Episode 173: How to Sell Police Crackdowns on Homeless People to Liberals

<div class="DraftEditor-paragraphElement" data-block="true" data-editor="386pm" data-offset-key="ciemc-0-0"> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="ciemc-0-0"><span data-offset-key="ciemc-0-0">"The city has had 125 daily interactions," New York Mayor Eric Adams tells the Daily News. "We’re working to solve the homelessness crisis, with innovative mental health interventions," San Francisco Mayor London Breed tells reporters. The city needs to "clean up homeless encampments," countless city officials tell us. Everywhere we turn, our elected –– largely Democratic –– governors and mayors are talking about quote "solving the homelessness crisis" without specifying what, exactly, these plans entail.</span></div> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="ciemc-0-0"> </div> </div> <div class="DraftEditor-paragraphElement" data-block="true" data-editor="386pm" data-offset-key="b3hru-0-0"> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="b3hru-0-0"><span data-offset-key= "b3hru-0-0">Saying elected officials are going to harass and displace the homeless population until they’re incarcerated or leave our city and wealthy neighborhood sounds unseemly and inhumane. But this –– minus the occasional and insufficient attempts to offer public housing –– is more or less the strategy of most big cities: Send in police to "sweep up" encampments, enforce low-level drug offenses and ticket the unhoused for loitering and camping, But saying this is the plan sounds mean, so, over the past couple of years, as America’s housing crisis has grown more acute and the end of COVID-era tenant protections unceremoniously sunset, a cottage industry of pleasant sounding euphemisms have emerged to sell police-led homeless crackdowns to squeamish liberals.</span></div> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="b3hru-0-0"> </div> </div> <div class="DraftEditor-p