Macdonald was told his options would be to accept services or he’d be arrested," PPB said. “Macdonald stated he would rather be arrested than go to the tiny home.”
Some people prefer freedom.
The freedom to live in a tent and shit into the sewer system that feeds the water supply is the same level of freedom that gives me a right to kill people without repercussions. Sometimes limitations on “freedoms” are acceptable because society has a structure. They can choose to live outside of that society, but they clearly enjoy living in places like LA… so they have a choice. Either accept somewhere to live and get out of the streets, or leave society as a whole.
You don’t even seem to have a basic understanding of how city water supplies work. No amount of people shitting in the woods makes your drinking water contaminated; where the fuck do you think animals shit?
Edit: there are absolutely public health concerns to be made about human shit being around where people do things, especially non porous surfaces which don’t offer opportunities for decomposition. But that’s a problem to be solved with better public restroom coverage, even housed people will pee/shit in public when there isn’t a restroom available
For the record, Portland’s water supply comes from the Bull Run Watershed. The sewer system is a combined sewer system, so if someone does poop down a storm sewer inlet, it goes to the same water treatment system as everyone else’s poop.
That said, people pooping on the sidewalk is a legit problem. I’ve had to report a couple of poops that were pretty clearly human.
When someone is living in their own refuse, they have abdicated the responsibility to make decisions for themselves.
