Found this story online earlier.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29oneway.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
I like the idea. I recommend taking a look at the cited article.
Additionally, many people in northeast Florida need help sometimes. I'd like to suggest that donations either of cash or goods to places like Second Harvest Food Bank or Gleaners Dispatch in Jacksonville and Help and Hope Ministries in Callahan will also help a lot. I believe all three are 501(3)(c) non-profit organizations and donations may be tax deductible.
You can find the first two on the Internet and you can reach Nathan and Paula Mason for Help and Hope Ministries at (904) 879-5523. They obtain food from the other locations and deliver it to those in need who have no transportation or ability to get it for themselves. Besides Nassau County, they also deliver all the way south of the Regency area in Jacksonville, the city where they started their ministry.
I realize I've mentioned them on other threads but not everyone reads all the threads.
This solution would help the people who are truly "down on their luck" and have a support network to return to. Unfortunately I believe the majority of our homeless in Jacksonville have already burned a lot of their bridges.
I'm glad the article makes it clear that someone ensures that there is truly a relative willing to take them in. Otherwise it's no better than the one-way bus ticket to anywhere-but-here method that some cities have used.
Send them to Dubai. They need workers.
Quote from: hooplady on July 29, 2009, 12:57:03 PM
Unfortunately I believe the majority of our homeless in Jacksonville have already burned a lot of their bridges.
They sure have with me. I'm fed up with seeing the same old "backback boys" wandering around hitting people up for $$$. Some of these guys have been around for years. It's getting to where I now recognize most of them from previous encounters.
One I'd seen 2 or 3 times before rides up to me on his bike in the Riverside Publix parking lot the other day, with the trademark "hey, man..." and I cut him off and said "I don't have any money" before he could finish. He gets all pissed and says "you didn't even know what I was gonna ask". I said "sure I did, you already asked me a week ago". He rode off.
I see Shirley Green at least weekly, along with the dynamic duo of crackhead rednecks with the wheelchairs they don't need, who double-team both sides of the street where the san marco I-95 entrance is. I've seen them walking around before, but now all of a sudden they got wheelchairs? Must increase the sympathy payout ratio. Not to mention the kid who's my age (20's) but wanders around claiming he's a vietnam vet. I guess they shipped him off at age 1. It's getting old. These aren't "homeless", they're just scam-artists.
The cops had a nice little crackdown going, and it was working. A month or two went by where I didn't get panhandled walking around 5 points, or at Publix, or getting off I-95. But now they seem to be back.
I have problem getting the original article. :( could someone please paste it here? thanks
I just tried the original and had no problems. Here it is again, though.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29oneway.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29oneway.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper)
Has anyone else experienced the lady on Riverside Avenue who trips the traffic light at the last second by pushing the crosswalk button, and then walks up to your car and stands outside of your window, staring in? This is REALLY creepy, and it nearly got me into a car accident the other night!! I've had this happen to me several times throughout the year. Imagine if she's stopping someone from out of town who isn't knowing what the hell to expect!
Sounds like Shirley Green. She's a piece of garbage with a deathwish. Twice I've had her pop up out of nowhere knocking on my window at bad hours, one time she grabbed for my doorhandle when I ignored her. She used to threaten violence or throwing hiv infected blood on people who didn't give her money.
I've seen this lady as well hasnt she been out there for years?
Ever heard the phrase... "end up in the poor house"? My mother and grandmother used the phrase often when confronted with a request for what they considered an extravagant purchase or outrageous price.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poorhouse
QuoteA poorhouse or workhouse was a government-run facility in the past for the support and housing of dependent or needy persons, typically run by a local government entity such as a county or municipality.
In early Victorian times (for Britain see Poor Law and workhouse), poverty was seen as a dishonourable state caused by a lack of the moral virtue of industriousness (or industry as it was called). As was depicted by Charles Dickens, a poorhouse or workhouse could resemble a reformatory and house children, either with families or alone, or a penal labour regime to give the poor work at manual labour and subject them to physical punishment. As the 19th century progressed, conditions became better.
The term is commonly applied to such a facility that housed the destitute elderly; institutions of this nature were widespread in the United States prior to the adoption of the Social Security program in the 1930s. Facilities housing indigents who are not elderly are typically referred to as homeless shelters, or simply "shelters," in current usage.
Often the poorhouse was situated on the grounds of a poor farm on which able-bodied residents were required to work; such farms were common in the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries; it could even be part of the same economic complex as a prison farm and other penal or charitable public institutions.
[edit] Poor farm
Poor farms were county or town-run residences where paupers (mainly elderly and disabled people) were supported at public expense. They were common in the United States beginning in the middle of the 19th century and declined in use after the Social Security Act took effect in 1935 with most disappearing completely by about 1950.
Most were working farms that produced at least some of the produce, grain, and livestock they consumed. Residents were expected to provide labor to the extent that their health would allow, both in the fields and in providing housekeeping and care for other residents. Rules were strict and accommodations minimal.
Poor farms were the origin of the U.S. tradition of county governments (rather than cities, townships, or state or federal governments) providing social services for the needy within their borders. This tradition has continued and is in most cases codified in state law, although the financial costs of such care have been shifted in part to state and federal governments. Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher was raised in such a facility during the 19th century before leaving it at age 20 to become Helen Keller's teacher and later lifelong companion. The novel The Miracle Worker and its 1957 TV play, 1959 Broadway play, and its 1962 film adaptation included harsh descriptions of the conditions therein.
WOW! Now I know why the reference was used so often. Apparently my grandparents lived very near one!
(http://www.poorhousestory.com/WISC_PORTAGEPF_AmhurstJctPC.jpg)
Here is the an interesting link to learn more!
http://www.poorhousestory.com/
A Poorfarm slide show... Most are Minnesota, The Brown County photos are Wisconsin near Green Bay.
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200207/29_gundersond_poorfarm-m/main_slideshow/1.shtml
More info...
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200207/29_gundersond_poorfarm-m/index.shtml
ok nice.
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I guess the point is... rather than send the homeless off with a ticket to nowhere we find places where they can live and be productive. Many of those poor houses and farms were probably pretty bad... I think we can take what was a practical idea from long ago and make it something useful for today... :)
Bridge Troll â€" Wasn’t one of the points of the original article that, in order to get a ticket anywhere, the people had to show that someone there was going to take them in or help them? If that’s the case, then poor farms, etc., might not enter into the situation at all. NYC wasn’t going to ship people willy-nilly (boy, that shows my true age, doesn’t it?) anywhere, only to a place where they could find a home and support, even if that were international. I don’t understand the shift in this thread to passing them off on other unsuspecting cities and states. I don’t think that was in the original article, though, I admit, that may well be what happens. I haven’t kept up with this â€" has anyone else?
All I was attempting to show was how previous generations dealt with homelessness. "Poor farms" and Poor houses" were prevelant at the turn of the century.
Agreed. I misinterpreted.