My vote is that we bring them food, blankets, chairs, and a porta potty and include them into our neighborhood as Occupy included the homeless into their encampment. Perhaps they would enjoy the same work I do of cleaning the gutters in front of a few houses, if so we could supply them with brooms, dust pans, gloves, and a place to dispose of the leaves and other garbage....and most importantly for them some cash for a job done. In fact, if the city would just do away with those useless street cleaning machines, the city could hire people to clean certain blocks. There's a whole lot we could do that was humane and creative if we just put our minds to it.

Sorry, Elin. I do not want them living adjacent to my property. They are leaving trash there and they are keeping stolen property (bicycles, etc.) back there.

Hello Anonymous, they are leaving trash because they have no place to put it. Maybe a spare garbage can would help. Plus talk to the people...they are real people, ask them what they need. You'd be surprised perhaps that they have thoughts which are of interest. In upper Temescal and under one of the overpasses, the Temescal Neighbors are acting very differently to this kind of an encampment than you on 36th are. I see it as a sign of the times, so rather than trying to move it, work with them, and I think you will pleasantly see that they can work with you.

Elin, you appear to have a romantically distorted vision of homelessness.

Anonymous, perhaps it comes from what I know and the homeless people I've come to know. Considering i talk to everybody, I see no one as someone I shouldn't talk to or help when I can, but I'm certainly not romantic about it. Ever since Reagan closed many of the mental wards in the state of California, or with the introduction of drugs, and the continued use of alcohol, mental or physical abuses, or the pathetic state of our countries health care system, we have had, and will continue to have the issue of homelessness. So, the way I see it, we all could be homeless if we didn't have our own safety nets with the backup people in our lives, or our more stable family structures that we had growing up..we are in them and they are in us, and when we can we should be helping to alleviate their homeless status.

When the homeless encampment is on our block we see crime go up (stolen bikes, busted car windows). I understand they might be dealing in stolen bikes b/c they don't have any of their own but it's still not ok. There are resources in the community for the homeless who choose not to do drugs. I think these homeless are not interested in those resources. I'm sorry but the ones on our block are clearly very strung out, not just disadvantaged.

Dealing in stolen bikes because they don't have their own is no excuse. Is robbing banks OK because they don't have their own?

Hallelujah -- CALTRANS workers came today and dismantled the encampment. FWIW the CALTRANS folks were very reasonable with the people camped back there and they gave them time to remove their property, etc.

Sanja and Anonymous, it's obvious we disagree, but about the robbing of banks...ever read the book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry [Paperback] author: William K. Black. Try it sometime. The richer people become, the wider the gulf will be between the rich and the poor.

Elin - I am all for solving the crisis you speak of but in the meantime I would just like the bucket of human feces removed from my block that the campers left behind.

Sanja - I love your melodrama.

lol Elin - no there really was a bucket. It's gone now thankfully. :)