I find your attitude very interesting considering Bancroft has none of these facilities in that neighborhood. In addition, an attempt to locate a supportive housing facility in a neighborhood just to your south and a neighborhood just to your west failed. Was there an outcry then? NO!
You said: "Isn't it useful to have different supportive housing close to each other, so they can help each other out? Isn't it more efficient to hire some specialized personnel for more than one location, which works better if they are geographically close to each other?" Help each other out? Do you think these people come out on the lawn, hold hands and sing Kumbia to one another and social workers run around like little social engineering fairies making everyone better? Sorry, it just isn't that way. But then, you don't have any of it in your neighborhood so how would you know? There are emotional and mental illnesses and addictions that make some people perpetrators and other people vulnerable. When you have such a huge population of vulnerable people, it becomes very easy for perpetrators to have a market. Therefore in neighborhoods like mine, personal crimes are a lot higher. People gaccosteded more, acosted more, raped and beaten more. Does it make sense to place a chemically dependent person in a recovery program a block from the place they use to deal or buy their crack? Gee, and werecidivismy the ricidivism rate is so high. In closing you said: "What is the downside of clustered supportive housing? At this point, I think the 1/4 mile rule should be repealed." Not one person involved in the concentration issue downsideed out downsides to supportive housing. All of us who live with it daily know it is a necessary and important housing type. The issue at hand is: Is it fair to concentrate it in two or three neighborhoods in Minneapolis to the exclusion of the other 70 plus neighborhoods giving the people who need this housing very little choice about where they live? The fact that you think the quarter mile spacing requirement should be repealed puts you in finepasselny with a passle of others who also feel that way. Ironically, all of the people lobbying for the repeal have NONE of this type of housing in their own neighborhoods or their paycheck comes from this industry. In the end it doesn't really matter what anyone thinks. There are two lawsuits moving forward that will bring an answer to this issue once and for all. It's sad that public policy has to be made in a court room. But, it certainly wasn't the first time that has happened. It won't be the last. Barb Lickness Whittier ===== "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus – Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
