The Briefing Room
General Category => National/Breaking News => Topic started by: flowers on April 13, 2014, 04:46:05 pm
-
http://nypost.com/2014/04/13/vagrants-take-shelter-within-manhattan-bridges-frame/
It’s DUMBO — really DUMBO!
Crafty hobos are turning the Manhattan Bridge into a veritable shantytown, complete with elaborate plywood shacks that are truly “must see to believe.”
One of the coffin-sized living spaces — which have been built into the bridge frame near the Manhattan entrance — is secured with a flimsy bike lock and bolted to a metal beam by its inhabitant.
The pods are built into the underside of the upper deck, below car traffic but above the subway and bike lanes.
To reach his makeshift studio, the bridge dweller — a stocky, neatly dressed Chinese man in his 40s — climbs a chain-link fence to a nook above the bike lane, witnesses said.
He unlocks the red bike lock with a key, slides a plank of wood back like a door and crawls in.
-
Studies consistently find that about 2/3 of the "homeless" are addict/alcoholics and/or mentally ill.
In many cases when good housing is available, but with conditions, they refuse that housing.
Often they have incomes, for instance from SSI Disability. Instead of using it for housing, they use it for drugs/alcohol during the first few days of the month, and then panhandle and steal for the rest of the month.
There are many "caring" and "helping" institutions in our society. They extend resources to these people. But eventually they ask the people to move on, since the rules have been ignored repeatedly, etc.
Our society grants them "freedom" to be a nuisance, an eyesore, so long as they don't harm others.
Bleeding heart do-gooders try to use guilt, to raise funds for these people.
One thing I have noticed: In my town not a single church has offered to turn their grounds into a homeless encampment. A group of churches have banded together, to gather surplus food and distribute it to homeless and needy. A friend of mine volunteered there.
-
There were some in Corpus Christi built under the freeway overpasses. They had to get a backhoe to tear some of them out because they were built so well.