Someone should do a story on the homeless camp downtown

[tpot]

It's about time............the homeless population in downtown JAX is out of control.  They have taken over the new Main Library, Hemming Plaza and have set up homeless camps.  Now the city needs a plan to deal with the issue.  Enforcing code is a start, but they need a plan to relocate these services away from downtown JAX

[Ernest Street]

Code enforcement officers are too busy ticketing cars parked the wrong direction in Riverside.

[Dog Walker]

It is indeed about time!

The Main Library downtown has actually done a really good job of getting the bum problem under control by focusing on behaviors and not allowing big bundles inside.  There are scruffy characters in the library, but they are quietly reading and working on the computers, not bathing in the bathrooms or sleeping in the chairs.  Security makes regular walks on each floor and enforces the rules.  It has made a big difference over the last few months.

[Sportmotor]

Code enforcement officers are too busy ticketing cars parked the wrong direction in Riverside.

lol glad they havnt gotten me

[braeburn]

I am not a big fan of walking through the homeless camp on Julia St. on the way to class, but where could they go in the middle of the night after being rounded up? It has not exactly been very warm outside at night.

[strider]

Apparently the mayor and his staff knows that the reason the homeless and the services are here in the urban core is that those of you who want them out of here now didn’t used to want or care about the urban core so you left it to them and they took it.   

The realistic approach is to realize that neither the services nor the homeless are leaving the urban core. The shelters are not “empty” during the day and there never has been enough money thrown at the problem to solve it and never will be.

  Food and clothing is given as a life saving  and protecting service rather than to solve the problem.  Many of the shelters and service orgs do work on solving the problem during the day, which is why I say they are not “empty”, but the resources are just not available to help everyone, and yes, it is true that not everyone wants that help.

Some homeless are beyond the kind of help that would turn them back into what most would consider productive citizens due to mental health issues, some of their own doing perhaps, but mostly not.  They need a more intensive and costly kind of help.  If you do wish to spend your tax dollars on helping them , then realize that by helping them, you are really helping yourself and your city clean up the urban core.  The reasons do not matter, just at least help them.

You can do that by giving support to facilities that truly help and a facility in the urban core that functions as a well run and staffed day center would do that very well. It won’t work on the Southside or Cecil field.  It will work here in the Urban core.  Just a fact of life. 

A well run, all encompassing facility, meaning eating, sleeping, working, learning, health services, etc. type facility in say the Southside would work.  I believe that the Salvation Army facility on Beach, for instance, is more or less like that.  An all in one facility eliminates the transportation issues and the need to make decisions based on the time and energy it takes to go from one place to another.

But that does not help the issue with the urban core and if you build that new facility on the Southside for instance, you will still have homeless downtown.  It is their “home” after all. Remember, it was left to them when no one else really wanted it. The best way to help Downtown is to help them become better as Downtown becomes better.

I am not an expert trained in this field, but the above is simply from observations, many conversations with homeless people  and common sense.

[Springfield Girl]

Just to play "devils advocate", what happens if a day center is built and people still choose to loiter in Hemming Plaza or the library all day? Will there be documentation of how many people sleeping in shelters are seeking help at the day center vs. continuing to hang out all day on the streets? If the day center is not the magic bullet solution it is being touted as, what next?

[braeburn]

One of the difficulties with this is that if someone is an addict, and they are out on the streets, how unimaginably hard would it be to take refuge in a day center versus knowing your addictions can be fueled outside? Nearly impossible I would wager.

How can an organization provide help if several do not want to be helped? It cannot be both ways. We will feed you, and give you a shower and some clothes, and then you can go out and go get your fixes and bum money? It is quite clear that does not work 

There are many out there who do not even want to take advantage of the help we have now, because it is too "strict" on their lifestyle. This creates a stigma and makes it even moreso difficult for the ones that truly do want and need help, because they get bundled into the same "category."

[strider]

You are right, it won't help with the ones that are addicted and want nothing more than to go bum for money to feed that addiction.  What percentage is that of the whole?  How many of you (just a general you) have complained about some of the homeless using the street as a bathroom, getting into elevators with a smelly homeless person, sitting next to one on a bus, using the library to wash up in?  What percentage falls into that catagory?  What percentage using the day center will make downtown at least seem much more friendly to outsiders and less a homeless camp?

We can do nothing, we can try some reasonable ideas, and yes, no guarantee that it will solve the entire problem, but it will certainly help.  I guess we could gather them all up and put them in a concentration camp of some type a long way away from Downtown. But then, what would that make us? 

Throughout histroy, cities have had this segment of the population that did not conform and were living this type of life.  Addicts and just different or crazy, it hasn't really changed all that much.  The numbers are up overall and the percentage that can be helped is a much higher number than before.  All we can do is what we can do.  Nothing will eliminate the homeless from downtown 100%.  Except of course, removing human civility from the equation. Making the problem surmountable seems to be what we are really talking about here.

[buckethead]

I'm thinking the Mayor might grant me the funds to construct and manage a "Mandatory Rehabilitation and Jobs Training Facility".

The cops could round up the homeless and they could come learn to become Societal Contributors.

It's simple really; They come and do work at the facility, are provided food and shelter, and may leave as soon as they can prove that they have a legal residence and the means to provide for it.

Who's with me?

[Ocklawaha]

Think it's just an "America Problem?" So Ock posts another photo from Colombia? NOT! The Photo is in FRESNO, CALIFORNIA! The problem is nationwide.

The ones that I'm most concerned with are the hookers, ho's, call girls, guys, etc. and the druggies. In both cases neither group can "trust" the authorities. They have been rejected, abused, used, left to die... Some have been drugged, shot up, bound gagged and forced to be a human service station for perverse sexual desires.  In these conditions, which usually start in early childhood, the authorities are the ones that bust up families, smash daddys head, arrest uncle Peter, etc.  We should not expect them to embrace that which they have been conditioned to fear and hate.

OCKLAWAHA

[sheclown]

One of the difficulties with this is that if someone is an addict, and they are out on the streets, how unimaginably hard would it be to take refuge in a day center versus knowing your addictions can be fueled outside? Nearly impossible I would wager.

How can an organization provide help if several do not want to be helped? It cannot be both ways. We will feed you, and give you a shower and some clothes, and then you can go out and go get your fixes and bum money? It is quite clear that does not work 

There are many out there who do not even want to take advantage of the help we have now, because it is too "strict" on their lifestyle. This creates a stigma and makes it even moreso difficult for the ones that truly do want and need help, because they get bundled into the same "category."

Certain mentally ill people find it especially difficult to be around so many people.  Social phobias play into a great deal. You can't just say "they don't want to."  Perhaps, they are emotionally incapable. 

& I don't know what is to be done about that.

[sheclown]

I hear it referred to as a "drop-in center." 

I doubt it will be a rehabilitation center for addiction.

[braeburn]

I lay no claim to being on any side of any fence here, but a drop-in or a part time facility sounds to me like it would simply enable the issue and continue with no resolution.

[sheclown]

explain "enable."