The more things change

Way back when I was a good little rah! rah!, I was Lori Palmer's appointee to the Plan Commission. I swear! We are talking a long time ago -- 1990.

In 1990, the Downtown street bum problem was causing a desperate situation for businesses and workers. Many companies just moved their operations out of Downtown -- or completely out of the city. They had tried everything, including metal bars on their doors and windows and metal cages around their a/c units, which only gave the street bums more metal to steal and sell off.

They had to hose down their sidewalks regularly to wash off the urine and feces from the street bums, which only made the street bums more bold and violent toward the business owners. They hired security, but that was cost prohibitive. Nothing worked.

As a Plan Commissioner, I represented much of the CBD, and I was soon on Comrade Palmer's **** list when I started opposing every new zoning request for any social service agency -- not because they were social services, but because they all were looking to either open shop in Downtown, Oak Lawn, East Dallas or Oak Cliff. There was a pattern that almost every agency expected their poor clientele to come to the agency, rather than taking the service to those in need.

Downtown was already saturated with homeless and street bums, but almost once a month there was a zoning request for another shelter. I said it then, and it is still true:

The whole social service scam is just a job fair for aging hippies who have never had real jobs.

In 1990, we had suburban do-gooders doling out food to street bums -- like they were feeding trained pigeons -- just like today. Grown men who could not even get a job with the day labor people knew exactly when and where to be to get free food -- and they got there -- just like today.

In 1990, things were so bad, At Large Councilman Jim Buerger got a resolution on the council agenda to impose

"a moratorium on the acceptance of an application for a building permit or a certificate of occupancy for new establishments for care of alcoholic, narcotic or psychiatric patients, foster homes, group homes or shelters for disabled, indigent or abused, and institutions for special education for property within the Central Business District."

Of course, the Social Service Mafia went ballistic and Comrade Palmer and her sergeant Diane Ragsdale were ready for him with a resolution to establish

"a policy review committee for the purpose of reviewing the current Dallas Development Code and recommending revisions to the code, as may be necessary in the category of institutions, community, and certain other uses ...".

The Chair of the Plan Commission put me on the MAYOR'S INSTITUTIONAL AND COMMUNITY SERVICES POLICY REVIEW COMMITTEE, which Comrade Palmer chaired. It was a typical Lori Palmer production. Spend weeks coming up with a "Mission Statement" until some members stop coming on a regular basis and then force through a recommendation that Palmer and her cronies wanted from the beginning.

Many Committee members had not read the Palmer manual. While she was on a month long vacation, some of us were getting things done and were well on the way to an outright ban of any new SS facilities in the CBD, as well as having a spacing requirement between agencies to give some relief to Oak Lawn, Oak Cliff and East Dallas from the concentration of SS operations in those areas. We were taking votes on items, and the SS sympathizers were losing every time. When Palmer got back, she decided that votes were too divisive and we had to reach consensus rather than decision. Consensus was only achieved when her side prevailed, much like the way she and Princess Velveeta forced the amendments to the Oak Lawn Plan on a community in opposition.

So, what's the point in this long history lesson? We are in the same mess -- if not worse today -- than we were 12 years ago. Stop here and read:

City food plan brings harassment fears, Advocates hope the hungry won't be left in the dark 03/15/2002 By KENDALL ANDERSON / The Dallas Morning News

Every weeknight and weekend day, individuals and groups ? from churches to restaurants ? hit the streets with soup, sloppy Joes or other food for Dallas' estimated 3,500 homeless people.

Right off the top -- there are not 3500 homeless Downtown -- or even in the whole city. That is a Social Service myth. There are a bunch of street bums and drunks and addicts in and around Downtown -- but not 3500 or even 1500. But say, there were 4500 street bums Downtown -- so what?

Who cares, except for the devastation they and their providers have caused to Downtown. They have created a No Man's Land near City Hall.

Politicklish:

Amen ...

or as I like to say:

"When you subsidize non-productive behavior, you get more of it, and you make it more difficult for the productive to compete."
_________

Citizen D:

This was the issue that we started off at odds over.

With our limited resources, I agree the City of Dallas government has no business trying to do social services.

I would probably go a bit farther than you, however, and say that the main reason we should not (beyond the fact that we were not set up to do it) is that we are BAD at it!

In so many ways, if we just take care of the basics and be the best city we can be (good streets, good parks, efficient services, sufficient workers, good value for the tax dollar -- even if we have an enormous tax rate -- people will pay for QUALITY), MOST of the other things, including homelessness will take care of themselves.

How did we get so off track?

People like us seem heartless when we point out that the do-gooders are mostly from the suburbs and they come here to fake good works in order to keep those "undesirables" off of their doorsteps.

They (by far) are more cruel and heartless than you could ever dream of being, believe me.

Don't get me started ... I'll just stop here.
_____________
James Northrup:

You are right on. This is Exhibit A for why we sold 40+ acres of downtown. At night, it is an open air thieves market.

Anything that even looks like aluminum or copper has a half life of about a week. Plus cars, etc.

1986 changes to zoning guarantees CBD as the dumping ground for all goldfish feeding operations.

No amount of money on Main Street can overcome this travesty of land use planning.

The part of the story that just really ticked me off were the comments from Princess Velveeta regarding the new 24-hour bum shelter for Downtown:

Princess Velveeta wants to divert millions to assist street bums while she refuses to support a 17% pay raise for our police and firefighters. She is advocating $6 Million for this bum motel, with an annual cost of $2 Million to operate it. Of course, it will be located somewhere near Downtown which will only draw more street bums, which will only push more businesses out while we keep pouring more money into trying to restore Downtown. Money that is not being spent on your neighborhood or your basic services!

It is like the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. You know it is crazy, but with so many people advocating this madness, you start questioning what you know to be right. Don't do that. You know it would be a waste of $6, much less $6 Million, to try to do anything other than ban distribution of food to street bums without proper cooking and regulations. Spending $6 Million of our tax money to build a new shelter near Downtown is crazy. Typical of Comrade Palmer and Princess Velveeta - just find the money somewhere!

We are laying off city hall staffers who serve the needs of Dallas taxpayers, but the city wants to hire TWO CASE WORKERS for street bums. The care and welfare of the indigent is the responsibility of the County. It is not the responsibility of the City of Dallas. We are being hit twice, while suburban taxpayers only pay the County -- and offer no city funded programs for the County's indigent.

Stan Aten found this story from Los Angeles:

Not All Praise Plan for Homeless Shelter
Housing: Advocates say $9 million for sheriff's proposal could be better spent elsewhere.

By CARLA RIVERA, TIMES STAFF WRITER (Los Angeles Times)

It is intended to be a beacon of compassion and succor, cultivated, no less, by the powerful and well-connected sheriff of Los Angeles County. . . . to build an open-air homeless shelter downtown . . . .

But the proposal is meeting surprising resistance from the very community that should be expected to support it most: activists for the homeless. . . . many of downtown's most prominent nonprofits serving the homeless. They contend that the estimated $9 million it would cost to buy property and build the complex could be better spent improving and expanding existing programs.

"Although we applaud the sheriff's effort, we want to move away from the homeless maintenance model to the [homelessness] eradication model," said Pete White, a program manager with the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness. "If we're going to build anything, let's build affordable housing, habitable places for folks." . . .

Although downtown service providers frequently work in collaboration, they are also protective of their turf and there may be an element of jealousy involved, both sides in the debate concede.

The proposal is not the first untraditional approach to homelessness in downtown.

The 9-year-old Dome Village, near Staples Center, houses up to 24 residents in a cluster of white fiberglass domes. During the 1980s, an open-air encampment built under Mayor Tom Bradley was widely considered to be a failure and was later abandoned.

It does not take a rocket scientist to see that nothing the SS Mafia/"homeless" advocates have done or proposed so far has worked. They are "protective of their turf". Their business is manipulating the street bums. If the street bums go away, the SS/"homeless" advocates have no business and might have to get a real job.

The County's existing programs are under-utilized by the street bums and under-funded by the County Commissioners. That does not mean Dallas taxpayers should have to shell out $6 Million, then another $2 Million every year to provide a 24-hour shelter for street bums. Few of the programs address the needs of homeless families or women with children. The ones that do focus on helping families become self-proficient (like The Oasis House or The Family Shelter) go about their business without fanfare.

The street bum advocates do not want to call attention to programs like The Oasis House or The Family Shelter because they actually are into eradicating homelessness and making people become self-sufficient. The SS/street bum advocates would want those people to continue to be dependent on them.

Do-gooders, like Comrade Palmer, closed the mental institutions and forced mentally ill people out on the street to fend for themselves and forced us into a mode where we have to defend ourselves from them. Now, the same do-gooders want to create new institutions where the crazies and street bums can come and go as they please, and we have to pay for it.

If we are going to build a $6 Million facility, it should only be for INDIGENT FAMILIES down on their luck -- NOT STREET BUMS. It should not be permanent housing, but a temporary way station to get FAMILIES back on their feet. It should not be located anywhere near Downtown.

We don't have to build a new Downtown facility when there are homeless shelters all over the South end of Downtown for street bums. If one of the existing shelters or feeding stations wants to stay Downtown, make them operate on a 24-hour basis or close shop. There is so much grant money available, the existing shelters will do whatever necessary to keep on that gravy train.

In the DMN article, there is a quote from a SS Mafia wacko:

Without addressing her plagiarism, street bums are not the same as homeless people. Homeless people are citizens who are temporarily down on their luck and without a home. Street bums have taken the streets as their home. They have confiscated our public streets and public buildings so that people who pay taxes are not safe in either place. THEY ARE NOT STAKEHOLDERS IN THE CITY, BUT THEY ARE DRIVING A STAKE IN THE HEART OF DOWNTOWN.

Street bums are not "the poor", they are street bums who both exploit kind hearted people and are exploited by do-gooders. As long as there are do-gooders to feed and manipulate them, the street bums will always be with us. What may not always be with us are our police officers, who are leaving in droves.

For 27? a day, you know where $100 of your taxes is going. The rest of your hard-earned money is more apt to be wasted on projects like a street bum motel Downtown and hiring people to staff it than devoted to your basic services.

Call me hard hearted, but with our limited resources, our tax money should be going to our public safety officers -- not to public nuisances.