view out Stillman's 9th and H propertyThe Arcata [Sh]ity council has canceled the lease on the $460,000 Arcata Endeavor Services Center and the Eureka Times Standard speaks of “possible impact.” It makes one ask why these “hippy-dippy” progressives attack the poor so ruthlessly? The answer is simply that the Arcata City Council is a bunch of fascist neo-liberals. When I served as a member of the Arcata Emergency Shelter and Homeless Services Plan Task Force (AESHSPTF), emergency shelter and homeless services were ignored, and kicking the homeless out of Arcata became the sole focus due to intense business pressure. Alex “Leona Helmsly” Stillman, the biggest landlord on the Arcata plaza, and now Vice mayor led the fight, to shit on the down and out.
A quick background: The Arcata Endeavor was started in 1983, and was hosted by the Arcata Presbyterian Church. In 1997 the Endeavor obtained non-profit status, and worked with the City of Arcata to get two $35,000 “study,” and one $490,000 “construction” State Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). The “Arcata Service Center,” the Endeavor, was built in 1999 to “empower people as they work to remove barriers to success in their lives.” These “locally utilized taxes," CDBGs, came with so many “requirements” that they hardly could be “implementing our own solution to a local problem.” And the worst requirement was that the beloved City of Arcata was to hold the lease on the property obtained for the poor.
The “idea” of removing the poor from the poor’s building first became public during the AESHSPTF meetings. Downtown merchants, landlords, and “Members of Arcata Downtown Main Street Program,” started complaining that the entirety of the problems that happen in “their downtown” happens because some take pity on the hungered. This “lobbying group” had COMPLEAT control of the AESHSPTF’s $37,500 consultants. Alex Stillman and her mainstreet boys managed to get push polls, media distortion, censorship, and the “idea” introduced that the CDBG homeless building should not have it’s one dollar a year lease renewed.
In order for Alex Stillman to get money through CDBGs to repair, improve and refaced her own buildings the City of Arcata had to throw a bone (the Endeavor) to the poor people they would be gentrifying. Now Stillman’s numerous plaza buildings have new foundations, roofs, and facades, so the illusion that she gives a shit about anybody but herself goes and the poor suffer.
Alex Stillman’s long public campaign to rid the downtown business interests of “transients” is well known. Stillman advocates that homeless attracted to the Endeavor cost her and her mainstreet boys money (i.e. INTEREST), and that the Endeavor must go (i.e. CONFLICT). Stillman, a city council member with clear conflict of interest, both created a quorum and voted on April 4, 2007 to throw the poor out. “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye devour widow’s houses, and for a pretense make long prayer.”
love eternal
tad
2 comments:
The "hungered": as you call them are A: not hungry, myriad gov programs see to that; and B: would have plenty of resources if they didn't squander all their money on weed, liquor, and cigarettes.
You know how much those people make begging off hard-working citizens who DON'T sit on their asses all day? $300 or so a day. I've known a number of them.
I don't want to be hooted at or walk through their cloud of stink and smoke when I run an errand in town. Why we encourage such nonsense is beyond me.
Poor is one thing; if one is truly that they can get gov assistance that covers shelter and basics. These folks have a bigger problem (laziness and a bad attitude) and it's not one I want to support.
I didn't know if I approved of Stillman's actions on this matter because I didn't see much change in the plaza and town, but now that I know that she has been trying to clean up our town, I do support her fully.
@ Anonymous: You are generalizing... and even though I agree with you that there are many "homeless" people who are opportunists... but the Endeavour actually did help many people who were genuinely destitute for any number of reasons. I have been homeless before and I know how hard it is to even get presentable enough to find a room to rent. You are overlooking many people who need help. You say you know many of them, but you obviously do not. I have met a few very desperate and frightened sober people who were new to homelessness... having been forced into it because of domestic violence, etc. All I am saying is that if you are so shit-headed that you don't realize despite your generalizing that there is a legitimate % of homeless people who really need help that a gov program cannot address sufficiently or in time... then you should resign yourself from this human race completely and be reincarnated. The Endevour was helping those who genuinely needed and sought help. I know because I am one of them. I was not a drunk or a drug user and because of the Endevour I was able to finish college and begin the second chapter of a hard and misunderstood life... I am putting together a nonprofit that will help others who I am forced to sympathize with due to having survived similar circumstances. So please seriously consider fucking yourself and your generalizations. Talk about things you have experienced or mind your own business. Some people need help and there are even more that will pretend to need help. The answer is to have rules that enable us to distinguish between the two so that assistance can be given to those in real need... not to eliminate assistance altogether for the sake of a few "businesses" who have owners who can't help themselves but to blame the less fortunate for their own personal problems. You people who call yourselves Americans and Christians are unbelievable... no compassion or empathy whatsoever. And if the reason why you do not help anymore is because you were fooled by a conman pretending to be in need, then shame on you for taking such a conveniently naive attitude toward others. You should be there at 4 am when all the charlatans go home... then you will see who they who really need help are... cold... alone... crying... on the verge of suicide... and yes, hungry.
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