I am having a very hard time understanding why this City's leaders are so hell bent on helping those who obviously aren't trying to help themselves. And I'm not talking about the few who are honestly looking for a hand up and not a hand out. I am talking about those roaming our streets who are being fed three meals a day for free. I'm talking about those who keep our Police Department jumping day and night. I'm talking about those who get their free meals on paper plates and throw them wherever they happen to be when they are finished eating. I'm talking about those who deposit their recycled food wherever they can find a spot to squat. Yes, I am angry!
Why wouldn't those looking for handouts, or those hiding from the law and living on the streets come to Fort Bragg? My God, we have turned this City into Ground Zero for the Homeless with all the handouts and freebies.
Why isn't the leader who claims to "love Fort Bragg" doing something for the elderly who have put blood, sweat and tears into making this town what it is? Why isn't there more affordable housing for the elderly instead of once again looking for more property to purchase for Transitional Housing? Why isn't there a break given in the cost of water to Senior Citizens who don't use as much water as younger people?
The answer to those questions is quite simple: MONEY. There is no big money in helping the elderly, the money is in helping those who have not contributed one iota to the growth of this City. The money is in helping those who don't pay taxes to support this City. Isn't it odd that it is the elderly who are preparing, serving and cleaning up after feeding the ones who are getting more help from the City than they are?
Isn't it odd that when I asked a few of Dave Turner’s "I LOVE FORT BRAGG" group to help me crochet scarves for the homeless (I started doing this when a person froze to death near the Food Bank) they laughed and made fun of my project. I guess I deserved it because me making scarves that actually help doesn't generate a dime for the City, does it?
A lot of Fort Bragg’s elderly sit by and barely make ends meet each month while the City's chosen are given handouts on every corner and even get their medication for free. Some of our elderly do without medication because of the cost.
Someone help me to understand how a City Mayor can pride himself in restoring a trestle (which he didn't do), pride himself in saving the Starr Center (which he didn't do), pride himself in saving the Skunk Train (which he didn't do), pride himself in making his term of Mayor the cornerstone of helping the homeless, but NEVER, NOT ONE TIME, mention helping the elderly. I would love to hear some thoughts on this.
All the handouts are allowing some to hang on to their money by not having to feed themselves. In fact it leaves them more money to spend on booze and drugs. Our Seniors could use some help so they would have money to spend on drugs also. Their drugs are legal and in some cases drugs that make their lives more bearable. Drugs that help with the pain in their joints from years of hard work.
This is so very wrong and I am trying to understand how anyone can justify the wrong being done by this City.
I was at the MHSA meeting in Fort Bragg today, at 474 South Franklin, which something interesting happened. I was making an issue about the new housing being proposed and my objections based on existing housing, how for example, Duncan Place Apartments was once a senior living, lovely gardens, security entrance, not much going on as most seniors were involved with family, or didn’t have an advocate, but the Senior Center would come by and give them lifts to there. Then Duncan Place began accepting section 8 vouchers, and things changed, garden is wasted, there is no security, cannabis smoke fills the halls.
The ‘cannabis fills the halls, which I find offensive as any smoke, or aerosol”, a number of the people who are being assisted by Hospitality Center and seeking housing took offense, and went into detail how cannabis is the only solution for them, and cannabis is the economy”.
I apologized for ofending them with the cannabis comment, because my issue was not cannabis, but the type of housing, which the senior citizen model does not work with many mental health consumers. And that’s ok for those making money off the system consumers are rotated through. But it’s not ok for the consumer or the tax payer.
I had a thought to share.. imagine that instead of MHSA and stakeholders occupying the Old Coast Hotel, what if it was what the consumers actually want that moved into the Old Coast Hotel? Can you imagine a cannabis disensary, wellness center, with job opportunities, training, housing, because many transients come to get trimming jobs?
What would Fort Bragg City done if a cannabis holistic center offered to buy Old Coast for the asking price and open a cannabis holistic center?
If cannabis has so much money in Mendocino, why don’t cannabis producers come togather and purchase a property for a holistic wellness center?
Everyone at the meeting heard several residents of the Hospitality House and consumers of Hospitality Center services say, “I don’t want the drugs or therepy, all I want is my marijuana and be left in peace to do productive things”.
By the way, there is an industrious person, very bright, who developed a web page and needs help “coming into complience”, if anyone can help him, the web site is: greenandsober.org
I don’t do facebook, and it may be on facebook. It’s new, and I was informed that it’s about cannabis and good mental health.
The new Hospitality Center will be open Monday August 17th 9 am.
I think your making scarves for those in need is totally awesome!!!
It has been proven that cannabis does in fact help some with health issues. So why not put in a holistic wellness center? I’m not sure but I think the City banned “smoke” stores from being in downtown? Someone correct if I’m wrong about that. Wonder if a wellness center that offered cannabis instead of drugs would be banned also? This is worth looking into.
Thank you for the comment about the scarves and while it isn’t much they will help keep someone warm during the cold months. It does take time to make them but I am working daily on getting as many done as possible. I found a new pattern that includes a hood attached so that will make them even warmer.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find things made by hand with loving kindness precious. The fact that someone made such a scarf would feel warmer to me than if it said, “Made for profit”.
I believe Fort Bragg did ban dispensaries, and yet, yesterday I learned that many of the people coming to Fort Bragg and appreciating Hosptality Center, MHSA services, want medical marijuana services not pharmecuetical management services.
Why shouldn’t cannabis, being legal in Mendocino County and boasting that it’s THE economy, invest in their consumers to transform Fort Bragg into a cannabis wellness destination?
What a sick joke – the whole idea of medical marijuana dispensaries- Maryjane is an intoxicant and take it long enough and it will fry your brain. We have a some what similar problem in Sacto – quack MDs that prescribe “medical” marijuana for the junkies.
Quack MDs that prescribe “medical” marijuana for junkies is a problem but there are those going through chemo who actually benefit from it. And it isn’t just junkies it’s being prescribed for it’s for almost anyone who just wants to grow for profit. I don’t smoke pot and don’t see any reason why I would start but if it helps someone (and I don’t mean just for the high of it) with pain management they should be able to go to the pharmacy and get it the same as they would any other man made drug. I don’t see it any different than the pills people pop that are full of chemicals and also fry the brain. The difference is the huge pharmaceutical companies aren’t lining their pockets with the money made from it.
With respect to Mr. Updegraff’s Reaganesque, “this is your brain on drugs” (fried eggs in cast iron pan over high heat), it’s not the point.
At the Mendocino County Mental Heath Services Agency meeting, I witnessed residents of The Hospitality Center make a point to be there to go on record that they do not want pharmecuetical drug management (That means Ortner and Redwood Quality management Group). They are interested in medical marijuana for their health. That’s why they are here, and that’s why they want to live here.
I bet that if I did a survey of any shelter in the Emerald Triangle asking people who find themselves needing public privatized services, I would find that the majority are attracted by the marijuana industry for their health and hopefully income.
The City of Fort Bragg is not allowing the marijuana industry to invest, rather they use Fort Bragg’s funds (CDBG) to make a “center” (sic) for the people who can’t get marijuana jobs they came for to build what the people who are not part of the marijuana industry don’t want.
Look at the list of those who supported the Hospitality Center taking over the Old Coast Hotel and you’ll see the people who are profitting off what could be called, human trafficing from luring people with marijuana jobs.
Hospitality House helps Ortner and Redwood Quality Management Group sign these folks up for MediCAL because that’s how they get paid, and then chase the folks off by having a “no marijuana rule” KNOWING the majority of folks coming through their doors came there because they were seeking marijuana for health and income.
Maybe this is why the County is considering building a larger prison (with AVA’s appreciation) instead of a mental hospital? Tax payers are funding this racket of luring people here with non existant medical marijuana jobs, using their information to meet their quotas for grant/funding, payments, and then dumping them to be picked up by the police, or wind up in another shelter.
I wonder how I could get a survey to the shelters out? I’d like some answers.