By: Diane Benjamin
City Manager Jeff Jurgens showed this slide at the last council meeting. All of these groups are working on a solution to the tent city. Jurgens stated more organizations might be added:
From Public Commenters at meetings the problem isn’t homelessness. The people living in tents downtown aren’t allowed in shelters because of drug and alcohol issues. When the first camper was allowed to stay and was fed twice a day not only was that person enabled – many more were enabled to start camping too.
Not included on this slide is a church in downtown Bloomington with a mission of helping homeless and addicted people – Abundant LIfe Church. https://abundantlifebn.com/vision-mission/
See this 2018 story: https://blnnews.com/2018/03/23/torturing-some-ignoring-others/
That story has pictures of where camping used to be – the west side of Bloomington. Public camping only became a problem when it happened downtown?
This problem can’t be solved by funneling tax dollars to nonprofits. Those organizations will be incentivised to not solve the problem because the money dries up if no campers exist. Feeding these people enables them to keep camping.
When the first person was allowed to stay more joined in. Bloomington didn’t enforce the law because of outrage by leftists who think compassion trumps common sense. What is enabled only grows. The only way to solve the problem is making people accountable for themselves. Right now they don’t have to.
When it gets hot are they going to take refuge in the library? They wouldn’t be the first to do it. Nice addition to to new library!
all i need to know about non-profit’s in this area is summed up in the local 211 idiocy. very little oversight & ripe for corruption.
of course they are going to keep abundant life out of it. there’s no way to grift from them.
All of those groups are not working to address homelessness. Each organization has their own mission within our community that takes up their time and funding. Stop lying, Jeff. No one can solve it. None of those groups can. And how could they? It’s the City’s problem. Fine the crap out of the church like you would a car parked too long downtown. Send the cops to issue No trespassing. And grandfather in the fire system at Abundant Life so they can actually use their building instead of having their hands tied with red tape. They can easily house every single homeless person INSIDE the building and assist them in their addiction recovery and rehabilitation but nooooo you people slapped an ordinance on them you just made up which costs $80,000. Why not do something we all can get behind which is improve the lives of others?? Grow some, actually help the homeless instead of making everything worse, and stop lying. I’ve asked this to MBoka the first week he became Mayor~ how can you remove the new rule The City made up and slapped on Abundant Life??? Let’s solve the homeless issue and help those addicted and mentally ill not be in and out of jail. I’ve been blown off ever since about literally everything I’ve asked him. You people make everything worse and you should be ashamed of yourselves. All of you.
Following the lead of City Manager Hales and what”s his name, the last guy that just left, Mayors Stockton, Renner, and now Mboka have welcomed social engineering policies resulting in communist ideological takeover of this country, this town. Here is your result people. Hope you wake up someday and stand for America to be strong rather than the destruction which you have welcomed.
These tax payer funded grifters bellied up to the bar with their hands out for cash. They have no intention of solving any problems. They are simply there as enablers, as you stated Diane. And as everyone with a brain knows, enablers are part of the problem. They are not part of the solution. Epic fail Bloomington Normal.
agree
211 and that network – ripe for exploit and corruption