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Saw this on last nights news.

New home for downtown homeless?

06:18 PM CST on Wednesday, January 5, 2005

By Jason Whitely / 11 News

Click to watch video

A Houston church is finding it tough to forgive unholy acts by some congregates. It's an example of a larger problem that began when dozens of homeless people started gathering in one area near downtown.

KHOU

The Pierce Elevated has long been a popular campground for the homeless.

At the Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral, folks have prayed a lot about this problem. Dozens of homeless have encamped under the Pierce elevated.

Vagrants allegedly threaten parishioners, try to steal offering boxes under prayer candles and even panhandle during mass.

"These are desperate acts of people," said Noel Cowart with the Downtown/Midtown Residents Association.

Noel Cowart lives nearby and says ever since the stadiums moved downtown and the park across from the Toyota Center was closed, the number of street people under the Pierce Elevated has grown to almost 200.

So have the problems.

"Is it the city's fault? Is it the state's fault? Is it the county's fault? TxDOT's? Nobody wants to take responsibility for it," complained Scott Munroe who owns a nearby McDonald's. "I think I heard this is basically a park."

"This is a park. Pierce Park Plaza," agreed Cowart.

The city leases the land under the freeway from TxDOT. The Parks Department cleans it. But no one's kicking the homeless out.

"Where are we going to go?! Where? Nobody will help us," said Lori Jean Edwards, who is homeless.

That may be changing. Councilman Michael Berry tells us he's looking for a solution within the city. But another group of homeless shelters, agencies and downtown organizations says it already has one and is about to present it.

"Immediately we hope to move them from the street to a stable environment," said Anthony Love, President/CEO of the Coalition for the Homeless. "Then once we get them from the street to a stable environment, assess them to be able to transition them to a more longer-term place of residence."

It's unclear how quickly the program will begin or how many homeless will move to temporary housing. But a similar idea worked ten years ago. Many hope it will this time, too.

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Remember the Pierce Elevated "bum sweep" back in 89 or so?

That was supposed to put and end to it.  And FWIW, it is illegal to camp under an Interstate.

I remember that and I also know that it is illegal to sleep there but I see it all over the place everyday. And it is getting worse. One of the worst places is near the soup kitchen just north of and on the other side of 59 near Minute Maid park. I see them bothering people going the game all the time.

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Houston = Haven for the Homeless

Houston is hardly unique in this respect. Almost every large city has problems with the homeless. Personally I don't have a big problem with the homeless camping out under the Pierce Elevated. Lacking other housing alternatives, at least this provides some measure of shelter from the rain, it isn't in a heavy pedestrian area, and the land under the freeway isn't being used for anything anyway. If you are worried about the homeless overrunning the downtown park, then this might be an alternative to be encouraged.

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Well, the problem with Houston's homeless is that they seem "hopelessly homeless". I get the impression that Houston is not the first stop for a homeless person, but rather the last. A place where they feel they can survive on panhandling alone, thus having to go no farther across the U.S. to find another city to squat in.

Under a bridge is no alternative to anything, much less a park. They need shelter & rehabilitation. I won't gripe much past that as I have no way to really help solve the problem.

Glen

I understand your frustration, Glen, but having lived in a few major cities in my life, I can honestly say that the same characteristics you see in Houston's homeless population is the same that you'll find in many other large cities. In some cases, it's worse elsewhere, because some cities don't really look to "control" where the homeless population congregates and so you'll find many of them camping out in public parks near residential communities (such as North Miami Beach, Florida or in many areas of San Francisco).

My biggest issue is that there aren't any controls for roadside panhandling, where you can see that the panhandler has been at a location for a good while and has strewn a good amount of litter/waste in the area, which contributes to the intersection's unseemliness.

And I would imagine that would be one of the casual operator's biggest concerns with the number of homeless that congregates under the Pierce Elevated: the litter left in their wake.

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Houston's homeless problem is no better or worse than any other major city's. I've seen homeless people camped out at night in parks, and under overpasses in Chicago, New York, DC, San Francisco, Boston, LA, Portland, San Diego, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. And that's probably not a full list. Yes these people do need rehabilitation and shelter. And those services do exist. Many homeless people choose, for whatever reason, not to take advantage of the services that are there. Granted those services could be better, but they do exist.

If anything, I've had more problems with aggressive panhandlers in some of the other cities I mentioned above than here.

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From what I've heard and seen (to a small degree) panhandlers in San Francisco are the most aggressive.

They are pretty agressive but I've never had major problems with them. My worst experience was actually on Michigan Ave. in Chicago where one stalked me for three blocks because I refused to give him any money.

There are a couple of them in SF that I see every trip there -- like one guy at Market and Powell who preaches about the sins of all sex outside of a heterosexual marriage and any sex within a marriage that's not for the purpose of procreation. He reminds me a little of the guy who stands at the Houston Chronicle vending machine outside the downtown Foley's here and holds church every day right across from the southbound Main St. Square MetroRail platform. And there's another who hides behind a little fake bush prop he's made at Fisherman's Warf. He's usually on The Embarcadero between his little bush and a mailbox or trashcan and waits for tourists who aren't paying attention to walk by. Then he yells "boo!" and tries to lightly brush his hand across the person's foot or ankle to spook them. People stand on the opposite side of the street to watch his show. I've been victim to him twice but still found it funny. Neither of these guys has gotten a cent from me in my six trips there since 1999.

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He reminds me a little of the guy who stands at the Houston Chronicle vending machine outside the downtown Foley's here and holds church every day right across from the southbound Main St. Square MetroRail platform.

Funny how unorthodox behavior can give you misconceptions about a person. I know who you're talking about and I always thought that he was homeless until a coworker told me that he's actually a retired something-or-another and now an ordained minister. His wife is supposedly the nicest woman you'll ever want to meet.

I haven't seen him at the corner, though, in close to two weeks.

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I was reading a book and found this interesting quote from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address:

"You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot further the Brotherhood of Man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep people out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."

There's a lot there, but I think the last sentence probably illustrates how I feel about this city (and country's) attitude towards our growing homeless problem. History lesson done.

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  • 3 months later...

Thanks for the info TomV. i'll be there!

I was thinking since i'm not working that day, you guys might be able to share all of your votes here and i can bring them to the attention of the commitee because i will be attending the meeting now that i know about it.

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Im at work right now. Im not sure how I feel about this as there is already a park there.

Does the one they are proposing include things like swings or a playground area for kids? Or will it be forested and wooded?

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Guest Professional Hornblower
Anybody have any scoop from the meeting??

What an exciting day it was Saturday!

The city viewed this meeting as the cornerstone for getting ideas to create a program for the new park/ urban space. This meeting holds the most weight in terms of influencing this program. Unfortunately, the majority of participants were homeless people who were already on the park site. Apparently they wandered in to the GRB with the rest of the people for the open forum section of the day. So their thoughts and ideas were combined and are weighted more then any other source (internet site, letters, business input, etc.). I wonder if they will revise their program, but the following are some of the overwhemingly popular features that 'they thought' should be included:

Plenty of benches, plenty of fountains (preferably with soap dispensers), the design should include many old cars (unlocked), places to put/donate old shopping carts, the largest can recycling center in the southwest, blanket dispensing stations, free dogs, boxes, markers, old newspapers, etc.

Personally, I hope they don't go this route but the park/ urban space is scheduled to open in 2007, so we'll see.

PH

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What an exciting day it was Saturday!

The city viewed this meeting as the cornerstone for getting ideas to create a program for the new park/ urban space. This meeting holds the most weight in terms of influencing this program. Unfortunately, the majority of participants were homeless people who were already on the park site. Apparently they wandered in to the GRB with the rest of the people for the open forum section of the day. So their thoughts and ideas were combined and are weighted more then any other source (internet site, letters, business input, etc.). I wonder if they will revise their program, but the following are some of the overwhemingly popular features that 'they thought' should be included:

Plenty of benches, plenty of fountains (preferably with soap dispensers), the design should include many old cars (unlocked), places to put/donate old shopping carts, the largest can recycling center in the southwest, blanket dispensing stations, free dogs, boxes, markers, old newspapers, etc.

Personally, I hope they don't go this route but the park/ urban space is scheduled to open in 2007, so we'll see.

PH

:huh: Um, uh, hmm, like, that DOES sound like a new concept, but this is kinda what I had in mind for Houston:

http://www.millenniumpark.org/attractions.htm

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This should end up turning out to be an urban park. Not a forest and not necessarily as recreation play space. It will probably be more a restful respite in the city.

When the Pavilons get built and maybe the Ballpark Tower, the park will have a lot users. Not to mention conventioneers and nearby office workers.

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What an exciting day it was Saturday!

The city viewed this meeting as the cornerstone for getting ideas to create a program for the new park/ urban space. This meeting holds the most weight in terms of influencing this program. Unfortunately, the majority of participants were homeless people who were already on the park site. Apparently they wandered in to the GRB with the rest of the people for the open forum section of the day. So their thoughts and ideas were combined and are weighted more then any other source (internet site, letters, business input, etc.). I wonder if they will revise their program, but the following are some of the overwhemingly popular features that 'they thought' should be included:

Plenty of benches, plenty of fountains (preferably with soap dispensers), the design should include many old cars (unlocked), places to put/donate old shopping carts, the largest can recycling center in the southwest, blanket dispensing stations, free dogs, boxes, markers, old newspapers, etc.

Personally, I hope they don't go this route but the park/ urban space is scheduled to open in 2007, so we'll see.

PH

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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