“You’ve got to tell everyone what they’re doing to poor people,” said Mary. “They’re taking all our stuff.”

Mary and a small group of friends had just been run off a place they’d been camping. They had then moved to a location along railroad tracks in south Modesto, under the Highway 99 overpass. Many of their belongings had been confiscated.

Two days later, they were rousted again. As sweeps go, this one was easy. Instead of the usual heavy equipment and squads of cops and cleanup crews, just a few workers got the place cleaned up in a day. This group of campers had been mostly neat and clean. One had swept the surrounding premises daily.

Anyone watching this site over the last seven or eight years would marvel at the expense of all the sweeps during that time. The most costly have been by Caltrans, but Highway Patrol, Railroad Police, Stanislaus County Sheriffs, and many tons of heavy equipment have routinely chased people away, only to have them return time and time again. The expense in dollars must be nearing millions for this one location.

Meanwhile, up in Sonora, there’s permitted camping near the police station. One Tuolumne County Supervisor estimated the cost at two dollars per person per day.  There’s also permitted camping in Los Banos. The biggest (one time) expense is probably the tents, which are uniform and sturdy. There are a few Porta-Potties and water from a pipe and hose. Camp residents say cops come through once or twice a day.

Nobody is ever happy with permitted camping. Camp residents complain about the drugs, trash, and lack of services. Visitors complain about the drugs and the trash. Thing is, once permitted to camp, homeless people tend to stay put.  A toilet and running water are better than no toilet and no water, complaints included. Not good, just better.

Friends, family members and volunteers prefer permitted camping because it’s easier to find people when they’re not being rousted from place to place. Merchants and homeowners would rather have the petty crimes associated with homelessness concentrated near the camps than spread out into their neighborhoods and businesses.

Service providers, already stretched far beyond capacity, save time, staff hours, and gas when the people they serve have fixed locations. Overworked case managers find their jobs easier when they know where their clients are.

The benefits of permitted camping are never enough for most California cities and counties. In fact, given recent Supreme Court rulings, some jurisdictions are choosing to jail people for “crimes of existence” such as sleeping in public places.

That’s not to say the sweeps accomplish nothing. One effect is the trauma to the homeless people and their pets. That’s severe.

Another consequence, more insidious, is the replacement of compassion and empathy with cruelty and indifference as expressed in public policy. No one disputes that large percentages of the homeless population are either mentally ill, elderly, cognitively challenged, physically disabled, or otherwise incapacitated. In short, they’re people in distress.

Punishing people in distress, especially when they’re vulnerable because of illness, disability, age or other factors is cruel. Becoming accustomed to such cruelty is one of the most pernicious consequences of homelessness because indifference to human suffering threatens our own very fragile humanity.

“You’ve to tell everyone what they’re doing to poor people,” said Mary. She might have added that we need to understand what we’re doing to ourselves as well.