When I first saw this headline from Ft. Walton Beach up in the FL panhandle, I thought they were using it to charge EVs. I guess that would be a little slow and obvious, though. Florida officers in ‘awe’ after someone rigs traffic light to power makeshift charging station
Maybe charging a mobility scooter? But honestly probably just phones. More or less everybody needs one, even the people who don't get power bills in the mail.
A few years back our area had a multi day power outage. We resorted to homeless tactics to charge our phones: frequenting a nearby lab with a backup gen and an outdoor power outlet.
Almost all street lights and power poles have a cover at the base that you can remove to access the wires to tap into the electricity. It's very easy to do. Not sure why this is a surprise?
Yes, it's pretty easy to do. I worked with hot wires all the time as an industrial electrician. But doing it right out in front of everyone and getting away with it is a little surprising. You'd have to be good, quick, and careful; not a simple combination. And, I suppose it had to be done in the dark to reduce the chance of getting busted.
or nobody cares? When a community loses track of itself to the point where it sports a homeless population, they're usually long past the point of anyone productively caring about a person with one hand in their back pocket taking tools to a lightpole.
Back before the pandemic there was a Starbucks in town that never had a table to sit at because the homeless lived nearby and all the tables were occupied by their clutter and their plugged in phones while they were outside panhandling... More to the point, you put a bunch of portable sleeping pods on a tractor trailer and get the homeless to manage it and maintain it you're offering way more value than a place to plug your phone in.
When you don't have a safe place to sleep your mental health unravels in a matter of weeks not months and most turn to hard drugs so they can sleep... Countries in Europe have proven again and again that the cost for managing crazy people people on the streets as well as drug addiction and overdose is way more expensive than simply assuring everyone has a safe place to sleep. And last time I checked every last one of us still has a constitutionally protected right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What's more you give a homeless person a safe place to sleep, you'll be surprised at how much they could manage, especially if they're getting paid and getting training. As in you get out the homeless crisis as much as you put into it!
Check again. While the Declaration of Independence recognizes the unalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” the Constitution (as currently amended) explicitly protects ONLY life and liberty, happiness goes unmentioned. LIFE begins...when? LIBERTY ends.....where? Then perhaps spend some TIME LIVING in the EU. It's been a while since I've done so myself, and I might be wrong but I am pretty sure that they do not allow aggressive panhandling (or even much street begging AT ALL) and they also frown generally on sidewalk camping, deficating in the streets, and many of the other things that they do in some US cities, and I also do not remember the "giving everybody free housing" part. The reason that they usually don't let you feed the wildlife, especially the bears, in US parks isn't because they don't like the bears. ...it's because they DO.
