{"id":1217,"date":"2012-12-23T22:26:46","date_gmt":"2012-12-24T06:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.evergreen.edu\/bohmerp\/?p=1217"},"modified":"2012-12-23T22:26:46","modified_gmt":"2012-12-24T06:26:46","slug":"dont-criminalize-homeless-people-create-affordable-housing-and-24-hour-drop-in-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/peterbohmer\/dont-criminalize-homeless-people-create-affordable-housing-and-24-hour-drop-in-centers\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t Criminalize Homeless People: Create Affordable Housing and 24 Hour Drop-in Centers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Letter to<em> The Olympian<\/em> newspaper<em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>December 19, 2012;\u00a0 printed in<em> The Olympian<\/em>, December 25, 2012<\/p>\n<p>I strongly oppose the proposed No Camping ordinances. There is a shortage of low-cost and affordable housing in Olympia. Banning camping near City Hall and on all city property will create further hardships for homeless people. It criminalizes people for being homeless rather than making available more affordable\u00a0housing and other social services.<\/p>\n<p>What is wrong with camping out on city property? \u00a0If there is a problem with urination, Olympia should provide free bathrooms rather than preventing camping and sleeping outside. It should open City Hall as a place to sleep at night.<\/p>\n<p>People can be charged with a crime if they assault someone but because a middle class resident feels unsafe or uncomfortable near a homeless or street person is not a reason to make camping or sleeping outside illegal or to further restrict sitting on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n<p>The Mayor and City Council are supposed to represent all people in Olympia including homeless people. These proposed city council laws do not do that nor do they represent those in Olympia who believe housing is a right and people should not be criminalized or forced out of Olympia because they are homeless. It is good the Olympia City Council voted to end the no busking ordinance but that is not enough.<\/p>\n<p>I urge the Olympia City Council and Mayor Buxbaum to reconsider their position on the No Camping laws, to reject them and not further restrict camping, sleeping outside or in one\u2019s car and not limit sitting on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely, Peter Bohmer<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>  I strongly oppose the proposed No Camping ordinances. There is a shortage of low-cost and affordable housing in Olympia. Banning camping near City Hall and on all city property will create further hardships for homeless people. It criminalizes people for being homeless rather than making available more affordable housing and other social services. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/peterbohmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/peterbohmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/peterbohmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/peterbohmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/peterbohmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/peterbohmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/peterbohmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/peterbohmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/peterbohmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}