by Jack
The offenders names have been changed to “the Dopes,” which seems more fitting with the story and they don’t get any publicity this way.
On every third Saturday for the past 13 months, a couple, the Dopes drive to Redding park as part of their self-styled food and clothing ministry. They call it a church without walls and Mr. Dope cooks up free hamburgers and hot dogs on a mobile grill while Mrs. Dope distributes free clothes to the crowd of homeless milling around. And can you believe it, the city of Redding wants them to shut it down and find a different place?
This sounds like the City is being mean and curmudgeonly… until you see the costly problems these two people have created and yet take no responsibility for correcting. Mr. and Mrs. Dope simply expect the taxpayers to deal with it. The City of Redding is tired of cleaning up after a Mr. and Mrs. Dope give-a-way event.
Kim Niemer, the city of Redding’s community services director, said she told the Dopes at a meeting last week to find another place for several reasons. Clean-up crews were finding a lot of clothes — presumably from the giveaway — and food waste in the park and along the Sacramento River Trail on the Mondays right after the Dopes’ events, Niemer said. Clothes also have been discovered stuffed down toilets!
“The parks are not a dumping ground,” she said. (This wasteful littering mirrors the results from similar giveaways in other cities.)
Plus, Niemer said, the event had grown to the point where it didn’t fit in with park’s usual recreation activities. (Locals don’t like their children being exposed to the criminal element among the homeless while using the park. It doesn’t feel safe and based on the crime reports it isn’t safe.)
Suggest a Redding police presence with video cameras on hand at the next Dopes handout.
Perhaps the Dopes could be prosecuted for littering?????
I suppose its possible that they could pass a city ordinance about operating a food dispensary to prevent the dopes from feeding the transients.
Health cards are already necessary when distributing cooked food. Wonder if the Dopes have theirs?
Hah! Dopes. Good one but April fools is about 7 months away.
Mr. or Mrs. Postscripts,
These people live miserable lives. If you are being honest you would have to admit that they have virtually no hope of ever leading fulfilling, meaningful and happy lives. They will be miserable until the day they die.
I know this is going to sound incredibly ruthless but it is not. It is the truth. If you are being honest you would have to admit that these people would be better off dead, both for themselves and society.
If the government is not going to euthanize these people, the least the government could do is offer them assisted suicide.
If I were one of these people and I could get my hands on a gun I would blow my brains out and I bet you would, too. And I bet you would want a more humane way to end your miserable existence.
Ken, if I just lost my home to a fire started by transients or one of my family had just been murdered by one…hey, I would be right there with you. But, fortunately for me that hasn’t happened yet. So, I have the luxury of seeing this problem with a little more objectivity. You know as well as I that we’re not going to exterminate them!
Now we can debate just exactly what society owes the street people, people who have made bad choices, who have lived outside the law and done a lot of bad things to the community they live in, but we can’t argue they have a right to life based on the Constitution.
However, in those cases where people who are sound of mind went out of their way to chose the life, and they made a choice to steal, do drugs, etc., then society owes them no mercy. Just because they are so-called homeless it seems like they get away with a lot more than they should. How many times have the cops showed up to a citizen’s complaint over a trespass, vandalism, theft, arson, etc., only to be told, there’s not much point in having them arrested because they courts aren’t going to do anything with them? This part makes me sick – it’s so wrong!
That’s not the story for those of us who own a home or work for a living, we would get punished to the fullest extent and this double standard is way, way wrong.
If we are to curb the motivation that now results in hundreds of thousands of mostly younger people dropping out, doing nothing but living off the street as predators and petty grifters, then we need to make it so tough for them that they find a way to do something better with their life.
But, then there are the mentally ill and disabled, and as a compassionate society we do have a duty to make their lives at least safe and secure. If this means putting the really extreme cases into an institution for their own protection, then I’m for it, even though the ACLU says that’s a terrible thing to do. Of course I think they’re nuts, but that’s another debate. But, just to be clear, the only people that I think need tough treatment are those who are mentally and physically able to do something productive and contribute to our society. We should have no compassion for those who know right from wrong and still made a conscience choice to be slackers and takers, praying on other people, relying on charity meant for the truly needy, for those people I have no mercy, no compassion. I think they need to spend a few months breaking rocks to help them figure out, being a street hustler is not the life they want to live.
“You know as well as I that we’re not going to exterminate them! “
See, it’s not extermination. That is why I used the word euthanize because their suffering would come to an end. And as Sgt Barnes told Sgt O’Neil, “Everybody gotta die sometime, Red.” Instead they could live many years or even decades in misery.
I understand your points and I realize society will never see it the way I do, but if it did 99% of this problem could be eliminated. Instead this problem is going to get worse as we are now witnessing.
One other thing to consider: at the end of their lives, how many of these people would WANT to re-live those lives and how many would wish that they were never born? I think you know that they would answer in the affirmative to that last question.
Jack wrote:
“If we are to curb the motivation that now results in hundreds of thousands of mostly younger people dropping out, doing nothing but living off the street as predators and petty grifters, then we need to make it so tough for them that they find a way to do something better with their life.”
Excellent !
Trump is planning to restore the welfare work requirement Gengritch forced Clinton to sign and Obama reversed.
Trump moves to restore work requirement for welfare:
“The Trump administration moved Wednesday to reimpose work requirements for Americans on welfare, revoking an Obama-era policy that had urged states to apply for waivers exempting the poor from having to show they were either getting job training or looking for work.
Requiring work was a key part of the 1996 welfare reform law enacted by a GOP-led Congress and signed by then-President Bill Clinton, and Mr. Trump’s move restores the law as written.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/30/trump-moves-restore-work-requirement-welfare/
This should help clean our streets of the able-bodied homeless. Plus, with all of the work needed in the south from the hurricanes and the west from the fires, there’s lots of work they can do for the money they’re getting.
Time to reenact the old WPA. They built Hoover dam and and millions of miles of road and bridges. They can now build the wall and work on the other projects Trump is proposing with his improving our infrastructure plan.
FDR creates the WP:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-creates-the-wpa
More info. on Trumps welfare work requirement.
Able-Bodied Required to Work Under Trump’s New Food Stamp Reform?:
“President Donald Trump’s newly released budget contains a proposed food stamp reform, which the left has denounced as a “horror” that arbitrarily cuts food stamp benefits by 25 percent.
In reality, the president’s proposed policy is based on two principles: requiring able-bodied adult recipients to work or prepare for work in exchange for benefits, and restoring minimal fiscal responsibility to state governments for the welfare programs they operate.
The president’s budget reasserts the basic concept that welfare should not be a one-way handout. Welfare should, instead, be based on reciprocal obligations between recipients and taxpayers.
Government should definitely support those who need assistance, but should expect recipients to engage in constructive activity in exchange for that assistance.”
https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/robert-rector/able-bodied-required-work-under-trumps-new-food-stamp-reform
Excellent find. Trump has been doing a lot of very worthwhile things, I really wish the left would give him just a little breathing room. Nobody since Lincoln has been treated this poorly by the democrats.
Of you are among those who think this problem doesn’t pose a clear and present danger to all of us thnk again. NY Post, “San Diego declares emergency over massive hepatitis outbreak”: