urbanSTL

DISCLAIMERS: Mentally ill. If you cannot control what you do because of some mental problem, then this post does not apply to you. It's a shame that someone didn't care enough about you or wasn't able financially or emotionally to take care of you. Obviously, our social health care system let you down as well. For that please accept my sympathies.



Please also accept my sympathies if you had a personal run of bad luck and were on the streets temporarily and had to fight and work two jobs to get back on your feet and to take care of your family.



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How many people do you have to piss off to end up on the streets? First you have to lose your job. Then you have to ruin every relationship you ever had with your family, your friends, and your co-workers. Then you have to not get a new job, even if it's a sucky job. Then you have to blow through your savings. It just seems like a whole lot of bad luck or just bad choices. And if one of those bad choices had anything to do with drugs or alcohol, I have little sympathy.



Now maybe I've lost a lot of my heartstrings growing up in NYC, Headquarters to the homeless and the UNPF (United Nego Pizza Fund--his words, not mine), but this issue comes up all the time here and one train of thought is that a big part of the homeless problem is that some of our homeless are happy being homeless and have absolutely no desire to join mainstream society again. Absurd? Maybe. But you have all heard of the stories of the homeless who make a good living panhandling on the subways in Manhattan. And it's not hard work, you sit there, look miserable and watch money just pour into your cup. Then you go eat, and come back to work. If you don't mind living on the streets and you're not scared to do it, why bother working at McDonald's?



Maybe that's a little harsh and I'm sure they are lots of examples of people who didn't deserve to end up on the streets and if it was a Touched By An Angel episode I might even reach for the tissue box, but I don't think people should be made to feel bad by the homeless when at least some of them are choosing to remain homeless.



It's complicated and obviously quite absurd in some ways. I stress phobia's post: "[The] NLEC, who openly told me after a profile survey that their donors were not interested in helping couples. Not quite as directly, I learned from several channels that receiving assistance from Rice would require I quit my job and agree to spend my time on the streets 'increasing the visibility of the poverty problem.'"



Don't hate me. I'd just rather teach a person to fish than give him a fish every day so he can sit on his ass while I work 10hrs a day--which I should get back to.

Urban Elitist wrote:

JCity wrote:Actually, I DID provide "new information/ data":

1)A homeless man killed a man at Christ Church Catedral, contrary to Xing's earlier post.

2)A-B is moving 300 jobs out of downtown due to crime. Maybe it was not a "homeless" problem here, but it was one of the major reasons for the move.



How does it offend you that this shelter could be better placed somewhere else? Have you ever been inside? I have to deliver food (once). The place is disgusting. If anything, it's a DISSERVICE to the homeless and they need a better shelter.

1)Ah yes. One homelesss man killed a man in church, or so you claim but we'll assume that its's true for the sake or argument. What about all of the murders commited by the non-homeless? I'd be willing to wager that is far surpasses the murders commited by the homeless in the past 10 years.



2)You admit that this anecdote you provided had nothing to do with the homeless...yet somehow this still warrents they be punished?



It doesn't really offend me to think that the shelter should be moved. It does kind of offend me that so many seem to be unfairly stereotyping the homless as nothing but criminals and claming that all crime DT is caused by them. On another note imminent domain should be used very sparingly and this situation is no where near grave enough to warrant its use.

I won't take your wager that non-homeless murders surpass that of the homeless because there are a lot more non-homeless people than there are homeless.



I will bet you that as a group, the crime commited by the homeless will be much larger per capita than the general population.



There are some homeless people that are unfairly tagged as criminal, but lets face it, if the homeless were the angels that you describe, would every city be unanimous in agreeing that they are a problem? Would Atlanta have given its homeless $50 and oneway busride to Savannah before the Olympic games (or that's what I heard at least)?



If we ever want to have downtown as the center of civilization for the region, we need to remove the people that smoke crack in the alleys, use the streets as their bathrooms, fountains as their bathtubs, park benches their beds, harass productive people for their money and generally make people feel uncomfortable on the streets.

I think we should separate two issues here. One issue has to do with our general feelings towards the homeless and another issue has to do with their impact on residential development.



In my opinion, regardless of how you feel about the homeless, I think we could all agree that the value of property next to a homeless shelter would undoubtedly increase if the shelter was replaced with a store. Maybe not just any store, a porn store might actually decrease the value, but you catch my drift.



Now I agree with a few of you that we don't have any right to MAKE the shelter move. If we had such a right I doubt there would be a shelter anywhere. NIMBY's will seldom welcome a homeless shelter. That said, I think a good argument can be made that if the value of the property where the shelter is has increased significantly, the property could be sold and the profit reinvested into a better more functional property to house a brand new shelter that would serve the homeless better. But I'm afraid all we can legally do is suggest this option rather than force it down anyone's throat.



Local residents on the other hand have every right to call the Police and demand that laws be enforced, including cleaning up poop and no panhandling. These may seem like petty crimes but we all saw what happened to NYC when Mayor Gulianna started enforcing those kinds of laws. Times Square may have lost a lot of its color from decades past and it may look like one big advertisement for companies like Nike and the Disney but it's a hell of a lot safer and cleaner than it was years ago.



So if people living near the shelter want to clean up the neighborhood and apply pressure on the owner(s) of the shelter, maybe they should begin complaining when there's something to legally complain about. In New York local residents have often grouped together with counsel to put pressure on the police to clean up local parks etc. This usually just moves the homeless to another park or another area of town and does nothing to solve the homeless problem, but it sounds like for many of you that solution would suffice.



Just don't point them to the CWE. NIMBY. Thank you.