Jim Graham says: > Do even problem people and criminals deserve to live somewhere? The first > answer might be NO, -- they deserve to become better people. The second > answer is more fun, and it is YES. They deserve to live in the better > neighborhoods that have treated them as throwaway problems for someone else. > A list should be made of the most serious advocates for such "Social > Consciousness " housing and after rating the degree of advocacy and number > of advocates from a particular neighborhood then the State and City should > pay to force the zoning and construction of such housing in that > neighborhood or community. Of course such a suggestion might be scape > goating such communities because of the actions of a few of their residents. > > Fort Snelling presently has hundreds of publicly owned units of housing > setting empty. Create a facility for hard to house people and tightly > regulate it. Provide for housing the homeless as well as those without the > social skills to maintain other housing. Creating such housing, with an > attached "Life Skills Training" course would be good for the individuals and > for the community. In the end though, there are just some, who by their > actions, DO NOT deserve to live in our community. They have shown themselves > to be outside the "Pale" and to be predators that our community and > civilization cannot abide.
Mark response: I like that you are thinking of places to put "bad tenants." Your suggestion is similar to one I received off-List suggesting we put them in "prisons" -- only let them come and go. I think it's a good idea to find some sort of high security residences for the worst of the worst; people who've shown no indication that they can live peaceably in normal housing. But that still leaves tenants that aren't that bad, but have a(some) black mark(s) on their record, but can be good neighbors if motivated. I've heard repeatedly on this List that anyone who rents to such tenants is automatically a "bad" landlord. They do deserve to become better people, but no one seems to let them. I'm not fully convinced, but perhaps any building owner, including a landlord, should be responsible for crime "habitually" occuring on his property, at least for felonies. But this does not mean the landlord is to blame for renting to these tenants in the first place, because they had bad references. That's the way to make people homeless and worse neighbors than they already were (I think there is more overlap between criminals and homeless than you say, Jim, and there will be a lot more if we succeed in driving out all these so-called bad landlords). Help landlords stop crime happening on their property, including eviction if necessary. But place zero blame on the landlords for renting to the tenants in the first place. I do not believe that landlords that rent to people with bad references are bad landlords. To the contrary they are heroes for taking a chance on marginal tenants. Mark V Anderson Bancroft TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
