Last Saturday afternoon I rode by on my bicycle and the whole area looked like a garbage truck had exploded, blankets were strewn all over the sidewalks and boulevards. When I took the picture below today, the garbage seemed to be cleaned up (probably blew away) but many of the homeless who are NOT permitted in the shelter, are sleeping on the public sidewalks in front, and it has been going on all summer.
I warned the city council when approving this location that an already strained neighborhood would get worse, and it has. Besides being baffled by why this is being allowed to exist (we supplement the House’s budget) what is the city doing about it? Absolutely nothing!
What makes it even sadder is that the city also employs the house’s director as a part-time employee for CityLink.
One of TenHaken’s campaign promises when he ran 3 years ago was that he would eliminate homelessness. It has actually gotten worse.
There are two solutions we should have done to begin with. The shelter should have been built just North of the jail and not in the middle of a neighborhood on a busy street. Also, the shelter that used to provide cots for the intoxicated should have never closed.
Between panhandling and now the Dudley Sidewalk Slumber Parties our leadership needs to be working on solutions instead of just cutting checks. Of course, this isn’t going on in their neighborhoods, so they don’t give 2 rips.
