Reply to Mary Cheh's new suggested locations for the homeless shelter

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "Mary Cheh's new suggested locations for the homeless shelter"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I no longer have a dog in this fight since we got out of DC over twenty years ago. We used to own three condos in the city; two were broken into and my husband was mugged once. Then the DC government confiscated some of our property and sold it to a developer. That was enough.

I don't know why people just assume that homeless shelters are a given. As far as I can tell, the homeless are largely comprised of three groups - the mentally ill, drug and alcohol abusers, and single women and their children. I'm all for giving the mentally ill the help that they need, but they don't belong in a residential environment until their mental health issues are under control. Same with substance abusers. I do not judge these people; they have issues that are largely beyond their control. [b]On the other hand, I'm fed up with people who refuse to take any resposibilility for their lives and expect everyone else to pay for their problems and their irresponsible choices. You don't get 'accidentally' pregnant multiple times - with no responsible significant other or source of income. [/b]We've been dealing with this issue for at least fifty years now and nothing has changed. Now this dysfunction has been normalized. Instead of asking where we should stick a homeless shelter, why aren't we asking how we can avoid needing shelters in the first place? Why should everyone else have to subsidize the irresponsible? [/quote]

Wow.  Stereotype much? I used volunteer at a family shelter in another high cost city.  Interestingly enough, a lot of the single mothers were running from abusive situations.  MOST of them had jobs - they just could not afford suitable housing.  This was 2009-2010.  A couple of them lost jobs and houses during the recessions.  Not every single homeless mother is the type of people that you think they are.  I just think that a lot of people do not get that homeless folks in family shelters are not the same type of people you see camping out under bridges.  You do not want the shelter near you - fine.  But stop painting these people in the worst possible light and talking as if that is the norm.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics