Homeless tents creeping into the nice/residential part of DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Serious question - if it's legal under DC regs apparently to pitch a tent on any DC public property (sidewalk, little pocket parks, etc) .... can my teenage son and his friends put up a $ REI tent in little triangle park and camp there for weeks on end?

If not, why not?

Someone's going to reply to this and demand that I check my privilege and to them I say, eff off.

I envison my son, a junior at a private high school in Ward 3, getting a few friends to camp with him. Fires are a no-no, but they could put up some camp chairs (like the ones I see under Whitehurst Fwy?) and bring a quiet guitar and play songs.

Every single night, they can sleep in their REI tent with their Yeti cooler full of snacks. They can read using their REI solar lanterns and then go to sleep on their NorthFace cots. Maybe they could string solar party lights from tent to tent?

Would they be allowed to do this for months on end if their chosen location was smack dab in the center of Ward Circle Park?

serious answer to a serious question: your son can certainly camp on grass downtown DC, but will never do it. not because it is not allowed, but because it would be really dangerous. i know DC privates can be rough, but nothing like living in the street. I dont want a homeless campground in my area, but I am old enough to understand that life in the street is far from easy/safe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP. if your brother lives in a blue state, it is highly likely that if your parents could not house him, he could be moved to a home for adults on the spectrum.

We strategically moved my sister to Arlington so that she could receive the many benefits available to people with mental disabilities. She can function but the county pays for a caregiver to help her with daily activities such as grocery shopping, cleaning and organizing, getting to medical appointments, and other activities.

How wonderful.

[Anonymous]

This horrible Times Square crime in NY makes me wonder if this is where DC is headed . They are lucky they just elected Adams who seems to have some backbone. We need an Adams!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP. if your brother lives in a blue state, it is highly likely that if your parents could not house him, he could be moved to a home for adults on the spectrum.

We strategically moved my sister to Arlington so that she could receive the many benefits available to people with mental disabilities. She can function but the county pays for a caregiver to help her with daily activities such as grocery shopping, cleaning and organizing, getting to medical appointments, and other activities.

How wonderful.

I am forever grateful to a co-worker who told me about Arlington's benefit. She impoverished both of her parents by buying their large house in Fairfax County well below market claiming that it had serious water and mold problems (which it did not). She got them into a senior citizen apartment in Pentagon City where they pay very little and Arlington picks up the tab for a caregiver. The parents were very wealthy immigrants but were able to shelter their money in their home country.

[Anonymous]

That's now new, OP. There have always been homeless in the tiny National park green spaces around DC, all of which are in residential areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's now new, OP. There have always been homeless in the tiny National park green spaces around DC, all of which are in residential areas.

But now it’s waaay worse than even 5 or 10 years ago. DC has become too pro-vagrancy. Anything goes.

[Anonymous]

UCLA grad student stabbed to death in furniture store in LA. They are on the lookout for a vagrant who was wandering the area. I have full sympathy for the mentally ill, and we have mental illness in our family as just about everyone does. The way that we have allowed (no, ordered) society and our government to turn its back/services from these mentally ill individuals, and the way it has boomeranged to them murdering complete innocents (two women in one week) is abysmal. To those who say "let them live in tents" you are fully part of the problem. You should be demanding hosiptal beds and treatment. What is wrong with you?

[Anonymous]

DP. I have worked with the homeless. Virtually all of them carried a knife of some kind.

Furthermore, they (especially the women) have valid reasons to fear staying in shelters; come is commonplace in shelters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP. if your brother lives in a blue state, it is highly likely that if your parents could not house him, he could be moved to a home for adults on the spectrum.

We strategically moved my sister to Arlington so that she could receive the many benefits available to people with mental disabilities. She can function but the county pays for a caregiver to help her with daily activities such as grocery shopping, cleaning and organizing, getting to medical appointments, and other activities.

How wonderful.

I am forever grateful to a co-worker who told me about Arlington's benefit. She impoverished both of her parents by buying their large house in Fairfax County well below market claiming that it had serious water and mold problems (which it did not). She got them into a senior citizen apartment in Pentagon City where they pay very little and Arlington picks up the tab for a caregiver. The parents were very wealthy immigrants but were able to shelter their money in their home country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are tent cities because poor people can’t afford DC rents and the housing voucher waitlist has been closed since 2013. Lack of investment in services, shelters, and public housing is what causes tent homelessness. Have compassion.

How many of them are actually from DC, lived in DC for years, but ended up no longer able to afford their rent? How many were actually sent here from elsewhere?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP. I have worked with the homeless. Virtually all of them carried a knife of some kind.

Furthermore, they (especially the women) have valid reasons to fear staying in shelters; come is commonplace in shelters.

Then shelters need to be fixed, and if there are really criminally violent homeless folks making them "scary" , those folks need to be locked up and treated. No shelters for them.

[Anonymous]

It seems like a.war.on women.so many of the victims of these mentally ill homeless are women. By comparison mentally ill homeless women don't seem to be perpetrating violent crimes, they seem to also be falling victim and should be gotten off the streets for their safety. This homeless debacle seems lto result in an utter war on women (though as we've seen men and toddlers fall victim to these deranged actions as well).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. I have worked with the homeless. Virtually all of them carried a knife of some kind.

Furthermore, they (especially the women) have valid reasons to fear staying in shelters; come is commonplace in shelters.

Then shelters need to be fixed, and if there are really criminally violent homeless folks making them "scary" , those folks need to be locked up and treated. No shelters for them.

I agree. We need to invest more money to take better care of the neediest among us so they have a safe, decent place to shelter. We also need upstream services that can intervene earlier to prevent them from getting this low in the first place. By the time most people are eligible for public services, they are way beyond being able to help themselves. I work with an organization that tries to do this. They say that they realized they were spending a ton of money and risk trying to pull drowning people out the swiftly moving river, when someone asked, "Why don't we move upstream and prevent them from falling in?"

I also know that for those who have severe mental illnesses, mandatory confinement is seriously problematic given the history of how this country used to do that, and voluntary commitment is nearly impossible to achieve long term. Even if there are nice places with good support where a family wants a troubled adult to live, you can't force that adult to go there. We have yet to come up with a livable solution for 90% of the mentally ill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UCLA grad student stabbed to death in furniture store in LA. They are on the lookout for a vagrant who was wandering the area. I have full sympathy for the mentally ill, and we have mental illness in our family as just about everyone does. The way that we have allowed (no, ordered) society and our government to turn its back/services from these mentally ill individuals, and the way it has boomeranged to them murdering complete innocents (two women in one week) is abysmal. To those who say "let them live in tents" you are fully part of the problem. You should be demanding hosiptal beds and treatment. What is wrong with you?

Don't forget the young girl murdered at the east harlem burger king by the the homeless man ranting about slavery reparations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UCLA grad student stabbed to death in furniture store in LA. They are on the lookout for a vagrant who was wandering the area. I have full sympathy for the mentally ill, and we have mental illness in our family as just about everyone does. The way that we have allowed (no, ordered) society and our government to turn its back/services from these mentally ill individuals, and the way it has boomeranged to them murdering complete innocents (two women in one week) is abysmal. To those who say "let them live in tents" you are fully part of the problem. You should be demanding hosiptal beds and treatment. What is wrong with you?

Don't forget the young girl murdered at the east harlem burger king by the the homeless man ranting about slavery reparations.

And the man who saved the woman who was shoved on the subway tracks. She lived and sadly, he died.