Anaheim, California is home to Disneyland. It’s a magical kingdom and a huge business. Unfortunately, Anaheim also has a serious homeless population and that’s not very magical at all. Earlier this summer, the city of Anaheim decided that one way to magically fix the homeless problem was by removing benches so that homeless people wouldn’t sleep on benches anymore … and I guess just sleep on the street. Now, after homeless advocates brought three portable toilets for one homeless encampment, the city has impounded those toilets, reports The Guardian. Magical.
But just 72 hours after the toilets were installed, there was bad news: the council of wealthy Orange County insisted the porta-potties be removed from their land, saying their presence was unauthorized.
Aly subsequently moved them about 300 yards, out of the county’s jurisdiction, and onto city land. That lasted a week, until the city, too, ordered them removed, citing local ordinances regulating the installation of porta-potties. When Aly and other activists didn’t remove the toilets themselves, the city government confiscated them, and took them into storage.
While Disney provides most of the jobs in Anaheim, many of those jobs do not provide enough income for people to live remotely close to Disneyland without actually living on the street, as protests earlier this summer charged.
A woman dressed as the Little Mermaid walked past a sign that read: “Ariel can’t afford to live on land!” A young girl stared at bright-pink posters proclaiming “Disneyland pays poverty wages” and “No home for Cinderella in Anaheim”.
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“Disney, we feel, is a contributor to the homeless problem here in Anaheim,” said protest organizer Jeanine Robbins, a longtime local resident. “There are Disney employees who live on the street. They live in their cars. They live in unstable housing.”
Still, the argument against providing homeless encampments’ amenities is that it’s a short-term fix for a long-term problem. Of course, there are people literally defecating in the streets while a long-term solution doesn’t seem particularly imminent.
The city says it prefers to take a long-term view of resolving the situation rather than investing resources in short-term needs. A local nonprofit recently received a $720,000 county contract to provide services and outreach to the community, and perhaps install bathrooms and showers, while pursuing the end goal of dismantling the encampment altogether. Even so, city and county officials seem reluctant to make too many accommodations for the riverbed residents, worried this will further entrench the encampment.
I completely understand. Encampments are not particularly safe places, with serious health concerns, and there are frequently people in those encampments who clearly need mental health treatment. The reason for this is because the people in encampments need help and they need the humane conditions “civilized society” takes for granted. For every person who truly wants to live “off-the-grid” in a homeless transient lifestyle, there are dozens if not hundreds or thousands more that would prefer to live in a safer, healthier and more manageable situation—but they need help; and they need it now. Taking away bathrooms with vague promises is a cruel action that doesn’t even fall into the philosophy of “bootstrapping.” It’s simply a philosophy of ignoring our wealthy country’s sins.