Check back soon and I will have more posted.
“I don’t know” was how Sheila Lopez, the COO of Catholic Charities, responded when asked whether she thought it was a good idea to put such a high concentration of homeless people right across the street from a family neighborhood with children. Our community, our children, the value of our biggest financial investments (our homes) and our safety should not be an experiment to answer that question.
"Some of the people like the tents" the COO told us when asked why they did not just put up conventional housing. The people who prefer to live in tents are not anywhere near ready to be a part of society. These people need more help than they can get in this type of facility, like a factory farm, designed to process as many people as possible. This is the 50% that are going to walk out the gates right into our yards and stay there. This facility is about quantity not quality.
No security – When asked if weapons were allowed in the facility. We were told “Oh no.” We asked if the residents were searched and again “No” was the answer. They are just asked if they have any weapons and to not bring them in. What kind of security is there for the other people in the facility, let alone the families who live in a community just a couple of hundred feet away? And what about our schools? There are four schools, including an elementary school, less that 2 miles from the proposed Hillsborough tent city.
There is only 1 case worker (unlicensed) to 70 tenants. How can they expect to get sufficient help with one person to 70 people, especially when 50% of them have drug and alcohol addictions or mental illness?
The COO also told us about how their San Jose Mission Project in Dover is a great success. Well, it is absolutely nothing like they are proposing here and the people in Dover actually have to have jobs and there are lots of families. To top it all off it is in the middle of nowhere with the closest house miles away! And... they are nice buildings not tents!
"We don't know yet" was a reoccurring theme through out the answers to our questions. They don't know if they will have the same problems with the bathroom facilities leaking contaminated water into the ground and drinking water. They don't know if they will have partners in the area for hiring these homeless. They don't know the other services and existing facilities they can use for treatment and rehabilitation. They don't know too many things about how they are going to do so many things in this facility. We were told they were not going to waste their time if they can not get the rezoning. Without a good plan in place and the logistics worked out, we don't want the rezoning to occur! They can not address our concerns if they don't know anything yet.
