Latest Insane Oregon Law Would Give Homeless People the Right to Sue if They're 'Harassed'

In a bad attempt to channel “The Twilight Zone” host Rod Serling…

Imagine a world in which homeless people could legally pitch tents adjacent to your home or on the sidewalk in front of your business, and if you insisted they leave, they could sue you for harassment. My friends, you’ve just entered The Oregon Zone.

Maybe you’ve seen The Oregon Zone’s sister show: The California Zone.

With commiseration for my conservative friends in both states in mind, I’m about to blister only the People’s Democrat Republic of Oregon, this time. But meanwhile, in downtown Los Angeles:

But I somewhat digress. Anyway, if you have half a brain in your head, riddle me this:

If your state has had a three-year net loss in population, your major cities are overrun with homeless people and drug addicts, including soaring overdose deaths, violent crime, and robbery, and a hemorrhaging of capital declining property values in affected areas, what don’t you do?

You don’t propose legislation to give the homeless the right to sue homeowners and business owners for “harassment” for trying to get homeless people and their encampments the hell away from their homes and off the sidewalk in front of their businesses.

Yet, as reported by Fox News, that’s exactly what Oregon Democrat state lawmakers have proposed; legislation that would decriminalize homeless camping, despite calls for help from residents already exasperated by the homelessness crisis in the state. Here’s more, via Fox:

Oregon House Bill 3501, known as the Right to Rest Act, states that homeless individuals will have “a privacy interest and a reasonable expectation of privacy in any property belonging to the person, regardless of whether the property is located in a public space.” The bill also allows homeless individuals to sue for up to $1,000 if they are “harassed” or told to relocate.

The bill says that “persons experiencing homelessness” will “be permitted to use public spaces in the same manner as any other person without discrimination based on their housing status” and states that homeless individuals have a right to “move freely in public spaces without discrimination and time limitations that are based on housing status.”

The housing bill comes as homelessness in Oregon spiked in 2022, Oregon Public Radio reported, and residents in cities like Portland and Eugene have sounded the alarm about the negative effects of homeless encampments.

Portland homeowner Jacob Adams told “Fox & Friends” in February in a public plea to elected officials to do something about a homeless encampment next to his house, where fires and drug activity have terrorized his family:

I love Portland and I love where I live. I’m asking you to please do something, so the people of the city feel safe.

We toss around words like “ridiculous” and “insane” with regularity, because so much around us is ridiculous and insane, but when you stop and think about the immorality of radical leftism — just in this example alone — and what it continues to do taxpaying residents of a once-proud city by promoting even more homelessness, public drug use, and violence, it is unconscionable in the minds of decent people.

And we’re not just talking about Portland and its weasel mayor, Ted Wheeler.

One example is the college town of Eugene, where squatters living in RVs have been causing nightmares for residents in one neighborhood for two years. Eugene resident Laine Radcliffe told a local outlet earlier this month:

No one is legally supposed to be camping here, no one is supposed to be giving fellatio in the corner, no one’s supposed to be shooting up heroin in plain sight, no one’s supposed to be trespassing on our property.

You better be careful, Ms. Radcliffe, because if Democrats get their way, you might be scratching a check for a thousand bucks to one of the above homeless people. I wanted to add another line, but I’ve learned it’s sometimes best to break out a filter. [winking emoji]

Finally, Jimmy Jones, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, told KATU 2 ABC about the bill:

Most of the advocate community in the state really wants to establish a constitutional right to exist, and I am very sympathetic [to] that position because I don’t believe that when people lose their housing they lose their legal and constitutional rights.

Uh-huh, Jimmy, but why should law-abiding homeowners and business owners lose their legal and constitutional rights as a result of the insanity? The question is rhetorical, of course.