Am I crazy to think that the homeless situation has never been approached logically?
Let us just change our tack and consider the homeless to be human and worthy of dignity. That will change everything. Why should they not have their tents? Why should they not have plumbing. In every South American city there are tent cities, shacks, hovels. There are streets, there is an economy. Why punish these people constantly? Just start to treat them as another level of our economic system. They produce something. That can be honored.
Give them a tent city.
Give plumbing for showers and laundry. Make it outdoor plumbing, that's ok. Let them have toilets.
Where is the problem with this? Already they have to pee, they will do it somewhere, if you give the toilets, you will control where they pee. Giving out $50 and $200 citations to people who cannot pay them does not solve anything.
Then, set up an alternative scrip. Make Austin dollars. Pay the homeless to do some work on the city, clean up the parks, make things beautiful again. Let them buy the food you are handing out now for free with their new scrip. Give them their own economy. What would be so hard about this?
Let them connect with each other. Give them telephones where they can get incoming phone calls. Let people find them. At least make it easier for homeless children to connect and inform relatives or friends that they are ok.
Set up this currency and then let people work for it. Then let them buy things for this currency, things that you are now doling out. Turn it into a real alternative economy. Let people spend that money then as they please. No one has to sanction moonshine. Just let people spend their own money. People are going to be transient. Why can't we live with that finally?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi, I remember you guys. It's actually a relief to know that you are in Oregon, in the sense that I don't have to wonder why you guys never come check me out on the street (what did I do or say:/)
ReplyDeleteI'll have to read your blog; I'm thinking of following the warm weather up the coast, so that when it's 100 in Mobile, I'll be up by Vermont or somewhere. I have family in Mass.
I just need to make sure that I won't be spending too much on booze and smokes, and making for hardships (like old rusty strings) I want to follow Widespread Panic or Ratdog tour from city to city, to take advantage of the style that I play, and to have a motivation to keep moving -have been in Mobile 8 months, --too long!!!