Neighbor Please, Be Your Brother’s Keeper!

A recent city council summary reports 359 calls for illegal camping.  That’s almost 359 Eugenians who’ve basically declared, “I am not my brother’s keeper–come, remove these homeless campers, and exclude them from our community, and please hurry!”

During past discussions I’ve had with police officers about camping, much to their credit, some actually confided to me almost apologetically, wishing they were not being used to deal with homelessness in such a manner, that their time could have been used towards more important priorities.

This proved to me, that the way in which the city uses the anti-camping ordinance to enforce compliance, is a perfect example of good cops having to enforce bad law.

People, simply because you are freely invited to report such incidents, does not absolve you from the karma of additional suffering, you place upon already hopeless and hurting individuals.

Stop complaining, and using our police as proxies for your anger and frustration!  Stop using our police and volunteers to do such dirty work, in denying the homeless what little they have!  If you must call, please request that they check the welfare of those campers instead.

This way, your concerns will be investigated, but you won’t be placing either side under such tense, adversarial situations, complaints will drop, and you’ll feel better about yourselves as first responders, as good Samaritans, instead of overzealous, contemptuous, malicious, and selfish neighbors, having a turf war with themselves.

Danielle R. Smith

Behave Does Not Mean Get Out Of Town, Mr. City Attorney!

There are times in heart and mind, when something desperately needs  to be said, yet we realize that only we know what that is, how to say it, or if we should, knowing if we don't, nobody else will.

The result is that others will continue to suffer needlessly, because no one challenges the devil’s advocate, or his absurd, false accusations; whose use of Prohibited Camping Ordinance 4.815, violates the equal protection clause of the constitutions of the State of Oregon and the United States.

When fewlegal options exist, campers are forced to choose the lesser evil as willful violators, and they are damned well justified in defending their freedom of travel, personal privacy, and right to sleep!  Choice of Evils was already used to defend a camper in court; the City did in fact dismiss charges, and set a precedent against its self.

Attorney Glenn Klein, citizens of Eugene–those stripped of citizenship rights, who are at risk of being stripped of all personal belongings–deserve to know in exact detail, how they are expected tobehave.

Before your homies make fools of themselves, and hurt more innocent homeless homies, as willful violators having no compelling state interest, the unconstitutional portion(s) of the ordinance should be severed–not standing in court–because to the best of my knowledge, the amendment was illegally inserted in violation of law, which requires a 10-day public comment period that the citizens of Eugene were denied.  Now, who is the willful violator?

Danielle R. Smith