Homeless community divided over best response to camping ban

When the San Diego City Council voted to ban camping on public property within city limits as long as shelter beds were available, it sent a shockwave through San Diego’s homeless community. When the dust had settled, its members found themselves on opposing sides of a deep canyon (the sort in which they had long been accustomed to build their encampments). On one side stood The Tramp, the first City Councilperson to represent San Diegans without a legal addresses in the newly formed Transient District. “The vote was unfortunate, in that I was not able to participate,” noted The Tramp. “But the ban’s conciliatory creation of my position helps ensure that we will have a voice going forward. We have just as much right to be here as anyone with no legal right to be here, and like them, we will be heard!”

But Tent City Mayor Will Bolton, once considered a natural candidate for Transient District representative, argued that the time for civil conversation had passed. “What they’ve done is relocation without representation. In 1776, Americans went to war for less. They were thought of as a ragtag bunch of upstarts who didn’t know their place in society, and they were condemned for their use of guerrilla tactics. What do you think you’re going to get from an enemy with no fixed base of operations — no home base, as it were? Half of us are veterans anyway. The Taliban drove the U.S. military out of Afghanistan; how do you think the San Diego Police Department is going to hold up against us? All we need are rifles and meth, and this ban will very quickly be reversed.”