I'm part of a small multi-church group that has been handing out hot chocolate and hot dogs to some of the street people on Sunday evening for the last few weeks. Not because we're encouraging them to keep living like that - just the opposite. And because without reclaiming the people who are living in the streets, by merely reclaiming the streets, the problems will just become someone elses... (i.e. NIMBY).
It certainly was quiet out there last night and it actually gave us a chance to have some longer conversations with a couple of the men and women living "out there."
They face dangers not only from violent drug dealers, pimps and johns but also from some of the neighbours who, in their frustration, have resorted to violence against them. If these neighbours knew these people a little better, perhaps they'd realize that this website's approach of "outing" the johns is at least going after one of the sources of the problems - the people with the power and the money, rather than attacking the weakest links in a long complex chain of symptoms.
I think your idea of building stronger community spirit is on the right track and I hope it is a spirit of compassion for those "less lovely" neighbours who have been continually swept into the cracks by life itself.
They are all someone's child, sibling, or parent. And I'll guarantee you that when they were ten years old and someone asked: "so, what do you want to do when you grow up?" - none of them expressed the desire to end up as a drug-addicted hooker on Victoria street.
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I'm part of a small multi-church group that has been handing out hot chocolate and hot dogs to some of the street people on Sunday evening for the last few weeks. Not because we're encouraging them to keep living like that - just the opposite. And because without reclaiming the people who are living in the streets, by merely reclaiming the streets, the problems will just become someone elses... (i.e. NIMBY).
It certainly was quiet out there last night and it actually gave us a chance to have some longer conversations with a couple of the men and women living "out there."
They face dangers not only from violent drug dealers, pimps and johns but also from some of the neighbours who, in their frustration, have resorted to violence against them. If these neighbours knew these people a little better, perhaps they'd realize that this website's approach of "outing" the johns is at least going after one of the sources of the problems - the people with the power and the money, rather than attacking the weakest links in a long complex chain of symptoms.
I think your idea of building stronger community spirit is on the right track and I hope it is a spirit of compassion for those "less lovely" neighbours who have been continually swept into the cracks by life itself.
They are all someone's child, sibling, or parent. And I'll guarantee you that when they were ten years old and someone asked: "so, what do you want to do when you grow up?" - none of them expressed the desire to end up as a drug-addicted hooker on Victoria street.
Somewhere something went terribly wrong.
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