A weekend topic starting with the Washington Examiner. "The United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is not the only reason why cities across the West Coast have been overrun with plague-infected homeless camps, but the court is a big part of the problem. The Eighth Amendment has since been used to overturn sentences for crimes that were considered disproportionate, including life sentences for juvenile offenders. Never has the Eighth Amendment been used to invalidate a criminal statute entirely. Never, that is, until the 9th Circuit did exactly that in 2018."

"In Martin v. Boise, the 9th Circuit held that cities were prohibited from enforcing their anti-camping statutes unless they could prove that the city had enough shelter beds available to house every homeless person in the city. Never mind that most homeless don’t want shelter — usually because they don’t want to comply with shelter rules. If there were one more homeless person in the city than beds available, not a single anti-camping citation could be given out. The homeless population was already rising before Martin, but it has exploded since then. More than half of all unsheltered homeless people now live in California alone, and Los Angeles has over 70,000 homeless people in encampments today."

The Kitsap Sun in Washington. "When the legal decision known as Martin v. Boise, which essentially prohibits homeless sweeps if nearby shelters are not available, came out in 2018, downtown merchants urged Walla Walla’s city government to find a way to clear the homeless people outside their businesses. The city allowed the Alliance to construct a fenced area on the edge of a city park as a sanctioned encampment, where unhoused residents could set up tents. 'Very quickly we had 60 people,' said Chuck Hindman, the former president of the The Walla Walla Alliance for the Homeless. Homeless people liked that the police left them alone and they didn’t have to hide, he said."

"The Alliance tried to manage the encampment itself, but ran into issues. 'Well, we had no authority,' said Craig Volwiler, a former board member with the Alliance who now lives in Bremerton. The Alliance couldn’t kick anyone out. If they called the police, the police wouldn’t come. Some of the more unruly people exploited the system, said Hindman. 'It turned into a pretty much of a mess.'"

12 News in Arizona. "There's no sugarcoating it. Things are bad in The Zone.' It's Phoenix's largest homeless encampment, just blocks away from the State Capitol. The 12News I-Team started digging into reports of organized crime in the encampment, including allegations of drug deals and people being forced to pay to camp on city streets. Phoenix Police Commander Brian Freudenthal has spent nearly three decades with the Phoenix Police Department and worked in the area that includes 'The Zone' for most of his career, most recently as the commander of the Downtown Operations Unit."

"BF:  I've worked I've been a police officer for almost 28 years. I worked through the crack epidemic, I worked through the meth epidemic. I've never seen anything like this -– the opioid epidemic is a whole other level. There were a lot of hurdles that we had to get over. I think that some of the impacts of COVID-19 truly impacted our response. And you can really see a direct correlation to that timeframe. And this can also see the correlation to the Martin v. Boise case, right? There was definitely a correlation to COVID and the response and the buildup of individuals down there during that time."

Willamette Week in Oregon. "Last week, a photographer on assignment for The New York Times rolled up to the city’s newest tourist attraction. This was the third time cops had shepherded the Times through downtown Portland in recent years. A 2009 New York Times story headlined 'Frugal Portland' captured Portlanders’ 'dedication to the things that really matter: hearty food and drink, cultural pursuits both high and low, days in the outdoors and evenings out with friends. It’s the good life, and in Portland it still comes cheap.' Now, it’s mostly fentanyl that comes cheap. Over the past several weeks, our staff has been reviewing what others have said about us recently. Most memorable quotes: 'One of the political cartoons after our legislative session had a person snorting cocaine out of a mountain of white. It said, ‘Which of these is illegal in Oregon?’ And the answer was the plastic straw.' —Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike."

"Most perceptive observation: 'Portland will always live in Seattle’s shadow, even when the Rose City is on Fox News and Trump’s hit list. By late June, four people had been shot inside the [Seattle’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest], with two dead, while Portlanders were busy setting small fires inside garbage cans and playing Frisbee.'"

The Commercial Observer on California. "San Francisco’s commercial real estate distress reached earthquake levels in June, and the aftershocks may be felt well into the future. 'With less commuting workers and with less tourism it brings trouble, and that trouble can be exacerbated with the higher interest rates and higher cost of capital,' said Lu Chen, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics based in the company’s San Francisco office. 'It has a snowball effect with people feeling less safe when they’re surrounded by less crowds when they walk on the street, and it makes some of the homelessness and public safety issues more obvious.'"

"Foot traffic in Downtown San Francisco was just 29 percent of pre-pandemic levels in June, according to cellphone data released July 3 by Apollo Global Management, which means San Francisco lags far behind other major cities like New York (71 percent), and Chicago (56 percent). The city’s office vacancy rate hit a record-high 31.8 percent in the second quarter, according to preliminary data released by CBRE in late June."

The Desert Sun in California. "In the 12 years Francine McDougall has been renting out her central Palm Springs home on Airbnb and Vrbo, she’s never had much trouble finding people to stay there. Until now. 'My calendar is wide open,' she said. 'And I’ve just never ever had that situation.' Oscar Flink, who owns a company that manages vacation rentals for their owners, said properties he listed for $1,300 to $1,500 a night during the busy travel months of February and March in 2022 could only fetch $600 to $900 a year later. McDougall, meanwhile, said she's been dropping her rates by about a third.

"McDougall hears from many of the other homeowners who are seeing a slowdown. She’s the administrator of a group where Coachella Valley property owners share information and discuss the industry. Recently that group has been dominated by discussion — and worry — about the rapid decline in bookings. 'Everyone in my group is talking about no reservations, no inquiries even,' she said. 'Everyone’s feeling the pinch.'"

"But you don’t have to take her word for it, she says. People only need to peruse the big vacation rental sites Airbnb and Vrbo for Palm Springs listings to get a sense of how desperate some vacation rental owners have become. 'It’s like a race to the bottom,' she said. 'Everyone’s dropped their nightly rate down to rates that I personally think are just not sustainable. It’s scary.'"

"When it comes to the impacts of a potential Airbnb bust, Palm Springs also appears to be far from alone. Earlier this month, CBS News reported that several popular tourism markets, including San Diego, Maui and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, have all seen a slowdown in bookings this year.Bruce Hoban, the co-founder of the vacation rental advocacy group said he thinks a lot of the current angst is driven by people who bought in when the industry was thriving last year. 'Some people are going ‘Wow, I bought my house in 2021 and I made a fortune in 2022 and where did all the business go?' he said. '2022 was an extraordinary year and they expect 2023 to be the same and it's not.'"

"Among those disappointed new owners is Tammy Trull Skeath. She told The Desert Sun that she and her husband bought a home in the city in 2022, which she called 'the height of the buying craze right before things went sideways with interest rates.' Now, she said they are struggling to make enough to cover their mortgage payment, let alone make a profit and are feeling increasingly frustrated with the restrictions and taxes levied by the city."

"'It’s not what we expected,' she said. 'We always thought owning a vacation rental in Palm Springs would be a cash cow. It’s been a lot of work and hardly any cash.' Now she says she’s hoping to eventually sell the house but currently plans to hold onto it until the real estate market improves. 'A part of me is wondering, is this permanent?' said McDougall. 'Like is this the new normal for us? And if it is, then I kind of circle back to how that is going to impact property values in that a lot more people are going to be selling or being foreclosed on.'"

Smoky Mountain News in North Carolina. "In a neighborhood along Asheville’s French Broad River and abutting a residential street that includes young families, Upstream Way stands out. It’s not just because most of the homeowners live out of town but also because, neighbors say, it turns into a fraternity house-like party scene on some weekends. At least half of the houses are vacation rentals, with four accommodating parties of '16+,' including a 'Bachelorette Oasis' and a 'Bachelor Sanctuary.' The homes are part of a booming vacation rental industry in Buncombe County that has more than tripled in the past six years. At the same time, long-term rents in the county have soared 65%, and service workers are complaining they’re being priced out of the area."

"In January 2017, vacation rentals in Buncombe numbered 1,555, according to AirDNA. By May 2023, that number had burgeoned to 5,466. Residents of Joyner Avenue, whose homes back up to the rentals, say they hear plenty. 'What was a lovely, peaceful place, now there’s a hot tub in my backyard with revolving people like loud men with stinky cigars talking about women’s breasts,' said a neighbor whose house is behind three rentals owned by people living in Florida, Texas, and Georgia. 'Projectile vomiting bachelorettes off the back porch, that was another night.' A homeowner adjacent to rentals described 'noisy day-drinking all day long' and a fraternity house atmosphere. 'It’s not that I moved into the bar district; the bar district moved into my neighborhood,' the homeowner said."

"Indications are Buncombe’s supply of vacation rentals may already be at saturation point. ' have heard from multiple [vacation rental owners] that ‘I’m not getting as many stays or having to reduce what I charge,’ said Matt Allen, at Land of the Sky Association of Realtors. Chip Craig, owner of GreyBeard Realty based in Black Mountain, said the short-term rental market is 'really soft just because of the increase of supply. We’re seeing people getting out of short-term rentals and moving into long terms just because the occupancy has been so low.' Buncombe’s era of explosive growth in vacation rentals may be coming to an end."