Apparently the university has bought 1.66 acres of property in order to lease it for 1 dollar a year to the town of Chapel Hill. The purpose of the lease is to provide a location for a homeless shelter to be run by the Interfaith Council (IFC).
Question: how much did this land cost? Question: is this the most efficient way to build and fund a homeless shelter? Question: isn’t that double taxation and essentially taxation without representation? I know principles and moral absolutes and such are old fashioned, but these are serious questions that need to be asked.
The director of the IFC has said that the new location is necessary because it “will provide easier access to some social services.” Not to be commonsensical or anything, but how hard is it now? There is, after all, already a shelter. But, that’s not enough.
Moran notes that the new location will be “quieter” and that the homeless will have comfier rooms. Also, the homeless can share their living quarters with fewer vagrants than they must at the current shelter. That’s nice.
Homelessness isn’t a black and white issue, but the idea of government feeding dependency is. It’s wrong. It isn’t their money. Further, Chapel Hill boasts on its website that it cares for the needy. Great! Then how about caring about the infants murdered just down the street by way of the local Planned Parenthood? Tha-anks!
(More to come later. Here’s a nice article on the subject)
Many homeless people are victims of abuse in the form of neglect and abandonment by their parents or other caregivers. Like many victims of abuse, a lot of them have chemical dependency problems. Their pain is so deep that they use alcohol or other drugs as an escape. Some of them are simply victims of life’s tragedies, such as hurricanes, fires, or other catastrophes from which they simply don’t have the resources to recover. Also, there is a snowball effect that occurs with homelessness. After all, who is going to hire someone with no address? Most homeless people don’t have the resources to even do their laundry; who is going to hire someone in filthy clothes? Also once a person has fallen to the level of living on the streets it is very difficult for them to get a job even if they are capable of working, because the condition of homelessness creates a low sense of self-esteem which makes it difficult to relate to other people. Look at these pictures: http://sites.google.com/site/homelessactionnetwor…