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.
He doesn’t like the name affordable housing either. So, when is he going to change the name for that, in order, to then solve that problem?
The area there and east to Cliff Ave is shameful. A prosperous city should do something for the less fortunate. Meanwhile, the mayor gives away million dollar tax breaks to out of state and overseas interests. Disgusting.
The city is too busy worrying about placement of residents trash cans and handing out tax breaks & TIFs to companies who dont need them all the while over taxing homeowners to worry about this kind of things.
Seriously though, sems we need to vote out all the council members AND the mayor.
I went driving by @ 6pm Sat nite–it was unreal. Never seen it so bad. Like rejects from a Dead concert that missed the bus last year….friend of mine was with me from Des Moines—they really were surprised by the scene. People passed out all over—trash, bikes, etc….
should that new electronic bilboard on s Cliff really be where it is out in front of the old 7-11/new bikeshop? It makes that whole natural area look tacky as hell and runs paul’s campaign slideshow 24/7 like some nightclub ad in the desert outside of las vegas. I would have expected the city to try to at least keep the river greenway non-cluttered with this kind of e-crap. Most of the intended audience of car drivers who will be seeing it should be trying to avoid hitting the bridge abutments instead of getting distracted by the mayor’s new personal bug zapper. why not move it down to that heritage park to keep his dangerous homeless camp lit up at night.