The recent column by homeless person John Kloeckner [“Let’s Get Real: Homeless Need a Hand Up, Not Handouts,” Jan. 27, Xpress] is a good start for a discussion about homelessness.
There are better ways to handle this problem, and one is already being tried in Albuquerque, N.M., under the mayorship of Richard Berry, appropriately called the Better Way program. Twice a week, a city van patrols the streets to find homeless people, who are offered work for $9 per hour, lunch included, for the day. These people clean up graffiti and litter, clear weeds and generally perform city maintenance.
The program is highly regarded by all, including the homeless. More info can be found on YouTube at http://avl.mx/277.
— Glen Reese
Asheville
8 thoughts on “Letter writer: New Mexico program helps homeless with jobs”
LOL, so instead of the homeless panhandling for money, they get paid lulz. And their money is spent on ??? So government now is just a stand in LOL. The problem is still there and no long term solution is found.
Again, if one is homeless and avoiding shelters or unable to be admitted, then the issue isn’t a paycheck but usually substance abuse. If a homeless person finally tires of their situation, there are places that will help them. But this is important, they have to be willing to take the first step lulz.
You do know it’s impossible to take anything you say seriously even when you’re trying to be serious, right?
““Lulz” is how trolls keep score. A corruption of “LOL” or “laugh out loud,” “lulz” means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium.”
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lulz
LOL, am I to take you serious for your response or am I to laugh at the joke of this nation where people are naive and increasingly out of touch with reality lulz? Hey Summers, we just gave a boatload of money to Iran to “play” nice LOL. They of course are ignoring any so called accords and agreement and even testing long range missiles lulz. The same damn thing applies to homeless, single moms, welfare luvas, the lazy, the ignorant, and anyone who is dumb enough to think that giving money away to these groups is going to change things lulz. It’s in fact the definition of insanity which IMO many on the left suffer. Stats show that for all the money tossed at it, and we’re talking trillions, it’s gotten worse. Keep this in mind as well that all the while regulations are at an all time high, private property rights are at an all time low, the government figures on unemployment is a lie, the nation is in 20 trillion in debt and a guy who didn’t earn his first paycheck until 40 is considered Presidential material LOL. And wants to add another 20 trillion in debt to it lulz.
Your opposition surprises, lol. What Albuquerque is trying to do is to find a work-oriented alternative to ineffective government regulation of panhandling. The litter cleanup is not a stand-alone program designed merely to subsidize an itinerant lifestyle, but is integrated with other outreach efforts (including mental-health and drug-treatment services) to further a comprehensive solution that gets the homeless into permanent homes, into full-time jobs, and out of poverty. See http://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/gov-albuquerque-gives-panhandlers-jobs-not-tickets.html. Public investment in human resources is not necessarily cost-inefficient. But you get the return you pay for.
LOL, you know what? If it improves their situation then sure. But if it turns out to be another government ran program that benefits those in control of the funds, then it’s nothing but another scam. The money doesn’t do any good because those in charge of it use it for their own gain. And the corrupt scam that government is ensures that the spigot never gets turned off because these agencies within it always come back claiming that they need even more money LOL.
The homeless will only improve their situation without government. Same goes for anyone on assistance.
yep, but that’s how lieberal progressive democrackkks roll…they MUST keep the underprivileged poor so they
can maintain their criminal operations.
“The homeless will only improve their situation without government. Same goes for anyone on assistance.”
You know, that’s just wild because here I thought all this time that before all those assistance programs were established, people just tended to starve to death, turn to crime a prostitution, and that children especially were prone to joining street gangs and selling their bodies. Who knew that the Gilded Age and all the time before was actually a time when nobody suffered, lived in misery, died young and in squalor, and was the era when everyone pulled their own weight. Why, it makes you wonder why all those social programs got off the ground in the first place, doesn’t it?
We already have taxpayer PAID housing staff who cannot even keep public housing cleaned up! And NO one in this so called
‘green utopia’ will ever do a damn thing about…HACA and City Council / City mgmt all totally DISRESPECTFUL to Asheville about all their damn trash and litter!