The Return of Insane Asylums and Internment Camps
On my walk from Studio City to Burbank along Riverside Dr., I passed a gentleman in only shorts. He was making trips between the curb where he had his things and a commercial building with a water spigot. He seemed to be both washing himself and filling containers with water which he then brought back to his little set up along the sidewalk. He muttered to himself while he seemed to manically make trips to find reasons to run the water. As I watched him, I thought, “Oh, this is going to make people angry.” I had just watched a news report about an apartment building owner who locked up her water spigots to stop the squatters across the street from stealing her water. Burbank is good at incentivizing the homeless to go somewhere else. I once heard a library patron comment on the homeless in the surrounding park that ‘we don’t do THAT here.” For the past ten years or so, the call from homeless activists has been for ‘housing first’ and ‘harm reduction’. Taxpayers have paid millions...