The City Within The City (The Unhoused, The Homeless, The Disenfranchised)

 Homelessness

...is an endlessly idling engine just outside your cozy bed.  A human fabric-ball on uncaring sidewalks.  Blanket walkers punching telephone poles.  The visible invisible I pass without care...

2021 @ rainwriter jones

It's everywhere.  Sidewalks, empty lots, city parks, cars, motor homes, and vacant buildings/houses have become the new domiciles for drug addicts, the mentally ill, and those who have been displaced from housing.  On our daily travels, we see some standing on corners with makeshift signs asking for any amount of money.  We see them crawling out of sleeping bags in door jambs.  We see them pushing shopping carts filled with what we construe as garbage (their personal belongings).  Where did all these people come from?  I'm clueless!  I've heard stories wherein other jurisdictions will buy one-way bus tickets to rid themselves of these types.

My focus is on Tacoma, Washington.  The encampments continue to grow unchecked in our neighborhoods with homeowners and business owners being threatened by the campers, utilities stolen from homes and businesses, and damages being done with grafitti scrawled onto walls, windows being broken, and shoplifting.  One day while I shopped at the local grocery store, a homeless person had a backpack of stolen goods.  The shopkeeps stood helpless as this man waltzed outside the store yelling, "You can't touch me!"  There's a sense of entitlement with these folk as they roll around with stolen shopping carts (at $600/each).  Our laws are too lax in addressing these crimes.  They are arrested, then released on their own recognizance just to repeat the same crimes or worse.

There's just not enough money to house those who will not contribute to their services.  The City of Tacoma has suspended sweeps until more funding is available.  I saw a news story on television which stated that 50% of the homeless who have been offered housing do not show up.  They'll find them moved from an encampment which was swept, down the street at yet another location.  They turn down services.  Many are defiant and uncooperative due to their mental illness, brain damage due to narcotic use, and criminal history.  

On a good note, the City of Tacoma is proposing a sanctioned site in the Dome District wherein the homeless can reside, taking them outside of residential neighborhoods and business districts.  

We.  Are.  Tired!  We're tired of dealing with the issues of a growing problem which doesn't seem to have any viable answers.  They keep coming and coming and coming.  The filth.  The drugs.  The crime.  The defiance on the part of some of these campers who refuse to follow rules and the laws which make it pleasant for all of us.  

Where do we go from here?

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