* The measure is on Tuesday's ballot.
* It would allow the homeless and anyone else to live, eat, and sleep in public places in a "non-obstructive manner."
* Well, there you go ↑. Now you get to fight about what is and what is not obstructive.
* Denver would be the first major jurisdiction to give its blessing to such a policy.
* Opponents are high-powered coalition of business, conservation and neighborhood groups that argue the policy would put the environment and public health at risk, by allowing permanent encampments while failing to provide additional services or funding for homelessness.
* Polls show the initiative losing 32% to 61% a complete reversal from earlier polls that showed the measure winning 56% to 33%.
* Those numbers ↑ do not add up to 100% -- but who cares? -- completeness isn't our bag.
* The measure has divided the left. (The left in Denver is all that there is worth talking about. The right no longer even exists. Try it. Contacting them gets the exact same results as contacting ghosts.)
Pro-300 are
* ACLU
* Denver Democrat Party
* Occupy Denver, whose protest encampment spurred the city council's campaign ban.
Anti-300 are
* Mayor Hancock
* Former Mayor Webb
* 5,300 homeless in the seven-county Denver metro area.
* 6,376 shelter beds.
* Denver spends $50 million per year on services for homeless.
* Philanthropies contribute $90 million a year.
* $140 million total divided by 5,300 homeless equals $25,415.094 per homeless person.
* That doesn't sound right ↑ but there you go, numbers are numbers and these are the numbers provided. So then, some special someone is doing very well indeed servicing the homeless. So don't expect that problem to be solved any time soon. It's way too profitable. Apparently. After all, you do get more of whatever it is you invest in.
* The number of homeless in Denver increased along with newcomers to Colorado which is the seventh fastest growing state last year and the housing market grows tighter and more expensive.
Much more expensive.
Much more at the link. I skimmed off all of the extra stuff, while all that is still very good; a whole bunch of interesting arguments.
What to do, what to do. The shelters just don't work for everyone. They're static. Too many rules. People are free spirits. People are mobile. Imagine it, put yourself in it. All you want from the city is basic needs met, food and clothing and a place to hang out in warm weather, panhandle for a bit of immediate cash, smoke cigarettes, drink booze, smoke pot, get high and kick back and let all one's problems slide away, slide away. For the moment. Until it gets cold. Then off again to warm weather.
Trump's full employment? You gotta be kidding me. Surely the city's progressives can clear a place for me.
*Snap*
I've returned from a brief mental sojourn.
I must say, credit where it is due, liberals really are very good at providing social services. The city of Denver is excellent. They do provide housing, food, and healthcare. Even clothing. Every year coat drives. The results are outrageous. People are buying new coats all the time and their closets get full of them. The city is very good about this.
And beyond the civic functions, private individuals are even better. I know this as fact by volunteering at Angelheart. That's only one organization started by individuals that has grown spectacularly to provide specific services for people who need it, and boy, do they ever come through. And this takes a veritable army of volunteers whose dedication is unmatched. I'm not exaggerating. Angelheart is mind-blowing. And it takes another army of wealthy donors who contribute vast sums every year. I'm telling you, vast sums. I know these people. They tell me. And I see their names on walls and the level of sums donated. It's unbelievable. And it takes another army of organizers to put together fundraising activities through citizens and businesses such as restaurant night, for example. That's just one organization that I know about by working there, and there are others that I don't know about that address other needs.
Liberal people are very active at this sort of thing. It's what they live for.
It is possible for homeless to have shelter, and very good shelter too. HUD is dotted throughout the metro area in regular apartments all over the city. From end to end. City employees work very hard, a lot of them, and they do very well at getting people put up. And they really do see to the healthcare of indigent. But they must abide long lines. And for housing they must stay put. And they must abide by the rules. Rules that amount to common social norms. Rules like not stinking up the place by smoking cigarettes and skunk weed all the time, and not drinking until you're fallen down drunk all over the place vomiting and pissing in stairwells and breaking bottles in alleys and starting fights, pissing and pooping wherever you like. Just a few simple rules of common decency, and full families are housed comfortably, and their healthcare seen to, and their food and clothing provided. Even families in the United States illegally, that's how good Denver is at housing people in need.
Again, the genuine liberal mindset causes them to be very good at this. So good, in fact, that's why this is even an issue. They go overboard. They're actually willing to donate entire parks to their cause of giving freely. They're willing to turn over the very flower of their hard work at building beautiful cities, their entire civic landscape, to their cause, the same cause as Christian charity. They are the civic version of religion. This is their religion.
That is the issue. How far will we allow civic-minded liberals to impose their civic religion.
Related: Seattle is Dying.
6 comments:
I have visited Seattle off and on since 1962. Now, totally off. I watched that video and thought "What a shithole". And that woman from India arguing in favor of Make Seattle Mumbai Again should be sent home. This is not your country, moreover, why would we want our country to resemble your feces-strewn former home. The Northwest used to be a clean, beautiful place. Now it is neither.
The Lefties are driving out all the baby-makers.
If Trump stops the illegals, the red states will rule.
The Rhode Island accents crack me up - they are not as wicked pissah as Bahstan, but they are darned close.
I lived in Rhode Island for about 5 years and there is a distinct difference between Boston and Providence ... and Providence and Pawtucket for that matter. So weird for someone who grew up on the west coat where the accent is pretty much the same all up and down the entire coast.
We already (years ago) visited this issue in California. Guess how we chose? (Hint: wrongly.)
East coast accents are a wonder - from Down Easters in Maine, to New Hampsha, to Massholes, to denizens of Southie, RI which we have touched on, Connecticut (the second "c" is silent), NY - the less said about that the better, New Joisey, Dundalk outside Bawmer, Virginia, NC, SC, Jawja, Flarida, the wrapping around to 'Bama and Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas and so on - a veritable smorgasbord, I'll tell you what. I used to have a better ear for it years ago, and the accents themselves were more distinct. In Maryland there were at least three major dialect groups and you could sometimes pin down a person's origin to a specific county. Good times.
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