Homelessness Overview

Here's my comment to today's AJ editorial, which, I agree with.

Homelessness is not necessarily a disease that needs curing. In this I disagree with Pappion.

Because there are some who cannot or will not settle down, get a job and work 40 hours a week in order to pay out 95% of what they earn on food and rent, and advance themselves so they are in debt to the grave like all good middle class Americans, we need a place in Lubbock where hobos and the homeless can camp out.

A tent city where you can stay and shower if you follow some basic rules is just perfect for that.
There have always been homeless. The history of our country has been a migration westward of the homeless from the first colonies in the new world to the settling of California, Oregon, and Alaska. We are all the children of the homeless

What is different now is that there are few unowned, unfenced-in places to squat down in, none to homestead, and that most homeless have lost basic survival skills other than asking for handouts and pilfering. If a homeless person tries to be self-sufficient and carries a gun for potting rabbits and squirrels, nowadays they end up in jail and gunless forthwith. So much for the 2nd Amendment.

So I am not one to believe that every homeless person needs a hand up. Sometimes they just need a place to hang out and be out of the way.

Tent City Snag

Uh, oh.   Tent City has hit a snag.  The zoning commission has turned down the request to amend zoning to permit the use of that land as a homeless shelter or "tent city."  Which means that unless the city council overrules the zoning commission, tent city at 13th & Ave. A will come to an end.

Sad.  That seemed to me (and to others) to be the perfect location.   Not too far from soup kitchens and other services yet a long way from any residences and mostly near fenced-in businesses like UPS and Mrs. Baird's Bakery.  A place near Mackenzie Park, the South Plains Fairground which is unused most of the year, and large vacant weedy spaces.    Literally a place on the other side of the tracks.    No more isolated location exists in town.

There is no other location in the city limits, and probably not in the county, that could be expected to raise less opposition from those nearby.  

Yet even the 13th & A location ruffled some feathers, and several businesses raised objections to tent city.

Maybe it was the stabbing that occurred in the neighborhood.  Perhaps there were trespasses and break-ins, though it is quite unproved that any at tent city were involved.

Surely the city council will overturn the zoning decision.  But considering the composition of the council., they well may.    There are two councilpersons I trust, more or less, and those are Klein and Hernandez.  The others, well, let's just say I'd hide my wallet and fancy pen and put on body armor before going near them. 

If the council does uphold the zoning commission decision, then where do we go from here?   Back to sleeping in parks, as some are doing anyway.  Tents in parks in the winter.  Pressure on the city to provide some kind of shelter.  

The Salvation Army has raised a lot of money for a track program to shelter a limited number of the homeless and provide reentry to the workforce.  If it is like most Salvation Army programs, it will be restrictied in scope and very expensive per person helped.  So the pressure will remain on the city and public to do something.

Hell of a lot cheaper and less nuisance to Lubbockites just to have a tent city where it is.