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Health & Fitness

Attention All Homeless-Hating, Fear-Mongering Individuals and Groups

The definition of "privatization".Take note.And, please, use the word appropriately, henceforth.
From here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization
Privatization , also spelled privatisation, may have several meanings. Primarily, it is the process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency, public service or public property from the public sector (a government) to the private sector, either to a business that operate for a profit or to a nonprofit organization . It may also mean government outsourcing of services or functions to private firms, e.g. revenue collection, law enforcement, and prison management.

For added context...
"... I think before we wave our hands in outrage about how (de)Occupy and a bunch of homeless guys have unfairly appropriated public space, we should reconsider our own assumptions. 
Many of our beliefs on public space spring from the assumption that everyone has a private space to retreat to. Even the same activity – sleeping in public – can be perceived quite differently. We’d be surprised if the patrol officer rousted us from our food coma following a picnic in Kapiolani Park – “But officer, I’m not bothering anyone!” -- butwe’d head back home to continue sleeping off the feast. Someone who was curled up asleep on the edge of Old Stadium Park, however, has no home to go to when the Department of Facility Maintenance rolls up to take her belongings. 
NYU law professor Jeremy Waldron considers the rise of sit-lie ordinances and similar municipal laws as not just criminalizing homelessness, but de facto legislating homeless people out of existence. 
“Since private places and public places between them exhaust all the places that there are, there is nowhere that these actions may be performed by the homeless person. And since freedom to perform a concrete action requires freedom to perform it at some place, it follows that the homeless person does not have the freedom to perform them. If sleeping is prohibited in public places, then sleeping is comprehensively prohibited to the homeless. Ifurinating is prohibited in public places (and if there are no public lavatories) then the homeless are simply unfree to urinate. These are not altogether comfortable conclusions, and they are certainly not comfortable for those who have to live with them.”(Footnote needed? Waldron, J. 1991, “Homelessness and the Issue of Freedom.” UCLA Law Review 39, 295-324) 
Let me think about how his argument plays out locally. No one likes the smell of stale urine, but without public bathrooms accessible 24 hours a day, do we mean that the homeless are unfree to pee? If local shelters don’t allow animals, then are we saying that homeless people are unfree to love their pets? If there’s no space in the family shelter, then are we suggesting that they don’t have the right to stay with their children? If the city can confiscate anything deemed a nuisance or “stored” on public property, are we insisting that homeless people can’t have anything except their bodies and the clothes on their backs?
These public space ordinances (sidewalk nuisance, stored property, etc.) make the assumption that people have private spaces where they can store their things, use the bathroom, spend the day out of public view, etc. These laws are also based on the assumption that we all agree on the intended uses of public space. The sidewalk is a space of circulation. Except when it’s not. Sidewalks are also for newspaper dispensers, lunchwagon patrons, Christmas parade watchers, and tourist trolley stops. The park is for the public. Unless they are homeless."
Here's the link to the full article, by Annie Koh:http://m.civilbeat.com/voices/2013/05/10/19020-a-park-is-for-the-public-unless-they-are-homeless/

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