https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/headway/houston-homeless-people.html
"One steamy morning last July, Ana Rausch commandeered a shady corner of a
parking lot on the northwest side of Houston. Downing a jumbo iced coffee, she
issued brisk orders to a dozen outreach workers toting iPads. Her attention was
fixed on a highway underpass nearby, where a handful of people were living in
tents and cardboard lean-tos. As a vice president of Houston’s Coalition for
the Homeless, Ms. Rausch was there to move them out.
I had come to watch the process and, more broadly, to see Houston’s approach to
homelessness, which has won a lot of praise. At first, I couldn’t figure out
why this particular underpass had been colonized. The sound of trucks revving
their engines ricocheted against the concrete walls like rifle shots; and most
of Houston’s homeless services were miles away. But then Ms. Rausch’s team, and
a few camp residents, pointed out the nearby fast food outlets, the Shell
station with a convenience store, and the Planet Fitness, where a $10 monthly
membership meant access to showers and outlets for charging phones.
It also wasn’t initially visible what distinguished this encampment clearance
from the ones in cities like Los Angeles and Austin, where the number of
homeless people has been skyrocketing along with frustrations. The difference
couldn’t be seen because it had already happened. For more than a month, Ms.
Rausch and her colleagues had been coordinating with Harris County officials,
as well as with the mayor’s office and local landlords. They had visited the
encampment and talked to people living there, so that now, as tents were being
dismantled, the occupants could move directly into one-bedroom apartments, some
for a year, others for longer. In other words, the people living in the
encampment would not be consigned to homeless shelters, cited for trespassing
or scattered to the winds, but, rather, given a home."
Via
Future Crunch Jun 20, 2022:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/human-rights-in-spain-solar-in-vietnam-and-monarch-butterflies-in-north-america/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
