Thursday, December 2, 2010

Homeless Housing, Part 1: More B.S.

About the same time B.S.(see Nov. 2nd post) were skimming the city’s funds, word went out from HudWorld that homelessness was a big problem.  All of a sudden, we were “desperate” for a homeless shelter, and B.S. put in a grant application, which was approved. B.S. got mounds of money to build a homeless shelter right in the middle of the same area we, and later they, had been trying to convince people to buy houses! 

I went to the public hearing about it, and asked how B.S could handle managing a homeless shelter.  Their answer was that the shelter would be right across the alley from their office.  And what makes you think you are capable of the intense management that a shelter requires, when you can’t even manage your property with regular tenants a block away?  They mumbled, mumbled, but it was already a done deal, so the city approved it.

Construction began, but at some point B.S. either realized they were inept (unlikely), or they left the area, I can’t recall which.  The building was sold to another non-profit, opened as a halfway house for rehabilitating drug and alcohol abusers, and there it remains until today, quietly operating (with on-site counselors & managers) as The Red Door.  

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