Monday, December 12

Cool Million For The Car People -

The Poynter Institute in St Petersburg FL reports
that $1 million in donations has come forth to assist homeless children living in vehicles in Central Florida after a CBS 60 Minutes piece about them aired on Nov 27th. I didn't see that show.

What about the homeless people in South Florida? Here in Broward County we have homeless people sleeping in parks and alleys. We have well-dressed men in tailored suits sitting in parking lots weeping and begging, while the authorities here continue to aggressively demolish the housing around here.

I have to have faith that things will work out, but my current neighborhood looks like a horror comic book by Hieronymus Bosch.

When I first moved in here, they said they were planning to revitalize this neighborhood as an artsy area, convert empty storefronts into art galleries, and encourage creative people like artists and writers to move in, but they haven't lifted a finger to do any of that. Instead, they've expanded the blight.

There was a laundromat a block away; it's gone now. There isn't even a laundromat within a half-mile of here now. Across the street sits a vacant lot now on which they are storing some kind of huge industrial machinery which is a real eyesore. It's just gotten worse and worse here.

Because it's the Tourist Snowbird Season, there is bound to be a temporary shortage of lodgings here now, but after "The Season" ends, it's usually like a Ghost Town here.

The rosy picture they once painted to persuade me to move into this area is rapidly turning into dust.

:: Poynter: Million Donated ::

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