Saturday, December 12, 2009

Tom On The Homeless

Nice letter from our very own Tom Sebourn in today's Times- Standard. I'll have to take issue with one thing, though. The issue of whether the homeless should be allowed to camp in the City Hall parking lot aside, I don't know that those homeless are all that much worse off because of being run off.

Tom cites the very cold weather at the time of their removal. So? It's not like they were staying inside City Hall or being run out of a National Guard Armory. They were probably just as cold sleeping in that parking lot as they are wherever they're staying now. Unless they actually found a warm place to stay, their exposure to cold hasn't changed much, if at all, from being moved out of that parking lot.

5 Comments:

At 9:52 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nearly no one seems to know this for some reason, but camping on county owned property is actually illegal. Don't believe me? Go and ask the county courthouse!

 
At 2:28 PM, Blogger Tom Sebourn said...

From the ones I talked to, they don't realy want to camp at the City Hall. They just want an abandoned lot somewhere to camp at night. They seem to be willing to take it down every morning and go about their day. It is frightning for most of them at night. They feel safer camping together so they can look out for one and other. A parking lot with a porta potty.

 
At 10:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I get that Tom

You have a following. Perhaps if you take the Kim Starr, Verbosa-style element out of the equation,something more meaningful could be accomplished.

There are a lot of people who are homed that want to work toward a solution....or at least a partial solution.

This is something I know not something I think.

When it is cold like it was last week, I was troubled about those souls outside. My family was warm those nights. I won't apologize for that....it took 30 years of 60 hour weeks to get there.

Fred makes a good point. If not the City Hall parking lot? where?

There is some traction and there are emerging options.

Verbosa confounds any hope of consensus. I hope you get that the in-your-face headlines are counter productive.

Just self serving BS for one troubled soul who needs a lot of attention and seems to be getting it at the expense of the cause and the people she claims to represent.

You have a forum Tom. You could make a difference here.

 
At 11:13 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Was Verbena the old hag who was on the TV news bitterly complaining that people aren't serving her and the other homeless folks in the manner to which they'd like to become accustomed?

What an evil old thing she appears to be.

(Hey! I'm old, too, but I'm not evil.)

 
At 9:38 PM, Blogger samoasoftball said...

I have posted in the past about the people who have made the decision on their own to be homeless and camp in areas around the bay. I really feel that Humboldt County social services would do the public a favor health wise by supplying at least 4 B&Bs at the end of the Samoa Bridge for the campers at Samoa Beach and at least 6 B&Bs on the west side of the Mall for the hundred campers there. It is a health and dignity issue. Good money spent by the county. If a person s***s in the dunes and the woods, and everyone ignores it, then it is not a health issue? I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way.

 

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