Local group proposes tent city for homeless

[denverbill]

http://www.9news.com/storyfull.aspx?storyid=23337

DENVER - A coalition calling itself the Denver Tent City Initiative presented a proposal to the city's commission on homelessness Tuesday that calls for building a tent city that provides temporary shelter year-round.


The proposal is modeled after a tent city in Portland, Ore. It asks for a tent city at one of four locations in Denver:

-Rudy Park, 12th and Federal
-Globeville Landing, 50th and Franklin
-Vacant lot at 26th and Lawrence
-Vanderbilt Park at Huron and Tennessee

Randle Loeb helped write the proposal and submitted it to the commission. He said it would shelter about 40 men, women and children year-round, and the area's residents would need access to showers and drinking water.

<snip>
We'll call it Bushville.

[curlyred]

1. but the economy is booming!

and everything is all better now. Our Glorious Leader said so. /sarcasm

Great placement on the front page of the Denver Post, BTW. The article about the SOTU address, a picture of Earnest goes to Washington, and this article directly below. :)

[pfitz59]

2. Love the oxymoron....

"....a tent city that provides temporary shelter year-round." My experience with tent cities is they're anything but temporary! Once established very hard to eradicate!

[tinanator]

4. eradicate?

the intent is surely to provide shelter for those who need it temporarily. Eradicate?

[pfitz59]

5. Misnomer.......

Dismantle. Move. Etc. Seattle has had a "floating" tent city for years, populated with a PERMANENT "temporary" population. Band-aid measure which does not work over the long run....

[asjr]

3. It brings to mind

what my parents told me about the Hoover depression years. And it looks like that is where we are headed.

[0007]

9. I grew up in those times - the memory isn't easily erased

[bemildred]

6. Soup kitchens, we need soup kitchens too ...

George "Herbert Hoover" Bush has done such a good job
with the economy. :puke:

[tinanator]

11. they need you

Organizations like Food Not Bombs are active around the world, and can always use YOUR help preparing and serving. There are little kids lined up for a decent meal. GW aint gonna do it. How about you?

[bemildred]

18. Are you trying to recruit me? nt

[tinanator]

19. Would I do that?

If every librul here joined their local food bank, soup kitchen or even better a Food Not Bombs organization, the level of understanding would increase tremendously, and the plight of the poor and hungry would become a front burner topic. Wouldnt that be great? What better way to undermine the Bush agenda?

[philosophie_en_rose]

7. "we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again..."

Tent cities are the absolute least that a city can do to address homelessness. The way that people without homes are treated is sickening. They are already the target of loitering laws, harassment, cruel treatment, and reductions in social services.

If the tent city isn't approved, I suggest that people (homeless or not) put up tents in front of city hall and camp out for a few weeks. The strongest weapon of homeless advocates is that no one in power wants to look at them.

And how about a voter's registration booth in the tent city? A caucas group?

[Say_What]

8. Criminalizing homelessness --kids and families make up 1/3 of homeless

On edit: "homeless population jumped from 1,985 in 1990 to 9,725 in 2003" wow. Something very wrong about this.

<clips>
Gimme Shelter

Among those commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 civil rights march this past weekend was a group of advocates for the poor and homeless. They were observing the anniversary of another event spurred by King’s vision: the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign. During the last two years of his life, King rallied around the problems facing poor Americans, and the marchers who came to Washington, D.C. last weekend sought to remind people of that struggle.

“What we hope to do is draw attention to the real terrorism in America, which is that we have men, women and children going hungry, people without health care and people left without any place to live,” said Cheri Honkala, director of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, which organized the march.

Looking at New York City, there’s little question that Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign remains unfinished. It’s hard not to pay attention to the scores of homeless people asleep on the park benches, subway cars and streets. The city's homeless population has reached record highs. And just this month, the National Coalition for the Homeless rated New York the third “meanest city” in the country for its treatment of people experiencing homelessness.

As the number of homeless people rises across the country, the National Coalition found that cities are increasingly responding by criminalizing homelessness, passing ordinances, for example, that forbid sleeping in public. Shortly after taking office, Mayor Bloomberg held a joint press conference with the police commissioner announcing a list of “seven deadly sins” the administration would be targeting. In a list that included actual crimes like unlicensed street vendors and drug dealing, one “sin” stood out starkly: homelessness.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8722

[noonwitch]

10. I was in NYC in 1990, and it sounds like it hasn't changed much

That was back when Yoko came running out of the Dakota to scream at the NYPD for kicking the homeless out of Central Park/Strawberry Fields memorial.
The homeless were everywhere, in the train stations, the parks, outside of upscale restaurants-we were giving them our leftovers, since we were staying in a hotel.
I was shocked by the numbers, and I live in Detroit!

[pfitz59]

12. 1990 - Bush 1, not surprising!

Clinton-Gore, we miss you!

[tinanator]

14. waitaminit

Under many a Democrat, the homeless have been criminalized, most notably in San Francisco and Santa Cruz. I would look a little deeper into this serious problem.

[Say_What]

15. Sounds like San Francisco today where there are thousands of homeless

It started with RayGun. Growing up in the 50s there was never a problem like this. RayGun cut all social programs and the states had no choice but to turn people who needed to be institutionalized into the streets. Today the problem escalates out of control.

[The_Casual_Observer]

13. How about a tent city on the mall in DC

Bring it home to those assholes.

[Enraged_Ape]

16. We need a new name for "Hoovervilles"

Bushburgs?

Georgetowns?

The Crawford Suburbs?

???

[alarimer]

17. Corpus Christi

We have between 2000 and 3000 homeless people. I think there are more in the winter because it is warm here even then. I read and article in the local paper that some residents who live near the homeless shelters were complaining that the homeless were hanging around the shelters (duh!) and "looked messy". They also wanted the city to ban homeless people or move them outside the city limits. Make them someone else's problem I guess. Like there are homeless shelters outside the city limits. What a bunch of ignorant nonsense! Of course this is south Texas; the city would rathers spend millions on a ditch from the Gulf of Mexico to the Laguna Madre in the hopes of attracting tourists (???) then spend a dime on social services. I think very few people are homeless by choice.