Kalamazoo City has a panhandling problem. As the legend goes…. for a town of it’s size, it has punched above it’s weight-class on this issue since the Asylums closed in the early 80’s but in recent years it’s getting worse. A lot worse.
Read: Reagan didn’t close Institutions
https://www.toacorn.com/articles/reagan-didnt-close-institutions/
(Photo: Kalamazoo bike lane panhandler, Oct 2023 — by Dan Koshelnyk)
While Trump is calling for a Nationwide return to an Asylum system in his ‘Agenda 47’, this obvious solution will most certainly be rejected and resisted by Democrats in the typical knee-jerk fashion. When it comes to Trump, Democrats are all too willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces!
Read: Trump Announces Plan to End Homelessness. The Left Will Hate It.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2023/04/19/trump-on-homelessness-n2622124
Read: How To Solve Violence In The US? End Democrat-Run Cities And Bring Back Asylums
For evidence of this, consider the fact that during his entire first-term Trump was constantly said to be “racist” for pushing construction of a wall on the Southern Border, yet now Mayor Adams of NYC howls almost daily at the disaster Biden’s open-border policies have caused in cities once sheltered from the effects. Things are so bad that the potential coming electoral disaster for Dems in 2024 is now miraculously prompting the Biden Administration itself to announce sudden efforts at wall-building!
Watch: NYC Mayor Adams Loses His MIND Over Flood of Illegals He and His Constituency VOTED FOR!!
Read: “Too Freaking Late” – Mayorkas Finally Admits “Acute & Immediate Need” To Build Border Wall In Texas
The one good thing about the ridiculous ‘bike lane’ OBSESSION in Kalamazoo (with NO bikes in them) is that they seem to be doubling as locations for “affordable housing”!
(Photo: Kalamazoo bike lane panhandler, Oct 2023 — by Dan Koshelnyk)
Now, that is a joke, of course, but not altogether untrue. The sad truth is that the City of Kalamazoo is on the cusp of becoming just another BLUE city with homeless encampments, beggars, drugs, cartel influence, not enough cops, a City Hall filled with “good liberals” who are sympathetic to ‘Reparations’, handouts, DEI pandering (so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) and who continue to allow overtly racial (actually racist) political slogans to remain painted on our downtown streets!
Read: ‘The Story of Black Lives Matter Street Mural’ in Kalamazoo
https://www.kpl.gov/local-history/kalamazoo-history/black-history/black-lives-matter-street-mural/
The only place panhandling should be allowed is IN FRONT OF CITY HALL. All residents (including our good friends in the local Democratic Party) should have to walk past the needy while going to pay their property tax bill. In addition, every time the Mayor and City Commissioners enter their offices, they should be forced to continually see the totality of the homeless problem their policies perpetuate! Then, perhaps, we would begin to see real change.
So, what might REAL change look like? Certainly, the previously mentioned reinstatement of Asylums would get those off the streets who are suffering mentally to the point that they simply cannot offer any harnessable skill to the work force. But what about those who are functional yet simply have learned they can make money begging while squatting in a Kalamazoo bike lane??
Perhaps, the one potentially-decent policy idea to come out of FDR’s ‘New Deal’ era catastrophe (the welfare state) was the concept of the “Civilian Conservation Corps”. Although, in typical liberal fashion, his was another federally-run bureaucratic nightmare. It is fortunate that resource reallocation heading into WWII ended the effort in its original form before it became another perpetual albatross around the neck of the American Taxpayer. However, to throw the liberals a bone…. the concept may in fact be practicable at the local city or county level of government.
(Photo: A Civilian Conservation Corps crew erects a telephone line in Fremont National Forest, Oregon. — OSU Special Collections & Archives)
All men have value in God’s eyes and able-bodied men should have an opportunity to feel useful in society, even while uneducated or untrained. They need jobs!…. Kalamazoo needs help filling all those potholes Gretchen Whitmer told us would magically disappear once she ascended the throne in Michigan! There are parks to be tended, roadside brush to clear, old piping to be replaced! Give these valued souls housing, food and (the ‘Libertarian’ streak in me wants to concede) even a place to get drunk at the end of the day! But they need to WORK.
IS A ‘CCC’ FORCED WORK CONSCRIPTION? No. In a Free Nation, the government cannot FORCE a Citizen to work against their will. We do not have the legal framework for ‘forced work conscription’ of panhandling violators and that may not be something we would want or need. Citizens should always feel free to leave the area and seek out a more lax environment for living by handout. Seattle is always calling! However, a system of heightened work “encouragement” could be developed — by severely limiting panhandling and other more destructive means of making illicit money. Thus, making the choice of entering into such a work-opportunity program more attractive to our local wandering-brethren.
HOW WOULD A LOCAL CCC BE FUNDED? Most Conservatives (myself included) typically despise burdening taxpayers with new programs, even at the local level. Kalamazoo may have trail-blazed the solution to this problem already! We could avoid increased tax burdens (in a city already known for relatively high property taxes) by modeling the funding of such a program after the ‘Kalamazoo Promise’. A fund could be developed through private donations to sustain such an organization. The various corporations in and around the Kalamazoo area have every reason to want the community kept safe and attractive to newcomers.
While completely privately funding a local CCC would be the ‘Conservative’ ideal, should some supplemental public funding be required, such a program should largely pay for itself in reallocated ‘public safety’ and ‘city maintenance’ resources. (These are two areas in which Conservatives are typically more willing to consider public funds well spent.) Less homelessness and vagrancy means less crime which would free up public safety resources. More low-skilled workers organized to tackle non-‘skilled union’ city maintenance projects would free up city maintenance resources. Perhaps, some happy marriage of private and reallocated public funds would be the eventual solution to the issue of costs. From here, we’ll let the policy wonks and general public take this question into consideration.
We must keep caring for these ever-charming (yet deteriorating) streets in our fair city! Make Kalamazoo safe and clean again! Give the homeless and wandering a FUNCTION in our society and to be sure…. we will Make Kalamazoo Great Again!!
(Granted, the acronym “MKGA” would be better if it wasn’t completely unpronounceable.)