Is this a legitimate means to end homelessness?

Republican Mayor of California City Eliminates Homeless Problem

Bailey explained that the city works with the police department and a homeless service provider to give the homeless only one option — to get the help they need.

Coronado funds “reasonable” services to help those struggling get “back on their feet,” but noted the city also has a no-tolerance policy for violating municipal codes.

“We also make it very clear that we don’t tolerate encampments along our sidewalks, and we don’t tolerate other code violations such as being drunk in public or urinating in public or defecating in public,” Bailey said. “We just simply don’t tolerate these basic code violations. What ends up happening is an individual either chooses to get help or they end up leaving.”

I like the concept here. The idea that you give the homeless a choice between getting help or leaving. I think it can work for individual places that decide to play hardball as people always follow the path of least resistance. The problem however is that when these people leave, then they will take up their encampments in other parts of the country. Specifically those parts where living in tents and using the street as a bathroom are accepted. Seems this is just a matter of just kicking the problem down the road and that metaphor can be taken quite literally.

The good thing about this sort of policy is that it would in theory work to the benefit of red states and cities that are smart enough to elect Republican mayors and city councils. We would start to see a wide separation between those places that crack down on this and those places who seem to embrace it. While many people want to talk about helping he homeless and many will defend the idea of these encampments, who really wants to live around them? I know I don't anyone who wants a homeless encampment in their personal neighborhood.

Homelessness and specifically the idea of homeless encampments has been an ongoing issue here in Seattle. I actually tend to find myself agreeing with the principal concept that breaking up the existing camps (where many people are living for long periods of time) just works to scatter the homeless around. If they have an area (generally a deserted area that nobody is using) and they are minding their own business, then why move them? Because when you clear them out of the place they are in now, they will move somewhere else and somewhere else is not necessarily any better.

Probably about 5 miles from my place is a place that once was sort of a cool little college type downtown area. There is a couple of coffee shops, a vinyl record store, some second hand shops, a nightclub, a small café, a bakery, etc... but just around the corner is a line up of RVs and campers where people are simply living on the side of a road. You can tell that they have been there for a while and it becomes sort of both an eyesore and a drain on the appeal of this area. The local businesses are suffering from a huge reduction in traffic likely in part of this encampment. You could move them along and possibly this little area becomes more robust. But where do they go? Some will argue (and I don't necessarily disagree) that it is unfair to let them stay in one place and permanently affect the businesses trying to make it. Others will argue that moving them will just make it worse.

This is one of those things were I simply do not have an answer anymore. We let it get so out of hand that any reasonably effective means to resolve are in the rear view mirror. Now it literally may just be about how to keep them away from "your" part of the world. If that really is the only thing left to do, then perhaps this mayor is on to something.