kylejack

Went by and confirmed that they cut down at least 4 trees in the public right of way. I've sent pics to the Mayor and my City Council members.

If you'll read my post again, you'll see I never mentioned homeless. Most panhandlers in Houston and elsewhere are not homeless. You, like others in this thread, are conflating panhandling with homelessness. Some panhandlers are homeless, but most are not, and it's more about substance abuse than homelessness.

That's the back of the Church, which faces and has an address on Texas, even still today. Or maybe they bought the extra land after the fire? They were damaged heavily in this same fire, though.

1100 block of Prairie. 1938 fire at Christ Church Cathedral. Took me about ten minutes to figure it out. Good one!

I agree with you, men and women experience street life differently, especially with the added component of street harassment.

Swamplot reopens at 8 AM tomorrow.

Again, we are talking about completely different things. Public urination is a crime that can be enforced on, panhandling is free speech that cannot. You can't just go down and clear out all the panhandlers. People can only be enforced on when they're actually breaking laws.

This is what I mean by overblown... people getting paranoid about someone asking for money. Simply tell them no and keep walking, the vast majority leave it at that. The 5% is the type of thing you're referring to, like stealing sodas and harassing people on patios. There's laws against that, and the police enforce when they can.

Living downtown for seven years, I've never been approached by a prostitute. 95% of the panhandler paranoia is overblown. The other 5% can be handled by enforcing existing laws.

Most of the panhandlers aren't homeless, they're people with homes who have substance abuse problems. Violent crime in Downtown is actually quite rare, probably partly because of all the police cameras in Downtown. It's true that HPD is understaffed right now due to budget problems. We probably have to either fix the pension problems or raise taxes.

Nightingale Room has some cool shows.

Go check out the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. Lots of high end stores, and plenty of panhandlers. All cities deal with this problem, and there's no law you can pass to prevent people from asking someone a question on a public sidewalk. We have the First Amendment, after all.

Yes, I lived downtown at St Germain for 7 years until moving to Montrose last year, and I don't own a car, so I was a frequent pedestrian. Every time I would simply say no and keep walking. Almost every single one just went about their business and asked the next person. The few that didn't would just say, "Aw come on man, you can afford it, bla bla bla" The fact of the matter is that asking people for money is protected free speech. They're allowed to do it, and the police can't make them leave public property. The only exception is that there's a city ordinance that they can't bug people on patios. I'll let you in on a little secret: The best way to get rid of them is to simply say no. Don't say you don't have any spare change, don't say you're in a hurry, just say No. It doesn't provide any opportunity for reply or negotiation. Just one word: No.

Awful: Having to tell someone no when they ask for money. What a nightmare!

All kinds of finer points, too. Sex is protected in employment law, but not in public accommodations law... businesses can discriminate on the basis of sex, if they wish. I know some hair salons charge women more, regardless of hair length, and then there's bars that charge men a cover but not women.

Yeah, he ended up filing for bankruptcy. I saw in court filings that he was recently arrested for alleged domestic violence.

I checked it out. Most of the stores look way out of my price range, but it was pretty cool to see. I did try on and order some pants at Bonobos. Cool Guideshop.

Is converting a parking garage back to a retail building harder than converting it into a parking garage? Maybe there's logistical concerns.

The borders were never really closed, despite what Hollande said. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/15/what-did-it-really-mean-when-france-closed-its-borders/

Absolutely not. All of my comments were innocuous commentary on the situation. I won't speculate as to who made which specific comments, because I don't want to get sued for getting specifics wrong, but a forensic specialist determined that some of the hostile comments against Robinhood Condos were made from an IP address associated with the HOA President, through an anonymous proxy service.

Well, they have BCBG and Forever 21. Lids didn't work out.

Robinhood Condos had a HOA President who was notoriously litigious and would go after people who criticized or even people who reported accurately on the facts (Houston Press, Swamplot, etc). Their private investigator tracked me down and they subpoenaed me because of innocuous comments I had made on Swamplot. They asked me a bunch of crazy questions like if I worked for or owned Swamplot (the owner of Swamplot was using a pen name and they were trying to uncover his true identity). I had to take a day off of work for that shit show.

They're back! I will try to avoid getting dragged in to testify in a deposition for my Comments this time!

They could be arrested for trespassing if they refused to leave their property, but the public sidewalk is fair game.

Loitering is only illegal in Houston for prostitution. Panhandling is protected free speech. As long as they're not bugging people on patios they are allowed to do it.