Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Newt Gingrich: "Abolish Bilingual Education"

Cynthetiq · 04-05-2007, 09:24 AM

Sorry will, I walk past about 15 homeless people every day. I'm not going to give them anything. NYC has plenty of programs to assist them. The area I live in has plenty of homeless.

Getting badgered 15 times in the morning and 15 times at night just so that I can go to work and come home is not very exciting nor does it inspire me to assist them.

Yep, you go to work in your car protected by metal and glass listening to your morning radio show or your MP3s. I'm sorry 16 years of being hit up for money each and every place I go to, sorry. No. No sympathy, no empathy, I've hung out with homeless and street urchins, you know as well as I do that people are there mostly because they want to.

When I was in SF in January I was surprised how many homeless there were in Union Square, but then again, people pay them to stay there.

this article in 1999 highlights it well:

Quote:

WHETHER or not Paris Drake is guilty of flinging a brick at a woman on 42nd Street, his sudden notoriety is not doing a lot for New York's image. The stories of his life raise an obvious question: why was a crack addict with a history of violence and a long rap sheet prowling the streets?

Some blame New York courts for being too lenient; some fault the city's social programs. But the most direct explanation has nothing to do with local policies. Mr. Drake was using drugs and hanging out on 42nd Street because out-of-towners were paying him to do it.

He hustled around Times Square and the Port Authority bus terminal because the area had so many tourists and suburbanites (and a few gullible locals) willing to respond to his begging. Like other panhandlers, he relied on the kindness of strangers who thought they were helping someone with nowhere else to turn.

''Drug addicts come from out of state to panhandle in Times Square,'' said James McNamara, who was once an addict himself living in a cardboard box. ''The tourists think they're doing good, but they're just making it easier for them to get high, and that makes our job tougher.''

Mr. McNamara was busy walking along Eighth Avenue near 42nd Street offering help to street people who did not want it. He was one of many such missionaries working for public and private agencies in Midtown, which probably has more ''outreach'' workers per square mile than any other place on earth.

He and his co-worker, Wendell Parks, passed a panhandler they had known for years. ''His money's going for heroin,'' Mr. Parks said. ''I guarantee you that 90 percent of the money people give to panhandlers goes to drugs and alcohol. It's frustrating. We'll be talking to someone for 15 minutes, finally getting somewhere, and then a tourist will drop him a ten or a twenty, and we're finished.''

Mr. McNamara and Mr. Parks work for the Times Square Consortium for the Homeless, which has meticulously tried to help street people -- and meticulously documented how difficult that can be. Financed by $800,000 a year in federal and state grants, the consortium of private groups has been running a ''respite center'' at St. Luke's Lutheran Church on West 46th Street near Eighth Avenue.

Over the last four years, its outreach teams have invited nearly 1,000 people to the center, which offers showers, meals, clothes and beds for the night. After repeated coaxing -- on average, each person was contacted 10 times -- about 500 stopped in.

More than 80 percent of them reported abusing drugs or alcohol; a third were judged mentally ill. The center tried to guide them through treatment programs and find them permanent housing. The success rate was above average because the eight-person staff -- which included a psychiatrist, two social workers and a specialist in drug and alcohol abuse -- was able to lavish attention on individual cases.

BUT even with all that help, most people dropped out along the way. Fewer than 100 made it into halfway houses or permanent homes. Of the many reasons for the others' failure, one was undoubtedly the easy money available back on the streets.

''What can I do when a guy tells me he's making $300 a day panhandling?'' Mr. McNamara said as he approached Times Square and spotted a man on the corner they had been trying for years to entice to the center. They invited him again, explaining that they had a coat and shoes waiting, but he waved them off. ''I remember another gentleman,'' Mr. McNamara said, ''that I managed to get in for a shower and a meal. We were working on getting him into detox, but he said, 'No, I'm going back on the street to smoke crack.' Well, that was his right. The next week I saw him on the subway with a cup pretending to be crippled. He said he needed money for an operation to straighten his leg.''

A hard-core libertarian might argue that there's nothing wrong with giving a panhandler money, even when it will be used for drugs. Aren't you and the panhandler both consenting adults? You might compare drug use with another taboo activity, prostitution, and say that adults should be free to spend their money and treat their bodies as they wish.

But most people who patronize prostitutes do not pretend they're doing it for the prostitute's benefit. Most out-of-towners who give to panhandlers probably see themselves as altruists, though ultimately they may be the only beneficiaries from the transaction. They get to go home warmed by the glow of their generosity. The crackhead left behind is not their problem.

People look down upon other people paid or unpaid. It doesn't matter. Does the rich altruistic person do more good who writes a check for $10,000 to a charity or is it the person serving soup at the kitchen?

I don't believe that rounding up all the illegals would cause such catostrophic events. It's not like it would happen overnight, it would happen over time.

Besides, if you look at my previous posts, I have not advocated rounding them up and getting rid of them. I'm advocating STOPPING future millions from coming in.