Inside the Homeless Shelter Controversy

I stayed at River Street Shelter myself and still go back there for art therapy with Cheryl Ruby.  This last year they have expanded the women’s dorm and painted all the rooms cheerful, warm colors. Paintings from the art therapy class adorn the walls and there are live plants inside flowers on the table and a beautiful, carefully tended garden outside. I find River Street a pleasant place to visit where staff are compassionate and helpful.  I don’t know where Mr. Posner stayed but I don’t think it could have been River Street Shelter he was talking about.

It should be noted that while Mr. Posner was able to have a bed put out for him specifically,  for homeless people that very same “Emergency Shelter” that shelter has a one month waiting list. 

I find this important point missing in this article and in most people’s perception of homelessness.  There actually isn’t some place for folks to go.

This is why many of us are now advocating for a Sanctuary Camp with partnerships and allowances by local governing bodies and the community at large. 
Only 95% of homeless have a shelter bed tonight.

https://www.facebook.com/santacruzsanctuary

“…he couldn’t help crying, “

“Most of the people he saw seemed to be addicts, he says, but none were using drugs at the shelter.”

We need to distinguish true compassion from “idiot compassion”. We sometimes over-react emotionally at the sight of suffering. We can be so distressed that we weep uncontrollably, faint or run away in horror. Our heart may be moved with pity but our emotions are so out-of-control that we can’t do anything to help! In other cases we might do something but because we lack right understanding of the problem or the person experiencing it, our “help” only makes the situation worse. These are examples of idiot compassion. True compassion balances loving-concern with clear wisdom. This wisdom enables us to stay calm and think clearly how best to help, without being carried away by our emotions.

Ven Sangye Khadro from The Four Immeasurables

I am a compassionate person and I have known people with hardship and there should be a shelter for homeless and battered women or men. However I do not think our town should become a bum’s paradise. If you are not from here you should be given a bus ticket back to where ever it is you came from.

Wow. One night in a homeless shelter and now he’s an expert with the power to ‘Do something about it!’. This reminds me of all those college kids that go to some third world country and come back and have a crystal clear understanding of the personal plight of the native peoples of… wherever.

Poser and Norse are cut from the same cloth.  They just want 15 minutes of fame once a week.  If they truly wanted to help, they would point out the people who need help and then those who are criminals.  But instead they choose to be monkey wrenches, attention grabbers and only make things worse for all of us.  Camping out one night in a cot and Posnering for a picture is not helping.  There are people who need help and I wish we would focus on them.  Not that Poser went to a sleepover one night and felt sad.

Mr.Plsner spent one night really not much time to be judging. Nobody doing drugs there none that they wanted to share with you.

Well said!

Thanks, Brad, for looking out for us! And for linking to us too. I mean that, man.
Anyway last I checked, “none” can be either plural or singular, depending on its antecedent. I will double-check, though. I’ve been wrong before (and this would NOT be the first time a mistake has slipped through…)

And “staff,” I think, might fall into a gray area of its own. I believe it’s singular if you’re talking about everyone on staff and plural if your talking about several (but not all) staff members… so maybe either would be correct here? But now my head’s starting to hurt.

As for our lack of copy editors, you def caught us. We hired Georgia’s pet cat for about three and a half weeks. But she’s out on medical leave with astigmatism. *sigh*

Great!  Why don’t you have it in your yard, Robert?

I totally support your statement SC mom. Love it. Enough is enough. With a population of over 10% of homeless I think we are doing our part. The house is full. We should also not forget the stabbing of a woman lately by one of them. Do we need more to wake up? I wish we could live in a more evolved community thinking that this is now 2013 not 1960.

@Amber—word of the day “grandstanding”

From personal interactions with Micah, I know him to be a spoiled brat. Those descriptive terms derive from his contributions to the Transportation Funding Task Force wherein he was true to his word.  If things didn’t go his way, he would spoil it for everyone else.  That’s what he did.  This was all about trying to gain credibility in his “my way or the highway” agenda.

Lets assume for a moment that Posner is correct and that most residents of the HSC, though they appear to be drug addicts, did not actually consume drugs while there. What I find ironic is that the HSC would certainly not tolerate drug use on their campus, nor presumably urination on thier walls, feces in their landscaping, discarded needles on their sidewalks, theft of personal property and so on but seem to expect the Santa Cruz community to tolerate these things in our public spaces.

Is this a double standard?

Is it fair to the rest of us who live here to endure the behavior that you wouldnt tolerate yourself?

If you are going to welcome people to our community who engage in self destructive and antisocial behavior then you can’t expect to select which behavior is and is not acceptable within your walls.

Given the choice I would prefer the HSC to be the place where all drug abuse occurred.