DON’T GET DRUNK IN FRESNO!

Please, take the hint and LEAVE!!!

an earlier writer wrote:
>Please, take the hint and LEAVE!!!

The Fresno police will not arrest you if you get drunk in your home or at a bar. This outdoor drunk tank is an obvious attack on the homeless and poor. It is fine for the rich to drink and get drunk in fine restaurants and bars, but if you are poor and on the street - it is off to the outdoor drunk tank for you. YES, the rulling class wants to make this as uncomfortable as possible for the poor and I am sure they are hoping the homeless will disappear. That is why they found the most disgusting place imaginable to build this facility. Look at the pictures above! The area is not fit for human habitation - and then there are the issues of the razor wire and the evangelical Christians ranting at you. Look, if this was not class war the FPD would be putting drunks who are rich in the outdoor drunk tank along with the homeless. Do you think that is going to happen?

What's your suggestion on how to deal with a wino sprawled out on the pavement in front of some business someone is trying to run. Should we just let him stay there to get rolled and suffer the elements? Above all else, they definately should not be subjected to the horrors of having to listen to a sermon. It might cause them to abandon there "lifestyle choice".

I think the comments below, from an interview I did with Edie Jessup will help to answer the above question:

Edie Jessup, who works for Fresno Metro Ministry, says that “there is money out there to address the homeless issue. What is needed is a comprehensive, 24 hour supervised shelter for both single adults and families with all the wrap around services to get folks into permanent housing. That would include medical, mental health substance abuse treatment services and job training. There should be a separate medical detox available. What we have is far from what we need in Fresno. Now is when we need to mobilize the solution and garner the resources to provide a continuum of services for the homeless.”

She fears that the funding available is being poorly used..Jessup said, "Fresno County has run out of FEMA money in September for the last three years. FEMA emergency shelter funds are mostly all distributed through the Salvation Army for rent/mortgage to keep people in their housing before they lose it and very little is spent on 'emergency shelter' for those on the street already, because there isn't enough. Meanwhile, the city-county and some community based organizations spend shelter money by putting people up in ratty-appearing hotel rooms for four nights, at the nearly the cost of a whole month’s rent, further expending money only to support bad housing at exorbitant cost, far from services that might help people get back on their feet or feed their kids.”

Jessup continues, “It is a shameful way for a large metropolis to handle few resources. Part of the problem, in addition to others, is that all services for the homeless shouldn't be 'faith-based'; there needs to be a variety of services addressing the needs of the homeless, not tied to a particular faith path, and based on best practices from around the nation.. The existing shelters do good but limited work, and it results in turf wars. That people have to leave shelter during the day and line up nightly for a bed, and then be turned away without a place to go, makes tent cities emerge. To engage the police and criminalize the homeless is the worst. Exposing the lack of appropriate services for such a huge number of people is righteous. Fresno should be ashamed. Perhaps Amnesty International should swoop in? Or, we should get serious now, and create the best shelter system that creates the services that will result in good health and the highest degree of independence possible for the homeless in Fresno. We should act like the big city we are, and solve this with dignity for our homeless neighbors, while respecting their rights, and use available federal funds to accomplish this NOW.”

I don't have a problem with Mrs Jessups assessment. But what if a person refuses to go to one of these fine establishments? What about the individual who prefers life on the street and refuses drug and alchohol treatment?

I have had a number of friends and family members who've been in this situation, due to drug and alchohol problems. Once they got sick and tired of being sick and tired, they found the necessary resources to help them get on their feet. The help was out there, they just had to be willing to take it. Mrs Jessup is right, many of the organizations are evangelical in nature. They survive on contributions and donations. While that makes funding and planning shaky, it makes the organizations accountable to their sponsors.

Unlike government funded agencies.

It's time to knock off the talk of "Class War"!

There are many reasons why people are homeless. Most have little to do with who's running the country or state at that particular moment.

No one really knows how many homeless there are in Fresno. The homeless survey done two years ago had a very small survey sample because of the haste it was done in (I was told by one of the Continuum of Care members that it was done in a few days), and the numbers that came from it definitely need revisiting with a better-designed survey, done for a longer period of time. This is not to put down the 2002 survey--the Continuum did the best job they could, under the circumstances at the time.

To call the struggle over what to do about the homeless a "class war" does the people who provide services and the homeless themselves a grave disservice.

The energy used in taking potshots at the City, and two service providers, might be better spent in sitting down with one or more of them and learning what they do and how they do it. And, seeing how the progressive community could combine forces and help, instead of being the irrational opposition.

As for the outdoor drunk tank, there are some serious issues that I don't think anyone in authority has thought through, particularly liability issues.

The major medical problem with chronic alcoholics when they are withdrawing (in this case, "sobering up" in a holding pen) is seizures. Comprehensive Alcohol Program, which operates a social model detox unit and recovery program, requires a medical clearance before admission to the detox unit. Even with a medical clearance, there are still risks. Clients still do seizure. And, there have been fatal outcomes in spite of the best efforts to avert them from the get-go.

Who would be responsible for any legal entanglements? The City? or, the Mission? The City is relatively immune from lawsuit; the Mission is not. As, I say, I don't think the character from the police department who dreamed this idea up asked the right people the right questions before going public.

Is the outdoor drunk tank a bad idea? Yes. Are there other options? Yes, there are.

The homeless are homeless because they are poor, not because they have substance abuse problems.

"The homeless are homeless because they are poor, not because they have substance abuse problems"

They will wind up on the street. There's many instances of upper income people who lose everything because of drugs or alchohol and end up on the street. There have been some prominant people who ended up like that.

Your class war garbage only pisses off the productive people.

Like Keith Richards did, or Winston Churchill or JFK?

I can think of one horribly tragic case right away. The man who ran Fresno Community Hospital for quite a few years. A combination of alcohol and a nervous breakdown eventually put him on the street, for many years, where he died roughly a year or two ago. Everybody who worked with the homeless or alcoholics knew him--a very nice man whose family tried very hard to get him sober.

"One horribly tragic case" is what scientists call "anectdotal evidence." It's interesting, but it doesn't prove a thing. The fact remains that rich substance abusers live better than poor substance abusers because rich people live better than poor people. That's classism in a nutshell. It's evil, and its days are numbered.

"Class War Now" is precisely why the progressive/liberal community is regarded as pretty much of a joke in Fresno. Sadly, many of the progressive groups do great stuff/have wonderful ideas. But people like "Class War" destroy the community's credibility. The larger community then rolls its collective eyes heavenward and wishes the liberals would just vanish.

Can we forget G W is an alcoholic and former drug user? Not to mention sitting in the Skull and bones club snorting coke and fucking prostitutes. On w/ the class war, drug addicts take office all the time!

Liberals don't want class war. They have too much to lose.

Judging from the photos it looks like people might expire from the elements in that compund. The business interests who constantly push the criminalization of consumption of alcohol by marginalized persons should be paying to keep their tidy little streets swept clean the way they like it. The level of yuppification has evolved to the point now where sterility is the norm and any unsanctioned loitering let alone drinking of spirits will be punished. For anyone to assert this is not class war is absurd.

until the rich walk amone the poor they will not understand the delema only preach nonsence the clergy only rave but do not pertake read the lessons of author jacke London the common man is the forgotten man only if the poor will unite in stengh will their message be heard