When it comes to the mentally ill and homeless, out of sight out of mind preferred

Time newsfeed article

Kicking Out the Homeless in Downtown Columbia, South Carolina
The controversial plan, approved by the city council, would exile those who sleep outdoors in the city center to a shelter on the outskirts of town

Finding ways to help the homeless population is one of the hardest problems any big city faces. However, one South Carolina municipality has found a cheap and easy solution: Out of sight, out of mind.

Under the “Emergency Homeless Response” plan (which can be read in full here), passed last week by the Columbia City Council, homeless-looking citizens in Columbia’s 36-block downtown area will be asked by police to move to a shelter on the outskirts of the city. Should the person refuse, the State reports, “they could be arrested under a range of public nuisance laws that include loitering, public intoxication, public urination, aggressive panhandling or trespassing.”

Coercing suspected homeless into shelter on the edge of town is just one of the plan’s controversial aspects. Once at the shelter, the potentially unwilling residents would be prevented from leaving except by specific appointment. The only approved way to exit the installation is by reserving a shuttle ride. In order to further ensure shelter-goers do not return to the business district, a police officer will be placed on the road leading downtown to redirect homeless people away from the area.

The central role of a single shelter has also been criticized for not providing the capacity necessary to house all of Columbia’s homeless. The expanded center, slated to open on September 15th, would only have enough room for less than one-sixth of the city’s homeless population.

The South Carolina capital isn’t the first city to try relocating homeless people. From Hawaii to San Francisco, other areas in the U.S. have offered the homeless one-way plane tickets back to their places of origin. But these recent plans bear little resemblance to Columbia’s mandatory removal of suspected vagrants. Both San Francisco and Hawaii’s programs are voluntary, and intended to re-unite the homeless with family members who can help them get back on their feet.

Instead, Columbia’s plan is more reminiscent of the “tough love” policies of the late 1990s, most famously associated with New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. A 1999 TIME article reports how 24 cities had begun conducting nightly police sweeps to dislodge the homeless, and detailed the NYC mayor’s plan to remove all “able-bodied” homeless people from shelters if they refused to work. A New York Times article from the same year recounts how the NYPD would hand out $76 citations to those living on the street as punishment for “camping in public.”

Homeless advocates in Columbia have made it clear that the City Council’s plan will not be implemented without a fight. Tom Turnipseed, a local attorney, has promised to file a federal lawsuit, and he expects both the ACLU and Columbia’s Appleseed Legal Justice Center will aid his efforts.

But at least some Columbians have expressed support for the Council’s policy. Eric Bland, a lawyer, told the State that the large number of homeless people near his workplace make him feel unsafe. “The lawyers that are screaming aren’t the ones at Ground Zero of this,” said Bland. “They’re not the ones paying the taxes.”

“It’s the city’s obligation to provide for the health and welfare of its citizens,” Bland added. The homeless “don’t have the right to stop people from the use and enjoyment of their property.”

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Contrary to the BS coming from the Government, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street, the economy is not improving for anyone except the RICH. The jobs being created are temporary, part-time and contract positions that pay approximately minimum wage. You can't rent an apartment and pay all your other bills on minimum wage. The outcome is people living out of their cars. According to those interviewed, there is a waiting list to get into these "safe parking lots" and the list is getting longer.

The nation that once took pride in being humane and fighting the good fight against the evil in the world is now becoming an evil nation itself. Does Nazi Germany come to mind? What will they all do when they finally realize that they can't just sweep the homeless under the rug? Does Hitler's Final Solution come to mind?

I think India comes to mind, with their caste system.. when I read shit like this.

I find it refreshing that the city has enough concern about the homeless that they have created a shelter for them. All topo many places just ignore the problem and do nothing or like in the city of Houston prohibit the feeding of the homeless.

I sort of understand and can relate to my bird feeders I had at one time. I fixed up my backyard and put up a bird feeder to attract the pretty songbirds and offer them some food in the harder times. They started showing up so I put up a few more feeders so there would be plenty. Before I knoew it I had all kinds of birds hanging around shitting all over the place and wiping out all of the food in a day. It got expensive filling those feeders every day and they were running off the songbirds I had hoped to attract. The birds became rude and demanding so I took down the feeders and shut off the food supply. Now my yard is nice and clean again and a pleasure to be in. I have since become aware of which birds I call "Democrat" birds.

why don't they sod over them ...or plant around them?

I have since become aware of which birds I call "Democrat" birds. Originally Posted by The2Dogs

Are those the ones that don't sing pretty songs, usually are "in season," often have "open season" unless protected by state law, and extremely annoying?

Sort of. They are the ones that show u[p for something free, shit all over the place, do not add anything of value to the area, run off the desirable birds, and bitch when the food runs out.

Dallas is doing the same thing in downtown now. More people are living downtown, so the police are arresting and ticketing anyone who sleeps in the streets downtown.

They can panhandle during the day, but at night, they have to get back to the shelter.

No complaint from me. I support the policy.

My question is, is this even legal keeping people in an area against their will because they are poor and homeless?

Quote from article: Coercing suspected homeless into shelter on the edge of town is just one of the plan’s controversial aspects. Once at the shelter, the potentially unwilling residents would be prevented from leaving except by specific appointment. The only approved way to exit the installation is by reserving a shuttle ride. In order to further ensure shelter-goers do not return to the business district, a police officer will be placed on the road leading downtown to redirect homeless people away from the area.

It also states in the article that the shelter doesn't have the capacity for all the homeless/poor.

I don't know, it seems more like an illegal thing to try and force anyone to stay in an area and tell them they can't leave. It targets the poor and homeless. I just think this is a very ineffective way of handling a huge problem.

When did it become a "homeless" problem? From the establishment of this country there have been men, women, and children who do not have a permanent home. They were not called homeless then. They were called beggars, bums, and vagrants. Some went to where the work or opportunities were at. They were never really homeless, they just didn't have a home. Other people stayed around and depended on charity. If they were deserving by community standards then they got something to eat. A lazy, drunken wretch would find little sympathy among the towns people. People who created a debt could look forward to debter's prison or the work house.
A person who immigrated to the US had to find a job, shelter, and buy their own food. There was not handout. We got some good people who were willing to work hard and do jobs that no one else wanted to do. A man arrives without a pot to piss in and gets a job at the slaughter house, his son goes to grade school, speaks English, and gets a job as a plumber, his grandson graduates from high school and becomes his own boss as a shop keeper, his great grand daughter graduates from college and becomes a lawyer. Too many people think they are supposed to go right to the lawyer gig.

Back to the question, where did the homeless come from? In the early 1980s New York was taken to court about institutionalizing the mentally challenged. Inside they had shelter, food, and healthcare. It was probably not the best but at least they had it. The New York Supreme Court decided that the state DID NOT have the right to hold people who had committed no crime and had never had due process. Mario Cuomo opened the doors and released all the inmates. Other states followed and we had 10s of thousands of people wandering the streets. So what do we do? Do we protect society and the people, including the mentally ill, and lock them up for their own good in humane circumstances or do we follow liberal protocol and set them free.....to starve, to commit crimes, to be taken advantage of, or to be killed? Let each state decide. Already we have sanuctuary states like Hawaii and California that freeloaders know offer a good life for someone who doesn't want to work or clean up. States that want to be "harsh" can force the homeless to relocate themselves.

My question is, is this even legal keeping people in an area against their will because they are poor and homeless?

Quote from article: Coercing suspected homeless into shelter on the edge of town is just one of the plan’s controversial aspects. Once at the shelter, the potentially unwilling residents would be prevented from leaving except by specific appointment. The only approved way to exit the installation is by reserving a shuttle ride. In order to further ensure shelter-goers do not return to the business district, a police officer will be placed on the road leading downtown to redirect homeless people away from the area.

It also states in the article that the shelter doesn't have the capacity for all the homeless/poor.

I don't know, it seems more like an illegal thing to try and force anyone to stay in an area and tell them they can't leave. It targets the poor and homeless. I just think this is a very ineffective way of handling a huge problem. Originally Posted by Stan.Dupp

Recommend you read Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. The book deals with Orwell's personal experiences as a tramp during the depression. In England, tramps had to keep moving on "the circuit": meaning a tramp couldn't stay in one place for too long or he would be arrested. This necessitated that the tramp keep moving between established, institutional flop houses: tramping "the circuit". His book serves as an informative snapshot on this subject, albeit in a different time and place.

When did it become a "homeless" problem? From the establishment of this country there have been men, women, and children who do not have a permanent home. They were not called homeless then. They were called beggars, bums, and vagrants. Some went to where the work or opportunities were at. They were never really homeless, they just didn't have a home. Other people stayed around and depended on charity. If they were deserving by community standards then they got something to eat. A lazy, drunken wretch would find little sympathy among the towns people. People who created a debt could look forward to debter's prison or the work house.
A person who immigrated to the US had to find a job, shelter, and buy their own food. There was not handout. We got some good people who were willing to work hard and do jobs that no one else wanted to do. A man arrives without a pot to piss in and gets a job at the slaughter house, his son goes to grade school, speaks English, and gets a job as a plumber, his grandson graduates from high school and becomes his own boss as a shop keeper, his great grand daughter graduates from college and becomes a lawyer. Too many people think they are supposed to go right to the lawyer gig.

Back to the question, where did the homeless come from? In the early 1980s New York was taken to court about institutionalizing the mentally challenged. Inside they had shelter, food, and healthcare. It was probably not the best but at least they had it. The New York Supreme Court decided that the state DID NOT have the right to hold people who had committed no crime and had never had due process. Mario Cuomo opened the doors and released all the inmates. Other states followed and we had 10s of thousands of people wandering the streets. So what do we do? Do we protect society and the people, including the mentally ill, and lock them up for their own good in humane circumstances or do we follow liberal protocol and set them free.....to starve, to commit crimes, to be taken advantage of, or to be killed? Let each state decide. Already we have sanuctuary states like Hawaii and California that freeloaders know offer a good life for someone who doesn't want to work or clean up. States that want to be "harsh" can force the homeless to relocate themselves. Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

You just said what I was going to say. You saved me a lot of typing.

why don't they sod over them ...or plant around them?

Originally Posted by JCM800

Haha.. looks like your GIF is more true than you realize!!

Apparently NC is making it illegal to feed homeless/poor people! See this article where a church organization goes out and for years has been feeding the homeless/poor and the cops barred them from doing so upon arrest. I guess they are serious about their poor people detention camps..

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Church News article Link

Feeding Homeless Apparently Illegal in Raleigh, NC

This morning we showed up at Moore Square at 9:00 a.m., just like we have done virtually every Saturday and Sunday for the last six years. We provide, without cost or obligation, hot coffee and a breakfast sandwich to anyone who wants one. We keep this promise to our community in cooperation with five different large suburban churches that help us with manpower and funding.

Today officers from Raleigh Police Department prevented us from doing our work, for the first time ever. An officer said, quite bluntly, that if we attempted to distribute food, we would be arrested.

Our partner church brought 100 sausage biscuits and large amounts of coffee. We asked the officers for permission to disperse the biscuits to the over 70 people who had lined up, waiting to eat. They said no. I had to face those who were waiting and tell them that I could not feed them, or I would be arrested.

In the past, we have had a good working relationship with the Raleigh Police Department. We knew that we could not use the park itself, as doing so required a permit, but that it was fine if we wanted to set up on the sidewalk, as long as we did not block the sidewalk and cleaned up after ourselves. We have operated, unmolested, under this assumption for the last six years.

By the way, each permit to use the park costs $800. Yes, eight hundred dollars. That would cost us $1,600 every weekend, and the officer we spoke to said the City likely wouldn’t approve it anyway.

Now, however, we are hearing that we can’t distribute food at the park, period. No representative from the Raleigh Police Department was willing to tell us which ordinance we were breaking, or why, after six years and countless friendly and cooperative encounters with the Department, they are now preventing us from feeding hungry people.

When I asked the officer why, he said that he was not going to debate me. “I am just telling you what is. Now you pass out that food, you will go to jail.”

What We Will Do

Simple: we will feed people. I am, after all (however imperfectly), a follower of Jesus, who said himself that when we ignore hungry people, we ignore him. The only question that remains is where we will do it.

We knew that with the upcoming revitalization of Moore Square, we would have to find alternative arrangements. We have been working to that end, but as the revitalization is currently unfunded, and has no start date, we felt we had some time.

Regardless, we will find a venue in the downtown core to feed people. We are committed to this and to our people, and it will happen. If you have a private building or parking lot in the downtown core you are willing to let us use, please contact me by email at hugh@lovewins.info.

What We Won’t Do

We appreciate all the ways you have written in to suggest that we could subvert the system, but to do that only admits to the City of Raleigh that its argument is legitimate. We maintain we have done nothing wrong.

We feed people and have been doing so, and much more, for six years. On the weekends people have no where else to go other than the park because Wake County and/or the City of Raleigh offers no soup kitchens or other options on the weekends. None. There is no “official” place you can get a meal if you are homeless or at-risk of homelessness. You are left to your wits, and for the last six years, you could get a cup of hot coffee and a hot breakfast sandwich from us – because you could not get one from any tax funded location.

We have not hidden. Our work of bringing biscuits to the park has been mentioned in multiple full-page articles in the local paper over the years. We have had countless routine conversations with the police while doing this alleged illegal activity. We do not hide. And while, according to the City of Raleigh, it might be illegal to feed hungry people, it is most assuredly the right thing to do.

What You Can Do

Several things. While it was Raleigh Police Department that threw us out of the park and threatened to arrest us, we realize they are acting under orders. Ultimately, they serve the interests of the Mayor and the City Council. In the words of the officer in charge today, “You need to take it up with the City Council.”

And if history has taught us anything, it is, as Frederick Douglas said, that “power concedes nothing without demand.”

1. Below are the email addresses and phone numbers of the Mayor and of the City Council members. We encourage you to email them and ask A) why organizations, such as Love Wins Ministries, are being prevented from feeding people in the park, when the City of Raleigh has no means of or plans to feed them and B) encourage them to allow said feeding to continue.

Keeping in mind that we win over no one with anger or rudeness. Anger does not cast out fear – only love can do that.

* Out of town folks, call any and all of the City Council members.

* Raleigh residents, call the City Council member representing your district. You can find your district by entering your address here.

Only half the story huh? Typical. I don't agree with the reason but they did the same thing in New Orleans when I was there. The reason? Lawyers and lawsuits. Restaurants were allowing people to go through the left overs for the day and I mean places like Brennan's which is top of the line. This wasn't just dumpster diving either. They didn't dump the food, they put it out in cartons. Anyway, the city of New Orleans enacted a law making it illegal because the restaurants and the city could be on the hook for any lawsuits generated by food poisoning. That is the other half of the story, liability. You could say that the risk belongs to the shop or business but the attorneys said that if the city did not take action then the city was also on the hook. We know who loves attorneys, liberals. They breed them like cockroaches and like cockroaches and shit we get lawsuits. So I guess you can lay the blame for this at the feet of the same do-gooders that now want to do it. Another example of the insanity of liberalism.

Back to the question, where did the homeless come from? In the early 1980s New York was taken to court about institutionalizing the mentally challenged. Inside they had shelter, food, and healthcare. It was probably not the best but at least they had it. The New York Supreme Court decided that the state DID NOT have the right to hold people who had committed no crime and had never had due process. Mario Cuomo opened the doors and released all the inmates. Other states followed and we had 10s of thousands of people wandering the streets. So what do we do? Do we protect society and the people, including the mentally ill, and lock them up for their own good in humane circumstances or do we follow liberal protocol and set them free.....to starve, to commit crimes, to be taken advantage of, or to be killed? Let each state decide. Already we have sanuctuary states like Hawaii and California that freeloaders know offer a good life for someone who doesn't want to work or clean up. States that want to be "harsh" can force the homeless to relocate themselves. Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

I think the reason you saw so many of the psychiatric institutions (not facilities) but asylums shut down is because of a number of factors. Gross negligence, abuse, and people who were not suppose to be in there were being put in there. In addition forcibly committing someone without due process, or some review to ensure they had a plan of eventually being stabilized then able to rejoin the rest of the community was something a lot of people complained about. There are numerous horror stories of asylums across the country that got caught doing such horrible things to the severely mentally ill, and in a lot of cases killing them.

But I do agree with you that we need to revisit looking at these psychiatric institutions again for the severely ill. There are some who will never get better, and who will always need full time care. Some families just don't have the means to care for such an individual so they dump them on the streets so to speak. Like this article here talks about even more shutting down of psychiatric facilities today Nine State Psychiatric Centers to close in plan

Not everyone who is homeless though is mentally ill. Some people just got caught up in the 2008-2010 downturn and we havent' really gotten our economy back yet. There are still so many regular families who are homeless living in tents, who have lost everything, and still can't get a job.

The shelters are overburdened nationwide and cannot house everyone. Most times they turn a lot of people away because they have no room. People are not donating to shelters anymore either, there is a huge lack of funds, and the states have cut back severely recently in aiding the shelters. I guess we are now going back to those depression era days where there were poor people out in "tent cities" living on the edges of town.

Only half the story huh? Typical. I don't agree with the reason but they did the same thing in New Orleans when I was there. The reason? Lawyers and lawsuits. Restaurants were allowing people to go through the left overs for the day and I mean places like Brennan's which is top of the line. This wasn't just dumpster diving either. They didn't dump the food, they put it out in cartons. Anyway, the city of New Orleans enacted a law making it illegal because the restaurants and the city could be on the hook for any lawsuits generated by food poisoning. That is the other half of the story, liability. You could say that the risk belongs to the shop or business but the attorneys said that if the city did not take action then the city was also on the hook. We know who loves attorneys, liberals. They breed them like cockroaches and like cockroaches and shit we get lawsuits. So I guess you can lay the blame for this at the feet of the same do-gooders that now want to do it. Another example of the insanity of liberalism. Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

Well I don't know what the whole story is, just posted what the article said. I think a poster who commented brought up some issue with "clean up". So maybe the church people aren't cleaning up after feeding the homeless? I don't know, doesn't seem like they would do that.. but maybe that was the issue. Or maybe they are just real serious about starving out the homeless, and forcing them to the outside of town? Anyway I posted to you above on the mentally ill thing.