The Homeless are like Bears

by Christopher Brauchli

And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.
-William Wordsworth, Guilt and Sorrow

Once again the homeless are in the news and, as always, the question is what to do with them. The solutions are not always obvious but the attempts can be described as nothing, if not creative and in many cases the National Park Service's treatment of bears offers guidance.

Those with long memories will recall the town in Florida that treated the homeless by following the example of Yellowstone National Park. Rangers in Yellowstone relocate unwanted bears far from where they are picked up hoping that once relocated they will not return to the places from which they have been taken. The Florida town picked up the homeless from tourist areas and moved them to outlying areas hoping that the relocated homeless would enjoy the fruits of their relocation even though none of the fruits included a home. I have been unable to determine how successful that program was. In all events, towns today continue to follow the example set by the rangers in Yellowstone.

According to Change.org, many communities have adopted rules that not only ban begging but ban furnishing food to the homeless, a practice followed in national parks with bears where feeding them is strictly forbidden. In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, an ordinance was adopted that prohibits sharing food with the homeless in public parks. In Phoenix zoning laws were invoked to shut down a church that was serving breakfast to the homeless and others. Gainesville, Florida restricts the number of people soup kitchens can serve even though the number is less than the facility can comfortably accommodate.

Miami is considering an ordinance that would require people who distribute food to the homeless to go through formal training instructing them on how to ensure the food they are serving is safe and how to clean up the mess left behind. Those serving food would also have to provide a portable restroom and on-site sink. That will eliminate those serving food from the backs of vehicles and in parks. Although neither bears nor the homeless are going to cease being nuisances as a result of these compassionate and enlightened approaches to the problems they each pose, it is at least a way of addressing the issue that may encourage the homeless to go and find a home.

Enlightened though those approaches are, none can hold a candle to the approach favored by a town that has been described in this space and elsewhere as a perfect town. Its residents are educated and compassionate and live in beautiful houses, many of which replaced tiny houses that people lived in before they realized how much nicer it was to live in very big houses. That town is in Colorado and its name is Boulder.

Like other affluent communities, Boulder's pristine quality and virtually perfect ambience is slightly tarnished by the presence of the homeless. Its council, in its wisdom, has devised a way of dealing with them that is far more creative than the limits on their feeding imposed by other communities. It has banned camping, something bears are permitted to do, so long as they are not in the vicinity of humans and campgrounds.

Most people think of camping as a pleasant adventure that families do with children on summer vacation. The wise rulers in Boulder, however, have come up with a definition that redefines "camping." "Camping" in Boulder does not require pitching a tent or cooking "smores" over a campfire. All that is required is that the person lie down on city property "with shelter." "Shelter" includes "any cover or protection from the elements other than clothing." Thus, a homeless person who lies down and places a blanket over him or herself or climbs into a sleeping bag has taken "shelter" and violated the ordinance and the offender can be ticketed and fined or jailed.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/17-3

This is an example of why I'm turning into a vengance voter. I want to raise taxes on the rich for no other reason than to GET EVEN!

Break the law, break the fucking law.

they are immoral and inhumane laws.

without support of any kind....?

What are you possibly thinking? Are you intending to be sounding that hard-hearted?

Why aren't the more affluent getting arrested in protest?

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I'm advocating people break the law and feed the most vulnerable. I'm advocating people camp out on their own front lawns. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

while they safely type from their comfortable homes.

had some family come to town who was homeless. The police would watch until they were sure that was the case and then notify social services who would contact the family and help them find housing, food stamps, etc. Our homeless were the invisible types: the teens who were living from house to house of their friends and such. Of course it is much different in a large city. Cities need to set up advocate offices to do what our social services did. The only way you help someone out of homelessness is to get them a home.

That sickens me.

Plenty of vacant buildings. Closed K-Marts, boarded up storefronts downtown, a motel on the old highway that went out of business, a KFC that was in a "bad location", an auto dealership with a chain link fence around it since it moved to the new freeway exit. Most of these properties sit and sit, waiting for their appointment with the bulldozer while the owner tries to find someone who wants to rezone it into a profitable use. They sit as ugly eyesores, but no one ever suggests the community exercise eminent domain and buy it for some beneficial purpose.

It wouldn't take much money at all to convert them to some type of residential use -- dormitory, lofts, trailer park, rooming house, courtyard apartments, etc. Certainly less than it costs to build new on an unimproved lot. But that would be anathema to the US system of capitalism. There is just no place in it for the community owning any sort of housing and using it to give the less fortunate a helping hand. So instead, section 8 vouchers exist so that capitalists can make a buck providing substandard housing to people in need.

The non-God-fearing Christians.

More often than not, Christians would feed me and help me when I was homeless more than others.

and disgusting country. k&r

"go through formal training instructing them on how to ensure the food they are serving is safe"

Hmm, but no such requirements for perspective parents? My parents managed to ensure our food was safe while growing up. Same with my wife and I raising her daughters. I can only rec once, but I can keep kicking.

We are so lost as a society when that question even has to be presented. I have been homeless at times in my long life and when I could, I provided shelter to those that were. As I travel the country now I see it everywhere and oddly enough no more obvious than Portland, Oregon, but I have also been under bridges in Marina Del Rey where people live and in small villages where teenagers cluster with no place to go.

It is not because we, as a society, don't have the buildings or the means, we just don't have the collective will and that makes me very sad.

these boots are made for kicking, and that's just what they'll do. :)

How intelligent.