Friday, January 5, 2018

MoCo Council's war on the homeless spreads across the pond

The Montgomery County Council's war on the homeless, including a proposal to ban panhandling, appears to be contagious. A British official is demanding the Thames Valley police remove homeless people from the streets before the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, scheduled to take place on May 19 at Windsor Castle.

Our County Council has set a similar deadline. Claiming they will end homelessness by housing every single homeless person by December of this year, they conveniently are seeking to pass laws criminalizing homelessness, in an apparent scheme to drive the homeless away - - to make it appear they were successful.

But what's so interesting about the British case, is that Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council leader Simon Dudley's talking points are almost identical to those of our Montgomery County Council. "A large number of adults that are begging in Windsor are not in fact homeless," Dudley wrote to police, "and if they are homeless they are choosing to reject all support services ... In the case of homelessness amongst this group, it is therefore a voluntary choice.”

The Montgomery County Council, during their last attempt to pass the panhandling law, claimed that the homeless asking for money in Montgomery County are actually "professional panhandlers" who travel here from outside the County each day. They provided no evidence to support their claim. A national non-profit organization condemned the County's proposal at that time, writing that the Council was trying to "criminalize homelessness."

Similarly, homeless advocates in Windsor blasted Dudley for his claims. “For someone to ask for loose change, your self-esteem is at its lowest," Murphy James of the Windsor Homelessness Project told The Guardian. "No one does this from choice. We shouldn’t be demonising these people, but asking them what we can do to help.”

A public hearing will be held on the panhandling ban on January 30 at 1:30 PM at the County Council Office Building.

10 comments:

  1. I find it odd you care about the homeless at all. They suck up your tax dollars and you alredy think County taxes are to high. Many of them might be illegals, so do you think shelters should check citizen status, and toss those with out it back out in the cold? Or maybe just deport them on the spot?

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    1. I obviously care more than the people who are currently in office, as we have a major homeless population despite their many years in office.

      In reality, the effort to prevent panhandling is actually going to increase our taxes - government wants to be the sole provider of services, and they don't want these folks getting cash to spend on their own from private citizens.

      Anecdotally, illegal immigrants are not usually homeless. Inadequate mental health facilities and a lack of jobs in the County are the two main drivers of homelessness.

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    2. Illegal immigrants are not usually homeless might be due to the fact that they have taken most of the low skill low wage jobs that many of these panhandlers could probably do.

      Than you have the illegals who are homeless like Jose Garcia Zarate who killed Kate Steinle.

      if you walk into any fast food restaurant in Montgomery County it's staff is 95% Hispanic and maybe 3% African American.

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  2. If you are genuine in your concern, then I hope you dig deep into your pockets every time you see somebody at a traffic light asking for money. Of course not before you check for a green card. Are you okay with a shelter as your next door neighbor?

    I'm thinking the only reason you are posting this is because you just like to trash any Democrat. If it was a Republican you wouldn't be pretending to care. Trump and Ryan are doing all they can do to cut help for the poor and yet you stay silent.

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    1. 11:17: Paul Ryan is a globalist stooge, and I haven't been silent in my disdain for his agenda to cut Social Security, Medicare and ship American jobs overseas.

      Rather than build more shelters, how about we build a mental health facility to get many of these folks the treatment they need to live productive lives?

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  3. Mandatory drug testing for food stamps and welfare benefits is something we should seriously consider.

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  4. Drug testing is a must. In fact, a thorough financial review should be done of all people seeking welfare assistance, on a case by case basis. I don't want to see fools driving around in luxury cars, wearing name brand clothing or doing drugs while at the same time claiming to not have enough money for food and rent. Unacceptable. That is tantamount to fraud. Also, having a litter of children is no grounds for added sympathy. If you're going to procreate you better do it responsibly. Your children are not the public's burden. I should not pay for your kids nor should you pay for mine.

    Sure, if they're illegals, deport. We have enough problems here, we don't need to import poverty. For the legitimately poor, yes ban panhandling and rather direct them to proper county run shelters and assistance centers designed to help get them back on their feet. Use our tax dollars to actually make a positive change. Don't make it a crime to panhandle just steer them in the right direction.

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  5. Drug testing assistance recipients is a silly idea and a waste of money. Nationally, the drug use rate is a little over 9%. When Florida implemented its drug testing only 2.6% failed the test. It actually cost the state more to run the drug tests than they would have spent just sending out benefits! As of 2015 testing was in place in 7 states, and all but one found drug use at under 1%.

    Drug testing assistance recipients is one of those things that sounds good to people who like to shame and otherwise control those they deem "less worthy" than themselves, but in practice it makes absolutely no sense.

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  6. I've heard some people sell their foodstamps each month in order to buy lottery tickets or scratch off tickets.Lots of fraud taking place.I'm not trying to deem a scratch off ticket addict "Less worthy" than myself,but that is fraud.

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  7. Sure, drug testing has a cost associated but it's the principle of it. I'd rather had a more expensive but honest system than this pathetic abused one. It will also set a precedent and let it be known that fraud will not be tolerated. Automatically those that are drug users will themselves have less incentive to seek assistance and therefore we would be doing less testing. I don't mean hard drugs either (perhaps your 9% figure) but anything illegal including marijuana. It's indicative of a completely warped sense of values where a person would rather use his discretionary income for these things rather than the essentials and seek assistance from the public. Unacceptable. Personal responsibility!

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