These meetings have been going on for the last 9
months. I went to this meeting for the first time this last Tuesday expecting
the main force to be helping the homeless; looking for ways to provide services
and working together to help the people in our valley. Instead, I saw a video that apparently cost
$10,000 (they still need to raise about $7500) portraying all the homeless in
our city as drug dealing criminals that are solely responsible for the blight
and crime of our city. Do you have any
idea what could have been done with $10,000 that would have actually helped the
homeless? This video was about the
homeless and no one from the homeless community was interviewed or shown. The only adjustment to the video discussed
was adding the names and titles of the people who were interviewed; council
members, business owners, spiritual leaders, etc. What better way to go about an agenda than to
criminalize the people who have no voice or representation? The majority of the people in that meeting
knew nothing about homelessness! How are
you useful on a taskforce if you know nothing about homelessness or been on the
brink or there yourself? This must be
why after 9 months nothing has happened and why they have ‘no idea how to solve
the problem’.
I thought it would be interesting to discuss some of the
visuals and comments incorporated into this video.
Abandoned Buildings:
The abandoned buildings in our city are not a direct result of the
homeless. They were there and
multiplying before the influx of the homeless population. So that argument is completely irrational. The abandoned buildings are a result of an
economic downturn that city leaders were reluctant to address; before, during
and after. Well, until the state
threatened an audit and even then, they made no suggestions or plan for
economic growth. They recently
implemented an ad-hoc committee but it doesn’t seem to be doing much. All we see in our city is one business vacate
a building to move its business to another building (possibly vacant) in
town. I am watching vacant building
musical chairs!
Graffiti: Can anyone
tell me the last time they saw someone who is homeless walk into a store to buy
spray paint? I NEVER have! First of all, you would have to make the
decision to buy spray paint instead of a necessity. Secondly, you would be going into a store
where you know someone shopping is going to complain to the establishment
resulting in a one-on-one confrontation with law enforcement. People: this is a ridiculous argument! Now, they may find a can with some spray
paint left. However, I am pretty sure
that most of this activity is coming from the youth and/or gangs.
Drug Use and Violence:
So, I am thinking that the homeless are not your drug kingpins. Nor are they participating and profiting off
of large drug deals. They don’t have
anywhere to keep a large stash of drugs!!!!
You never know though… some may have some mad Houdini-like skills. On a
serious note: there have been cases of rape that we do know of and if you look
more into homelessness and statistics this is a problem. Am I saying that the homeless do not engage
in any drug or criminal activity? No. However, it is not our largest problem. If we saw real stats on the rapes, violent
crimes and drugs in our city…
Linda Krupa discussed the need for more law enforcement to
deal with this problem. We do not need
more law enforcement to deal with the homeless.
What we need is a plan with resources here in our city to address the
mental health and public health issues this has created thanks to city
leadership burying its head in the sand for as long as it did. I was copied on an email from Linda Krupa
dated July 2014 about how she had just come from a meeting about the
homelessness our city is facing. It has
increased since then! Meetings for a
year and half and all she and council can show for it is an increase in
population due to their refusal to help and provide services. It is obvious that a decent portion of our
homeless population suffers from mental illness. Because we have so many who are homeless and
they have no-where to go, it is now creating a public health issue. This is caused by your city not figuring out
a way to get and provide services! There
are plenty of federal grants available to help.
We have public defecation because the park restrooms are not
open at night. We have clothes unable to
be washed because PD gets called out when one of our homeless is at a
laundromat washing their clothes. They
are trying to maintain some form of dignity and then that happens. For the most part, shelters do not open til around
4pm, leaving them to the streets during the day. Keep in mind, aside from Valley Re-Start,
there are no shelters in Hemet. There
are city ordinances that criminalize homelessness. Yes, there are such ordinances that do
that. Actually, they make your very
existence as someone who is homeless a crime.
So the fact that homelessness is a crime, homelessness is in fact increasing in our city and council has done nothing to provide solutions does in fact make our city council directly responsible for an increase in crime as it relates to our homeless population. Think about it! First of all, being homeless is not a crime and it is ridiculous that it is treated as such. However, your city council feels very differently. The council approves ordinances and then guess who gets to enforce them?
HPD. What is this teaching our younger
law enforcement? As you know, I come from a decent size law enforcement family. The majority of cops do not go into this
profession to harass people. They go
into it to make a positive impact. The
way this is playing out is having a negative impact on our community, all the
way around. My three-year-old daughter
wants to be a ‘police and firefighter’ (her words). I worry about how that type of action would
kill her spirit. I would want her to
push back in any way she could on a system that encouraged her to treat people
in such a way. You take an oath and what
is right is in fact right and what is wrong is in fact wrong. That badge is a privilege that should be
respected, especially by the people who wear it. The job is taxing enough as
it is.
The other agenda of this task force is to build a facility
out by the 215 freeway/Homeland and send the homeless there. What makes these people think our homeless
want to relocate to a facility over there? You cannot force them to go! This task force feels like they can make decisions and do what they want with human beings without their consent. Does this type of thought process sound
familiar?
I encourage you to really think about this approach and the
impact it is having. Is this how you
would want to be treated should you be in this position tomorrow? Remember that nothing in life is certain. What if it happened to your parent, child,
sibling or a close friend? How would you
want city leadership to respond? How
would you want people in your community to respond?
