Lubbock Homelessness-- Where I'm Coming From

My opinion about homelessness is this.  Some need help and shelter;  they are candidates for programs to put them back into the housing/job/consumption rat race.   Others have mental problems or various dependencies;  they need more than a simple leg up;  you are spinning your wheels if you try to fix things by putting them into a shelter only.  Still others are homeless by choice, by lifestyle, what we used to call hobos.

Tough love implies that we don't coddle those in categories 2 and 3.  It is a long term problem, and a few nights shelter won't accomplish a damn thing besides providing a few nights shelter.

I believe that there ought to be places to go and to stay with minimal strings.  A sort of hobo incampment or Hooverville (Obamaville or Bushville depending on your persuasion) where the homeless can fend for themselves with only a smattering of rules for public health and safety.

Back in 2006 when I began thinking about homelessness and posting about it in a forum (the old Lubbockonline forum, now defunct), I envisioned a tract of land with concrete pads partly covered by a metal awning, with bathrooms, showers, and lockers big enough to accomodate duffels or sleeping bags, all under the occasional eye of one of Lubbock's finest.   The only rules being no booze, no drugs, no weapons, and don't bother anybody. 
  
Residents/campers would be free to build their own abode out of scavenged cardboard, plywood, whatever, without code restrictions.

It's a matter of freedom.  Those who are homeless need to be free to be homeless, without being preached to or looked down on or changed.

And for the rest of us, it is freedom too, from the responsibility to provide for those who do not provide for themselves.   It is the libertarian approach to homelessness.  We don't want to be too nice to the homeless.  Respectful, helpful, but not too nice. 

So, I imagined an incampment in Lubbock, not too far from a free meal or public transportation, in the canyon off East 19th Street, down in the canyon out of the wind.   Peppermint Trees, after the hobo song.

As it turned out, the location I liked for the incampment is a few hundred yards south of what is now Tent City.   Tent City is not what I imagined, but it is mighty close.