Homeless people of Cincinnati: WE STAND WITH YOU!

When you become mayor of a city, you become mayor of the ENTIRE city. Not just the mayor of the rich people. Not just the mayor of the trendy people.
Black, white, rich or poor. You are in charge of all the people of your city. But that’s not the way city officials in Cincinnati AND their entire surrounding county, Hamilton County, see it.
They are on the warpath for homeless people.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said in this article “We’ve had enough of it. They need to go to shelters and they need to obey the rules of the shelters.”
Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman made a ruling that reads, “In order to prevent the nuisance from spreading to other areas of Hamilton County, Ohio this court is amending the initial order and amended order to include the entire geographic area of Hamilton County.”
This entire directive is coming straight from the top of Cincinnati. From this article:

Mayor John Cranley called camping on public sidewalks “unacceptable” and “illegal” in a statement Friday, and said Deters would file actions in federal and state court.
“This presents a clear and present health and safety hazard to homeless individuals and the general public,” Cranley said. “The city is working hard to end this.”

Let’s break this down a bit. “They need to go to shelters and they need to obey the rules of the shelters.”
From here:

Area shelters have filled their permanent beds but continue to accept individuals who can sleep on spare mattresses, said Kevin Finn, president of Cincinnati-based Strategies to End Homelessness. No one has been turned away.

So as long as we can physically stuff humans inside a building then the shelter system is completely fine. There is not a mention of human rights or civil rights. As a poor person the unspoken law is that you lose ALL your rights.
GO TO THE SHELTERS AND OBEY THE RULES.
That’s not sheltering. That’s imprisoning.
When you have one option and every other option is illegal you are putting people in homeless prisons.
Here are some of the reviews of a major shelter in Cincinnati, Shelterhouse:
Shelterhouse
411 Gest St, Cincinnati, OH

“This is absolutely the worse place ever it has bedbugs everywhere in there.”

 

This is not a shelter, it’s a warehouse where men who have found themselves homeless are exploited for government grant money and packed in like a boxcar bound for Bukenwald.
The staff treat grown men like children… Scratch that… Not children, dogs. If a child were found living in conditions like this, the parents would be arrested and the children would be removed from their care.

 

If your choices come down to Shelter House or a tent by the river… Take the tent option.
It’s safer, cleaner, and less damaging to your mental and physical health.

 

Because it’s filled with alcoholics and drug addicts and if you go there trying to get straight and sober it’s a bad place for you is relapse waiting to happen

********************
Reviews like these are the norm for shelters all across America. They are places that strip people of dignity and self respect. They strip you of your very humanity. As the reviewer above said, he felt like a dog.
And they are filled with drugs and alcohol. Shelters gave up long ago on policing that activity.
The Hamilton County Justice Center (their jail) gets similar reviews:

“Horrible place to be. Wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy”

 

“This place is filthy! I’ve never ever seen such dirtiness & I’ve been in several detention centers. Along with rude staff.”

We can pretend that homeless shelters are this universal catch all for every single homeless person of America. But that’s childish, unrealistic thinking.
This article lists some of the many reasons people won’t go to shelters:

• No Pets Allowed
• Denied Entry Due to Mental Illness
• Discrimination Against LGBTQ People
• Fear of Contracting Parasites like Lice, Scabies, Pubic Lice, or Bedbugs
• Hours of Operation Incompatible with Work Hours
• Danger of Rape or Assault
• Fear of Contracting Disease
• An Invasive and Disrespectful Check-In Process
• Lack of Handicapped Accommodations
• Drug Use is Rampant
• Separation of Family Members
• Service Dogs are Barred from Entry
• Danger of Theft
• Religious Differences
• Lack of Privacy and Fear of Crowds

The officials of Cincinnati and Hamilton County are saying, “None of those reasons are valid. Go to the shelter or get arrested.”
We must be very truthful in what is happening in Cincinnati. There is no interest in understanding the homeless citizens of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Therefore they have taken an entire group of people and stereotyped them and have begun rounding them up.
One size fits all is not civilization. That’s bigotry. And it is a dangerous, slippery slope.
“We don’t care what you want.”
“What we want is for you to disappear.”
And that’s not an overstatement. That’s LITERALLY what they said,

Cities across the country are zeroing in on homeless camps, said Megan Hustings, president of the National Coalition for the Homeless. On Friday, local officials ordered about 20 people to leave an encampment in northern Massachusetts, citing health and safety concerns. Hustings said many people don’t like being confronted with visible poverty.

People don’t want to see poverty.
If you don’t want to see something that means you want it to go away. You want it to disappear. Our refined senses make seeing poverty an uncomfortable experience.
The reviewer of Shelterhouse gets right to the point:  “[We are] …packed in like a boxcar bound for Bukenwald.” It is written very clearly in these articles above that they have run out of beds and are now packing people in every available piece of floor space.
This is what we do with people we don’t like. We put them in concentration camps.
Jews, Poles and other Slavs, the mentally ill and physically-disabled from birth defects, religious and political prisoners, Roma and Sinti, Freemasons, Jehovah’s Witnesses (then called Bible Students), criminals, homosexuals, and prisoners of war all went to Buchenwald concentration camp.
While we aren’t targeting Jews, Poles and Slavs, we certainly are targeting African Americans:
Homelessness Has A Black Face | HuffPost

The face of homelessness has a majority Black face. In Los Angeles, African Americans account for 9% of the general population, but over 39 percent of the homeless population.

And most certainly a high percentage of homeless people are mentally ill and physically disabled. They are also felons and homosexuals.
We might not be killing these people. But we are certainly rounding them up and putting them in camps that we now have rebranded as “shelters.”
Will humanity ever stop rounding up people they don’t like and putting them in camps? I see no end in sight of this practice.
This is the American homeless policy.
Round up the homeless and force them into shelters. That’s the big plan we’ve all come up with.
We must stop this practice for the good of the very foundational structure of our American society.
Homeless people aren’t homeless in a vacuum. They have significant mental health issues. They have significant physical health issues. They have significant addiction issues. And they have become untethered from civilization. Their families have either all died or have disowned them.
We treat them like dogs and then they become feral. We are creating wild humans. No one cares about them. Everyone wants them to disappear. And so, of course, they don’t want to acclimate back into society. Society has given up on them. And so they have given up on society.
We have to look at the individual. Each homeless person has a story. Each homeless person has a very valid, legitimate reason why they are homeless. We must understand these stories. We must analyze these stories. And ultimately we have to care about these people. We, as a society, have to take an interest in these people if we are ever to have any hope of getting them back in society.
And this is where you come in. Where we ALL come in.
We all must have an interest in these people. Because when we take an interest in these people our politicians will take an interest in these people. We can then begin the process of inviting them back into our communities and make them feel like they are a wanted part of society.
Otherwise, we might as well just admit defeat and truly start imprisoning these homeless people. The situation will never get better otherwise.
Sage
P.S.
If I did my job, you hopefully see the inhumane injustice Cincinnati and Hamilton County are inflicting upon their homeless population. But it’s still worlds better than Akron.

“Homeless camp settles in after a week of moves, this time on private property”

Cincinnati Police spokesman Steve Saunders said the creation of a homeless camp on private property, rather than public property, changes the way authorities will deal with the situation. Unless they receive complaints about criminal activity or health and building code violations, Saunders said, police would likely keep hands off a camp that’s been permitted by a private property owner.

So even though all of Hamilton County is out to arrest every single homeless person and supporter that camps on public land, they are more than happy to let these people live in peace on private land.
We should be so lucky in Akron. I fully expect Akron to shut down our camp on MY PRIVATE LAND any day now.
S.