Omg! Are you serious? Why don't we buy a billboard in every major city with bus service and announce we want homeless in Jacksonville Eat Free, sleep inside if you want, you can pan handle and make enough money to support your drug habit and if you use the street as your toilet you can become a YouTube star!
Seriously... I'm not an expert but here is my take on our HUGE PROBLEM with downtown development...
It's homeless then parking! Period the end.
There are 4 types of homeless
1. Those who are homeless from circumstance... Prolonged job loss, illness, etc... None of us begrudge giving support to anyone who is trying to be productive and has hit a bad bump in the road. Especially families who fall victim to our economic instabilty.
2. The mentally ill. These people need our protection. Some of them can't manage their own basic hygene much less secure food or shelter. They are being left to fend for themselves in a dangerous environment. We should provide a better solution for the longterm social services care of these most vulnerable of our citizens. It's criminal not to.
3. The addicted. This makes up probably (I'm guessing here) 80% of the people who are homeless. They can't hold a job because they are zombies in search of drugs or alchohol. We are enbling these poor people to remain in a life of torment by giving them only basic food, water and shelter with no rehab or way out of their situation. It's simple ... We need to mandate intensive rehab when these people receive assistance. And we as a city need to STOP THE PANHANDLING!!! Stop giving these people money. They use it for drugs. If you want to feed them fine, but them a cheeseburger and a bottle of water. We are the problem not the homeless! If we don't give them money they won't stay here. A lot of those people hustling are not even homeless. They are just hustling because it works! Rehab and no more giving money to street people!!!!
4. Those people who are in every society who simply chose a nomadic approach to life. These are the people who make camps in the woods. They seem to be a little more independant and self reliant for shelter and food. Some of them are capable of day labor jobs or holding the sign out by traffic. They aren't usually the ones wandering around downtown all night juiced up on meth or
whatever those poor people are on. All of these people place a drain on our hospitals, and our image. We are not helping any of these people by creating a situation where they are stuck! We are creating ferrel people and enabling a whole bunch of drug use and alchohol abuse.
Let's stop the cycle and help these people... And clean up our downtown and our city image.
Rehab for everyone who gets assistance, no more panhandling and better social services for the mentally ill.
