Houston lawyer doesn’t like all them homeless folks living near his office

So, how does he take action? … Seriously, he’s a lawyer. What else could he do, other than sue those pesky bums and the homeless shelter they attend?

Christ Church Cathedral, which runs the Beacon, was recently sued by a neighbor who alleges that the "derelicts" it assists have become a public nuisance, destroying the value of his business and property in the process. So the church has taken the unusual step of hiring a lawyer and public-relations firm to defend itself in and out of court.

[…]

Personal injury attorney Harry C. Arthur, who filed the suit, runs his practice and owns offices in the Marine Building across the street. He claims the 400 or so clients the Beacon attracts daily from Friday through Monday are scaring away tenants and clients.

"If this was Skid Row like in New York City, or Skid Row like in Los Angeles and you come down and feed these people, that's one thing. But this isn't where people normally stay and sleep. And the thing that attracts them is the church," Arthur tells Hair Balls [Note: that’s the name of the blog reporting on this].

So, according to him, all those homeless people shouldn’t have the right to try and survive wherever they can, especially if they happen to be next to his office. Rather, they should be rounded them up and confined to Skid Row; segregate those bums! How dare they be “attracted” to the church which feeds, clothes and shelters them when few, if any, others will?

If that wasn’t petty enough, listen to what sort of dimwitted reasoning Arthur employs to rationalize his lawsuit:

"No matter how good your intentions are, when you are affecting someone's peace -- that's what a nuisance is," Arthur says. "If all you do is feed them, you encourage them to stay on the street. And I'm afraid that may be kind of a little bit what's happening. They don't have any incentive to do anything."

What?

Yeah, I bet those bums just love being homeless. Camping out in boxes, under bridges or squatting in filthy hellholes, alternating between freezing and roasting as the seasons pass, too broken to get a decent meal most days and with the generalized scorn and disdain of the rest society to bear on their shoulders – now, ain’t that the ideal life? Who’d want any more than that?

Oh, wait, I know who – those who LIVE in such conditions. If anyone has any incentive to get off the streets and land a job to make some money and get some proper lodging and food in their bellies, I think it would be, y’know, those who live with misery and hunger every day. But, don’t tell Arthur that – we must protect his stupid mental image of homeless people as lazy buggers who just use shelters, not to survive in times of need, but for a free meal. You know, because they have it all so easy.

Look. I’ve never had to deal with such things as homelessness or chronic hunger, for which I certainly am thankful. The only reason I don’t have a job right now is because I don’t actually need one. I do not have the incentive to get a job, as I already have what I need to survive. (Well, that, and I actually am lazy and complacent in general with my personal life, but never mind.) I can’t even fathom, from the relative comfort of my heated bedroom and with a currently satisfied stomach, what it would be like to be outside on a day such as this, freezing in the snowstorm and not having anything to eat other than whatever scraps you find in dumpsters – those that haven’t frozen over yet, anyway. The very idea feels both exceedingly foreign, and highly frightening, to me. But one thing I do know, is that if I found myself on the streets for an extended period of time, there is little more in the world that I would need as an incentive to get me to find a fucking job, get some money coming in, and eventually land some housing. (Including food and clothing.)

To claim that people living on the streets (as in, all homeless people) are lazy and have no motivation to find a job is more than just ignorant; it’s a fucking dumbass thing to say. I’m not saying there aren’t perhaps some bums who actually are satisfied with their lives, though I would question their sanity. But most would do anything to get a home and the security that comes with it. Only, it’s kinda hard to find jobs if you’re in the streets. Employers tend to see that as a bad stain on your record, see (even though realistically it should be irrelevant).

Apparently, Arthur also isn’t much good at things like common sense (wait, haven’t we already established that?):

Arthur says the problem has greatly increased over the past year as more and more people have arrived to access the Beacon's services. By summer, the Beacon was reporting a 20- to 30-percent increase in clients, which its director Tracy Burnett credited to the worsening economy. But Arthur believes the new clients are being bused in from elsewhere.

"I think they've always been homeless," he says. "I don't know that the economy has anything to do with it. ... I guess maybe a little."

The unemployment rate in Houston is now 8.6 percent, up from 5.3 percent at this time last year.

“[A] little”? Seriously? So, the fact that unemployment in America has reached over 10% (and 8.6% in Houston, up from 5.3% at this time last year), the highest since WWII (IIRC), just might be a factor in the increase in homelessness?

If I may ask: where the hell did this clown get his credentials? He isn’t fit to graduate from Elementary School, by the looks of it.

Says [defense attorney Andy] Vickery: "I guess the bottom line is that homelessness is a problem. It's a significant problem. But the Beacon didn't cause homelessness. And we're working like crazy to be part of the solution."

And petty morons like Harry C. Arthur are about as part of the problem as they get.

(via Fark.com)
Technorati tags: homelessness · bums · vagrants · Beacon · lawyers · Harry C. Arthur