Another plan for good being blasted by NIMBYs

[NMMNG]

Plan for homeless housing draws ire from neighbors

SILVER SPRING, Md. - Montgomery County officials are planning to spend two-point-five million dollars to buy and renovate a three-story building in Silver Spring to house homeless people. And that has some neighbors upset.

County officials say the vacant brick building on Dale Drive is ideal for subsidized housing for people with a range of mental and physical disabilities or substance abuse problems. But those who live nearby say it's too close to two schools. Neighbor Richard Camer tells The Washington Post -- quote -- "Why not put mini-bars in the apartments they are renovating?"

Residents say they are not against the concept of housing for the homeless, just the location.

The county's Housing Opportunities Commission is scheduled to vote on the plan next month.

http://www.abc2news.com/news/new-site/06-04-10-homles-housing.shtml

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"Why not put mini-bars in the apartments they are renovating?" Total non-sequitur.

There is nothing wrong with putting this facility in the vicinity of schools. These are people with disabilities or substance abuse problems, not child molesters. The protesters are being alarmist fools.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. A local service organization...

Bought two houses in a residential area around here, for long-term residences for mental health consumers. Immediately, the people in the surrounding community started a huge campaign against it. One of their critiques? "They are going to put child molesters in there!"

Of course they were not, but when you want to start a fire, you always want to use the best accelerant you can find.

[NMMNG]

3. I recall *many* years ago

My boss was looking to rent a cottage at the beach for my three developmentally disabled clients to go to for a week (with staff of course). Everything was going fine until the owner discovered who would be staying in the cottage. She immediately put an end to the deal sputtering, "I can't believe you think I'd let those kind of people stay in my house!!!". As if they were monsters of some sort. :eyes:

[tularetom]

2. NIMBY is a powerful motivator

A few years back our city received a proposal from the county social services agency to locate a group home for "wayward girls" in a home up for sale in our neighborhood. Needless to say every body went ballistic including my neighbor at the time who was (get this) the director of the social services agency in an adjoining county and the ring leader of the opposition to granting the permit. He and a whole group of them trooped down to the City Council meeting and scared the Councilors into wussing out of the proposal and the permit was denied. They asked me to go and I told them I didn't give a shit whether it was approved or not and I wasn't going to go and if we objected to the home going in there we should all pitch in and buy it and then we could control what went in. They called me a communist and left.

[NMMNG]

4. Isn't it amazing how people throw that "communist" label around?

Any time you don't fall lock step with their demands, and instead think for yourself you're automatically a communist. Funny, I should think it would be more the other way around.

[tularetom]

5. Yeah I thought I was being the ultimate capitalist

by suggesting we all pool our funds and put our money where our mouths were and protect our "property values" and maybe even make a buck on the deal in the process, but I guess when emotions get in the way of good sense they search for an epithet and since "terrist" didn't yet exist, "communist" was as good as anything.

[Kutjara]

6. Communism...

...is a nice emotive word in America. Whereas calling someone 'communist' anywhere else in the Western world would be nothing more than a mild dig (along the lines of being out of touch), here it's tantamount to calling someone a child molester. The views and attitudes of the McCarthy era are alive and well in modern America. It's another reason why we're ridiculed so often abroad. Our attitudes appear very childish.

[undergroundpanther]

7. ALL well off people who

Oppose homeless shelters, should be forced to spend two days on the streets in mid winter.. Sleeping on the sidewalks,cops harassing them,begging for change from arrogant fuck heads like themselves,. No money,no car,not enough clothes,no shower can't pee in public,no toilet paper or toothbrush.,.could these pampered nimbies get empathy through suffering I think so... Just to remind them of who they are denying help,human beings... I hate nimby people especially "comfortable" selfish rich nimby people. Bigoted self absorbed deluded assholes all of them. I swear I hate this nimby shit. It is shameful and disgusting. But in our elitist snot-ball filled culture where people who are successful want to believe they 'earned it' and deny the luck involved, it's ok to cry nimby.Well I say fuck THEM.

I hoper the shelter goes up. And the whiny selfish fuckers playing nimby are ignored. As they should be.

[NMMNG]

11. It would be wonderful if people could get a good dose of reality like that

Just maybe they'd have some empathy instead of looking at others as human trash to be thrown "somewhere else" for the lowest price possible.

[silverweb]

8. And history repeats itself.

I just finished reading Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath for the first time. I'd heard of it for many years, but never read it in school and never bothered looking for it after school.

Anyway, it's up there on my top shelf as a never-to-be-forgotten best book of all time.

We're doing it all over again and the NIMBYs are a major part of it.

:cry:

[HEyHEY]

9. I've never understood why people can't understand

Putting the mentally ill with drug addicts is stupid.
You're just asking for more drug addicts as many mentally ill people self-medicate or will try anything to escape their pain.
Plus, it must be scary as hell for them.

[NMMNG]

10. I don't see why they would be any more likely to become addicts

in a home, where they have supports available to them, than on the streets.

Scary as hell? How can it be scarier than being homeless with no income, no security, no guarantee of food and often no way to keep warm?

And many times people with mental illnesses already have comorbid substance abuse problems. About 50% of individuals do, in fact. So it's likely that a good number of the people who would be moving into that home would be Dually Diagnosed.

Getting people off the streets where they can be safe and begin treatment is the best option for them.

[HEyHEY]

13. What I'm saying is

They shouldn't be housed with addicts... they should be housed separately.

[REP]

12. I Doubt There'd Be Objections if the Housing Were for the Disabled

The physically and medically disabled aren't frightening, but alcohol and drug addicts bring fears of break-ins to support habits. While the mentally ill are largely a danger mainly to themselves, there have been enough well-publicized stories of mentally ill homeless people committing murder (one of my friends was murdered by such a person) to make a concentrated housing of people with known mental illness worrisome to some communities.

[NMMNG]

14. Only about 2% of people with mental illnesses are actually dangerous

either to themselves or others.

Unfortunately, the public believes the mentally ill are dangerous and need to be watched carefully. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, a recent survey conducted in California found that 83 percent surveyed believed the mentally ill are dangerous. In reality, though, less than 2 percent of mentally ill people are dangerous, according to the institute -- a figure no higher than the incidence of violence in the general population.
http://www.bangorinfo.com/RRR/stigma.html

And typically those individuals are in psychiatric hospitals or prisons, not independent living situations.



As to people with substance abuse problems they do indeed need supports to help them with their issues. But will there be more problems with them in a home, where they can be at least somewhat monitored, or living on the streets, where nothing can be done? :shrug: