by Lowell City Councilor Corey Robinson
What happens when those who help stop helping?
We have seen the impacts of those refusing help on our neighborhoods. It is wreaking havoc on our communities. I ask again, what happens when those who are helping opt out? Too many desperately seeking assistance are caught in the outcome with nowhere to turn.
We have heard from members of the community that provide food and day services to our unhoused population. We have been informed how they have gone from providing on average 30 meals a day to upwards of 190 in two years. We have heard convincing testimony of being disrespected, assaulted, and treated as if their good faith is exploited as an entitlement. We have heard of the blatant disrespect that runs rampant amongst those in need of help as well as to the property that is providing the assistance.
Throughout the social services web, there has to be rules and accountability in order to achieve the intended outcomes. Enabling and allowing chaos to thrive, will only impede those preferred outcomes. Our social service system is far from perfect, but it is what we currently have to work with. Through the utilization of this system, we need to examine and continuously make adjustments to improve these services.
When we merge the unhoused, our social service providers , and the general public with the common goal of providing services to those in need; there must be guidelines, rules, regulations, and respect in order to allow this complex arrangement to function.
The historians, the advocates, and the critics of our local elected body fail to consider accountability within our social compact. Ordinances and bylaws are merely tools used to provide these guidelines. Unacceptable behaviors such as mixing firearms with food distribution centers may just be enough to force those providing the services to opt out. We can no longer afford to walk by the discarded syringes and the human feces, while politely declining offers of sexual service for a fee. In many instances, we are whistling past the graveyard.
Excusing harmful behaviors, chalking them up as the larger society’s fault is a radically, wrong headed way of thinking and does nothing to assist those truly in need. We have work to do…
#TogetherWeMakeADifference
3 responses to “Op-Ed: What Happens When Those Who Help Opt Out?”
Well put councilor.
I am an advocate instrumental in getting police cameras in Boston by helping throw a barbecue July 3rd 2015 with homeless solidarity committee I’m known as ma Reyna. My name is Kim Paul I was born to an addictive mother I have helped right home with shelter laws in New Hampshire I fight for the rights of all because I’ve been in their shoes I’ve walked the walk and I have survived. I am a compiler of complaints of ADA violations against the local housing authority have faced harassment and live in a complex for the homeless of breaking in, I know for a fact not only from testimony on a recorded line from an upper management of housing but also if I’m living it that when you allow people to get away with things over and over and over like certain people where I live can have people living with them illegally and their homeless friends come in and stay over until whenever and all the homeless people want to know well why are they different than us so they break in. people if you ain’t been out in the cold don’t judge anybody homeless breaking in anywhere when you’re cold it’s a survival thing.
It is not the police department’s responsibility to say what homeless people are allowed to do what where their buildings are allowed into cuz the owners or management look the other way they’re not the social police. They’re underfunded overworked and I appreciate them for everything they do and believe me I have criminal conviction I turned my life around. Housing cannot allow a culture of indifference to everybody’s rights under the constitutional law of the right to have a peaceful environment in the residence they legally live in while other people are harassing them in violating the law and people living with them working with drug dealers working with anybody that’s a criminal and housing officials taking money for bribes all of it is why we have this problem and make no mistake we are enemy number One in Massachusetts. Our governor sued Trump 97 times and one when he was president and she was attorney general. Federal funding going away no nonprofit status on most people donate so they get the tax write off and they won’t have the tax write off. How many people work that their paycheck really comes from federally funded programs that pay state taxes that help support things won’t have an income won’t be paying state taxes won’t be donating. All of us are going to have to face hard choices including you so you counselor because you are my elected official just like you are anybody in this district whether we voted for you or not under the Constitution of the United States. Housing things going to have to close some of these buildings down and from what I’ve seen since I’ve been in this town that I came to to escape again I domestic violence stalker and former abuser generational welfare is rampant and people think it’s always going to be here cuz it always has been and it is not helping anybody it is enabling them. Having a good heart is hard because you want to help everybody but sometimes the best help you can give somebody is just like a kid that is being disrespectful you put them in time out you make them take the consequences of their actions. We have to enforce the law when it comes to a lot of the issues with homelessness and addiction. We are a harm reduction medical model but I will tell you since I got my certification from UMass Boston and worked in the field as a forensic fear of support specialist you cannot save anybody from addiction or homelessness. I know I’ve been there and whether I was born addicted or not I made choices with my medical disability cuz I worked most of my life lived in the shelter in Boston and when they told me I could go to a hotel for 3 days and still have my bed when I came back and I didn’t need to save but housing I didn’t mean to make out application I too got stuck in that if it’s free it’s for me and why not everybody else is doing it mentality that keeps everybody in hell. Good job City councilor Corey Robinson I would like to thank you for your service to this community personally. And I would love the honor of talking to you someday of how do we fix this as a society because all of us own it.
So so true.