Democrats in Oregon have proposed legislation that would allow homeless people to sue residents for “harassment.” This means, if a taxpayer who plays by all the rules asks a person defecating on their property to leave, they can be sued.
House Bill 3501, commonly known as the Right to Rest Act, would empower harassed parties to sue for $1,000 for each incident. It would also make homeless camps legal. The bill comes after several years of a deteriorating homelessness crisis, and many citizens in towns such as Portland have complained about harassment and inappropriate behavior by the homeless population. This means if you ask three homeless people to stop camping out in front of your home, you can potentially be sued for up to $3,000.
This is because kooky Democrats in office have given up on trying to fix their homelessness problem and so in their minds, they want to believe they have done something about it. And instead, all they have really done is attack the constituents who make the country work.
The bill blames homelessness on “economic hardship, a shortage of safe and affordable housing, the inability to obtain gainful employment and a disintegrating social safety net system.” It claims that decriminalizing homeless encampments will allow the state to focus resources on the “root causes of homelessness and poverty.”
“It is declared to be the public policy of Oregon to guarantee persons experiencing homelessness participation in the social and economic life of this state, remunerative employment, use of and free movement within public spaces, participation in and receipt of the benefits of the services, programs, and activities of state government and local governments and housing accommodations of the person’s choice, without discrimination,” the bill states.
Harassment is defined as a “knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a person experiencing homelessness that a reasonable person would consider seriously alarming, tormenting, or terrorizing of the person experiencing homelessness.” It makes no mention of homeless people harassing residents who make the country work, who pay taxes, and want to live in peace, which many have complained about. Let’s face it. Lawyers can easily turn politely asking someone to stop crapping on their front steps as harassment.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELThe Left tries to push the idea that most homeless people are down on their luck and are working to get back to being productive members of society. Nothing can be further from the truth. Most homeless people suffer from a mental illness or are drug addicts.
Meanwhile, local residents have complained about increased crime and harassment from Oregon’s major cities, particularly Portland.
A homeless lady was jailed in December after throwing a 3-year-old toddler onto the Portland Gateway Transit Center train lines. The girl and her mother were waiting for a train.
Many residents have expressed a desire to relocate for the first time, citing the homelessness crisis as making life unbearable.
“It makes you not feel that great about living here. It makes living in the neighborhood harder, not as congenial as it could be,” said Greg Dilkes, 30, of Portland, of the homeless encampment near his home on the Peninsula Crossing Trail. “It’s the first time in a long time that we’ve thought about moving.”
“Every day if you go from one end of the street to the other, you’re confronting some very difficult situations, people in really dire straits,” one Portland resident said in August, adding that the city seemed unsafe.
“Most people don’t want to have to worry about if they can leave their car parked in their driveway overnight without maybe having it broken into. It’s a pretty testy subject,” said another.
Homelessness has increased in Oregon in recent years, notably since the COVID-19 pandemic. Homelessness increased by 65% in the state’s three largest counties between 2010 and 2020.
