Making Seattle more livable, one homeless encampment at a time
News today of further progress in cleaning up Seattle's seedy underbelly:
Of course, there are complaints...and they aren't just coming from urban idealist Tim Harris:
There's a camp out at City Hall on June 8 aimed at protesting Seattle's approach to stopping homelessness. Let's hope some reason-minded folk take it upon themselves to make an appearance and show Mayor Nickels that not everyone in Seattle is ungrateful for the city's attempts to make our community livable. Hell, I may even drop by myself.
Seattle city workers expected to have a greenbelt on the west slope of Queen Anne Hill cleared of homeless encampments within a day. They found more stuff than they expected. [...] Within the first few hours of the city-mandated cleanup on Wednesday, crews filled a garbage truck with 4 ½ tons of debris before starting on a second truck.Combatting homelessness in a city where it is practically encouraged requires an iron fist approach. We may not be taking as many steps in that direction as we could, but the swift action towards eliminating encampments that we've seen recently shows that city is making progress.
Of course, there are complaints...and they aren't just coming from urban idealist Tim Harris:
"Homeless sweeps are not the answer," said the Rev. David Bloom, co-chairman of the local Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness.Having a "place to go" is by no means a guarantee in our country; that's something you have to earn by contributing in one way or another to the greater society (though how long it will take some of us to realize this remains to be seen). And making political decisions based on how "humane" their outcomes are is a surefire way to hinder urban progress.
"There's no place for people to go, and they're just trying to survive," he said. "To wipe out these encampments when people don't have a place to go is ludicrous. It's not humane."
There's a camp out at City Hall on June 8 aimed at protesting Seattle's approach to stopping homelessness. Let's hope some reason-minded folk take it upon themselves to make an appearance and show Mayor Nickels that not everyone in Seattle is ungrateful for the city's attempts to make our community livable. Hell, I may even drop by myself.
I've bin homeless in the George V, hey, I'm a blue collar dude, ya all just love Paris.
I figure we should eat the rich and take their babes on a pillion ride to Toledo, Ohio.
I'm dun with Seattle, pickib' up litter, apologizin for Starbucks bombin' Hanoi, I'm not doing that liberal shit no more,
In olden days the homeless, called Huns to their homies, would hit on the rich burbs, and drink their licker, rattle their beds,
We need a few high toned sonovabitch Huns, with jacked up cars, crashing the gates of see-attle and singin ' we wish you harm' sorta like escape from New York but with a better percussion track.
Thanks to that scum kissing "urban idealist," Tim Harris I have just discovered this hyper righteous vigilance organ of yours. It is good to see that people who are obsessed with the behavior and rectitude of others can blow their wad without having to resort to the old ways of lynchings, running for political office, or any of the other, more dangerous things that might risk your being exposed in public.
Keep it up. The army of poor, sick, powerless, unfortunate, and homeless is growing and they will not go away and die on their own. They never have. It is your job (should you choose it) to get others to make them go away for you. Remember, it's YOUR sense of safety, YOUR obsessive piece of mind, it's YOUR expensive view that is at stake. FEELING that Seattle is a more dangerous place than it actually is is more than reason enough to do whatever it takes to make yourself feel better. It's either you or the unclean, the unemployed, THE UNDEAD!
I'm glad to have found at least one other person agrees we should stop coddling criminals here. As a downtown Seattle resident, I see way too much of this.
http://seattlecivility.wordpress.com/