According to the Kalamazoo Gazette, a group of homeless people is demanding that they be allowed to use private property, even if the owners don't want them there. The Kalamazoo Homeless Action Nation (KHAN) is demanding that the Kalamazoo City Commission pass an ordinance forcing business owners to allow homeless people to stay in their businesses.
Homeless people aren't taking this issue lying down, either. They're threatening to do what homeless people do best--sit around. "KHAN spokesperson Adriana Rosas said the group may protest lack of action on the ordinance by spending the night of March 31, National Night Out for the Homeless, on public property near commissioners' homes. ... `We will be a constant thorn in your side until you pass this ordinance,' one shelter resident told commissioners. `Play games with the homeless, and God's going to play games with you.'" Wow, I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want these people on their property.
Commissioner Mary Balkema is also mentioned in the article: "Commissioners David Anderson, who chaired a subcommittee reviewing the proposed ordinance, and Mary Balkema, who sits on the governing board of the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission, took issue with the criticism.
`To call the Mission a prison is offensive,' Balkema said, referring to charges by some human-rights-ordinance advocates.
`Many, many cities have problems with homeless people that are worse than Kalamazoo,' Anderson said. `We do have a system on the backs of caring, generous people here so that nobody has to go hungry or sleep outside if they don't choose to.'"
"`We're going to do anything necessary within the law to get this ordinance passed,' said Lori Anne Fuller, a KHAN member who is homeless." Anything, apparently, except GET A JOB. These people have time for political activism, but they don't have time for gainful employment?
Even liberals Don Cooney and Lee Kirk point out that the proposed initiative is unenforceable.
The "Kalamazoo Homeless Action Network" is a name that raises all sorts of comedic possibilities.
UPDATE: Here is more information on the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission.
6 comments:
My question is how could such a thing be Constitutional? In this country we have a right to life, liberty, and property. It would be limiting my right to declare who gets to use my property or not. Even if this passed, it would be shot down in a matter of seconds in the Supreme Court.
By the same token, couldn't just anyone sleep on my lawn? Or in my house? Where is the limit once you just have claim over other people's property? This is insanity, but I guess its reasoning like this that are keeping these people homeless.
It seems to me that you people dont know what is like to have everything taken away from you. 1.) if you have the Kalamazoo Gosphel Mission as your address its very hard to get a job!
2.)You are only getting a very very small peice of the picture if you want to find out how we live what we have to put up with like people like you happy rich arses come down every wensday at 5:00pm and share a bit of time with us.
AND YES I AM HOMELESS AND I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR JOBS BUT NONE WILL TAKE A HOMELESS PERSON!!!!!!
Guess what? My name was LoriAnne Fuller before I got divorced,now it
s Tennison. And for the record I like many other homeless people have a job. As a matter of fact I am a community organizer. I just can not afford the overinflated housing market.Just for the record 60% of homeless people have a job.
And while your at it you may as well be attacking Jesus for being a bad person too, after all wasn't he born without a home? And didn't he preach to the poorest?
Don't judge others for being homeless, in today's economy you don't know when you may get sick, have an accident, or get downsized.
Homelessness is a symptom of a sick and diseased system and that disease is Greed!
I thought you Republicans were Christians, this is so unchristian. You know, many of the homeless are republican, who work, but thanks to republicans and scared liberals, jobs are limited or leaving the country. The jobs that are available pay a living wage. Republicans in some aspects are very much the same as liberals: they want to protect their class status so forget the poor, the working poor, the homeless while they preach the word of God. There are many homeless people that have a college degree that because of illness are now homeless. Face it, poverty is a systemic problem as a result of greed. What are Republicans doing to help the poor and homeless Republicans?
Adriana
I would like to make a correction and re-state the the jobs that are available DO NOT pay a living wage.
Adriana
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