by Travis Mateer

The new normal, says City Council person, Kristen Jordan, is accepting rampant addiction and the forms of inhumane living conditions this state of being too often produces. But wait, there’s more! Jordan wants the city to go so far as to sanction a network of outdoor camps in what used to be city parks, but instead of the failed Authorized Camping Site model, Jordan wasn’t ZERO security because these houseless subpopulations will just police their own, she thinks.

Are you fucking kidding me? From the insane link (emphasis mine):

Opening several authorized camp sites for the homeless in city parks and vacant lots in each of Missoula’s six voting wards would provide some homeless residents a “place to exist,” one City Council member argued on Wednesday.

Council member Kristen Jordan detailed her concept during a two-hour hearing, saying the authorized city camps would include outhouses, needle disposal bins and trash containers.

The “pilot program,” as she described it, would establish 12 sites with two camps in each city ward. Three to four sites would operate at any given time and rotate every two months. They would cap the occupancy at 35 occupants and operate unstaffed and without security.

She said the camps would self-regulate if permitted to do so.

“We’re looking at a new normal, folks,” Jordan said. “Things haven’t changed for a while, and we need to start thinking outside the box on how we’re going to help our unhoused community.”

Sure, it’s the “new normal”, but does that mean we have to telegraph our impotency to the forces that benefit from illegal drug sales, which is the fucking cartel and other criminal elements we DO NOT want to openly empower by giving up, which is how I interpret Jordan’s “plan”.

On my travels thus far, tent living has been visible in every city I’ve stayed in, whether in the 9th circuit court jurisdiction, or not. Here’s a visual of the terrain covered by the 9th circuit:

My travels will soon be taking me to several districts of California, so I’ll get a chance to see the epicenter of west coast homelessness soon, and you better believe I’ll be writing up reports from these travels, so stay tuned!

And, as usual, I could use the financial support of you, the reading audience, so the ways to do that include Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF), and using the donation button at my about page.

Thanks for reading!