Recently Amy Murphy wrote an article titled, Move Homeless Services Away from Downtown? in which she seems to advocate moving services such as the Interactive Resource Center out of Downtown to Maple St in Northeast Greensboro.
Why not move homeless services to Irving Park instead? Have Irving Park residents ever lived with door to door panhandlers? Here on the far east end of Textile Drive-- east of US 29-- it's happened many times. And no, I'm not talking about overly aggressive sales people, I'm talking about people knocking on doors begging for money-- something that takes place each and every time Downtown cracks down on panhandlers.
But
what about the people living on and around Maple Street? The people
pushing to move the homeless there seem to be conveniently "forgetting"
that the Maple Street area is a mixed residential and commercial area
just as is Downtown. And has been such since before it was annexed into the City of Greensboro. Is it fair to the residents of the mill village to simply push the problems off on them?What the people talking about when they say move the homeless out of downtown really mean is out of sight and out of mind.
Perhaps
instead of talking about moving the homeless out we should be talking
about real long term solutions instead of the band aids we currently
apply.
But nooooo, real long term solutions cuts
into the profits of local developers and sends non profit agencies
(Greensboro's biggest growth industry) looking for real work. Haven't you figured it out yet? Creating more problems creates more work in the non profit industry, which bleeds the working classes and creates more problems, thereby shrinking the middle class while non profit leaders get filthy rich.
Why aren't we talking about home ownership instead of renting tiny houses?
Why
aren't we talking about creating local businesses that will stay here
instead of recruiting businesses who will leave the first time another
city offers bigger incentives?
Want to change things for the better? The old men who taught me Capitalism taught me to PUT PEOPLE FIRST! Everything else will follow. It has been the failure of Modern Capitalism to adhere to the rule of putting people first that has caused us the pain and poverty we face today. Give the people what they want and the money will follow.
That, my friends, is the focus of my write-in campaign for Mayor of Greensboro. Share if you believe that is the way Greensboro should be run.
