VIEWS OF THE INNER CORE OF OUR "ALL-AMERICAN" CITY

(Ed.'s Note: Just this past Saturday we ran into one of the city's planners who had a first hand at transforming the city into another Austin or San Antonio and when the subject of the millions spent on hike-and-bike trials and the gentrification of the city's inner core to attract well-to-do tourists to the city, we reminded him that the city has failed to address the persistent population of homeless sleeping at every empty doorway.

That sight of these unfortunates huddled into nooks and crannies gives the city's downtown a Big City ghetto look that clashes with the goal of a Sixth Street in Austin or a tourist magnet center, we said. But he argued that "you will always have the poor with you" and that there were homeless everywhere, even in cities like New York, San Francisco, etc. The homeless living in the doorways, then, are an acceptable component of the resurrection of the cit's inner core, he explained.

Several people argued otherwise, saying that the city's shelter at the Ozanam center in the outskirts of the city amounted to no more that a "out of sight out of mind" answer that did nothing to address their condition and that their presence constitutes an obstacle to the city's downtown resurrection that everyone is trying to address. Why not have a homeless shelter somewhere near downtown and once established - and the services provided - including hygienic facilities and security, enforce the city's vagrancy laws to prevent them using the sidewalks as their personal bedrooms? 

The city has issued bonds in the past for such a shelter, but that was forgotten and the money shifted elsewhere. There is no reason, it was argued, that having homeless people sleeping in doorways of boarded up stores should deter the efforts of the city and other investors.

Just because it is acceptable in Austin, San Antonio, Houston, etc., is no reason why it should be acceptable here if some answer can be found and a solution worked out. Until then, are we willing to accept sights like those above as part and parcel of Brownsville becoming a "Big City"?"