My socialist droogs, we must expand government for the children's sake.
Posted on 06/20/2010 6:03:58 PM PDT by South40
I lived in Ocean Beach 17 years ago...much has changed, I see. I loved it there.
That would take a tax revolt to make such a promise.
Perfect for Rush on Monday.
Mrs. 40 and I used to go to the Farmer’s Market every Wednesday. We go no more because we grew tired of wading through the bums panhandling and/or lounging on the sidewalks. The city has a real problem.
CALIFORNIA
Not clear on the concept, are we?
Ya just can’t go anywhere nice anymore.
I am so sorry to hear that. It used to be that the homeless in OB were the most harmless in SD. Old potheads.
Is that old wind bag still on the air ?
Is Rush going to be filling in for the guest host on Monday?
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My socialist droogs, we must expand government for the children's sake.
In most urban places around the world, there is a “beggar’s balance”. It varies somewhat from place to place and means several things.
To start with, there is a scale of beggars. Different places have different types of beggars. Some tend to be young, some old, some more peaceful and colorful, others just unpleasant. Some have resident populations, others transient populations.
Then there is a scale of the local people and how they behave around beggars. On one extreme are those who will invite them into their home and church, on the other are people either deeply afraid of them or with abiding hatred of them.
Government usually tries to find the balance of how it treats them, but often ends up just being fickle, trying to be nice one moment, and to drive them out the next. Usually the police are the middlemen in this.
The homeless poor do have some across the board needs, such as water, food and clothing, shelter from inclement weather, and often help for chemical abuse and psychological problems.
But they also have special needs based on who they are. This breaks them into classes, that have more or less sympathy from the public.
The most popular group are homeless families caught in an economic downturn. They are very responsive to assistance, and will usually not remain homeless for long.
The next most popular group are underage runaways. Often they have escaped from abusive families, and are frightened of the police, who will return them to their abusers. Such children get their best help from sympathetic churches, where they will get several adults to look after their interests.
The middling group are older teenagers and young adults who have dropped out of society for a litany of reasons. They are strangely sympathetic if you talk to them, as they abhor government, and have a strong sense of freedom and liberty. They don’t want to be part of “the system”, and would probably be happiest as homesteaders and settlers. And for its part, “the system” does not appreciate this at all and tries very hard to integrate them by hook or by crook.
Less sympathetic are middle aged and older “confirmed homeless”, who have a high incidence of mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse. There is no way they are going to change. However, in Seattle, a successful experiment determined that by putting confirmed alcoholics in a cheap hotel for free, and just leaving them alone, hundreds of thousands of dollars were saved by their needing less emergency services.
The least sympathetic are violent and criminal transient homeless. These are everything from gangsters to Terrible Williamson criminal family, to what have you. They are just in town long enough to steal and rob, then they leave.
There’s only one type of person I help in OB and that is 2 veterans, one a double amputee. They’re really nice guys but they need to relocate.
This wacko grabbed me once on Geary Sreeet in San Francisco. “Spare change?” he asked.
“No.”
He jumped up and put his hand on my arm. “Gimme money!” he said.
My wife caught my wrist just in time to stop the punch. “Don’t,” she said. “This is San Francisco. It’s not worth going to jail for.” I unclenched my fists, shrugged him off, and walked away. He followed us down the block, screaming obscenities.
If my wife hadn’t been there, I’d’ve one to jail and he’d’ve gone to the emergency room with a collapsed trachea.
Next time, I shoot.
These are not homeless but street people, the type found in most cities in the U.S.
They come from different states to relocate. They Will Not work and just sit around and push people for money.
Most are ablebody, can speak as an educated person, but won’t work and think society owes them.
The title may confuse our British friends, across the pond...
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