I thought we should have another thread with a title that does not break rules.
I'm not sure I care about further exposing the futility of dealing with
homelessness as we have; we know Heading Home Hennepin was a failure. I don’t
have a problem losing the current department and staffing if we have some plan
to implement to accomplish something.
Failures happen when an intractable problem is "dealt with" by government,
inevitably as Guy Gambill points out through a gravy train for some to
perpetuate and to frustrate and infuriate the folks who become a part of it,
homeless or not.
What is needed is good strategy to chip away at the problem using existing
staff and infrastructure and if we fund anything, it should be providing for
any needed housing; every time you put someone without housing into a home, you
have moved in the right direction to solve the overall problem. How do you do
it?
I understand the frustration of those working with the City of Minneapolis and
Hennepin County on this issue as it often does seem like there is a concerted
effort to harvest program funds with no real expectation of solving a seemingly
intractable problem. Everyone is concerned with their bottom line, but when you
don’t do the job, the public should not be on the hook to keep you in the
black.
One should have the goal of working oneself out of a job when it comes to
effectively dealing with homelessness and that is not and will never be
capitalism, so it is not likely to happen here unless through religious
organizations who purportedly stand for something other than unbridled
capitalism (televangelists excluded, of course); but they don't. Capitalism is
simply one more religion folks practice IMHO.
Those responsible for Heading Home Hennepin certainly didn’t work themselves
out of a job, but without seeing what money was spent on, we'll never know. If
FOI requests bring us that specific information, great, but will it change
anything?
We do need to change how we deal with homelessness. You can go on the Hennepin
County website and perhaps see how we do it now. I’ll upload a PDF of a
presentation of how the County says they do it now versus how they say they
used to do it. I don’t quite get it, but the color coordination is nifty, I
guess. It really seems more like government pigeon holing.
Hence this thread in which I hope we, including the malcontented from one
effort or another, can first identify the problems of people thrown into this
broad category, then discuss what might be done without wasting revenue in a
pointless enterprise benefiting only those paid to run it.
I look at the whole mess a little differently, I think.
Our ancestors from before our shifts to agricultural and city life and all
those who are allowed to or forced to hold on to that life today, were and are,
respectively, essentially homeless to our urban Minneapolis eyes. Human lives
were as easy to live as the environment allowed in most all places, and where
it was harsh, life was hard and human cultures evolved to eke out a living.
Where a local environment didn't allow for some sort of life way, people died
or moved with the seasons nomadically like any other migratory animal to
provide for their basic needs in life. Humans living in one paradise eventually
spoiled it, so moved on to the next place; or they did so in seasonal rounds
from year to year, living in the right places at the right times to get by.
Then our cultures changed as ag & city life took hold until we arrived at the
dirty mess we made and live in today and folks who believe in magic of various
sorts won’t let us clean up.
If any human being today has a home or a path in life, it is ultimately defined
by the relationships we have with those with whom we live, not place, no matter
how we romanticize or downright lie about why we live where we live. We don’t
need many folks, some of us don’t need much more than barest shred of personal
contact with a human being
For me, those relationships are the key to addressing the “problem” of
homelessness in each place it is perceived as such. Who comes here and lives by
their instincts over what is proscribed for folks living in the various housing
available in Hennepin County, public or private? How well do Minneapolis and
Hennepin County match the programs and resources to all who find themselves
homeless, and do they solve the problem? Guy Gambill, et al. say they have
never come close, and is probably right.
I think we need to take care of those who have fallen from the circumstances in
which they thrived or for which they at least strived, those who never belonged
for whom they fundamentally are, and those whom society owes for reasons of
hate and discrimination; however, I can’t come up with the law, policy and
implementation to accomplish their many and various needs, if any really exist
There are hermits like me, who luckily has a home for now, and don’t typically
want to be bothered; I am bothered, though, and realize that something
reasonable has to be done that can have nothing to do with the ‘gospel’ of
Friedrich Hayek. It has to account for whom people truly are to discover, to
direct them to their best aspirations within our resources in a sustainable
way; that’s what our government tries to do while people who are still
interested in government mediating what has become essentially a predator/prey
relationship between business, which seems to have taken a life onto its own,
and the people. Hayek’s ideas are the antithesis of how one takes a social
mammal like Homo sapiens sapiens and gives them a meaningful life, individually
and in the several billions, up to eight or nine I think, on Earth. There might
be just a little room for Hayek, et al., as an alloy is often better than pure
dogma as it is in metallurgy.
I live in a neighborhood adjacent to public housing with which the project was
designed to be integrated, but never really was. Neighbors knew generations of
families from the project as a fair proportion of them never seemed to leave. I
think that maybe that not leaving would be okay if their aspirations were
really that low, but they/we should really be more a part of their subsistence.
There is some self-governing going on there, but I think that it should be more
like a non-profit enterprise for which they become fully vested through their
own investments in both money and sweat equity, a coop, something quite
abhorrent to Hayek, but workable, unlike anything he ever came up with that was
debunked through the actions of every government that ever tried to implement
it.
We are adjacent to warehousing operations in my neighborhood too, but they
aren’t ever going to be an option for the homeless; a national housing
cooperative with facilities people can migrate to and from would go a long way
in sorting things out, maybe international one day when those with their head
so far up their own … well, in a more perfect world, it could work for many.
Until we have a perfect world, better pigeon holing will have to do, but with
immeasurably better holes; I think some housing cooperatives with facilities
including mountain, lake, and beach front resorts could capture many of us who
do not or are tired of participating in the predation of business on most of us
for both our labor and forced patronage.
There. That’s a better start for discussion. Ignore it or riff on your own
answers, but let’s not deride those who have deluded themselves into a belief
that they are actually doing some good in the world at a bargain price for
their services whether for the greater glory of the Lord or just to make a
living; I wouldn’t give them room and board at any public housing facility,
never mind a salary, but I won’t call them names here, especially if I wanted
them to explain what it is they do with all that money that has come their way
to end homelessness.
I'm not sure I care about further exposing the futility of dealing with
homelessness as we have; we know Heading Home Hennepin was a failure. I don’t
have a problem losing the current department and staffing if we have some plan
to implement to accomplish something.
Failures happen when an intractable problem is "dealt with" by government,
inevitably as Guy Gambill points out through a gravy train for some to
perpetuate and to frustrate and infuriate the folks who become a part of it,
homeless or not.
What is needed is good strategy to chip away at the problem using existing
staff and infrastructure and if we fund anything, it should be providing for
any needed housing; every time you put someone without housing into a home, you
have moved in the right direction to solve the overall problem. How do you do
it?
I understand the frustration of those working with the City of Minneapolis and
Hennepin County on this issue as it often does seem like there is a concerted
effort to harvest program funds with no real expectation of solving a seemingly
intractable problem. Everyone is concerned with their bottom line, but when you
don’t do the job, the public should not be on the hook to keep you in the
black.
One should have the goal of working oneself out of a job when it comes to
effectively dealing with homelessness and that is not and will never be
capitalism, so it is not likely to happen here unless through religious
organizations who purportedly stand for something other than unbridled
capitalism (televangelists excluded, of course); but they don't. Capitalism is
simply one more religion folks practice IMHO.
Those responsible for Heading Home Hennepin certainly didn’t work themselves
out of a job, but without seeing what money was spent on, we'll never know. If
FOI requests bring us that specific information, great, but will it change
anything?
We do need to change how we deal with homelessness. You can go on the Hennepin
County website and perhaps see how we do it now. I’ll upload a PDF of a
presentation of how the County says they do it now versus how they say they
used to do it. I don’t quite get it, but the color coordination is nifty, I
guess. It really seems more like government pigeon holing.
Hence this thread in which I hope we, including the malcontented from one
effort or another, can first identify the problems of people thrown into this
broad category, then discuss what might be done without wasting revenue in a
pointless enterprise benefiting only those paid to run it.
I look at the whole mess a little differently, I think.
Our ancestors from before our shifts to agricultural and city life and all
those who are allowed to or forced to hold on to that life today, were and are,
respectively, essentially homeless to our urban Minneapolis eyes. Human lives
were as easy to live as the environment allowed in most all places, and where
it was harsh, life was hard and human cultures evolved to eke out a living.
Where a local environment didn't allow for some sort of life way, people died
or moved with the seasons nomadically like any other migratory animal to
provide for their basic needs in life. Humans living in one paradise eventually
spoiled it, so moved on to the next place; or they did so in seasonal rounds
from year to year, living in the right places at the right times to get by.
Then our cultures changed as ag & city life took hold until we arrived at the
dirty mess we made and live in today and folks who believe in magic of various
sorts won’t let us clean up.
If any human being today has a home or a path in life, it is ultimately defined
by the relationships we have with those with whom we live, not place, no matter
how we romanticize or downright lie about why we live where we live. We don’t
need many folks, some of us don’t need much more than barest shred of personal
contact with a human being
For me, those relationships are the key to addressing the “problem” of
homelessness in each place it is perceived as such. Who comes here and lives by
their instincts over what is proscribed for folks living in the various housing
available in Hennepin County, public or private? How well do Minneapolis and
Hennepin County match the programs and resources to all who find themselves
homeless, and do they solve the problem? Guy Gambill, et al. say they have
never come close, and is probably right.
I think we need to take care of those who have fallen from the circumstances in
which they thrived or for which they at least strived, those who never belonged
for whom they fundamentally are, and those whom society owes for reasons of
hate and discrimination; however, I can’t come up with the law, policy and
implementation to accomplish their many and various needs, if any really exist
There are hermits like me, who luckily has a home for now, and don’t typically
want to be bothered; I am bothered, though, and realize that something
reasonable has to be done that can have nothing to do with the ‘gospel’ of
Friedrich Hayek. It has to account for whom people truly are to discover, to
direct them to their best aspirations within our resources in a sustainable
way; that’s what our government tries to do while people who are still
interested in government mediating what has become essentially a predator/prey
relationship between business, which seems to have taken a life onto its own,
and the people. Hayek’s ideas are the antithesis of how one takes a social
mammal like Homo sapiens sapiens and gives them a meaningful life, individually
and in the several billions, up to eight or nine I think, on Earth. There might
be just a little room for Hayek, et al., as an alloy is often better than pure
dogma as it is in metallurgy.
I live in a neighborhood adjacent to public housing with which the project was
designed to be integrated, but never really was. Neighbors knew generations of
families from the project as a fair proportion of them never seemed to leave. I
think that maybe that not leaving would be okay if their aspirations were
really that low, but they/we should really be more a part of their subsistence.
There is some self-governing going on there, but I think that it should be more
like a non-profit enterprise for which they become fully vested through their
own investments in both money and sweat equity, a coop, something quite
abhorrent to Hayek, but workable, unlike anything he ever came up with that was
debunked through the actions of every government that ever tried to implement
it.
We are adjacent to warehousing operations in my neighborhood too, but they
aren’t ever going to be an option for the homeless; a national housing
cooperative with facilities people can migrate to and from would go a long way
in sorting things out, maybe international one day when those with their head
so far up their own … well, in a more perfect world, it could work for many.
Until we have a perfect world, better pigeon holing will have to do, but with
immeasurably better holes; I think some housing cooperatives with facilities
including mountain, lake, and beach front resorts could capture many of us who
do not or are tired of participating in the predation of business on most of us
for both our labor and forced patronage.
There. That’s a better start for discussion. Ignore it or riff on your own
answers, but let’s not deride those who have deluded themselves into a belief
that they are actually doing some good in the world at a bargain price for
their services whether for the greater glory of the Lord or just to make a
living; I wouldn’t give them room and board at any public housing facility,
never mind a salary, but I won’t call them names here, especially if I wanted
them to explain what it is they do with all that money that has come their way
to end homelessness.
