Yesterday at an unstructured homeless camp this was the scene:
The city brought approximately 8 people to clean up a homeless camp. These were not paid city workers. These were people required to do community service work. They used free labor to do this work.
I watched as the 2 or 3 paid city workers stood around and directed these community service workers to destroy tents, and throw everything into trucks to be thrown away.
This is how we do things in America. Just destroy the lives of homeless people. They don’t matter. They are nothing other than a cancer on the skin of our cities. So sweep them away.
I’ve become so jaded that doesn’t even shock me any more. But there is always a new level of atrocity and shock that finds its way into my mind.
These camps are basically toxic waste dumps.
- Needles
- Shit
- Piss
- Rotten food
- Rats
These are centers of disease.
I know for a fact that a person living in this camp recently got back from a long stay at the hospital because he contracted Hepatitis A.
The Ohio Department of Health is reporting that Summit County (Akron) now has 64 reported cases of Hep A… Compared to Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) which has 54 cases. The population of Cleveland is 385,525. The population of Akron is 197,846.
The Atlantic is reporting that Typhus and Tuberculosis Are Spreading in Homeless Populations in California. It’s only a matter of time until they come to Ohio.
The reason these camps are so toxic is because cities refuse to work with these people. They are given no trash service. They are given no toilet service. All of those things would be considered luxuries that would make the homeless “too comfortable”.
So as the city vindictively tortures homeless people because they hate them, they are spreading disease.
Akron ignores diseases that shouldn’t even exist yet are sweeping our city.
This is not anything new to me. It’s just Akron.
But what was new to me was that the city of Akron put truly unsuspecting citizens who were required by law to do community service in the heart of this environment.
I walked over to a group of workers and said, “That tent could be full of needles, go slow.”
They looked at me with big, shocked eyes. They had no idea what they had been forced to get into.
The only protective gear these people had been given where cloth gloves. No rubber gloves. No masks. Just their personal clothes, personal shoes, a yellow vest and cloth gloves.
I’m not an expert in communicable diseases. But I would think OSHA would see this as a nightmare.
I don’t know if these people were given a choice as to which jobs they were required to do as part of their community service. But I sort of doubt it. They probably were forced into this scene.
I’m not overstating this scenario by saying: this job could have been a death sentence. They worked all day in this camp. And they still have more to do.
And they will do this work over and over again as homeless people move, set up camps with no support services and are swept away again.
All homeless haters love to tell me what a piece of shit all these people are. But then conveniently they never tell me what we should do with them. I only see 3 options: kill them, lock them up or treat them.
It doesn’t take a mental giant to realize that killing them might not play well on the evening news. And we already don’t have enough space in our jails for the criminals we currently have. So, the way I see it, we have one option: Treat these people.
Work with them. Engage them. Give them basic services that help minimize disease and make it so they are less likely to steal and do other crimes.
I know the mayor thinks I’m an idiot. But I’m here to tell you: The city of Akron is spreading disease, pushing homeless people further away from society, making them less likely to engage with service workers and now is jeopardizing the lives of people that were forced into disease-ridden, toxic environments because they got a speeding ticket.
This is madness. And it all stems from hatred. The homeless are ruining the mayor’s vision of an Akron utopia filled with bearded hipsters and wealthy senior citizens.
This is no joke. This shit is real. And it’s only getting worse. This is a disaster and public-health crisis and the administration is doing nothing about it.