Lubbock's Homeless Issue

A couple of days ago the little tent city that arose this winter in the park at the corner of Ave. Q and Broadway has moved, to a new location on privately-owned ground, soon to be equipped with more rest rooms, showers, and washers.

Good.   IMO this is a near-optimal solution for a number of the homeless in the city.

Back a few years ago when I was posting on the now defunct Lubbock Avalanche-Journal forum, I put forward the idea that the city should make available a piece of out-of-the-way undeveloped land where the homeless could camp and even erect makeshift shelters out of cardboard and scrap metal and lumber.  The only amenities would be showers, restrooms, and lockers.  There would be rules to fillow--no alcohol, drugs, or weapons--and random inspections by police.

I called it "Peppermint Trees" after the famous hobo song.

My reasoning was two-fold.  First, that to some extent and for some individuals, homelessness is a choice, that ought to be respected and enabled for those who want to take that path.  Second, that providing shelters and structure is to a degree condescending and paternalistic and ineffectual for the chronically homeless.

Also it helps to have a tolerable bottom level to which one can sink without total loss of self-respect.  Maybe for women, the elderly and children the level of social concern should be higher and include shelters, but in Lubbock, Texas, one can camp outside 300+ days a year without extreme discomfort.

And where there is discomfort, well, fine, the discomfort is an incentive to change one's life.  Our society needs more discomfort, I think.

Nobody liked my idea.  They were either of the "we need to help them and bring them out of homelessness" school, or of the opinion that "the homeless are deadbeats by choice who are like flies and rats and are the dregs of society" school.

My father rode the rails during the Great Depression.  Not a lot but some.  Many did back then.  The freight car was the poor man's coach.  Many subsisted for a time in Hoovervilles or stood in breadlines.  I wonder how many of those who condemn the homeless have ancestors who themselves lived on the road or accepted charity.