Finally Speaking Out on an Issue.

I've threatened to say this stuff for a damned long time, now. And, my silence should not be classified as fear or enforced. I was waiting. Choosing the moment when folks should fear themselves that I would point certain things out, even if only using a dim flashlight to do it. And folks, the long break is intentional, to keep the worst of my insulting those responsible, those who are supposed to watch over them, and just anyone with "delicate ears/eyes" from reading the worst of my vitriol. (Relax, if you're worried about swearing, the sulfur-smelling flames of the after-world are about it, that way, but I will not pull my punches on the fancier insults, and more demeaning ones. Considering I have taken far worse when forced to panhandle, you best learn to take some of it back.)

Welcome to Spring, Salt Lake City. Before you complain about the number of homeless people sleeping out in sidewalks, parks, street margins, and the like, realize this. Once more, after saying they would be keeping the family shelter open, they did not. So that migration of the families from the Midvale annex back down to the main Road Home is on, and with it, 350 beds are gone for the men ovewr the last 45 days. I have no clue how many the women's side lost this year, I try not to deal with many of the females, not being a snob, just not desiring any entanglements that could lead to more troubles. Got enough on my plate keeping myself alive.

So, with that annual cut, the common citizen, being a bunch of clueless idiots, scream about the ebb and flow through the areas the homeless seek for some sleep, not realizing where the real issue lies.

Your pathetic math skills. Yes, I am being insulting, but face it, you have 589 beds for the guys (last year's count, have no clue how many they offered over the winter just fading into our memories, to avoid the crime and drug usage down there, I camped out) take away 350, leaves 239, of which about a hundred are the ones reserved for the workers program (which is a joke, as guys with jobs less than 40 per week are not qualified for it, as some getting 36/wk got refused even being listed, from what I've been hearing) and the medical beds (the bulk of that count, and another joke, as some of those are taken by folks better off in an institution. But, oh, we cannot expose those folks to kleptomaniacs and those prone to violent outbursts!) Yeah. And, that does not count those who slept on the hallway floors, or in the "Drunk Tank: over the winter, which does happen, not just on the worst nights, but most, during the winter.  Yeah, that closes Sunday the 13th, which means the worst problem after the drug-addicts is loose as well.

So, 139 beds, or there-about, depending upon this year's arrangements of the bunks in the dorms. Less than  years before, as last summer, they cut the legendary "Big Dorm" in half for families to occupy. Which, while it cut some of the issues (but reports, as I left before that was done, say it merely concentrated the odor issues from the less hygienically inclined denizens), probably, just jams it out into your streets, neighborhoods, and the rest of the downtown area. Not to mention those who flee into the foothills, canyons, and down to the Jordan River and various waterways feeding to it.

Why? 

What the Hell do you think? There is NOT some magical doorway to Never-Never Land we get to walk into each year, come the good weather, when those more fortunate's pockets seal up, or the funds get siphoned off somewhere, for us to leave your world! If you think other-wise, you need a head shrink, or have an IQ smaller than your waist size. Cutting beds does not mean the problems are ended, just some bean-counter does not want to have money he's getting for auditing the place (which, by the way, is that how a charity should work? that you charge it for helping it?) to fade away.

If you need to cry about losing your city's safety, go look in a mirror first. Some of the homeless would love nothing more than to get out, and I have seen a boatload of folks take advantage of that. Promising money for odd-jobs, then stiffing them (and yes, some of the guys who do work for contractors get stiffed as well, from reports), denying them jobs because they have no stable address history, and other malarkey. Stop coddling the users and abuser of the systems, and do some real, targeted help to those who are clean, sober and sick of being stuck down there, despite every effort they make. And, no, not all homeless folks are bums looking for handouts and free housing, or that disability check. Some actually will take steps, once free of the chains being homeless lays on them, to prevent returning.

And, seeing's how I mentioned the shelter by name, boys and girls down there, there is a video and set of pictures supposedly circulating, time stamped, among some of the homeless (which, if I had access to, I'd slam onto some other folks about to be mentioned, but I'm only reporting rumors, not something I've seen, as to those pictures. I do know, that you do this, even got you to admit it once before, and some former staff confessed as well, after leaving), of the staff taking the dirty blankets and folding them back up to hand out as clean again. This is ridiculous. So, who would want to rent to or hire some poor person who, while being stuck subject to your "tender mercies" (yeah, that is sarcasm dripping thick there, folks), gets infected with lice because of this! Even I know when you do this stupid crap. One only needs watch the sudden explosion of those infested, even the most meticulously clean, to know that something happened. And, the City, County and State Health Departments need keep a better eye on this kind of crap, not give it the ol' "it's just the homeless" blind-eye to the violations. (I know some of these latter, and might make them embarrassed by naming names, or worse, tossing them into said buckets of dirty blankets after shanghai-ing them next time I hear about it, to prove you cannot warn the criminals that you are coming, it only gives them time to clean up and kiss your butts with lies.)

So, wakey-wakey, folks. You want someone to blame? Ask the folks supposedly running things, as to how they never seem to have a decent plan in place for this. And then look in the mirror. Everyone shares some of the blame on this kind of thing.

One last bit. If folks tell you that they plan to end homelessness, get out the hip-waders. The best that will ever occur is keeping the numbers down, not end it. Face it, our ancestors were all homeless, that is why we came to America, a nation built by the homeless folks who immigrated here, one home at a time. And, don't say we never valued the homeless. We still idolize some. Many of the cowboys of the Old West, well, the drifted, homeless, from job-to-job, working a season here, a drive there, then drifting about, looking for something. If you buy and read westerns, you glorify the homeless cowboy, miner, or explorers who were just that, without a home, until they settled down, or died. The homeless have a better lineage than the homed, in a sense. When you read our roll-call of past members, you'll find a folks like a couple tossed out of a garden of legends, a guy who your God handed some stone tablets too (and all his people, too), a dude who dunked folks in the Jordan River of the Middle-East, and his carpenter cousin (What's his name? You know, that wanderer from Nazareth, by the Sea of Galilee?). And don't forget, the folks on the Mayflower, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, and slew of others we hold up as American Icons.

This ends today's rant, but this war will go on. And, if you don't like me talking up, look to your hole cards, folks. The drifter at the other side, he might be holding something special, say pocket bullets or a suited marriage, to use some poker parlance.

Sweeping things under the rug ain't solutions, folks.

So... confession time.

The spot I like at the SLC Main Library gave me a rather wonderful, yet terrifying, glimpse into the minds of those who profess they want to help reduce the impact and scope of homeless problems in town, last week.

They had a little conference, of folks from various support agencies, and several things that might help will come from it, but one thing I heard has me wondering if the help providers do as much drugs as the addicts they seek to aid.

Aid and Abet, if what that moron says comes about.

Look, I agree, to reduce the clutter that the families have to muck through along South Rio Grande on Hell's Block, you need to find a way to move all the drug addicts and drunks off the walls of the Road Home and St. Vincent dePaul's buildings, just to make the sidewalks navigable and safe, but creating a "smoking area" where the cops are not to enforce the laws about narcotics and alcohol usage ain't an answer. It's sweeping the filth under a magic carpet, and acting like you solved the problem.

Yes, i do listen, morons. I may not speak, but I figure any "Brainiac" who claims to really want to help the homeless would at least talk to the more upstanding members (e.g. the non-addicts and non-criminals) before tossing out ideas willy-nilly. If folks thought Pioneer Park can be dangerous at times, or any part of the area Hell's Block (which is really more than a block, being the whole of Salt Lake City's skid row, from 200 South to 600 South, between 300 West and 600 West, with various jerrymander sections used by the druggies and drunks spiralling off that area) wait until this idea gets implemented.

Look, the real issues are indeed the need of a place for those who make no efforts to move out of the Shelter or Missions to move on. Targeting the druggies will just move them into the city, spreading east, as they did last year, bringing the crime, filth, and attitudes with them. You do not deal with addiction by creating a place to use and OD, you deal with it by sensible measures, say things like laws and funding for mandatory rehab for addicts and drunks after say six violations, even if not prosecuted... which indicates a pattern of self-abuse and public endangerment. You do it by looking at targeting the dealers that flock around Hell's Block, and taking away the CI's protection, as most of them are freaking dealing shit, feeding the cops their competitors, or those owing them money, instead of giving them a free rein to rule that area.

This idea moves forward, you will still have the fights, the stabbings, the crime, the drug-use, the overdoses, all the problems, just in a place where less of it will be seen, and thus it can escalate faster to much more dangerous levels, ones that will require the cops going in with guns drawn, not just a hand on the holstered sidearm they have to use now.

Wake up, stop feeding the addictions. Yes, we tobacco (which, unlike the narcotics, is legal to use) smokers could use some places to smoke, in peace. But, dammit, stop jamming the narcotics users in with us.

And stop thinking we are just bums who use, no matter our efforts to walk away.

Another, even better target? Yeah, I have one. A goodly number of the homeless in the shelter get an SSI or SSDI check, a GA check, or other assistance. Target that group, which has the monies that fund a good deal of the drug use, and includes many addicts in it, at getting them into some form of housing, thus removing the "Millionaire" (as those who get no funds call these folks) factor from the equation. Yes, many of them have issues that prevent getting normal housing, or desire not to go in with the addicts, drunks, and criminals. Some of those issues are related to felonies they committed, so it locks them out of a vast portion of the housing available, even if those events were not violent, not repeated, and quite a while ago. Finding a better solution towards getting those folks housed will do far more.

Reducing the money down there might just make an appreciable dent in the crimes, narcotics, and other problems. But that answer takes time, effort, and something society seems to lack these days, intestinal fortitude.

And, while I'm ranting a bit, how about doing something more productive than tossing the mentally ill back into the shelters or onto the streets. Right now, there are *3* functioning fecal matter artists smearing their wastes around places in public. In locations that range from public restrooms in the downtown and strip to the UofU restaurants, to public parks, and even lately on the sides of businesses, and enhancements to existing and new graffiti. Sorry to those on the Left who believe in keeping folks as part of Society who are so disturbed to rehabilitate them, and those on the Right too cheap to spend the money to actually solve issues, but these are walking health code violations, and after three offenses need to be locked up long-term, for treatment, true rehabilitation, and never allowed to be left unsupervised afterwards, as their recidivism is too nasty to leave the "art" they preform in the public view, where some kid could wind up touching it, and getting very ill.

So, to those who think we homelss are stupid, lazy, and useless... yes, some are, but this boy just offered you up options for some. For others.... well, real, meaningful, long-term work that comes with a living wage might be an option. Just don't offer it to me. After three years plus of searching for employment, and being denied, I've taken up a new way out, and plan to carry it through. I will write stories, trying to sell them, market my e-books of poetry as well, and just be a thorn in your sides, politically, to remind you that some of your ideas smell as bad as the above mentioned 'aritists" works.