I don't know a name for this emotion

[mellowtigger]

*sigh* Sometimes, I just don't understand government or the people who vote to make it the way it is.

This morning, I looked out my kitchen window and saw a City Of Minneapolis Regulatory Service car sitting motionless in my alley. Was it here to complain about my back yard? I'm not sure what would be the problem. This looks okay from this weekend, right? Or was it here about my neighbor, which had 9 vehicles parked in the back yard recently? It's been bad for weeks/months, but 9 vehicles was a new record, so I took this photo yesterday.

If this is "broken windows policing", then I'm not a fan. These vehicles are not directly harming anything, so why waste taxpayer money on monitoring? I'd much rather have somebody driving around listening for obnoxious noises to track down, so they don't rattle my home windows.  The local noise pollution wears down the mind.  Why doesn't government spend this money instead on monitoring the powerful for stolen wages, missed taxes, or abused authority?

After my experience as a 54-year-old man being arrested at a homeless encampment facing eviction, I can sympathize with this 78-year-old woman arrested for feeding the homeless. There is also video of her arrest and her speaking about it.  Why is this happening? Is it really just religion? What breeds this contempt for humanity?  Seriously, why is this happening?

Why are people voting into office the representatives who make these laws and regulations? Why is anyone using their power in this world to enable such awful things like criminalizing poverty?  Our lives could be better.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome]

Desperate people do desperate things. Living next to one of these camps is always tense, one doesn't go out alone after dusk, one has to add razor wire and more locks and more security or people WILL break in, gangs and dealers move in on camps almost immediately so there are weapons and fencing and chop shops and etc. There is noise 24/7, generators and music and screaming and fights and whatnot. ODs, sirens, cops, more screaming, more fights, weapons used. People start fires and they quickly get out of hand. Cleaning up piss, shit, needles, garbage, and blood so you can use your front door - daily. Garbage accumulates inside the camps; rats rats rats and more rats and eventually disease. Angry fucked up people destroy stuff for no reason beyond expressing their anger. I've lived next door to one and a couple blocks away from another, and even with all the empathy in the world you still have to deal with the negative side effects and they are not trivial. And that's not to mention that the camp is probably located on a park or other public amenity, so the public use of that area is lost.

There's bugger all I can do in the short term as an individual to convince the government to build more social housing, which is the actual solution, but I CAN call the cops and politicians and "demand that something be done", and the cops and politicians are ever-ready for an excuse to look indispensable. Vancouver has a new mayor elected on exactly this premise - he's going to "clean up" the camps, without ever talking about socialized housing. He's going to do this by hiring 100 more cops. And people will throw money at him to do it. The candidates who DID talk about public housing got less than 20% of the already pathetic voter turnout (nowhere in the Vancouver area was it over 39% of eligible voters) and people will tell you upfront it's because they don't see why they should pay for someone else's housing when their own is already so expensive - and that's as far as they're willing to think through the issue. The low voter turnout in itself is a message - most of the electorate do not feel their vote is meaningful.

Or was your question entirely rhetorical :)

[shimmerwine]

I'm so tired of the world and the hatred. I'd like to find a cave, a warm cave, somewhere and become a hermit.

[geowench]

Because it's your fault. If you are homeless or poor or in ill-health, it's YOUR fault. Legacy or our puritan heritage, or something. I really think this idea that bad luck is a sign of your own poor management/decisions is a big reason why our gvt doesn't try to solve problems like hunger and homelessness. Because those people deserve it. And those in power or who have more $ are there because they also deserve it and/or are in god's favor.
(Just to be clear, this is NOT how I think, but I do genuinely think it is part of the whole criminalizing poverty mentality.)

[mrdreamjeans]

It appears one of your neighbors called about the nine cars. The backyard looks like a junkyard. I don't understand why you would be upset over the monitoring. Traffic control routinely monitors the improper street parking around my building. I've already had one of my neighbors t-boned coming out of our driveway because of improperly parked cars. I am grateful they are ticketing.