DC Anonymous

Everything is helpful, hopefully this turns out to be a commendable effort.

11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

ch0 Anonymous

Ship em out!! Homeless Island would also make for great TV

11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

inarchetype Anonymous

Yost,

You are unbelievable.
I can tell you categorically that at least one of your customers does not appreciate this program at all, or your attitude towards the less fortunate. I know a couple of others who would almost certainly bemoan your attitude as well.

You typify the provincialism and meanness for which our fair city has unfortunately garnered a national reputation. I'm not even going to address your litany of misinformed nonsense regarding the homeless and their condition, but it will be clear to most that you have never taken the time to learn much about it.

I wish you and your business the best, and am sure that if you can get beyond this canard of blaming your slow success on the scapegoats least capable of defending themselves, you will eventually do well.

You chose to locate where you did. I think we all assumed you were interested in serving a "real" city. I assume that is because you look forward to the trappings of serving a "real" city as it develops and revitalizes itself. Real cities attract and accommodate a wide variety of people. They also shoulder the responsibilities that come along with those trappings. It sounds now as though you would have been more comfortable at Firewheel, Addison Circle, or the Shops at Legacy. If so, perhaps you should consider the move.

It is also clear that you see yourself as a species fundamentally different from those you deride; I sincerely hope that you are disabused of this brittle smugness the easy way, by gaining wisdom, rather than via the one cascade of misfortune that it would take for you, like most of us, to end up in their shoes. Luckily, I suspect your blinkered perspective is mostly the product of having read one or two Ayn Rand books in high school while lacking sufficient critical faculties to maintain balance, and so could be curable through maturity and education.

Its a shame, frankly, Pearl seemed to have some potential. On principal, however, I choose to patronize downtown businesses that are good neighbors in the community and whose owners do not espouse values that embarrass us as a city. It is the widely held perception of Dallas as a provincial, backward place that is really holding us back, not the homeless. I cannot in good conscience support businesses that reinforces those perceptions.

Oh, about those "biblical times"; Perhaps you should read a little more about them and find out what those biblical authors had to say about those who treat the less fortunate as you do.

All the best,

...

11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

inarchetype Anonymous

OK. thats rich. I would be offended but I can't stop laughing.

11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

inarchetype Anonymous

Yost,

There is no shortage of ideas on what to do, but there is little need for originality as there are plenty of models elsewhere. Unfortunately, most of them presuppose a pragmatic concern with addressing the issue, and so tend not to have much appeal for those who are primarily concerned with self-validating ideologies.

Fortunately, others in the city are implementing some of the obvious steps, and the voter support for such programs should be informative to you. It appears that there will be positive progress, provided that you and your kind are not successful in undermining your own interests by obstructing it. It will, however, be no thanks to draconian clearance efforts like "Operation Rescue".

I will offer you an apology for the last three and a half lines of my paragraph five above, which was unnecessarily antagonistic while adding nothing to the post. It was speculative, unfair, and maybe even inaccurate. Unfortunately, I can't edit the post, so a verbal retraction will have to do.

I will also offer one example of where pragmatism and your ideology conflict. No one likes to encounter excrement (or any other bodily emissions) in public, whether they emanate from the homeless or anyone else who happens to be downtown when they develop an urgent need. The obvious solution implemented by most cities to this problem is to emplace public restrooms. Some of these are technological marvels that clean themselves after each use. On a per-capita basis, such a move costs very little. No more poop. Of course, if your ideology prevents you from endorsing the public provision of anything, this solution is not available to you. In this case, you will just have to put up with the poop while, ironically, diverting a similar magnitude of public resources to trying with futility to prevent the pooping or get rid of the poopers. Believe me, no one enjoys having to poop behind your building, and I promise you that even the most degraded find it degrading.

A regrettable consequence of your particularly vocal stand on this issue is that, while I once enthusiastically patronized downtown businesses as a matter of principal, I now can't help but wonder how deserving of business their owners really are. This is an unfair, but inevitable and largely sub-conscious generalization. I know of others, however, who have been given the same pause. Consumer choice is a complicated beast. I think, for the good of the city, you should consider the damage you are doing to the image of downtown businesses in the eyes of many. Business owners downtown really do need to realize how utterly provincial this entire issue strikes those from other places with downtowns we envy.

Your business makes a needed contribution to the life of downtown. Contrary to your wife's assumption, I, like many, do appreciate what you offer. Your rhetoric, however, counteracts the good that you are doing.

11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

teejo Anonymous

For those feeling sorry for all the homeless people, well give them your money that you work for each and everyday. You want to support their drug habits, stealing, harassing people for money..then go right ahead and take your money to do it. Taking a shi* by businesses and littering the streets with their useless selves is pathetic. With the exception of a few who really do have mental and health issues that need to be dealt with, the majority of them are just lazy good for nothing bums who can't and won't get a job and take care of themselves. It is those who want to hand them .50 or a dollar everytime they ask for it that keeps them living the way they do! Stop contributing to their laziness and make them earn a place to live and food to eat like the rest of the tax paying working public does.

11 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

pampaloma Anonymous

"The goal of Operation Rescue is to assist unsheltered homeless people experiencing severe mental health and addiction disorders to gain treatment and entry into supportive housing programs. Crisis Homeless Outreach caseworkers will intensify their ongoing engagement in reaching out to the unsheltered homeless, and will focus on those who may be experiencing a crisis."

I work close to Deep Ellum and no longer can walk during my lunch hour because of homeless people nagging at me for handouts. I catch a bus at Ervay and Main where I can watch the wretches drag themselves to their safe zones. I watch the homeless smokers pick up old butts off the sidewalk and then ask me for light (I don't smoke). These people annoy the crap out of me but I don't go ahead and do such on the street. They've interrupted my life way too often and besides which their close proximity to me really stinks up the air I'm breathing. "Can you spare a dollar so I can get a bath at the shelter?" Oh please!

These are not the people in crises!!! The people in crises need help. The above article is not talking about the lazy, drunk, job avoiding, car breaking into, pooping and peeing panhandlers but the too sick mentally who can't wrap their thoughts around anything productive let alone thinking about getting help.

Don't get sidetracked from the issue.

11 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Catte_Nappe Anonymous

Good grief. What a debate. I've spent a couple of decades working with various aspects of this problem, so take my opinion for whatever it is worth.

First, "Homeless" is an adjective, not a noun. No point in talking about "the Homeless". It is not a homogeneous group. There is no "one size fits all" answer. Obviously the needs of a homeless mother with children are going to be different than a homeless and disabled elderly person.

Some commenters seem to believe that relatively few homeless people they see are mentally ill. I have yet to see anyone with a tattoo on their forehead saying "mentally ill"; so I'm not sure how you reach that conclusion. Many mentally ill people are educated, well spoken, and seem quite sensible and capable in certain aspects of their lives and/or for a limited period of time. Nevertheless they are quite incapable of maintaining a job, which requires a level of consistency in attendance, performance and social interaction that is beyond them; even more so if there have been problems with their medication. There are very few places other than the jail and the streets for these people. In addition, for good or ill, our legal system does not allow for their being forced to accept treatment or supervision that might help them become more stable and functional.

Many comments seem to recognize there are a goodly number of homeless people with substance abuse problems. By the time an addict is on the streets "sober up and get a job" is not a viable prescription. Addiction is a disease, and the addict cannot just "pull himself up by his bootstraps", even if he wants to. It is going to take heroic efforts and a lot of support and a fair amount of time - none of which are available on a park bench or behind your dumpster. It surely isn't going to happen at all if s/he doesn't particularly want to take on that challenge. And before anybody goes all judgemental about that they should examine their own weaknesses for things not particularly good for them - from alcohol or drugs, to smoking, to donuts, to caffeine, to not exercising, to whatever else was on your failed New Year's resolution list. If it was easy you would have done it already. An addict on the streets is so physically, mentally and emotionally dependent on the substance of choice that s/he can only wish it were merely ten times as hard as saying no to a dessert.

Where are people like this supposed to go? One necessary component of a solution is Single Room Occupancy (SRO) housing. Something like the boarding houses and hotels of the old days. Operated with enough money to provide a decent level of cleanliness and care. (Refer to recent articles in the DMN about the conditions that many mentally ill and disabled have been enduring in various "board and care" or "group living" programs.)

We have nowhere near enough safe and decent housing for people at the lowest income levels; whether apartments for families, or SRO's for singles. We have nowhere near enough money going into programs to support people who need such housing, to help bring them to an optimal level of sufficiency commensurate with their individual abilities.

In the meantime they are in jail; or on the streets, sleeping on your porch, and panhandling in your parking lot. And it's not just happening downtown, either. The new, soon-to-be resource center downtown is just the beginning of a whole lot of work this city (and this country) need to do.

11 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )