Helping the Homeless

In a story from the Orlando Sentinel, it is reported that the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty has ranked Orlando as the third “meanest city” in the nation when it comes to the city's treatment of bums. The top ten cities were mostly in warmer climates where the homeless tend to congregate.

They stand on the corner and beg, urinating in public, breaking into vacant buildings, and commit crimes. They scare paying customers away from businesses, as well as sucking up resources in the city in their constant search for more drugs, alcohol, and free handouts. There are several homeless in my area that are known on sight by local hospitals, EMTs, and police. Several of them are transported to hospitals in the area more than 150 times a year, so they can go to the ER and get a free meal/more drugs/a place to sleep.

Contrary to what the press would like you to believe, most of the homeless are there because of drug or alcohol addiction- they are not just unlucky people who were laid off. They stand on the corner and beg until they get enough for some booze, and they are "off work" for the rest of the day.

I ask the folks at the National Law Center on Homelessness a question: If you care so much about the homeless, how many of them are staying in the spare bedroom at your house? How many of the homeless are sleeping in a tent city in YOUR yard? Or could it be that you only support the homeless with words, and when they are sleeping in someone else's backyard?