✏️ Legal Pad
Greenville adopted a new ordinance this week regulating sleeping and camping in public areas. It’s a move that some critics claim “criminalizes homelessness.” But the reality is both more practical and more urgent: this ordinance is about safety. Safety for families using parks and greenways, safety for businesses and residents downtown, and safety for the homeless individuals who are often living in circumstances no city should accept as normal.
Encampments are not shelters. They’re dangerous, unsanitary places where people are more vulnerable to violence, drug activity, predatory behavior, extreme temperatures, and medical emergencies. Allowing men and women to live in tents on sidewalks and riverbanks isn’t compassion, it’s neglect. And it places officers, outreach workers, and the public in situations that are neither safe nor sustainable.
The Supreme Court’s decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson made clear that cities can regulate encampments as long as they offer meaningful shelter alternatives. Greenville is operating within that framework. Municipalities have a duty to maintain order, protect public spaces, and prevent vulnerable people from remaining in conditions that guarantee harm.
Supporting this ordinance isn’t a lack of empathy. It’s an insistence that homelessness is a situation that demands structures, not sidewalks, and shelters, not encampments. Enforcement alone isn’t the answer, but neither is complacency. The work ahead is about pairing accountability with compassion. Greenville is choosing both.
💡 Sidebar
I don’t like shopping. At all. And Black Friday feels like the Olympics of everything I try to avoid: crowds, chaos, elbows, coupons, and the panicked energy of people trying to snag deals before the shelves go bare. If given a choice between doorbusters and a dental procedure, I’d be in the chair with a smile.
But then there’s We Took to the Woods on Stone Avenue here in Greenville. It’s a store that somehow manages to be the antidote to every reason I dislike shopping. No noise. No advertisements. No pressure. Just calm, intention, and craftsmanship.
Everything inside feels curated rather than stocked. Every item seems to have been chosen by someone who decided long ago that quality would win over quantity. It’s not a place you rush through; it’s a place you breathe in. It feels designed for people like me, who don’t want to wade through aisles of stuff but can appreciate excellence when they see it.
In a season where shopping can feel like a competitive sport, We Took to the Woods is a reminder that the best things are often the simplest- presented with care, chosen with restraint, and offered quietly instead of shouted from a billboard. Even for someone who hates shopping, that’s something worth experiencing.
⚖️ Closing Arguments
It’s been a tough week for House Alderson. My daughter came down with a fever on Sunday, and every break in trial prep turned into something else: pharmacy runs, a late-night doctor’s appointment, and one trip to the children’s ER. She’s a tough little thing, and thankfully she’s bounced back from what we were told was a touch of pneumonia- uncomfortable for her, terrifying for mom and dad.
And in the way life always seems to stack its challenges, the chaos threw our Thanksgiving plans completely off script. What was supposed to be a big family gathering turned into the three of us eating plates sent over from my brother’s house, graciously delivered by close friends.
Earlier in the day, on my drive from the hospital back to the office, I told my wife this had to be the worst Thanksgiving I’d ever had. But sitting around that kitchen table- exhausted, relieved, and grateful- I realized how wrong I was. It was not the worst. It was my third favorite. Because it was the third Thanksgiving I’ve been lucky enough to spend with my daughter.
Hard weeks have a way of clarifying what matters. The trial will be there Monday. The work will still get done this weekend. But moments like that- the quiet ones, the unexpected ones- are the ones that outlast the noise.
Here’s to gratitude (and takeout) that shows up even when the plan falls apart.
Court is in recess- see you next Friday.
