urbanSTL

ThreeOneFour wrote:

dweebe wrote:Almost every bar, restaurant and shop in downtown had a sign in their windows telling people not to give to panhandlers: it only supports their drug and alcohol abuse habits plus brings Nashville down. The signs then listed a number of agencies to donate money and volunteer at.

I still think these signs are a good idea, even though there will always be those worried about what the signs do for our public image (even as the homeless people harrassing visitors aren't exactly doing wonders for our image).

It depends what these signs would look like. There's a hobo mob that hits the streets whenever St. Louis has a large convention or sporting event--so maybe the signs are worth a try.

On a more serious note, the Drop-In Center formally opened today. I gather that this forum wishes it every success.

The City of St. Louis and a downtown church have opened a Homeless Drop-In-Center at 1610 Olive Street.



The Center, on the campus of Centenary United Methodist Church, will perform assessments and case management to connect people to the services they need to end the cycle of homelessness.



The Center will also provide daily meals and services like showers for homeless people, who come downtown from throughout the St. Louis region.

http://www.mayorslay.com/news/display.asp?prID=764

Will be worth seeing if this thins out the Lucas Park crowd......

I guess that explains the crowd of people I saw when driving by about 11:30 am.

Isn't this where they provide video games for the homeless?

JCity wrote:Isn't this where they provide video games for the homeless?

The Horizon Club has video games, but that's just one of their lures to get the hobos out of the parks. We should start a rumor that Horizon Club has spare change and booze.

Now that the building at the intersection of 14th St. and Washington Ave. is demolished, the dump called Hobo Heaven (AKA NLEC, Riceland) is clearly visible from Washington Ave. That graffiti has been on the rear of that building for many months, and it's time for them to clean that and the trash up.

That's going to be quite the contrast after Skyhouse is going up. People living in 800,000 dollar penthouses next to a building nicknamed "hobo-heaven". With the way the Washington Ave. neighborhood is beggining to shape up, I am surprised no developers have come along and attempted to purchase this building. Having this building razed would do wonders for this area.

I would think it is probably for sale for an exorbitant amount of money.

Having this building razed would do wonders for this area.

Nope. Rehab it, unless another condo tower could go in its place.

newstl2020 wrote:That's going to be quite the contrast after Skyhouse is going up. People living in 800,000 dollar penthouses next to a building nicknamed "hobo-heaven". With the way the Washington Ave. neighborhood is beggining to shape up, I am surprised no developers have come along and attempted to purchase this building. Having this building razed would do wonders for this area.

$800,000!!! I made a little revision to the Skyhouse website:

If NLEC closed it's doors tomorrow, what would happen to our homeless population in lucas park? Would they really move on?

Yep. IMO - they're anchored to that "service." On the other hand I think it's irresponsible to shut it down without having an alternative that can handle the influx of people. That's a great building by the way - how sweet would it be to have it renovated?

Grover wrote:Yep. IMO - they're anchored to that "service." On the other hand I think it's irresponsible to shut it down without having an alternative that can handle the influx of people. That's a great building by the way - how sweet would it be to have it renovated?

It'd be greater for a homeless shelter to be relocated elsewhere. The YWCA building can be used for something else. If you have a ton of homeless services in your backyard, you're going to have a ton of homeless people in your backyard. Simple as that.

There's apparently a summit conference about homelessness going on at Wash. U. today. The KSDK website has an article featuring assessments of the situation by William Siedhoff, the director of the St. Louis Department of Human Services, and by the Rev. Ray Redlich, who "works with" NLEC. The article also has some stats from St. Patrick Center on available supportive housing units.



http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.a ... yid=134583

innov8ion wrote:It'd be greater for a homeless shelter to be relocated elsewhere. The YWCA building can be used for something else.

Relocated to India. NLEC should sell the YWCA building, and they could use the money to do more good in India. Imagine how many more lepers they could feed and how many more girls they could train to work in sweatshops.

Tangent: NPR reported yesterday that India has the most millionaires in Asia. Back to your local news.

steve wrote:Tangent: NPR reported yesterday that India has the most millionaires in Asia. Back to your local news.

And? The most productive Indians don't owe the poorest Indians anything. India is struggling to break away from huge bureaucracy. Punishing the hard-working rich will only result in the entire country becoming poor.

Resurrectus wrote:

steve wrote:Tangent: NPR reported yesterday that India has the most millionaires in Asia. Back to your local news.

And? The most productive Indians don't owe the poorest Indians anything. India is struggling to break away from huge bureaucracy. Punishing the hard-working rich will only result in the entire country becoming poor.

I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but where exactly did he say that?

MattnSTL wrote:

Resurrectus wrote:

steve wrote:Tangent: NPR reported yesterday that India has the most millionaires in Asia. Back to your local news.

And? The most productive Indians don't owe the poorest Indians anything. India is struggling to break away from huge bureaucracy. Punishing the hard-working rich will only result in the entire country becoming poor.

I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but where exactly did he say that?

Okay, I'm rambling a bit. I just had a feeling that he's one of those people who thinks that the rich are responsible for the poor.

Jesus bleeping Christ, I must have had a target painted on me yesterday. I was panhandled while:



-walking to the Forest Park Metrolink station

-on the train (the first time this has happened in a long while)

-walking along Pine to lunch at Union Station

-after work by Side Bar while going to meet a friend for a drink

-waiting for the train at the 8th/Pine station

-filling up with gas at the Shell station at Delmar/Skinker



Trust me, I've got the whole walking in the city thing down to an art and are always aware of my surroundings while rarely making eye contact. Two of the above panhandlers actually crossed the street to bug me.