Urban Homelessness: Is Clearing Tent Cities the Right Move?

D.C.’s Homeless Cleanup

Urban Homelessness: Is Clearing Tent Cities the Right Move?John M. Grondelski – Part of President Trump’s federalization of D.C. law enforcement includes plans to remove homeless encampments from the city. You don’t have to go far to find them: come over from Virginia on the Roosevelt Bridge and turn towards E Street. They’re all over the Foggy Bottom neighborhood, from the State Department to the Kennedy Center.

Opponents of the cleanup plan will likely fasten on the “heartlessness” and “cruelty” of bulldozing tent cities and removing the homeless from the streets. No doubt there will even be those proclaiming it “unchristian.”

I disagree. Continue reading

The Negligible Impact of Millions Spent on Homelessness in Arizona

Virginia Allen – Arizona’s two largest cities allocated tens of millions of dollars to fight homelessness in the past several years, but little has changed, according to a Goldwater Institute investigative report released Thursday.

“We’ve seen Phoenix and Tucson spend, combined, almost half a billion dollars on this issue with very minimal improvements in the area of homelessness,” Austin VanDerHeyden, municipal affairs liaison for the Goldwater Institute, told The Daily Signal. Continue reading

Meet the New Dark Age

Meet the New Dark AgeMark C. Ross – Not quite the same as the old Dark Age. The old Dark Age happened when the corporate governmental structure of Rome collapsed, allowing hordes of tribal heathens to overrun what had been the empire’s domain.

Today’s Dark Age is instead happening because modern governments continue to become ever more powerfully intrusive into what used to be private affairs, using their assumed authority to enforce some sort of contrived orthodoxy and thus moving towards politicizing just about everything. Continue reading

More Than 40% Of San Francisco Residents Planning To Leave

pelosiThe Scoop – Almost half of San Francisco residents are thinking of leaving the city, according to a recent poll, citing out-of-control cimes and homelessness.

A survey conducted by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce also cited how residents abhor seeing many openly injecting and taking drugs on public — further reinforcing thoughts of San Franciscans to exit the city.

“New polling released by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce shows that eight out of ten of San Franciscans consider crime to have worsened in recent years. The results were consistent across gender, age, ethnicity, party affiliation, and neighborhood, and homeownership status,” the Chamber said. Continue reading

Red State Capital Indianapolis Degrades Itself to Blue City Levels

IndianaRichard Moss – I had known this mid-size metropolis since the seventies when I lived here as a medical student, attending the Indiana University School of Medicine.  Then, Indianapolis was referred to as India-no-place or Naptown.  But Indianapolis has come a long way since then, attracting professional sports teams, stadiums, and major corporations.

There are cultural and art districts, comedy clubs, and trendy, upscale neighborhoods.  It has an array of tech-schools and universities, gondola rides along its canal, distilleries, symphony halls, theaters, ethnic restaurants, an excellent zoo, and several museums including the largest children’s museum in the world.

My children and I have enjoyed much of what this city has to offer, in particular its downtown area, known as Monument Circle.  Here, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument inspires and dazzles, with its glorious fountains, pools, and statues honoring our valiant soldiers and sailors from Indiana who fought and died in our nation’s wars. Continue reading