Quote:
Originally Posted by ATXboom
What sort of policies or solutions do you think they should pursue?
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Yeah, not that this is the thread for it, but almost anything political when someone says "hey, let's throw them all out" very rarely offers an idea to the alternative. Maybe it's not homelessness in downtown that people don't like.
And, yes, there has always been homelessness in downtown. I can remember as a kid in the early 90s being weirded out after my dad and his friend and I when we found a guy sleeping in a dumpster in the alley in the 500 block of Colorado Street. My dad's friend was in the process of moving and was looking for some boxes to pack with. I was too short to see into the dumpster, but they jumped back, to which I asked, "what's wrong?" and then quietly told me "there's a man sleeping in that dumpster". I was sure the guy was dead, though.
I also remember a story from my dad saying that same friend and he were visiting New Orleans, and that would have been in the late 80s or very early 90s. He said they were riding a streetcar down St. Charles Avenue and saw what they described as a dead guy lying in the street. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. Anyway, it's not like homelessness is some new problem. Cities have been dealing with it for a long time.