Tent City?

[DetBill]

The empathy on this thread completely underwhelms me. The bulk of You seriously have no clue about the deplorable conditions at most/ not all, homeless shelters. On occaision we have housed homeless citizens. Have one now, he acquired a stable job, saved a bit and plans to get his own place in January.

Most "private" shelters collect state money and they are frauds. They turn people out at 8am regardless of temp, provide no food, quite often no beds, no counciling and people can't return until 6 pm. Each shelter has "term" limits some 30 days, some 60 days. In addition, what one owns must be taken with that person daily or they toss it in the trash.

A tent may suck but it provides minimal shelter 24/7.

The Tent city on Lafayette is right next to our co op. The residents are none too pleased for obvious reasons. They do not feel safe with the people milling around. There are obvious sanitary issues. We are not too thrilled with people defecating and urinating in the open as well as littering garbage in areas we work hard to keep clean and safe. Its also highly illegal to be setting up home there. I dont think the concerns are ill placed. Do you want this next to your home? These people obviuosly need help, and we need to figure this out, however you cant just let these settlements take over city areas for the above mentioned reasons.