The Future Of Downtown’s Homeless

Great article PQResident!

Street Sense has had a lot of coverage of the recent homeless proposals as well as a cover story on someone smoking crack outside the Franklin School Shelter. That story & photo really hit a nerve with the community. If none of you have seen this I recommend picking up a copy of Street Sense or checking out their website/blog.

Sleeping on the beach in Florida is illegal. Sleeping in the parks or on the sidewalks in DC should be illegal.
We need results, not more talk. Mayor Fenty hasn’t done anything concrete to date. It’s not that complicated – use the tons of money currently being wasted on the corrupt homeless organizations to hire the homeless to watch each other, teach each other, whatever. Put them in apartments near their jobs, paid for by deductions from their wages. Pass a law that sleeping on the streets & park benches is illegal.
If it’s against the law to sleep on a beach in Florida, why can’t DC pass a law to make sleeping in parks, on the sidewalks, etc. illegal? Also, enforce current laws like public intoxication.
The programs proposed by Fenty are nothing new, & have not solved or even reduced the homeless problem in the past twenty years. More of the same is not the answer.

Re: #2

Out of curiousity, where do the homeless sleep in Florida? Laying down the line and taking our parks back sounds great. But if that just shifts more of the homeless to sleeping in doorway overhangs of businesses and residences that’s actually worse IMO.

A most ambitious proposal. Forgive me for being a bit skeptical. The easy part, to the extent there is one, is providing housing; the much more difficult part is following up on the “comprehensive social services” this plan promises. For many/most of our homeless people, their lack of housing is not their main problem. It is mental illness, addictions, and/or other social problems.

As far as I know, no big American city has successfully addressed these deeper problems – it just takes too much money and too many dedicated resources. There has been neither the interest nor the funding. And, much as I love so many things about DC, I kind of doubt it will be the first major city to succeed in this. Its system is just too dysfunctional. I don’t think its human/social services staff currently has the people-power to manage an ambitious program like this. Look at the bungling of the Banita Jacks case, etc., etc. Maybe if they hire all new people to run these programs it could work. Otherwise, I remain doubtful.

(But if it works, I will be the first person applauding.)

#3: So we should go ahead and let the homeless take over our parks? That reasoning makes no sense.

Homelessness is a serious problem that needs to be addressed in many ways by many different city, private, and charitable organizations. Solutions to date haven’t ended the problem. Its very good to see a renewed emphasis on addressing the problem by the city. Hopefully this will go far to reduce the problem, though I don’t know that we can ever completely end homelessness.

In the meantime, however, abandoning our parks to the homeless is not an acceptable solution. When you look at great parks in cities around the world, being enjoyed by all people, DC’s parks are an embarrassment– they need to be reclaimed and maintained as green spaces for all of DC’s residents and visitors, not de facto homeless camps. The idea that we should just accept current conditions because it is some how a good alternative for the homeless is part of the problem.

Sleeping in parks is illegal. It is just not enforced. The Park Police call it “camping”.

I would be interested to know how much DC spends on average on a typical vagrant per year. Take into account EMS trips, emergy room costs, police time, court costs, crime, drug use (which supports drug dealers), sanitation, etc. What percentage of EMS trips are for vagrants? The costs are enormous >$40,000/year. See http://www.endhomelessness.org/section/tools/tenyearplan/cost and http://www.hrsa.gov/homeless/statefiles/ca10.pdf

I just came from San Diego, and they also have a homeless problem, but is much less visible.

The homeless there don’t seem to congegrate in large groups, as they do here. Signs are posted in public areas that do not allow anyone to hang around between the hours of 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.

For some reason, they were not loitering in the beautiful parks and marinas. I am sure that merchants chase these folks away, as well as the police and security guards.

We did see a few homeless camping along railroad tracks and areas not visible to the public.

DC seems to totally ignore the homeless and have just let them take over the city. The city should be embarrassed by this image.

More needs to be done to help and less to enable them to take over the parks, Building Museum and store fronts.

Mayor Fenty should conver the Wah Luck House into a giant homeless shelter for these troubled individuals.

I used to thing DC had a bad homeless problem. Then I visited San Francisco.

right on!
san francisco is the king of homeless land. i always used to say, if i am ever homeless, i am heading to san francisco.
they are very welcoming.

anyways,…. if we want homeless people to leave here and get out of our eyes, we should spray. nasty spray… right kids!?

this guy just wanted some privacy. that’s why he built his box-home around him. wouldn’t you feel uncomfortable if you knew people were looking at you while you were sleeping? if he’d had shelter, i’m sure he would have slept in there instead.

Here is how to “cure” homelessness.
For $40,000 per year per person we should be able to hire them to watch over each other in a campus setting etc. Make insurance part of their contract, so lots of drug treatment etc. Job training.
The current approach & current proposals are just more of the same strategy that has failed for the last 20 years. Try something new.
Leaving people to rot on the sidewalks is not humane. If a person is sleeping in the park or on the sidewalks etc., arrest him. Ninety day sentence [with nine more months suspended]. Detox in jail. Release on condition that he live in my homeless campus palace, where he is paid to watch over the other formerly homeless persons. After one year, he can leave, but if he’s sleeping on the streets again, back in the system.
I don’t know, something like that? what we’re doing isn’t working, that much is obvious. The homeless agencies only encourage more homelessness – after all, if homelessness were “cured” where would these parasitic “do-gooders” do?
Break the cycle. Where do you see very little homelessness? The upper midwest: it’s too cold for one, & the smart liberals with common sense don’t allow people to be homeless. But it’s mostly just too cold
which makes San Francisco’s attraction to the homeless all the more odd. That is one cold city – but with dumb liberals who just throw tons of money to the homeless – oh wait that sounds like DC.
Smart, common sense liberalism is the key.

i think you’re on to something. we definitely need a different approach.

I don’t know #12, that sounds an awful lot like the “put them all on an island” approach. I don’t disagree about trying something new, but I don’t know that internment camps are the way to go.

I definitely agree that something is not working, but putting them all in one place has its downsides.

If you have ever been inside the CCNV homeless shelter at 3rd(?) and E it can be a little bit overwhelming and depressing. Granted that shelter is not exactly the Utopian idea that #12 probably has in mind.

Arresting homeless people sleeping in parks sounds like an outstanding idea, particularly in light of all of those vacant cells they have down at the jail.

#2 and #12, you refer to “corrupt homeless organizations” and that these organizations “encourage homelessness.” Why don’t you enlighten us with some fact to support such claims? Have you ever visited one of these agencies? Talked with the directors and staff?

I personally know and have worked with people in these humane organziations and can tell you that you know nothing — nothing — of which you speak.

And what are you doing about the problem besides spouting off about these terrible people? I’ll answer that for you: NOTHING. Your comments go beyond insensitivity. They’re grossly ignorant, hateful, selfish and plain inane.

Next thing, you’ll be calling for putting the homeless (and the “corrupt” people who try to help them) on rafts and push them out to sea.

Yours are some of the most pathetic postings I’ve ever seen on here.

#17 – I think “corrupt” is pobably too harsh, but I do agree that many of the organizations actually do enable continued homelessness.

I took a tour of the CCNV homeless shelter and talked to one of the people who lives there / works there about trying to set up a program to help people there prepare for job interviews.

The relevant part of the story is that in talking to him he said that it is designed as transitional housing and the city mandates that people don’t stay there for longer than 6 months.

I asked him how long he had been living in the shelter – he said “5 years – we don’t really follow the 6 month rule”

#18, yes, “corrupt” is too harsh; it’s also baseless. We haven’t seen any facts to back up this empty claim have we?

You’re right, there is no doubt that people can game the system; it happens all the time. I, on the other hand, have met people at CCNV who have recovered their lives because of it. I think we agree that there is no perfect solution and never will be.

Non-profit organizations that cater to the homeless save our society many billions of dollars in taxes. They provide a huge safety net that our government is simply incapable of doing alone.

That said, there are organizations that provide nothing more than food and clothing services for the homeless. Some of these organizations go out in the freezing cold to provide blankets and warm clothing to human beings who have no roof over their heads. True, they’re not advising these people about how to get out of their situations, but are simply providing “mercy” services. There are needs for this.

Many of the homeless in our city are mentally ill and simply incapable of doing anything different to survive. Ironically, many of them are veterans, whom we honor on Memorial Day, but because of their war experiences cannot function in a healthy way anymore.

It’s obvious that you are or have been involved in trying to combat this universal ill, and I totally respect you for it. Our commentator (#2 & #12) obviously does nothing but criticize those who do (using the tired “liberals” label to attack these caregivers), but this is a typical mechanism for people who go through life entirely focused on themselves. It also helps them justify not giving a cent to non-profits who care for these people.