June 6, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
What does it mean when even erstwhile hippies are getting angry at homeless people?
Joel John Roberts, chief executive officer at Partners and People Assisting the Homeless, a social-services charity in Los Angeles, writes in his LA’s Homeless Blog that it’s just further proof that folks are “tired of being compassionate without real results” when it comes to confronting the seemingly intractable issue of homelessness.
Mr. Roberts links to a recent newspaper article describing how many veteran residents of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, which had been ground zero for the rootless “flower children” during the 1960’s, are complaining about the current crop of young people living on the streets.
“My generation had something these kids do not: a standard of civilized behavior,” one resident and self-identified former “hippie” is quoted as saying.
“This person is saying that the homeless youth and young adults are acting like savages,” says Mr. Roberts. “Sounds like someone from a neighborhood that embraces NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard), not a neighborhood that used to welcome all kinds of homeless people.”
The charity leader, however, sees Haight-Ashbury complaints as the latest example of what he sees happening in neighborhoods all across the country. If government and charity programs can’t help the homeless, then the next step is to just find a way to move them somewhere else.
“If we are going to talk about resolving homelessness by spending more money and building more housing, we also need to discuss how we are going to place these new programs and housing in neighborhoods that don’t want them,” Mr. Roberts concludes.
