Meanest Cities: Fewest Homeless?

Rebecca of Revka's Take, aren't you absolutely horrified and reviled that Lawrence, Kansas, should take second place in the top twenty meanest cities in the United States?

America's harsh streets may be tougher for the homeless than they've ever been, according to two homeless-advocacy groups that on Wednesday released their survey of the nation's 20 “meanest” cities for the poor.

Some of the report's findings:
Criminalization of the homeless increasingly occurs in ways like making it illegal to sit, sleep or place personal belongings in a public space. Some police departments make more aggressive sweeps of areas known to be populated by the homeless.

Twenty-seven percent of the cities surveyed prohibit sitting or lying in certain public places, a 14 percent increase over the number of cities surveyed in the groups’ last report, in 2002.

Forty-three percent of the cities surveyed bar begging in certain public places, a 12 percent increase over 2002.

The Top 20 were:

1. Sarasota, Fla.;
2. Lawrence, Kans.;
3. Little Rock, Ark.;
4. Atlanta, Ga.;
5. Las Vegas, Nev.;
6. Dallas, Texas;
7. Houston, Texas;
8. San Juan, P.R.;
9. Santa Monica, Calif.;
10. Flagstaff, Ariz.;
11. San Francisco, Calif.;
12. Chicago, Ill.;
13. San Antonio, Texas;
14. New York City, N.Y.;
15. Austin, Texas;
16. Anchorage, Alaska;
17. Phoenix, Ariz.;
18. Los Angeles, Calif.;
19. St. Louis, Mo.;
20. Pittsburgh, Pa.

Michael Stoops, acting director of the Washington, DC-based National Homeless Coalition slapped Lawrence in the face by saying: “My challenge to Lawrence is that if it wants to continue to be known as a progressive city — which it is — it needs to quit criminalizing homelessness and arresting someone for camping, for sleeping, for sitting in the doorway,” said Michael Stoops, acting director of the Washington, D.C.-based coalition.

Lawrence, Kansas has, boys and girls, according to a 2002 study, a whole 134 persons who are bums -- er, I mean, eh, homeless in that town. For Christ's sake, I can find 134 animals within 1,000 feet of my own little cabin who are homeless. I can find 134 persons within a quarter mile radius in Sacratomato, Fornicalia who have ingrown toenails, bad flatulence, hernias and hemorrhoids, all in one package.

Big deal!

San Francisco, naturally, is bleeding all over its 11th place ranking. And here's the best part: Mayor Gavin Newsom, who abrogated Fornicalian law and began allowing gay marriages in the city last year (only to have them all essentially annulled), created a 32-officer police homelessness outreach team that "tries to help homeless people into services rather than jail them." Only now, the local Homeless Poverty Pimps don't like that idea because "They (police) may be wonderfully sensitive people, but they should have social workers only doing that job. The uniform alone is intimidating."

The uniform alone is intimidating. Gestapo? Jackboots? Iron Crosses? Let me give you a little teeny, weeny clue about San Francisco. Not too terribly long ago SFPD was driving powder-puff-blue colored cars marked with "Police Services" because it was determined by a former socialist regime that black and white cars with the Nazi-linked word POLICE was too oppressive to be viewed by the common citizen.

Let me give you another clue: when gays rioted under Mayor Diane Feinstein on May 21, 1979, about 5,000 demonstrators ransacked and rioted in the Civic Center around City Hall in response to the verdict of the Dan White murder trial. Those “White Night” riots resulted in more than 150 people injured and over $1 million in property damage. Close to 40 police cars were overturned and burned. Then-Mayor Feinstein told the police directly to let the riots go.

One final clue about San Francisco: it is a beautiful city scarred by the overwhelming presence of urine puddles and fecal material distributed flawlessly by its cultivated and nurtured genetically-deficient pool of "homeless" tweakers, crankers, psychotics, mumbling idiots and out-and-out thugs. How do I know? I not only visit San Francisco from time to time, but I do occasional business there. And in merely the last five years, for example, it has become a burgeoning haven for the bum element.

San Francisco "mean" and "oppressive" for the homeless?

Sorry. Not nearly mean enough.