The City Council has been trying to blame the Interactive Resource Center for the problems around its facility. In some respect, this is like the instigator blaming her hired hand.
When you try to make homelessness less uncomfortable, you also remove some of the internal motivation to change one’s situation. But you also attract more homeless people.
One question is why so many homeless people have been coming to the Greensboro area. Some say the city’s and county’s good faith efforts to help the homeless are attracting more of that group….
One thing is clear: The word among the homeless in North Carolina is that Guilford County is a very desirable destination.
Even before the latest efforts by the area’s local governments to help the homeless, Greensboro and Guilford County had a reputation in North Carolina as the place that those down on their luck should go when they got out of prison.
The Rhino Times spoke with several former state prison inmates years ago who said that, in the state’s prison system, the common advice from one inmate to another was that Guilford County was the place you want to go after you’ve served your time.
“They say that, when you get out of prison, head to Greensboro,” one former prison inmate told the Rhino Times.
That former inmate, like others who had served time, said that the word regarding the attractiveness of services for the homeless and financially challenged in Guilford County was well known across the state prison system – and a considerable number of people who got out of prison took that advice by getting on a bus headed for Greensboro.
You always get more of the behavior you subsidize.
The City figuratively stands in Jefferson Square shouting “Free money!” and then acts surprised when people line up to get it. They’re not “helping” people; they’re enabling them to remain in the dysfunctional lifestyle they chose by making it financially rewarding.
If a beggar stood on the corner and never got a single penny, how long would he stay there?
And, no, I don’t have a solution for the problem. I just don’t think our tax money should exacerbate it.
JayCee, we are now living with the consequences of this approach. Downtown has been affected, and now this section around the IRC.
It takes a lot to get the progressive/ socialist crowd to acknowledge the damage their approaches cause. But unfortunately, they are very much in control here in Greensboro.
Predictably, the socialist/progressive crowd think the solution to the problem they created by funding something is to throw more money at it.
And that is why our taxes continue to skyrocket.
I agree, Jaycee, and our taxes are certainly skyrocketing.
Unfortunately, I see little energy behind fixing the situation. Robbie Perkins has announced he is going to run for mayor, and he might be an improvement over Nancy Vaughan at least to some extent, but it takes 5 or more council members to change course.