Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Member Submitted Links The Homeless

I thought this was pretty interesting.

This could be YOU, it could be ME, it could be ANY of us.
He raised three boys, his wife died, hospital attorneys went after him for his wife's bills, he lost the rest of his family and he can't just get the couple of weeks of stability he needs to reenter society.

Now that both mother (2012) and father (1986) are gone, my only immediate family are my two older brothers and both of them decided that I am not to be considered part of the Haas family anymore.(2021)

The only "family" I still have consists of my two kids, both disabled, and my disabled Navy veteran wife Karen, her sister and a couple of cousins, and maybe two nieces and nephews.
And I'll be damned if I am going to ask them for any help because they're all struggling as it is.
So I am pretty much one heartbeat away from it all crumbling to nothingness.

Yes, this could be me, and it could be a lot of us.

If the poor devil had a place he could stay, get cleaned up, and get a job he would be a happy camper. Gov will buy an old building or an old motel and fill it with homeless, crazies and bums, with no security that even the police won't go into unless in a group. I know a cop in Seattle that was telling me that one. Gov simply doesn't get it. All living under the homeless banner are not exactly the same. I know one up here who refused to go where there were beds because he told me is was simply too dangerous.

Gov would do well to read some of this stuff! (both sides)

We had numerous homeless encampments in my neighborhood up until two years ago.
California Edison maintains a long right of way for their HV transmission towers right through our subdivision and the homeless were all over it.

Then LA County began buying up underperforming and marginal cheap motels in the area including the Motel 6 at the corner of my neighborhood.
The whole time I lived here, I never saw more than six cars in the whole place at any one time so it's obvious Motel 6 Corp never made Dollar One operating the joint.

Now it's "Operation Room Key" and if you live there, you have to go through security going in and going out every single day. And the homeless encampments have disappeared.

It seems to work.
Thing is, you have to meet certain qualifications to GET INTO Op Room Key, like not being a drug addict and not having an extensive criminal history.
The county handles THOSE homeless differently than they do ordinary folks impacted by economics and the majority of Op Room Key occupants are just that, ordinary folks who FOUND themselves homeless where they used to have roots, a job, a family, etc.

I sincerely hope that Seattle has learned a lesson and will do something like that instead of just throwing the the whole group into a non-secure situation which even the police don't want to deal with. Its kinda like drugs in Portugal. They had a really bad drug problem, about 30 years ago. They decided on a reasoned solution.
First, drug addicts are not criminals.
Second, make absolutely sure that they had clinics to help those addicts who need that.
Third, anybody caught dealing drugs has a very serious problem if caught.

They don't have a bad drug problem any more.

Now, I think, we need to test what works and then make some rules about the whole thing instead of thinking that all the Homeless are the same - they are not!