It’s cold, dark, rainy and miserable. It’s Monday, February 16 in Ukiah.
I’m stopped at South State and Gobbi Streets peering through heavy drops and slashing wipers and off to my right, hunched under an awning, is a young man with a light jacket, no hat, soaked shoes and head between his knees.
I’ll guess he’s homeless because if he wasn’t he’d be home in front of the fireplace in his stocking feet, watching TV and munching popcorn out of a big red bowl.
Instead he’s alone, shivering, shaking and maybe crying.
And what I want to know is, where do all the billions of dollars that the do-gooders who run (and run and run and run) these programs to help the homeless do with all that money? Where does the money go?
The administrators pay themselves lavish sums to hold a few meetings a month and a few conventions a year. They pad around shoeless in their comfortable carpeted offices sipping green tea, talking about the plays they’ve seen, the restaurants they’ve visited and the vacations they’ve planned. And their pensions and retirement packages.
How can these massively funded programs fail so spectacularly as they do, for as long as anyone can remember, and still continue to get more money every year to keep repeating their mistakes? But of course, failing to help the homeless people they are dedicated to help is exactly what the plan has always been.
If the homeless were truly put on their feet and helped out of the hole they’re in the problems would be solved, the funding would cease and the best and brightest of 21st century American social workers would be out of jobs.
Can’t have that. So instead they launch one program after another, all with promising slogans: “Continuum of Care” and “Navigational Tools” and “Constellation of Services” and dozens more, all meant to camouflage the flimsy facade of their hypocrisies
The fact that nothing these professional thieves propose is intended to solve the problems is obvious to everyone except dishonest politicians who preen and brag about how much money they plan to allocate in a bold new push to make homelessness Priority One in the coming year.
As if spending money on something is equivalent to fixing it.
Ukiah, like many places, once had a small number of local guys who held up signs at freeway off ramps: “Will Work for Food.”
We knew, and they knew, and they knew we knew, the signs were simply a gentle buffer helping soften the embarrassment of begging.
Then a well organized and well funded campaign was undertaken, with professionally produced signs instructing people to refrain from giving bums money because it would only hold them back. Impede their progress. Drinking and all that, y’know.
On radio, Public Serve Announcements were broadcast with the same stern messaging. “A Hand Up—Not a Handout!” So we kept our quarters and dollars while college educated sociologists hijacked government grant funding to launch their ongoing charades and sleights of budgets to turn a minor civic problem into a tidal wave of money going to plugged-in Democrats and their hyped-up programs.
And all the while thinking to themselves “We Will ‘Work’ for Paychecks.”
The money’s been good, eh experts? The career has been a soft one by any standard. Must feel mighty proud, devoting yourselves to helping those less fortunate.
And the collateral damage has been irrelevant, unless you’re the one sitting out in the rain near the corner of North State and Gobbi, head between your knees and no money in your pocket.
Big Media Can’t Help It
One day President Trump was on vacation, hiking around Lake Mendocino. He kicked at some dirt and suddenly had an inspiration.
He returned to his tent, peered closely at the soil through his pocket telescope, and realized it would be simple to convert dirt into a revolutionary new source of energy.
Scientific testing quickly proved he was right: By merely digging up piles of dirt, Trump had solved every world energy problem, ended global warming and would soon create millions of jobs for American workers.
Big Media, always alert to a huge story, got to work. The next day was filled with breaking news:
New York Times: “Scientists say Trump’s risky energy plan could endanger moles, voles and other endangered underground rodents.”
MSNBC: “Experts warn Trump energy breakthrough may disproportionately benefit red states.”
SF Chronicle: “Huge new jobs program could subvert DEI goals, says Stanford professor.”
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