That's great, Michael. There are so many cases like this popping up all over the country we have been reporting on for years.
Just this morning the following account re St. Louis was reported, suggesting St. Louis was in contempt of court for destroying all the homeless property. Where's the punishment or at least restitution for all the priceless homeless belongings that were destroyed?
This official misconduct will continue and spread to other cities, especially if there is no penalty against St. Louis for violating a federal court order put in place to stop very type of abuse against their homeless. The courts throw homeless people into prison for minor offenses everyday, while pompous officials perpetrate far greater offenses against society with impunity.
It's time for NCH to take a strong stand against all this inhumanity America's homeless are suffering due to official misconduct at the local, state and federal levels of government. NCH needs to sit down with President Obama, and demand executive action to stop this official abuse against the homeless because this misconduct is HATE CRIME against the homeless no less so than the hate crimes individuals are being charged with for brutally victimizing homeless people in various states.
Public officials are perpetrating these hateful offenses against the homeless under color of law, normally by pretending they are committing them to "protect the environment" or for some other "legitimate" purpose. In the below St. Louis case, they are playing stupid with their "oops" and apologies, as if there was no bad intent involved, at all.
These disingenuous officials never do wrong, as they strive to force homeless people out of their jurisdictions via outright vigilante and police violence, if nothing else works. It is clear our nation's economy is not putting more people to work, it is forcing more men, women and children into the streets, and into the wilds, as homeless as can be while the least needy are getting their hefty "bailouts."
President Obama has ignored the bottom rung of the economy, i.e., homelessness, for far too long now. A few token visits to a soup kitchen or shelter doesn't cut it. President Obama needs to act now on behalf of all America's homeless, and this is what NCH needs to demand from our federal government, as a real national coalition for the homeless.
Winter is no time for the homeless to be mistreated by local, state and federal officials, period. If anything, these public servants should all be doing all they can to ensure no homeless man, woman or child is forced to live outside in the cold and rain, and their other fundamental rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should be protected, too.
I know if Bill Tinker, I and other ardent advocates like us were there in DC fighting for homeless rights, we'd be raising hell at the White House over their refusal to house the homeless among other things. NCH should at least knock on President Obama's door, and ask for a meeting to impress on him that the homeless need genuine humanitarian action at the local, state and federal level, NOW! ruben
***
November 7, 2009
Destruction of homeless people's items scrutinized
Carolyn Tuft St. Louis Post-Dispatch St. Louis -- A federal lawsuit settlement agreed to by the city of St. Louis in 2005 may have been violated when city park rangers, considered park police, destroyed all of the possessions of a camp of homeless people on Thursday morning, according to court records.
The agreement settled a lawsuit filed in federal court that accused the city of mistreating homeless people. On page 3 of the agreement, the city and its police agreed to "not destroy, damage, hide or cause to be abandoned the personal property of any homeless or homeless-appearing person."
The agreement also made it illegal to harass homeless people or sweep them off the streets. The lawsuit alleged that the city arrested and cleared homeless people from the downtown St. Louis streets during the city's Fourth of July celebration in 2004.
The agreement could explain why a city official, acting on behalf of Mayor Francis Slay, admitted that the parks department rangers "had screwed up" when they took a garbage truck to Interco Plaza at North Tucker Boulevard and Martin Luther King Drive to throw away, then crush the belongings of homeless who had been living in tents just outside the St. Patrick's Center for the homeless.
Hours after the park rangers refused to let homeless men and their advocates from Catholic Charities and St. Patrick's Center retrieve the belongings, the city official apologized.
About 10 a.m. Thursday, journalists watched as the rangers and parks workers ignored pleading from the homeless and their advocates and threw their belongings into a parks department compacting truck, then crushed the belongings.
Bill Siedhoff, director of the Department of Human Services, characterized the action taken by city park rangers as a "disturbing" display of disrespect for homeless people who had been camping in a small park near the St. Patrick's Center.
"I was just absolutely devastated to hear what happened this morning," Siedhoff said late Thursday afternoon.
Siedhoff said that the park rangers were out of line to destroy the belongings of the group. Siedhoff said he would be investigating to find out why the park was cleared out and who ordered it.
Arriving shortly before 10 a.m., the park rangers swiftly took tents, blankets, pillows, bags filled with belongings and threw them into an orange garbage truck.
Clint Smith, 38, who is homeless, rode up on his bicycle begging the rangers to return his belongings. Instead, the rangers turned on the compacting device in the truck and crushed everything that Smith owned. He was only able to save an umbrella.
"Oh, man," Smith said to the rangers. "That was my medicine. That was my stuff. Oh, man. What a waste."
Included in his belongings were heart and lung medicines.
The incident outraged some workers at the nearby St. Patrick's and the Catholic Charities outreach centers, which provide services for the homeless.
"Several (of the homeless) were staying here because, on any given day, we have more people seeking shelter than there are beds," said Karen Wallensak, who works for Catholic Charities' Housing Resource Center in the building next door and tried with other workers to intervene.
"These people have never caused a problem," Wallensak said.
Siedhoff said the city has a protocol that homeless people are to be notified that they are breaking the city's 10 p.m. curfew if they are sleeping in a park.
Also, Siedhoff said, city rules require that anything cleared from a park be taken to the city's health department and that the city workers do their best to contact the homeless and not destroy their belongings.
"The protocol was totally ignored and that is appalling; it should have never happened," Siedhoff said. "This is just really beyond belief. We apologize."
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Ruben --- On Sat, 11/7/09, Michael Stoops <mstoops@...> wrote:
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