by Jack
“A very successful hotel owner realized there were some in his community that were homeless. So, being a good man, he allocated a few of his hotel rooms to them free of charge. He quickly filled these rooms. But, the homeless were still coming expecting more free rooms. Being a very generous man, he allocated even more rooms for the homeless and still more homeless arrived. Soon his hotel started to show signs of decline, there was vandalism, trash and even the police had to be called to remove disorderly people. His paying customers were in sharp decline. Soon he had no choice but to lay off some staff jut to pay his bills. This included a few of his gardeners, a few housekeepers and a few maintenance people and now these people were unemployed and he felt sad. As the hotel fell into decline so did his business, until he was nearly broke. Then he had a wonderful idea! He would ask homeless to help him with the gardening, the maintenance and the housekeeping in exchange for free lodging. To his surprise, the homeless soon disappeared, but by this time he was penniless, his business was ruined and now he too was homeless.” Anon.
This could easily be about Chico and our homeless problem. I recently read where another group wants to build yet another homeless shelter. They want to spend over 1.4 million for more beds, but they don’t want to use their money of course…they want ours. And isn’t that always the case with these libs? They’re so generous when it comes to giving away somebody elses money! As you might expect, the people who are behind this project are young adults, full of idealism and short on work experience. They’re not giving much thought to the impact an additional shelter will have on our community.
Already the downtown plaza is being called “Bum Central”, do we really want to attract more?
Regarding this new shelter…the question nobody wants to answer is, if we build another shelter will it be enough? Will it ever be enough? Or will the demand always exceed the supply because by building another huge shelter, we are in essence asking for the homeless in other places to come to Chico?
This is a difficult problem and there is likely no easy nor perfect answer, but I think asking able-bodied homeless to donate some work in exchange for food and shelter is pretty close to a solution. We might be surprised to see our homeless suddenly seek other places that don’t make such demands on them. Imagine, having to work for your food…what a concept! But, sooner or later its going to come to that or this problem is only going to get worse. We have too many people taking advantage of Chico’s charity and giving back nothing in return – this must change.
Jack, this is a subject that needs input. The homeless problem is not going to be resolved with a bigger hand out, not just here but anywhere in the country. If, as you report the group behind another shelter is young and lack life’s experience, I would suggest they enlist input (a lot of it) from those who may be less idealistic in their approach and actually have had hands on experience working with the homeless. Portland Oregon comes to mind and how they tried to help those in a homeless situation, in fact the model you mention this group wants which is MORE housing with less restrictions and rules is the very downfall of Portland’s project which had to be scraped. And the consequences were ALL THE ADDITIONAL people who moved in were once more displaced, and had no where to go other than the streets again, and this time there were more of them. what that created was a more rapid decline in areas of congregation. No one benefited from the free ride program, and Portland had a bigger problem to resolve(harshly)than to begin with.
We need to get people thinking about improving their lives ,not making it easier to exist on the backs of society. The one constant that seems to prevail is that those who want to improve very well will have, even without a assist, and there will always be a portion of humanity that just sucks off the rest. this may seem cold to some, but what good are intentions if not fulfilled by effort on everyones part.
I should add, I do not believe anything we laypeople can do will benefit those people on a ongoing basis those afflicted with Mental illness or special needs. There is already a service in town designed to help those find living space, and assist with medical requirements. They need the guidance of councilors and not just warehousing.
For the seriously mentally ill and physically impared I totally agree Harold. It’s way beyond whatever we can offer, even if we wanted too. But, sadly the profile for today’s homless has changed from the needy to the greedy. From, the can’t work to the won’t work. These are mostly young white males who choose to go on the road and it seems like Chico is a favorite spot on their vacation.
I for one am totally fed up with the homeless situation in downtown Chico. I go downtown less and less. If I can park right in front of the business I want to patronize then I will go, but the days of wandering through stores shopping downtown are over for me and my kids. I will not subject them to it.
We had dinner at Pluto’s this week. I parked close and it was a short walk. Right across the street in the doorway of Zuchini and Vine were multiple homeless camped out (the business can’t have been closed for more than 30 minutes). They were filthy and their piles of trash were all around them. I am not interested in spending money downtown if I have to see that and walk by it. I love downtown Chico businesses, but I’m not going there if I have to deal with the homeless problem.
We spent millions on that park, just so it could turn into a campground.
Ridiculous.