It took nearly a year for the city of Oakland to clear out one of the largest homeless encampments in the state. After multiple problems including fires at the 40 acre site beneath a freeway, the city announced last summer that residents had five days to vacate the property which was owned by Caltrans. And then residents of the camp sued:

…a group of encampment residents sued Caltrans, the governor, Oakland and a number of public officials in federal court, alleging that their forced removal from the site would constitute an unconstitutional “state created danger” and place them at a high degree of risk because there were not adequate shelter options for them in Oakland.

That case was assigned to Judge Orrick, who expressed concern about the short notice and lack of shelter options.

He issued a temporary injunction on July 19, 2022.

That injunction was removed by August and the city began to clear the camp. But some of the residents just moved to another site nearby, this one owned by the city of Oakland. In December, the city once again gave notice of intent to clear it and once again someone in the camp sued. Another temporary restraining order was issued and then later removed. The last part of the camp was finally cleared out in April:

Clearing the camp turned out to be a massive effort for the city. Ultimately they removed 300 tons of trash and 29 vehicles. Yesterday the NY Times published a story about the removal of the camp on Wood Street.

Residents installed solar panels, hot-water showers, a community garden, a kitchen, a clothing closet and, with help from community volunteers, tiny homes. Some traded goods and electronics; others did each other’s hair and nails. They had Christmas and birthday parties.

Some also took drugs together, and when campers overdosed, their neighbors tried to help them, former residents said. There also were thefts, shootings and, according to the California Department of Transportation, which owns a portion of the land, more than 200 fires, including one that turned fatal.

Nearly 100 residents of the former camp accepted some kind of help but the Times spoke to one person who accepted help but wasn’t happy about it.

John Janosko recently moved into a tiny cabin in Oakland, Calif., after the city and the state shut down the sprawling homeless encampment where he had resided for most of the past eight years. City officials consider the shed-size unit — with a bed, a folding chair, a desk and a mini fridge — a vast improvement over the makeshift shelters that once sat beneath a freeway.

That’s not how Mr. Janosko sees it.

He says he does not have keys to the free cabin that the city has temporarily assigned him. Nor is he allowed visitors. He had to get rid of most of his belongings and says he has barely slept there.

“It’s not my home,” said Mr. Janosko, 54, who lost his job as a chef, and then his apartment, about a decade ago. “My home was down the street.”

Janosko apparently wasn’t just a random resident, he was an unofficial spokesperson as this earlier story points out.

“It’s hard to show people how great this place was,” said John Janosko, a spokesperson for the Wood Street Commons, as residents refer to themselves and the community they established over many years of living together. At a holiday party and art sale they held in December, residents talked about how they support one another and how Wood Street has become a central place where health services and donations can reach unhoused people who need them.

“If they want to help,” said Janosko about the city, “why don’t they go to these encampments a year before they have to do all this?” Janosko is among the residents who accepted the offer of a spot in the new city-run “community cabin” site—to make sure he could keep his dogs, he said—and a city spokesperson said there’s “plenty of capacity” there still.

If you’re not detecting much gratitude from Janosko for his free place to live with his dogs, I’m not detecting it either. On the contrary, one commenter called his attitude the most striking part of the story.

What struck me in the article was the attitude of Mr. Janosko who’s complaining about a free place to live. Part of the homeless problem is the attitude of the homeless themselves, who seem to think that “free everything” is a basic human right. If that attitude is widely shared, the problem of homelessness will never be solved.

Not only is Janosko not thankful for what he’s personally being given, he doesn’t seem to appreciate the massive expense his experiment is communal living has cost the city. What did it cost to send the fire department out to deal with 200 fires? What did it cost to clean up 300 tons of trash? Someone is paying for all of this. What exactly do we owe to people who live off others through either kindness or theft? A reader from Denmark had an interesting take.

I live in the largest city in Denmark, roughly the same size as Seattle. In a typical month, I see probably about 20 homeless people. When I visit Seattle, I see that same number in about two hours. This despite the fact that the average cost of housing in Copenhagen is higher than in Seattle.

Yes, part of that is because of Denmark’s generous social safety nets. The government has built effective social housing and drug treatment centers integrated pretty much seamlessly into the city so that people can get help within their communities. A single payer health care system means that cost is not as much of a barrier to accessing these services. Housing vouchers prevent people from slipping into homelessness…

Part of that is also because the Danish authorities crack down on homeless populations, sometimes rather ruthlessly. Panhandling is illegal. Encampments are illegal. These laws were deliberately written in part to target Roma populations (traditionally unhoused) and are now disproportionately applied to non-Danish homeless people. A homeless person refusing government-provided housing on the basis that “it’s not my home” would garner little to no sympathy here.

I don’t think Janosko’s attitude will garner much sympathy here either. As the old saying goes, beggars can’t be choosers. Another reader pointed out that living in a city means making certain compromises, not just making endless demands on everyone around you.

For those of us living nearby, the plain fact is that these encampments are not safe. In addition to the fires and sanitation issues, there are issues with violence and spiraling addiction. I get the frustration with all the rules of society, the inequality, the unfairness, and no doubt the history of trauma. But to live in close quarters in a city means making certain compromises. The rest of us do, and with all the public assistance, it’s reasonable to expect those who are struggling with housing to do the same.

What do you do with people who’d rather live in their own filth than live without drugs?

A bit of speculation here but I would guess many of these unhorsed people are not easy to mainstream for a huge range or reasons including that they don’t want to be. So what does society do with someone who doesn’t want to (or can’t manage) to be sober, who can’t maintain a job, who wants to live close to people who make their day to day more tolerable, even if it’s dangerous and makes kicking bad habits hard?

This is a different problem than the family forced onto the street due to lack of savings or losing a job. Unfortunately the two very different situations which require very different responses get lumped together.

Oakland was right to shut down this camp. California cities should continue shutting down any camps that pop up and force people living in them into safer, more controlled alternatives. People like John Janosko shouldn’t be allowed to live like wild animals, even if they say that’s what they want. We simply don’t owe anyone the right to treat public property as their personal drug den/open sewer.