Politics brings power and compassion takes a back seat
// September 2nd, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Sacramento, people, social justice
Have you heard of the Tent City in Sacramento? Seriously, after Oprah featured it on her show last February, it seems as if everyone knows about it. However, not everyone knows what has happened after the cameras left and the hype died down.
It’s a sad story really. Millions were pledged immediately following the airing of the Oprah show. So much hype about tackling the problem and bringing some compassion to the issue. In the end, once the dust settled, the problem is actually worse than it was before.
Money was committed to help with permanent housing for the homeless, yet several shelters have had to close their doors since the cameras left. The promise for new housing and shelters has resulted in the loss of beds. There are more homeless on the streets as a result, not less.
The sad thing in all of this is that our new mayor, Kevin Johnson, has just let the Sacramento Police Department cut the lock on a private citizen’s vacant lot and forcibly evict residents off the newest Tent City. Yes, it was the newest because shortly after the media hype died down after the Oprah show came to town, that Tent City was closed and the homeless there were scattered. It took an attorney named Mark Merin, rather than the city council to offer a place for the homeless to go. Mr. Merin opened up his lot and allowed the homeless to camp on his land. At first, the police publicly responded in saying that unless there were some complaints or public safety issues, they would monitor the new Tent City, but let the campers there live freely on the private lot.
Brewing behind the scenes was a political power struggle. Mayor Kevin Johnson said that Mr. Merin’s offer of letting the homeless sleep on his private land was undermining the efforts of the city council to come to a decision on how they would move forward in using the funds given to Sacramento to help with the issue of homelessness. In the political world, it’s okay to address an issue that has gained international media attention by offering ideas on how to spend money pledged 7 months ago to combat an immediate problem. In the political world, it’s then okay to take 16 more months to get action taken on said problem. Mayor Johnson has publicly said that just getting things done within 16 months of the announcement of their plans is something he has to push through as it is faster than what others would ordinarily do. So, in other words people are without a home or food in a city that has homeless shelters continually closing because of lack of funding and it should be viewed as hard work to expect some partial solution 23-24 months after the fact?
The worst part of it all is that even after a private citizen opens up his land to the homeless to give them a place to be safe and off the streets–because it takes attention away from Mayor Johnson’s forth-coming plan of how the city will spend millions of dollars of pledged federal money to erect some temporary housing–the local police were ordered to forcibly evict the homeless campers. Not only were the evicted from private property, but the police confiscated their tents and sleeping bags to be used as evidence of illegal camping! In politics, power has reared its ugly head once again and compassion has taken a back seat.
So, where are the cameras now? An article today in the local Sacramento Bee acknowledged that some cameras were at the eviction to cover the event. However, with the power of the political machine, I highly doubt that any negative national press will come from this incident. I do anticipate though, that once the city council and Mayor Johnson have concluded on how best to use the money to make a small dent in the issue of homelessness in Sacramento, that he will get national attention and praise for his actions. It’s sad that those who have less are being used as pawns in a game of politics. It doesn’t take months of city council meetings to start helping the homeless. It takes someone with compassion for their fellow man and a call to action. Unfortunately, in the end, political office usually seems to be about pushing one’s own agenda on his fellow man and having the power and authority (and charisma) to do so, rather than about what is really best for our fellow man.
Here is a link to the Sacramento Bee article referenced in this post: http://bit.ly/1a00PU
