Burnt Orange Report

Well Dallas is #6 probably after Mayor Laura Miller ordered the trash collectors to bulldoze all of the homeless people's belongings from the sidewalks they were living on by City Hall-- in effect trashing everyone's family photos, clothes, food, etc.

So Dallas's way of keeping the homeless off City Hall's front steps is to approve a bond of millions of dollars to build a homeless center-- guess where- get ready--- down the street from City Hall! Well guess what, when the homeless centers are closed during the day, where do the homeless go? Back to the street. And the place of choice? City Hall's big open square. Thats why most of the homeless are there currently, because the only shelter that will give a hot meal is downtown near City Hall.

The solution of most politicians to the problem of homelessness is "out of sight, out of mind."

Houston has had several city councilmembers who have opposed such shelters "in my neighborhood" which is always the main obstacle. No one wants to be reminded of the problem. It bothers them.

It should bother them. Our society is quite indifferent to the needs of the needy and becoming moreso every day. But it is so easy to take the "out of sight, out of mind" approach. As Laura Miller did. Only to find out that where they are is usually the only place they have to go. And so they are shuffled around as they can be just to keep them "out of sight, out of mind."

Reality is she is reflective of most mayors in most large cities in this country. Certainly a bad reflection. On them and on us. Shelters should offer refuge. Not merely a hot meal. But no one wants them in their neighborhood. Too easy to ignore them behind the shopping centers and gas stations and various other places they have found they can "hide" from us. They are not always concentrated in downtown areas. They are to be found in all areas of all major cities. Including the very neighborhoods where they are not wanted. Not visibly anyway.

There are quite a few "professionals" living out there on the streets. It is easier to assume that they have mental problems or are alcoholics or addicts. Most are just no longer connected to society. But they didn't disconnect from us. We disconnected them from us. And continue to do so.

We are a complex society with complex problems and unfortunately simple-minded politicians.

"Austin isn't mean enough until bums stop hassling people for money for beer and drugs. Period."

That eloquent-and emphatically finite-comment was left on my post about the same subject.

No offense, but considering you didn't even vote in the last city council election, do you really have a right to complain about this?

For the record, I voted in the first round; I didn't vote in the runoff. Given that only one elected official who represents me (At Large 2) was on the ballot, I think I at least did the better-half of my public duty.

Although, you are correct, insofar as I can't complain about Sue Lovell.

You hit on the most important element. A huge proportion of the homeless suffer from mental illness or are alcoholics/ drug addicts. I think there was a study in NY years back where something like 80% of the homeless they tested had drugs or alcohol in their system. Can you say self-medicating? We have also swung the pendulum too far in treating mental illness. After the horrors of the 70's in which people with mental illness were locked up as prisoners and treated like shit, we swung it back the other way to make it almost impossible to force people to receive treatment without their consent. I have no problem with erring on the side of self-determination, but there has to be a better system for deciding when someone truly lacks the capability.

It may sound like a cliche, but the scenario in which a homeless person will not enter a shelter because he has to give up his knife (or whatever) is not uncommon.

Is it any surprise that 9 of the top 10 cities "mean" to homeless people are warm-weather cities? Perhaps the homeless in those cities tend to be out and visible more, thereby prompting city action. Do homeless migrate toward warm weather resulting in homeless "saturation" in cities like Houston? It might be worth the risk of hitch-hiking from Minneapolis to Houston if it means sleeping under a bridge in 50 degree weather rather than 20 degree weather.