NPR: Move the homeless out of city parks...across the U.S.

Jessica Jones' story below, about moving the homeless, rising in some cities at a rate of 42% since the U.S. recession, is indicative of two things: there are agencies like churches that attempt to put band-aids on the problem by providing some food, and that politicians are supporting the business community as they seek to revitalize downtown cores, and use their office and their authority through the police to move the homeless out of sight, out of mind.
Some individual activists want municipalities to provide housing, as their answer to the "blight" that the homeless are considered by the political class. And yet, through policies and circumstances that resulted from the complicity of both the political class and the business class, the homeless numbers are continuing to grow. And there is no politician getting much attention for taking that position.
There are millions of dollars of public monies being spent to purchase Tomahawk missiles about to be dropped on Syria, and yet there are no dollars for the human tsunami of homeless that is flowing across many American cities in the homeland.
Is this not an issue of "homeland security"?
Is this not an incubator for desperate recruits into a form of vengeance that could bite those cities in the backside?
Seeing the homeless in such a simplistic manner can no longer be tolerated. They are the seeds of the next public uprising. They are also the flotsam and jetsam left over from the insouciance of the last half decade during which the Wall Street indices have soared through the roof, and now are camping in the city parks, defecating on downtown city streets and "giving those cities a bad image".....
So, only the homeless must move or be arrested, because after all, how can we 'gentrify' our  business district with homeless casting a pall over the adjacent city parks.
These people, many of whom are willing and able to work, yet cannot find the jobs that would take them out of those parks, are the new under class, generated by a culture that cares only for the wealthy and the powerful. And it takes a non-profit agency like npr to shine the spot light on their plight.
And even npr is in the crosshairs of many Republican budget-cutting congressmen and women...because it covers those stories that those politicians do not want to see the light of day.
And yet the drum-roll for Syrian invasion continues, albeit with some justification, while the homeless continue to plague the heartland of the homeland....
how tragic!

More Cities Sweeping Homeless Into Less Prominent Areas

by Jessica Jones npr website, September 5, 2013

In North Carolina, a fight is brewing over the homeless in the capital city of Raleigh. Elected leaders have asked charitable and religious groups to stop their long-standing tradition of feeding the homeless in a downtown park on weekends.
But advocates for the poor say the city is trying to push the homeless out of a neighborhood that business leaders want to spruce up.
'I Will Arrest You'
Almost every day, the Rev. Hugh Hollowell walks through Moore Square, a centuries-old city park in downtown Raleigh.
As he strolls down paths shaded by towering willow oak trees, Holloway greets nearly everyone here by name. Most are homeless. On weekends, when soup kitchens are closed, Holloway and his church workers distribute breakfast to as many as 100 people. But recently a policeman showed up.
"And I said, 'Um, is there a problem?' And he said 'I'm not here to debate with you sir, I'm here to tell you you have to leave. And if you don't leave I will arrest you,' " he says.
Police also banned nearly two dozen other groups who've fed homeless people in the park for years. Candace Jeffries, who relies on those weekend meals to survive, says she knows what's going on.
"I think the reason why they doin' it 'cause they don't want us in the park at all — nobody, like everybody just disappeared," the 21-year-old says.
Local Merchants Hurt

Raleigh isn't the only city seeking to move its homeless population to a less prominent location. In recent years, municipalities from Seattle to Tampa have cracked down on the homeless and groups that help them.

Nationally, there is an increase in cities responding to visible poverty including homelessness by criminalizing it.
Maria Foscarinis heads the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, an organization that seeks to end homelessness. She says many cities want to revitalize downtown areas.
"And they feel like having homeless people, having visibly poor people in those downtown areas detracts from those efforts," she says.
There's been a dramatic increase in the number of homeless and hungry people since the recession, Foscarinis says. And tight state budgets haven't helped solve the problem. That's true in Columbia, S.C., where councilman Cameron Runyan says the number of homeless people in the county has increased by 42 percent in two years. He says their presence on his city's main street hurts local merchants.
"Businesses have a real issue with panhandling, there's an issue with defecating," he says. "We just arrested a woman for using the bathroom on the sidewalk right in the heart of the main street business district area."
As a short-term solution, Runyan and other city leaders in Columbia plan to keep an emergency winter shelter open an extra two months. His strategy includes arresting people who choose not to go there.
'Make Sure Hungry Get Fed'
At a recent public hearing in Raleigh, N.C., advocates for the homeless say that's not a plan they support.
"If you want Moore Square to be free of homeless people, then provide homes for people so they don't have to come to Moore Square," says local activist Patrick O'Neill. "If you don't want us feeding the hungry...at Moore Square, if that's unsightly and an embarrassment to our city, then do something about it, and make sure the hungry get fed."
The city council has since voted to stop arresting charities that feed the homeless in the park until the matter can be studied further. Meanwhile, two downtown landowners and the Episcopal Diocese have offered their downtown parking lots to groups planning to distribute food to the poor.