Posted on 04/02/2009 1:20:15 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, reacting to a nationally famous make-shift tent city for the homeless spouting up in Sacramento, is ordering that it be shut down and its residents transferred to the state fairgrounds.
The tent city, which has long existed along the banks of the America River, gained national attention last month when some of its recently homeless residents were featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
But it is only one of dozens, perhaps hundreds, which are now being erected around the country, according to The New York Times. Shanty towns and tent cities are not only popping up in large urban areas, according to the paper, but also in smaller towns.
“While encampments and street living have always been a part of the landscape in big cities like Los Angeles and New York, these new tent cities have taken root — or grown from smaller enclaves of the homeless as more people lose jobs and housing — in such disparate places as Nashville, Olympia, Wash., and St. Petersburg, Fla.," the Times reports
The state facility known as Cal-Expo in California’s state capital, Sacramento, will be used for three months to serve an estimated 125 people, some of them displaced by the economic recession, according to Bloomberg News. The Sacramento city council also voted unanimously on a $1 million homeless program to provide 150 additional beds, including 50 new beds at the winter shelter run by the Volunteers of America, the Sacramento Bee reports. That brings the total there to 204. The newspaper says the shelter will be allowed to stay open until July, three months longer than normal.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Right on.
Let’s bring back the vagrancy laws and “solve” the homeless problem. The avg homeless person is toothless and witless - it’s daydreaming to expect them to live like responsible human beings because they have tossed their own humanity in the trashbin.
Considering the inhabitants of these “tent cities” have been responsible for some of the California wildfire, there is a public need to get rid of them.
$1m for 150 beds seems pretty steep. Govt efficiency
GREAT!!! Just ducky!!
There are a number of events at Cal Expo and having these people hanging there will drastically drop attendance, IMO.
In June, there is a big 3-4 day Horse Expo. I will not go near the place again if my car will be a temptation for vagrants to panhandle or to break into my car.
I have been at this event a number of times in the past, but this is too much to deal with, IMO.
...during the Depression newspapers were called “Hoover blankets” ‘cause guys would cover up with them as they slept on park benches....now with newspapers going broke what will people use as Obama blankets I wonder....maybe money....Obama’s putting trillions and trillions into circulation....we’ll be awash in it.
Have we no workhouses?
Sounds like a job for DFU
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.