Finally! Out come the torches and pitchforks!

[freshwest]

42. Very true.! A sort of 'fuggitaboutit.' These are citizens, there's no excuse for homelessness.

A city is not a wilderness. Our citizens are not wild animals that should forage for food or make dens under bridges and in corners to sleep or protect themselves from the elements. They are not bears that shit in the woods.

They are treated this way as a result of defunding the social safety net for decades until the infrastructure that once existed has been sold off to the private sector and the citizens are being ignored. They are standing like the paupers in Dickens time looking in the windows at those who are entitled by wealth while they are in the cold.

Not saying these peeps are the easiest to deal with, that the failure rate of integrating them into society won't be high. The issue in not a culture of homelessness but no housing. All the charity feeding lines and shelters are a feel-good, piecemeal solution that only scratches at the outside of the boot to relieve the itch inside it. The root is housing.

The failureo of private charity and the churches to relieve long term problems is the reason for the huge programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Housing should and can be given unconditionally as we have done here some years ago, as has been done in UT and AZ now. Give a person a roof over their head, and no more feeding lines, no more of the problems of street living. Street living should not be protected as if is a picnic or a camping trip. It's not. It's failure.

Housing - whatever kind it is, a highrise apartment as we've done in WA, HUD, or any other that only government has the pockets and stability to provide, is the answer. For years we've been fed the Raygun pablum that the private sector can handle all of this and that's the moral way to do it.

In a country with the level of wealth this one has, no matter where thay wealth is being kept, this is so far past being incompetence that is not really incompetence. It's been planned, mostly at the local level where developers and other vultures are ready to scoop up resources for their own benefit. Then come the troglodytes they elect to office to make this Victorian era misery national policy.

And as meaningful to the historical record of this kind of protest, this was not at all well organized. Yes, they made a video that looks like a party but did it change the greater forces that require being at planning meetings or zoning boards, or community outreach funded by the city?

I just don't know; I am just adding to your comment that I agree with you,elaborating on the concept that the private sector is not going to do any thing but prolong the agony.

JMHO.