Water Polo with the Homeless, Reprise 0

On my way to Drinking Liberally last night, at the intersection of Wesleyan and Northampton Boulevard, a bedraggled and undernourished looking gent was holding a sign that said

Several weeks ago, I mentioned Virginia Beach’s approach to homelessness: Out of sight is out of mind.

City Council is pursuing its plan to shuffle the homeless out of view, while simultaneously stuffing more money into the pockets of developers.

In a vain attempt to persuade Council to look at the plan more carefully, my friend Andrew Jackson wrote a letter to City Council before Tuesday’s meeting. Although the vote has been taken, I felt that the points he made were worthy of more visibility–not that I am all that visible, but my regular readers outnumber the usual attendance at City Council meetings. (Here is the local rag’s report on the meeting.)

You can download Andrew’s full letter (it’s about a page and a half) in *.pdf format. Here’s an excerpt:

Approval of the Light House project as presently planned makes no sense. It will serve no more than it presently has the capacity to serve. In fact, the truth be told, it only serves 60 -70 percent (on a good day) of it’s present capacity of 90. It will not reduce homeless numbers to any noticeable degree (if any), it will not serve the homeless city-wide, and the cost of the land which is now planned is nearly four (4) times it’s original value and with no land improvement.

The fact is, that the only purpose the expenditure of nearly $5M will accomplish is the removal of the present suitable facility so that a convention center hotel complex can be accommodated. This comes about because the city has on two previous occasions missed opportunities to rectify the situation.

While the city claims to be bringing a committee of citizens together to review the present options for this project, it is at the same time planning to vote on the budget for the project even before the committees have completed their work. It is obvious dishonesty to the highest degree toward the citizens of this city. A meeting of the committee is scheduled for tomorrow, yet the Council is voting this evening.

In a resort town, “Republican” and “Democrat” are not meaningful classifications. “In the pocket of developers” and “not in the pocket of developers” are.