They are joking. Right?

This weekend I will have some light hearted stuff for those of you irritated with the political turn of this blog. You know this is a cyclic blog. Right? Next month I'll probably have a completely different set of things I'm all hot about. Right now this is what I have for you to read.

Anyway.

There are some things right now that bother me so much - I want to jab my eyes out. So shocking to me, that when I hear such stories it makes my mouth drop. Like the report I heard last night on the news about a tent city cropping up in Sacramento. That isn't the news. The irritating part to me was this:

"Sacramento homeless who illicitly camp along the American River Parkway and on city sidewalks may soon be able to live in tent communities sanctioned by government and police.

“Police, city and county leaders and homeless advocates are seriously considering several potential locations for communities that would allow campers to live free from police interference and offer basic services such as running water and portable toilets."

More here.

First let me get this out of the way. There are places like this. They are called camp grounds.

Secondly, what caught my attention was - the report said they were considering taking food, running water and Porto potties out to the homeless encampment. Which I'm pretty sure almost made a vein pop in my neck. I think I still feel it throbbing.

Seriously. These people can't even leave camp to get necessities? Our government is just going to bring up a catering truck and that will be the end of that?

Now I'm not uncaring about the homeless. Well.. maybe that is a bit disingenuous. I too spent a little time in my youth being "a free spirit". How often do you hear the word youth hostile anymore? Not often. But, when I was growing up - that was a really popular thing. So I'm not immune to understanding what that lifestyle is about.

It also makes me aware that a great many of the homeless are more "urban campers" than true homeless. The only difference now that urban campers aren't hanging out in a hostile. They are hanging out on the city streets. It was easy to survive on the kindness of others. Now, it is becoming increasingly difficult for that group of people to survive, and they are being forced to idle tracks of land.

Never fear though! The city will just come in and provide running water. How much would that cost honestly? To provide running water to a field?

Well - you might ask Lowe's. Remember when California passed an ordinance the home improvement stores needed to supply toilets, running water, and a place for day workers to hang out? Here.

Despite having never seen day workers at a Home Depot or Lowe's in my area, these facilities started cropping up. People who used such workers found these guys in Oakland. If I were to know about such things. Which I don't.



Now I admit, I'm too lazy to sift through the Lowe's quarterly report to find out how much this cost them. But, I know those Porto potties cost about 3 grand. Mainly because someone keeps burning them to the ground in San Fransisco. But, the point is - it was probably a huge cost to the Lowe's bottom line - which amounted to nothing.

How often do you hear about day laborers now? They've all scattered to the wind. And so will the homeless when they find a place more favorable. Unless of course we cater to their every need.