On my Facebook page last Thursday morning was a post concerning the good citizens of Kansas City who built mini-housing for homeless Vietnam veterans in a park setting at no cost to those fellows. The houses are basically Tuff Sheds, which have a kitchen and a bathroom built in. There will be a clubhouse for the community and help for the guys that need mental help from all the years of battle they faced, both in that southeastern Asian country and on the streets of America.
What a great thing to do for those that are less fortunate. My hat’s off to that town and its people.
In contrast, the night before the so called good people of Draper filled a middle school auditorium and tore a brave man, their mayor, apart for wanting to doing the right thing, but in a slightly different way. Watching what has been going on in Salt Lake County concerning homeless shelters, he had offered up a few sites for homeless housing in the southeastern part of the valley. In the end he withdrew his idea, because as he said, the citizens he represented said they didn’t want the shelter in their town. When interviewed he looked like a beaten down man. I am sure his days in office are now numbered by what he has left in his term.
And incidentally, while the crowd was degrading the mayor, they also booed a homeless man who stood up to speak and tried to tell his story about how he became homeless and how he is trying to dig himself out of it.
So much for KSL Television’s new series about various places in Utah called “The Road to Understanding.”
Expected opposition
I knew there would be a lot of opposition to the idea when their mayor proposed it, but the nastiest response of any of the meetings I have read about came from a part of the Salt Lake Valley that is known for its conservative and so-called Christian stand on things. I watched on television as one guy who testified said “How you could even think to put a place like that in an affluent part of town like this?”
That says it all, doesn’t it? Too affluent. Let them, the homeless, stay on the west side or in central city, where they belong. It’s not our problem; we have made a lot of money so we should be exempt from caring about the social problems that our very way of life has created for others.
Some concerns are legitimate
I realize that not everyone from Draper was in that auditorium, and some that were there were from neighboring towns like Bluffdale and Riverton. I also realize that the citizens of those areas have legitimate concerns about homeless populations and the drug activity and criminal goings on within that group. However, if they think none of that already goes on in their community they are living in an ivory tower. Is anyone naive enough to believe that crime and drug problems don’t exist in the big and luxurious houses on the top of Traverse Ridge or along its flanks? It is just hidden there, and let’s face it; there is a good chance that some of the money that built and paid for those richy-rich homes came if not from illegal activity, at least unethical means.
Losing humanity
In a real democracy, people care for one another, take on the burdens of others equally, to carry on. In our society however, one where the rich get ever richer, the poor and those that are indigent get left behind. While I believe in capitalism, when we lose our way, when making money and status become the most important things in life, we also lose our humanity.
Since I grew up in the center of the Salt Lake Valley, I knew Draper well. In my day most of the teenagers there went to Jordan High School and I knew a lot of them. Most were from working families, lower middle class, some even poor. Many were living on small farms and some of their parents worked at the prison. But they were a caring group, a little different from the yuppish religious crowd that apparently resides there now.
When I was in my 20s my ex-wife and I thought about buying a piece of property in the southeast part of Draper and building a house. The city told me that they would never let anyone build a residence there. Now there are million dollar houses around that lot I wanted to buy. Years later I moved to the edge of Draper with my second wife. We were only there a short time, but already I could see in our neighborhood the nasty seeds of what grew into a poisonous plant that showed itself at the meeting the other night.
State Prison is leaving
What West Valley and South Salt Lake officials say is true. They have more than their burden of government type programs in their areas. Other areas of the Salt Lake Valley should step up and take some of the pain too. But not these guys in the southeast corner of the valley. They are too good to care about the ills of society. After all, they are now in seventh heaven about the fact that ugly prison is moving away (incidentally, again to the west side of the valley) and they are going to get a great new multi-zillion dollar development in its place. Best of all, the rest of us that live in the state are going to pay for the new incarceration facility.
Can the ridiculous St. George pipeline, which we will all be expected to foot the bill for because of big developers, be far behind?
So I guess a new shelter won’t be Draper, particularly after Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams did exactly what everyone thought he would on Friday. He announced the new site would be, in of all places, South Salt Lake.
And I would guess, based on what happened last week, there never will be one in Holiday, Cottonwood Heights or South Jordan either. Those areas are “too affluent” as well. I’m sure they are just too nice of places to be burdened by the those unfortunate souls who live on the street.
So to paraphrase Marie Antoinette’s famous line about bread and cake, if the homeless don’t have a place to live, let them live outside.
The selfishness of the rich has no bounds.
In fact I think that would be a good motto to place on all the signs that designate entrances to the town of Draper, Utah.