisors Chris Daly and Mark Leno proposed a November measure of their own that would run all future homeless policies through a 22-member advisory committee before the supervisors vote on them.


Which is a brilliant idea. Absolutely fucking brilliant. Because it's so easy to make a policy decision if it first has to be debated by twenty-two people.

I'm in a writing group. There's six people in the group and we have enough problems trying to figure out when to meet. Have you ever been in a group of people and tried to figure out what bar to go to? Now, magnify that by 22 people. Making policy decisions.

Yeah, that'll work. Twenty-two people? Jesus fucking Christ.

Sometimes, this city just sucks.