Homeless filth in Berkeley goes viral; here’s what to do about it

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Key points

• California Post News: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, LinkedIn California Post Sports Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X California Post Opinion California Post Newsletters: Sign up here!
• As a mom's viral video indicated this week, the 1150 block of Harrison Street is crammed with tents, junk, garbage, graffiti, blocked sidewalks and total chaos.
• Berkeley, birthplace of the 1960s free speech movement, has always had its quirks, its grit, its radicals and free spirits.
• And it demonstrates that Berkeley — like Los Angeles and other California cities with laissez-faire homeless policies — needs to secure real.
• The same can be asked of other cities, including Los Angeles, Oakland and Long Beach.

See more of our coverage in your search results. Add The California Post on Google. It's long been called Berserkely for a reason.

But it hasn't always had entire street corridors swathed in rat-infested homeless encampments. That disgrace is of more recent vintage.

As a mom's viral video indicated this week, the 1150 block of Harrison Street is crammed with tents, junk, garbage, graffiti, blocked sidewalks and total chaos. Sign up for the California Morning Report newsletter.

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"I just dropped my son off at @UCBerkeley housing and as we were approaching we saw this behind his apartments. Shame on @CityofBerkeley @CityofAlbanyCA @UCBerkeleyNews, " the mom, TV reporter Lyanne Melendez, wrote on X. All this, less than 3 miles from the iconic campus.

While nearby business and property owners of course want it gone, the city, meanwhile, has been sued from both sides: Homeless individuals and their advocates oppose razing the mess.

Berkeley authorities are pushing to clear the chaos on health and safety grounds, but a judge has stated the city must assist some of the tent-dwellers before completing the cleanup.

For context, the struggle for progress raises a basic question: Why did Berkeley let it obtain this bad in the first place?

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In practice, the same can be asked of other cities, including Los Angeles, Oakland and Long Beach.

Meanwhile, the filth, disease and decrepitude show the consequences of faux compassion, unchecked permissiveness and "nonprofit" profiteering off the taxpayers under the guise of providing never-ending services. Homeless encampments grow out of control and, to some, are normalized.

That makes eradication all the more tough when things reach a crisis point and then some.

And Berkeley's street junkyard is yet another sign that "housing first" policies fail wherever they're tried. Not only is there never enough "housing" to clear the homeless from the streets, but simply sticking addicts indoors does nothing to solve underlying substance abuse and mental-illness problems.

Cities, along with the state of California itself, need to shift to treatment-first models that center on the causes of chronic homelessness.

And finally, the rat-infested disaster in Berkeley demonstrates just how far public safety has fallen off the priority radar of numerous "progressive" lefty cities.

Rats trapped near the Harrison Street encampment have tested positive for leptospirosis, a dangerous bacterial infection that can cause breathing challenges, organ failure and even death.

Additionally this week, a Berkeley homeless man allegedly attacked three contractors with a metal pipe when they tried to clear him from a church near the university.

Enough. Berkeley, Los Angeles and other permissive California cities are long overdue for a return to law, order and public spaces that are kept in clean working order for the public.

Berserkely can keep its quirky charm. But the failed homeless policies? They've obtained to go.

In short, homeless filth in Berkeley goes viral; here's what to do about it is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.