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xxJeffFoxworthyxx t1_jcnn59v wrote

Reply to comment by 6th__extinction in Elicker forcibly evicts and demolishes tent city by YankeeinNCandIhateit

Does it matter? He gave the order. He isn't interested in doing anything to help people -- he just wants to play Whack-a-Mole with whatever camp springs up. The very existence of a tent city means that he has failed homeless people in New Haven. He knows this and wants to get rid of an embarrassment before he tries for reelection. This camp has been there for years and now its an urgent problem? Its a stunt that will hopefully backfire.

Elicker is a failure of a public servant and this just his way of hiding his failure instead of doing anything to treat the problem. New Haven shelters are overcrowded, dangerous, unsanitary, and degrading -- and his solution is to funnel more people into them? People want to avoid shelters for a reason -- people don't just deny help for no reason. They deny help because they don't trust the city -- and who can blame them?

There will just another camp in a few months. Homelessness is getting worse and worse and it won't go away by dismantling a few tents.

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Marlinspikehall32 t1_jcopd1n wrote

Ok but let’s be honest a large number of the homeless are not originally from New Haven but have come here from surrounding towns. This has to be state wide solution. Having a place that causes such tremendous problems in the city is not a solution.

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WholeComparison130 t1_jcovdgw wrote

I don’t understand why so many people keep saying this. What changes about the situation if someone is homeless in New Haven but grew up elsewhere? I grew up in another town but I’m a resident here now

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Marlinspikehall32 t1_jcovx6u wrote

Because it means that New Haven doesn’t just have a city problem but a county and state problem which means we can’t fix it just by providing housing for New Haven residents it means that we bare the brunt economically in a city where poverty is already wide spread while the wealthier towns push their problems onto us. This has to be fixed statewide with housing provided in other towns and cities who have the nimby mentality. We can’t do it all.

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buried_lede t1_jcpames wrote

That doesn’t justify bulldozing this encampment.

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Marlinspikehall32 t1_jcpv43q wrote

If this was on your doorstep endangering your kids and you couldn’t afford to move, you would think twice about your comment. I am not saying it should’ve been bulldozed I am saying that it isn’t simple and saying don’t do it and not reckoning with the harm it is doing to an already impoverished neighborhood is being naive. May I suggest you live next to it for a year with drunks, drugs, assaults, garbage and human feces in your front yard. Not to mention the mentally ill who can attack you both physically and verbally.

This a problem that needs to be fixed compassionately for both the residents of the tents and the residents of the neighborhood.

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xxJeffFoxworthyxx t1_jcq7ch1 wrote

That’s just the thing: this wasn’t fixed compassionately.

The city just scattered them. Nobody who lived there is any better off now.

I wouldn’t call that compassion.

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Marlinspikehall32 t1_jcqq0dz wrote

I agree but not understanding why people just want a festering problem to go away is why we end up here. It needed to have been addressed a long time ago. It needed to have been addressed over five years ago when we had the homeless encampment down by the mill River.

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buried_lede t1_jcqw022 wrote

I understand why someone would want a festering problem to go away. I have felt that way myself but shouting that out publicly means that’s the part of the views I hold that I want heard the most and what should shape public policy. That’s the last thing I’d do, because I think it makes terrible public policy and solves nothing. I remind myself these are human beings we are talking about. And for every wandering person who seems dangerous or maybe has been violent there are 10 who are just trying to get out of poverty

You realize everyone living in the encampment is now scattered around new haven’s neighborhoods really at a loss and way more likely to appear in your life now than before. You realize they are 10 times needier when their possessions are destroyed, and the city has done this multiple times over the years, thus increasing new haven’s burden. He’s pushed them back to the New Haven Green and other neighborhoods

They should have donated a couple Porto potties to the site and left it in place until a solution could be found but the city is lacking in imagination and any guts..

I don’t know why Elicker was in such a panic over an allegedly “ permanent fixture” he thought they were building ( a shower? I don’t know) it’s not like that gives them any new legal status he has to worry about.

Towns have been pressured to do more and many of them are trying to catch up to state law minimums for affordable housing now, finally, but bottom line, most gravitate to new haven anyway because it’s compact and loaded with public transportation

You say the encampment is causing so many problems, then talk about desperate people causing problems on “your doorstep”, well, bulldozing the camp put desperate people on doorsteps and sidewalks and the Green etc. The camp was solving a problem better than that

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Marlinspikehall32 t1_jcqxxkn wrote

I would guess he received a lot of pressure from someone.

I agree this is a growing problem around the country and I would like to see the state address the problem. We need to provide stable affordable or free housing for people who are unable to take care of themselves or need a little help.

But people cannot just look at one side of the issue. They must understand all sides and the force this exerts on public policy to be able to deal the the problem appropriately. How many of the people here on this forum have attempted political and social solutions? All we hear is wringing of hand and gnashing of teeth and then surprised pikachu face when something happens like this instead of attempting to find a solution. How many become active in truly addressing this problem? How many will try to force our elected officials to find a solution? Collectively we are all to blame.

the problem is that people act like this is a singular problem and don’t solve the problem and of course they will just find some where else to start a new camp.

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buried_lede t1_jcrr9jo wrote

True about people needing to be involved, but if you view the public hearings on this, a lot of people are involved, and they know a lot, they don’t just gnash their teeth, they approach the city with ideas. The city responds to those ideas by utterly ignoring them and going in with a bulldozer, so I guess it takes even more people, and discovering more levers to pull. I guess you have to get the chamber of commerce on board

I don’t know what it is about getting elected in New haven but the minute you do, you become a rock on the bottom of a stream with no eyes, ears, heart, etc

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OpelSmith t1_jcr20hh wrote

okay but the camp was next to a river, next to a soccer field, across from a cemetery. Not on your doorstep or anyone's, so what are you going on about

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Marlinspikehall32 t1_jcrba3m wrote

Yeah that’s what they said about the camp at mill river. But my neighborhood was one of the closest and we dealt with the fall out for several years. We finally moved because we were unwilling to deal with it anymore. You can say ohh there are not bothering anyone. But they are, ask the closest neighborhood.

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OpelSmith t1_jcref65 wrote

No, you're just making up BS. I know you're making up BS because I'm bothered by homeless people all the time near my apartment downtown. I'm pretty sure one of our regulars on the corner came into our part-business building, saw my keys on the outside of my apartment door, stole them, and stole my bike in turn with them. And it all still happens without there being a tent city here.

All the packages and bikes stolen in East Rock keep on happening with Mill River camp gone too. Weird

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Marlinspikehall32 t1_jcsaoxj wrote

Lol. Not BS. S$#t on the sidewalk. Bottles, syringes and condoms everywhere. Occasional druggie wandering around as well as the mentally it all happened to me.

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OpelSmith t1_jcta0u9 wrote

Why is all this still happening without the camps then???

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Marlinspikehall32 t1_jctder6 wrote

Not sure to what you were referring but here is my timeline.

Lived happily in my neighborhood 5+ years

Encampment developed - big mess

We moved out after a year or so

They bulldozed the encampment -mess disappeared

I am not talking about packages on doorsteps. I am talking human excrement, used condoms, garbage every where, and encounters with druggies and mentally ill people regularly

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xxJeffFoxworthyxx t1_jcu7tqh wrote

Yeah, and none of that is solved — it just isn’t on your doorstep anymore. None of those people have been helped.

You didn’t want a compassionate solution — you wanted to stop being personally bothered by it.

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Marlinspikehall32 t1_jcv4vi3 wrote

Nowhere have I said they should’ve bulldozed. I have not advocated for that ever. Notice I just moved, but I did advocate, send letters, met with the council person and tried to effect change that would help these people become housed. I however empathize with both sides. When they emptied out the mill river neighborhood’s encampment they just moved to the other side of the city. I feel that free and affordable housing should be available to help people in a tough spot. Bulldozing is not the answer. Solving the housing and drug crisis is the answer.

Somehow you want me to be the bad guy here, not sure why.

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OpelSmith t1_jctikfi wrote

Yeah I'm referring to the latter part, that it ever really stopped

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Old_Size9060 t1_jcpe631 wrote

Yeah, but all these facts are getting in the way of my efforts to interpret this in binary good vs. evil terms! /s

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