“Don’t be frightened, dear”

BY JAKE FULLER

  • The homeless industrial complex is real and sprawling. A big time business nationwide. Thousands of NGO’s and non-profits survive off being a middle man between the homeless and our tax money. Just like the third party that is being proposed to hire ambassadors

    • And I’m not saying resources should not be allocated to help homeless people…I’m just saying beware of the industry. Let’s keep it local and have rules and time limits. Try to help, not profit

    • It’s the perfect scam. Like climate change, all the money goes into an untraceable black hole.

      Look at all the money Gainesville spends on homeless bums, yet the problem just gets worse and worse at an exponential rate. It’s intentional. The worse the problem, the more money these scumbags can rake in.

      Jon DeCarmine and his criminal daughter just keep asking for more and more money, and the requests don’t pass the smell test–$100k for 10 more beds at Grace Marketplace? You could get premium sleeping bags and pads for 10 people for less than $1k, then feed them beans, rice, and a daily multivitamin for $10k per year. Where is the rest going?

      Physical donations to Grace Marketplace are given directly to The Recycle Project, which sells them for cash. Where does that cash go? My guess is directly back to DeCarmine minus a percent bribe laundered through several people before being given as a “campaign donation” to the city commissioners.

      • Repeating an excerpt from a different comment I made…

        ‘Your’ GRU money is going to pay for homeless camps, homeless hotels, and all the police, fire, and ambulance calls generated by the homeless, including responding to their many victims. It’s supporting a criminal who looks like a lower-level hood from New Jersey; someone who would normally be content selling counterfeit goods on eBay, but he has found some real suckers here.

        A qualified auditor needs to perform an audit of how much the run-amok homeless assistance has cost the city in real dollars over the past few years. Something like that was done recently in Oakland. It was about $70 million over three years. That’s probably close.

  • Can’t wait for a guided ‘tour’ by the new ambassadors for our fair city? Don’t worry about using the restrooms as they will show you where they ‘go’ to save you the trouble.

  • There is nothing new under the sun. I lived in Reno, Nevada for awhile and they did this ‘Downtown Ambassador’ thing with the homeless. It worked there alright but this was a different scenario for a couple reasons. One is that the homeless situation is so much worse on the West Coast that you HAVE to do things like this to try and think outside the box and alleviate the problem bit by bit. Two, Reno is a complete tourist area downtown. These “ambassadors” actually performed the role of a cheap security guard by telling other homeless siting under the casino awnings to move on. They had no authority whatsoever but they were told to call the police if people didn’t listen to them. They basically became a minimum wage version of “if you see something, say something.” Gainesville is not Reno. There is nothing for them to patrol or prop up downtown other than maybe the Clock Tower. This is a bad idea. They will perform no benefit whatsoever to a college town like Gainesville.

  • This is just moronic. If only Jake’s intellect matched his drawing ability.

    • Obviously he has more intellect and common sense than you and many others seeing as how he and most of us are able to see just how stupid and ignorant the idea of having homeless people serve as “ambassadors.”

      About the only things they’ll be able to show people are where to get the most return for panhandling and where to take a piss without getting caught.

  • When you thought city hall could not get any dumber, Jake comes to the rescue!
    So you see, politicians can stoop lower than we though.

  • Are all the readers of this maga traitors or just ole right wing holier than thou trash?

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