In my book I had mentioned how Sarasota had won a “Mean City” award for how it deals with people that are homeless. Today there was an editorial in the local paper, The Herald-Tribune, that shows at least a few people in this city have a heart, at least the editorial writer, Eric Ernst, does. The writer was pointing out that the City of Sarasota is now removing the park benches so the homeless will have no place to sit.
One line in the column caught my eye:
“They don’t want their grandchildren, visiting from Up North, to be subjected to folks who haven’t bathed in a week, who walk around muttering to themselves and swig alcohol from bottles.”
That could have probably described a few folks I was hiking with as well! I muttered to myself on at least half of the trail, and still do. Last year there was a proposal to play loud, classical music, in the parks to drive the homeless away. In another move, they made it illegal to sleep in public, forgetting that we have wonderful beaches where people fall asleep sunbathing. Maybe they were concerned about sunburn victims? Go figure.
Sadly, these simplistic, childish solutions, do not remedy the problem. They’re band-aides, not solutions, and not even very good band-aides. I often wonder if my brother had not died of his wounds in Vietnam and instead survived and came home and ended up homeless because he couldn’t support himself, I wonder would they be taking away his park bench? Many of the homeless are veterans. We can have a parade to honor them, but take away their bench to watch the parade.
Surely, as a nation, we’re better than this?
Dennis “K1” Blanchard