Looks like it’s up to the cities to work on homeless solution

As increasing numbers of American cities and towns grapple with the problems of widespread homelessness, a thorny question keeps arising.

Where’s the line between the right to live without a home and the right to live in relative peace and safety? Does the right of one person to sleep on the streets trump the rights of another to not have their front yard or storefront turned into a makeshift campground?

A version of that question made itself to the doorstep of the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month in the form of a disputed public sleeping ban in Boise, Idaho, according to a Los Angeles Times story that appeared in the Journal Dec. 17. To the chagrin of many, however, it made it no further, as justices “without comment or a dissent” said they would not hear the case.

That refusal essentially means the de facto law of the land is the ruling from an appellate court: that homeless people have the right to sleep on sidewalks and in parks if they have nowhere else to go.

It calls to mind Albuquerque’s recent legal dustup with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico over whether restricting the ability of people, including the homeless, to solicit from highway ramps and certain medians is actually a restriction on free speech. (While a federal judge sided with the ACLU, the city is currently appealing the ruling).

These types of lawsuits put even the best-intentioned local governments between a rock and a hard place because public safety, public health and quality of life do matter — for their constituents living on the streets and in the parks, and for those who pay for and want to use those streets and parks.

Living and sleeping on the streets is inherently dangerous for those who do it, especially considering the city’s crime levels. Public urination and defecation are public health risks to everybody in the community. And drug and alcohol use and abuse that often go along with homelessness pose a danger to the community as well — just ask anybody who has spotted used needles littering our streets, alleys and parks.

So as a city, who do you try to help first? And what do you do with people who don’t want the help?

As a city, Albuquerque is already approaching the problem in the most compassionate way possible: offering help to as many people as possible and as many who will accept it. Voters got on board with that approach in November when they signed off on a bond package that included $14 million toward a new homeless shelter.

And myriad nonprofit-run options already exist all over the Albuquerque area.

But compassion for those less fortunate as well as the Supreme Court’s perplexing decision not to offer guidance on the Boise case notwithstanding, city officials can’t neglect the other side of the equation — the health, safety and comfort of the rest of us. Sacrificing all our public spaces isn’t a reasonable, safe or healthy fix.

In Albuquerque’s case, the city should stay the course and keep working to make its pedestrian safety ordinance better, fairer, with more narrow language, to get to a place where public safety comes first and free speech stays protected. As more Albuquerque residents see tents or full-on encampments spring up in Coronado Park, behind shopping centers, in arroyos and neighborhood parks, demands for better solutions will grow louder.

There are no easy fixes. But officials in New Mexico and the region must keep chipping away at these issues to try to strike that perfect balance.