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WSQT Guerrilla Radio in DC
Residents of Old Town Alexandria, VA have filed a lawsuit to block the opening of the Safe Haven program at 100 N Patrick St, about a block from King St, calling the shelter a threat to their upscale homes and lifestyles.
The Safe Haven program is intended to offer supportive indoor sleeping space to an estimated 35 homeless people in Alexandria who cannot or will not use traditional shelters with curfews, mandatory drug programs, etc. Some of these folks have been batting mental illness or other such disabilities for years and are among the most vulnerable residents of the street.
Wealthy Alexandria homeowners call the proposed shelter "scary" according to the Washington Post, but they do not seem to be bothered at all by living cheek by jowl with puppy killers like Jan Burris (227 North Royal st) of Glaxo-SmithKline or Marjorie Finkelburg(108 West St) of Pfizer. These two creeps are senior execs of firms with multi-millon dollar animal testing contracts with Huntingdon Life Sciences.
The crimes these two people sponsor dwarf any offense ever blamed on the homeless, and if you can tolerate having people who fund concentration camps in your neighborhood and around your children I don't see what the problem is with having the homeless sleeping under a roof instead of under your porch.
Alexandria resident Andy Kuntz was quoted in the Washington Post as saying "why put in in a neighborhood with families and children." Guess what, Andy-these folks are ALREADY on your streets, and the shelter will simply give them a place to sleep indoors at night instead of, say, under your car.
When people try to improve conditions in Alexandria, they are told by cops "don't solicit"(as heard in the audio piece) just for handing out fliers! Is King St the Boulevard of Broken Dreams?
I guess someone is going to have to do a whole lot more than just "solicit" or "Picket" to educate or ever hope to change a community that welcomes puppy-killing death camp funders but treats the homeless like human garbage.
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