An alternative approach to homeless problems

Sometimes the government solution isn't effective or efficient.

DALLAS — In response to a police crackdown on the homeless, a downtown church has opened its parking lot to homeless people, allowing as many as 150 of them to sleep on the pavement while a security guard keeps watch.

The First Presbyterian Church started the practice after police began removing people found sleeping in public places. The Rev. Joe Clifford sees it as a temporary solution until more options are available.

"We continue to approach the homeless issue as a criminal issue," Clifford said. "While there are criminal elements within the homeless population, it is a social problem and requires a societal response."

The National Coalition for the Homeless has labeled Dallas among the "meanest" cities in the country for its approach to homelessness. In the past few years, city officials have passed laws banning panhandling, restricting shopping carts on city streets and limiting feeding of the homeless to designated areas.

"Most churches close their doors at night and flee to the suburbs," said Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the coalition. "They should be applauded."

Deputy Police Chief Vince Golbeck said he understands the church's mission, but authorities must enforce the law.

"A majority of property crimes in downtown Dallas are caused by the homeless. I'm not saying all homeless commit crimes, but the suspects, arrested persons we deal with, do have a lengthy record, and their background is homelessness," Golbeck said. "Those are just facts."

Golbeck said other city departments may have to determine whether the church has the appropriate permits to continue offering the sleeping space.

Stoops insists the church is within its rights.

"They're doing what churches are supposed to do, to help the poor and stand up for the poor," he said. "It's a legal thing to do, a moral thing to do, and the church has the right to allow the rich or poor to stay on their property."

Other cities have grappled with similar issues.

In New York, an appeals court last year upheld a ruling that found the city had violated the rights of a Presbyterian church by removing homeless people from its steps. The decision stemmed from a 2001 case in which Fifth Avenue Presbyterian sued the city to stop police from rousting homeless people sleeping on church property.

In the Seattle area, a number of tent cities have moved between churches for years, some of them drawing complaints from neighbors and code enforcement officials.

David Farrell, 53, has stayed in a shelter but had his belongings stolen. He said the parking lot provides a safer place to sleep.

"It makes people feel more at ease," he said.

Billy Garrett, another homeless man, praised the church's generosity.

"I think it's good because a lot of people are getting tickets and going to jail, and only so many people can get into the shelters," Garrett said.

The church opened its parking lot in response to a city program called "Operation Rescue," in which police accompanied social workers to identify chronic homeless in a four-block area and to move homeless people into shelters or treatment.

Clifford said the intent of the program was admirable but pointed to a larger problem: The city has more than 5,000 homeless people, according to a census, and only 1,300 available beds.

Golbeck said the opening of a $23.8 million homeless shelter in April will help. The 24-hour shelter would provide beds, restrooms, showers, job training and mental health treatment.

"We do empathize, and many of our officers have used their own money to help the homeless," he said. "This is not an 'us versus them.'"

Police on Long Island are a little more efficient, but not very caring or thoughtful.

Feeding the Homeless

Some people are worried that feeding them will just encourage homelessness.

Identification of the homeless

There's a really interesting comment on a post at PokerWorks that refers to homeless.

The post makes reference to two different people (actually 1 person and 1 couple) that are identified as homeless. The first is a beggar in front of an Albertson's. in Las Vegas.

... to an Albertsons store that I usually frequent when I need things. When I parked and left the truck, I could see an older, heavy, black woman sitting in a motorized wheelchair at the entrance to the store She had a cup in her hand and obviously she was looking for some type of monetary help. As I approached she said, “could you spare a little change so I can buy groceries?”

That's clearly a beggar. Homeless? Maybe. Maybe not. Frankly, I doubt it. Albertson's is one of the more expensive grocery stores around vegas. It's not the store a homeless person would choose to shop at in most cases. But, it is the store that a beggar would pick, becuase the customers of Albertson's have demonstrated they aren't that concerned about a few cents per item just by shopping there.

The couple that was identified as homeless is

I saw a young man and woman and what appeared to be all of their worldly goods, stacked in the corner of the Budget Suites parking lot right behind the bus stop bench that borders Boulder Highway. There were a few suitcases and some plastic bags that looked like they held bedding and other goods and the guy was laying on the plastic bags as the woman sat next to him on one of the suitcases.

Homeless? Again, I don't know. They're certianly transients of some sort. I'm suspecting they aren't homeless though. They have a lot of stuff with them. My guess would be that they just moved out of a furnished apartment at Budget Suites and are enroute to a new place of lodging. Maybe it's a step down in status. Maybe a step up. Possible they have no where to go. But if that was the case they'd be more likely to have those worldly possessions spread out on a blanket on the grass to hold in impromtu tag sale.

It's possible that both the beggar and the trainsient are homeless. I doubt it though. They are going through tough times though, and I think that's more the point of the original post.

But there's a mindset that many tend to have when thinking about the homeless that's really judgemental and doesn't serve to help anybody. That mindset is demonstrated by one of the comments to that blog post.

I understand the angst. We’ve all walked past the obvious junky and the true person in need. We don’t have the ability to differentiate. What to do?

Is a homeless junkie any less in need than a homeless depressed person? Will you fail to give a junkie some money because he'll just spend it on drugs? What if that homeless depressed person will just spend it on Hostess Twinkies?

Neither of them are going to starve if you don't give them money, they can find soup kitchens. I've been homeless, soup kitchens aren't really that hard to find.

This game of some homeless are deserving of help and some aren't is just a bunch of moralistic crap. Every homeless person I've ever meet was homeless because of some bad life choices of some kind. Some are smart people with mental disorders. Some are just really stupid people. Some have drug problems. Some have drinking problems. Some drink and/or do drugs but that helps control the mental disorder and they'd be worse off if they didn't drink or do drugs.

You aren't going to be able to distinguish which of the homeless are going to be able to "better themselves" with an extra $5 and which won't. So don't try. You also won't be able to distinuish the homeless from those just having a tough time.

The solution on a personal level is actually easy. If you see someone who needs help and you can help, then help them. It's not rocket science. Don't judge them, don't classify them, just help them out. Maybe they just need a ride to their new house with all their worldly possessions in a bunch of plastic bags.

And if you live in Las Vegas don't ever vote for or even have a nice word to say about a mayor who thinks giving a homeless person a bottle of water just encourages them to be lazy.

delusional homeless

Sometimes the homeless are just delusional. But that doesn't really mean they are dangerous. This guy in Montana is an example of a delusional, nutcase homeless guy, who's probably pretty harmless.

Danny Donovan, 29, said a higher calling brought him to Billings. The Texas native is studying to be a minister.


"I wasn't doing so well back home," Donovan said. "The group of friends I ran around with tended to get in trouble."


Donovan said he'd seen movies about Montana and was drawn to the state's majestic scenery.


He's been staying at the Montana Rescue Mission since April while he takes religious correspondence courses.


Although he does not have any other place to live, he does not consider himself to be homeless.


"This is a good place for a transition," he said. "I have a home back home … Where your heart is is where your home is."

Be careful if you don't take your meds

In Wisconsin it appears to be a felony to fail to take your meds. You must do like the doctor says or you'll go to jail. A different set of laws applies to the mentall ill.

Althouse alerted me to this news item about a homeless guy who actually defended himself and ended up in jail. He has a high bail because those mentally ill homeless vets are all a danger to society. You never can tell when they might defend themselves when some real nutcase attacks them.

Homeless as targets

For some reason I'll never understand, homeless men, harmless homeless men, seem to tend to attract just pointless violent attacks. And not just from teenage boys. You expect pointless violent behavior from teenage boys. Most people don't think of state troopers as having the mental capacity of a teenage boy. But some of them do.

The state attorney general's office charged 29-year-old Gabriel Seibt with felonious assault and misconduct in office, and 30-year-old Todd Parsons, 30, with misconduct in office.


The charges stem from a June incident in Detroit's Greektown area, when the troopers came across a 50-year-old homeless man.
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According to Attorney General Mike Cox's office, the troopers detained the man, took him to an alley and sprayed him in the face with a state-issued chemical spray.

Don't solve it, criminalize it

This is the true American Way.

If government is faced with a problem and doesn't really know how to solve it, then just criminalize it. That way you replace a tough problem with an easy one -- everybody knows how to build more jails.

Homeless? Just put them in jail. Problem solved.

Some problems are inherently hard to solve, maybe even impossible to solve. Building more jails might look a solution, but it doesn't really solve anything.

Jail beatings are more common than most think

Two cops beat up a guy in jail for not paying a traffic ticket. They were provoked, he said something rude to him.

Two Jefferson County sheriff's deputies have been suspended without pay over the beating of an inmate that was caught on videotape.
...
Authorities said the video showed Cole punching the man in the face multiple times after a verbal confrontation.

A few years ago I had a period of pretty severe depression and was homeless and living in my car in Austin, Texas. I got a lot of tickets during that period, and didn't pay them. So I'd go to jail on a traffic warrant. It's a cycle that's hard to get out of when you're broke, not only do you have tickets to pay, they impound your car when they arrest you on the warrant, so you have two and impound fees to pay before you pay the most recent ticket.

But, anyway, the jail was very overcrowded, often with 5 men in a two bed cell. But they had a suicide watch cell that was visible to the guards with about 6 beds and typically only 2-3 inmates. So after the first arrest on a traffic warrant (it happened to me 5-6 times in a period of a few months) I asked to see the jail nurse and I'd tell her I was depressed and concerned that I might become suicidal (not that I was suicidal, that might have gotten me locked up in a mental hospital). So I'd get assigned to the suicide watch cell and get to sleep in a bed rather than on the floor next to the toilet.

One day when I was being booked the jailer ignored me when I asked to see a nurse. I refused to tell him anything about my medical history, insisting on seeing the nurse, and I think he got mad about that. He put me in a holding cell with about 20 inmates and benches for about 15. I was standing near the door.

He came up to the door to add another recent arrestee and told me to move back. "When can I see a nurse?", I asked. "Move back, asshole", he responded. I moved back, and said over my shoulder, "Fuck you".

He'd opened the door, he yelled for more guards, left the handcuffed new inmate in the hall, and knocked me down. About 5-6 guards came in and held me down while he grabbed my head by my hair and hit my face against the concrete floor a couple of times. Even though I was nuts I knew enough to know that resistance was pretty much suicidal.

Later I did see a nurse, told her where the scrapes on my face came from. Of course nothing was done about it. It very seldom is, such assaults on inmates for verbal abuse are pretty frequent in most jails.

Rural homeless

In rural America the homeless don't have the transportation systems to move around so they tend to stay hidden. But the homeless are there

It's easy to see homeless people in Wilmington downtown or in different areas. People with signs work for money, but in the rural areas, they tend to live in abandoned houses or trailers, and you just don't see them on the street, but they are there," said Anita Oldham of the Southeastern Center.

Long Island homeless

I'm not sure what to think of this story. Local government in long island wants to build a large homeless facility and local operators of homeless shelters are arguing that the number of homeless are falling and it's not needed.

I'm not sure what a private homeless shelter operation is.

Social services officials said Suffolk now uses 43 smaller shelters housing 2-to-9 families each.

The proposal would create a shelter of up to 99 apartment-styled units, similar to the Bellport shelter in operation since 1989 and run by Project Help, a group once headed by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Are these small shelters owned by the city? By various charities? Or by for profit organizations that contract with the city? It's just not clear and the story makes no sense without making that clear.

Facing the homeless

From Jewish Journal.com

Helen was one of about 25 homeless people -- Jews and non-Jews -- who come once a month to have lunch and schmooze with members of the B'nai David Judea Congregation, located in the heart of the Pico-Robertson neighborhood. The program started a year and a half ago, and it has become so crowded that they now hand out tickets....more

From Orange County Register

Now Wendy and Pete Morris of Ladera Ranch do even more by helping the homeless transition into furnished living quarters.

"They (the homeless) would have an apartment and have nothing, no furnishings like a couch, bed, or refrigerator," said Wendy Morris of the outreach efforts. ...more