GREG GUTFELD: From the Methadone Mile to daytime camping, Democrats finally feel the heat on homelessness

Finally, finally the attention I deserve. Happy Wednesday, everyone. So mental illness really is a problem in this country. Of course, history shows that the mentally ill have always been with us. But now our mostly Democrat run cities are awash in serious mental cases roaming the streets. It’s sad. Several decades ago, this country decided that institutionalizing our mentally ill was somehow a violation of their rights. It’s a pretty unique take on the Constitution, that it’s every citizen’s right to eat from garbage cans and treat our sidewalks like toilets. I don’t remember James Madison actually adding that. 

What we should’ve realized by now is that allowing those who can’t care for themselves to attempt to care for themselves isn’t respecting their rights. It’s condemning them to hunger, disease and a lonely death on a frozen sidewalk, much like the future of any CNN anchor, but any caring society should do what it can to help those who can’t help themselves.

LEGAL BATTLE UNDERWAY IN MA OVER HOMELESS SHELTER CAPACITIES

Now, to be clear, when I say mentally ill, I’m talking about those who are truly broken, the ones who live on the streets in an alternate reality, who scream at demons who aren’t there and who hear voices and who all too often listen to the voices that tell them to hurt someone. Those voices never tell raving psychos to do anything positive, like, say, retire. So considering how much damage to themselves and society the mentally ill do, why isn’t more being done to actually help? Well, as the old saying goes, follow the money. 

Today, in our city and state governments, the homeless industrial complex has become a power silo just like any other. In NYC, every day feels more menacing and predictable than Dana Perino before her midday nap. And yet the Department of Homeless Services employs 2,000 people and has an annual budget that has grown to over $2 billion. And take a guess who controls all those jobs, all that money, it’s almost always Dems. 

People exercising homelessness gather belonging as crews work to cleanup a homeless camp in the RiNo neighborhood near the Platte River on May 17, 2022 in Denver, Colorado. (RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images))

Apparently, insanity is voting for the same party over and over and expecting different results. So every time a disturbed homeless guy pushes a woman in front of a subway car, homeless service executives, they don’t hear the screams, they hear cash registers. The homicidal maniacs are putting their kids through college. More empathy, they demand, more personnel, more cars, more pensions, but somehow never more tough love, never anything that actually works, because then the problem would be solved, and a solved problem means no more money. 

It’s a swamp of a different sort, one that we’re all stuck in, especially if you live in a Dem run crappy city. So it sounds like we need someone to drain that swamp and who might volunteer. You know, I wonder when he’s back in the White House will he use every tool, lever and authority to get the homeless off our streets.

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FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: When I’m back in the White House, we will use every tool, lever and authority to get the homeless off our streets… And for those who are severely mentally ill and deeply disturbed, we will bring them back to mental institutions where they belong, with the goal of reintegrating them back into society once they are well enough to manage.

Sort of seems like common sense, doesn’t it? And you want proof of that? Well, the ACLU opposes it. Now, there’s nothing a progressive likes more than a new grievance group. Adding mentally ill homeless to the roster of the oppressed is yet another big cha-ching for them. Soon they’ll hear voices telling them to vote for Joe Biden. But there is a limit to how much money even Washington can churn out. The printing presses are starting to melt down. 

A large homeless encampment is shown in Phoenix, on Aug. 5, 2020. The city of Phoenix is scheduled go to court Monday, July 10, 2023, to prove it has met a deadline to clear a large homeless encampment, an action that has drawn pushback from civil rights advocates.  (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

And so finally, even some Dem cities are feeling the heat. In Boston, the Democrat mayor signed legislation that takes effect today allowing cops to dismantle a homeless encampment known as the Methadone Mile. Trust me, no matter what the Century 21 agent tells you, don’t buy in a neighborhood with that name. 

Also, starting this month, police in Portland will be able to enforce a ban on what officials there are calling daytime camping, daytime camping. It’s the perfect liberal euphemism. You know, like shooting heroin between your toes is something you learned in the Boy Scouts. 

And after residents and store owners in Phenix brought a lawsuit, a federal judge is forcing that city to clean out a downtown homeless camp known as The Zone. So what’s going on here? 

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Well, maybe some Democrats know they’re in trouble and are going a bit Trumpy as we approach an election year. But as someone great once said, never confuse movement with action. I think it was my gastroenterologist, because as these officials move the homeless around, none of them will use Trump’s key phrase: “We will bring the severely disturbed to mental institutions.” That’s right. It’s that thing every parlor revolutionary dreads, force, which is necessary, or it won’t work. Crazy people rarely agree that they’re crazy. 

Now, studies throughout history have shown that humans find green surroundings in a quiet countryside soothing, but what could be better for the mentally ill, for whom every honking horn can be a torture? Forcibly bringing the truly disturbed to countryside facilities where they could be given two hots and a cot and treated humanely and with even the possibility of release at some point. That’s not treading on their rights, it’s salvaging their most basic right to live with dignity and not die alone in degradation among maddening crowds and diesel belching buses. 

And it’ll ultimately be cheaper than the endless catch and release programs that we have now. But like so many other good ideas, it has two key fatal flaws. It makes perfect sense, and there’s no money in it. 

Because if they fixed homelessness, those bureaucrats would be the ones out in the street.

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