I've put this forum in the penalty box for a while, because the anti-intellectualism and irrationality of some people here was making me sick... But duty calls...
Replying to posts from
the parent thread...
Do they think that tent city is nicer ?
Of course. It's filled with such nice law abiding citizens.
No, it is filled with homeless people. Should we bulldoze the hospitals because they are filled with sick people?
For more than ten years,
Steve Brigham of
Lakewood Outreach was visiting over a DOZEN different tent cities in and just around Lakewood, to bring them
propane and other survival essentials. He was also helping homeless people living in the streets, sleeping in alleyways and under bridges, etc.
Then things centralized on
the Cedar Bridge Ave / S Clover St location, which was a good thing - safety and efficiency in numbers. Quality of life, medical safety, and fire safety improved. Relations with the police improved (for a time, before the deliberate campaign of harassment started). The location was perfect - out of the way, but with easy access to social services as well as the Lakewood Industrial Park, where many of our residents work. It was good for everybody.
The Township gov't could have cooperated with us, removed the stigma of illegality hindering our fundraising, helped us evict bad people instead of deliberately sabotaging us, etc. This could have resulted in safe smokeless heating during the winter, more volunteers helping people clean up and rejoin the workforce, etc. Compared to placing people in motels, Tent City has been saving the taxpayers millions of dollars a year!
Instead, the Lakewood politicians wasted millions of our taxpayer money to sabotage, shrink, and eventually demolish our Tent City. We're down from 122 residents a year ago to about 35 now. Lots of people who want to be here are turned away...
So we're returning to the bad old days of having lots of small chaotic Tent Cities popping up all over the place, with no shower, no portajohns, no garbage pickup, no safe easy access for volunteers, no fire extinguishers, no chickens for tick control, no stove / fireplace safety oversight, no one to
try to kick out the drug-dealers, etc, etc, etc.
This is bad for everybody - the poor and the taxpayers too.
http://tentcitynj.org/ Didn't know they have a whole website and "Organization"...
Everybody has one these days.
And we're the
third most Facebook-LIKE'ed Lakewood organization after the Claws and the Poop.
Is my trash donation tax deductible ?
Donations are tax deductible.
People who dump trash at Tent City without our permission will be reported to the police and fined.
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Gotta put on a portajohn-cleaning bio-hazard suit to catch up with all the BS earlier in this thread...