Posted on 03/29/2018 9:12:32 AM PDT by C19fan
Bob McElroy strode through the busy entrance of the vast, gleaming-white tent, greeting people right and left. The prominent homeless services provider calls the new structure, located on the outskirts of downtown San Diego, the Rolls-Royce of tents.
It is double-insulated and has wifi. And it is the sunny seaside destinations millionaire-funded attempt to get a grip on an emergency that sees thousands of homeless people sleep on its streets every night.
The industrial-sized tent holds 324 people in neatly spaced, numbered bunks. People can bring their pets, and 70 dogs also live in the shelter. It offers a bed and services from healthcare to employment assistance to showers and laundry while people wait for a place of their own. In appearance, it evokes a military installation or a refugee camp.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
That’s very interesting. Did your family move there from the Dust Bowl, and if so, do you still live in CA?
Yes, they came out from Oklahoma and Arkansas. Everyone stayed in California except one aunt, the one that lived in the camp, who moved back to Oklahoma 30 years ago.
When they first got here they lived in a temporary tent camp in Weedpatch. A move to the tin cabins in the labor camp was a big step up.
I remember the camp well. It was a fun time for us kids.
They allow dogs? Wonder how that’s working out for them. I should check it out. My pittie’s never harmed anyone.
Yeah, I hear putting the snow blower on the roof is frowned upon.
Document your stories; they are a part of our history that should be remembered!
Our families younger generation, some who are hitting their 40s now, have no interest in the family history.
I had an aunt who died a couple of years ago at 93 who filled me in on questions I had about my grandmother and the aunts and uncles earlier lives. Theyre all gone now except one aunt who is 86.
Funny you would mention that...it isn’t illegal here...they don’t care.
You got me thinking...Across the street from the courthouse in Bonners Ferry Id, they had a snow blower on the building roof last winter when we had a real big overnight snow storm. I guess its more common than we think....Now if I see one on a pitched roof, I’ll post a picture of it.
This was available during the cold spell at christmas. I gave guy a sandwich and put him on bus to downtown. 5 days later he told me he thought I saved his life and he was back and had a part time job and going back and forth to the tent in SD Also SD had hep C cases and was disinfectant large portions of downtown. Putting them in tents seems like better than motels.
I go to breakfast in downtown Oceanside CA 5 days week. I live downtown. it’s 6:15 and a u guy is yelling in the middle of the intersection. Then he strips. Not abad show as early morning goes.
Took the cops 5 minutes it was shift change at 6.
We definitely need to get the mentally ill in community clinics. They don’t take their psych meds on the street This are the people that yell and scare people.
The others let’s enforce get a house, get a job here’s a hand up. But no sleeping on the street. No defecting or urinating. Not even steal a shopping cart. 3rd violation prison.
I didn’t mean preserve the history only for your family, but for everyone. Also, hopefully the children of your family’s “younger generation” will have a renewed interest in their roots - and may use the material in a school project sometime.
That’s great that you can make a difference.
The motels solution doesn’t work; here in NJ it became a permanent arrangement in some places and ruined neighborhoods. Some of the worse parts of the Jersey shore had that program contribute to their death spiral years ago, and just recently there was a news story about the how the oppressed children of the welfarians weren’t allowed to use the pools in some motels. I suspect the adults get too comfortable in those arrangements.
any ongoing residency for those not mentally disturbed is a waste of tax payer money. Most disabled people can work, even if it’s stuffing envelopes. I don’t mind public housing but able bodied should pay rent.
Oh! So you guys DO do that? I thought that was one of those silly warning messages they put on things like “do not attempt to iron clothes while wearing them.” I imagine it’s a bit dangerous, but what are you going to do?
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