Wow… Both other people who commented here are fucking heartless.
The man was just trying to help the homeless people and keep his neighborhood safe
The relative said Housman was trying to settle an argument between two homeless campers on Clinton when one of the campers stabbed him in the throat.
While many residents were nervous and wary of the homeless campers, Housman had a different approach: to make the neighborhood safer, he appointed himself “sheriff” and began to screen homeless campers and then provide them with support once they gained his approval.
During our interview, another neighbor pulled up, claiming that Housman provided electricity to the homeless campers.
Ya’ll are dicks. Read the article. He was a good dude and epitomized the exact shit you espouse. You don’t want cops involved… you want the community to police itself and do good. This guy was doing just that. Doing way more to help these people than you do.
Interesting way of saying “Self appointed sheriff on a power trip with no actual authority who tried to tell other people what they were allowed to do fucked around and found out.”
Was he better than his neighbors? Sounds like it. He was trying to help in his own way… By keeping anyone that looked too poor out.
Clearly you’ve never worked with the homeless…it’s not the “look of poverty” as you alluded, it’s really more about active drug use or untreated mental health disorders.
Some people certainly fall on hard times, but many have serious mental health disorders that for a variety of reasons they are not managing. We often require an address and lots of paperwork to provide government benefits in the US, so it isn’t hard for people to fall out of the system.
Once that happens, it’s really hard to find your way back. There are certainly not enough programs to help people reintegrate with society. At the same time, a homeless encampment in a neighborhood is not a reasonable solution either.
I volunteered nearly every week feeding the food and housing insecure in Philly for nearly 3 years pre-covid (I moved shortly before Covid). It was a great experience and I got to know many people that I might have otherwise walked past, and it really underscored the value of social services and lack of help available.
It also taught me that people need to be in a place to accept help. The ones that were not in that place are the ones you worry about - they have nothing to lose. Most that came to the church to be served lunch (usually 100-200) were to an extent willing to receive help. Some had bad days or would relapse into drug use, but they were generally trying to do better.
But there were other, much darker, places in the city that people unwilling or unable to accept help went. Places like Kensington in North Philly. That was a huge problem for years…it was a huge open air drug market that basically occupied that area. Finally, I think just this year, police cleared the encampments there.
It’s not a great solution, but it also wasn’t tenable. My point is that you should understand that not all housing insecure populations are just good people that bad things happened to. Those not in a place to get help or actively using drugs can be dangerous. I certainly would not let my son near that group, nor would I gleefully accept an encampment near my house
He should have opened a soup kitchen if he wanted to help. He can’t appoint himself sheriff (and it’s a bad idea anyway considering how police were basically created to keep the poors in their place, which would make homeless people naturally distrustful of them), and more importantly the idea that they have to “gain approval” to be worth helping is a red flag. I’m not saying it’s okay that he died. But he put himself in harms way and I cannot say I’m surprised.
you are mistaken. a self-appointed gatekeeper getting in the middle of a violent argument between desperate people doesnt make a good guy. the context you highlight provided makes him look more like a clueless, self aggrandizing busy body than anything else.
Wow… Both other people who commented here are fucking heartless.
The man was just trying to help the homeless people and keep his neighborhood safe
Ya’ll are dicks. Read the article. He was a good dude and epitomized the exact shit you espouse. You don’t want cops involved… you want the community to police itself and do good. This guy was doing just that. Doing way more to help these people than you do.
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Should he be expected to provide electricity to a meth lab?
How many homeless people do have math labs in your area?
Someone’s got to crunch those numbers.
Well if it’s just a few, I suppose I can provide them with electricity, no questions asked.
Interesting way of saying “Self appointed sheriff on a power trip with no actual authority who tried to tell other people what they were allowed to do fucked around and found out.”
Was he better than his neighbors? Sounds like it. He was trying to help in his own way… By keeping anyone that looked too poor out.
Clearly you’ve never worked with the homeless…it’s not the “look of poverty” as you alluded, it’s really more about active drug use or untreated mental health disorders.
Some people certainly fall on hard times, but many have serious mental health disorders that for a variety of reasons they are not managing. We often require an address and lots of paperwork to provide government benefits in the US, so it isn’t hard for people to fall out of the system.
Once that happens, it’s really hard to find your way back. There are certainly not enough programs to help people reintegrate with society. At the same time, a homeless encampment in a neighborhood is not a reasonable solution either.
I volunteered nearly every week feeding the food and housing insecure in Philly for nearly 3 years pre-covid (I moved shortly before Covid). It was a great experience and I got to know many people that I might have otherwise walked past, and it really underscored the value of social services and lack of help available.
It also taught me that people need to be in a place to accept help. The ones that were not in that place are the ones you worry about - they have nothing to lose. Most that came to the church to be served lunch (usually 100-200) were to an extent willing to receive help. Some had bad days or would relapse into drug use, but they were generally trying to do better.
But there were other, much darker, places in the city that people unwilling or unable to accept help went. Places like Kensington in North Philly. That was a huge problem for years…it was a huge open air drug market that basically occupied that area. Finally, I think just this year, police cleared the encampments there.
It’s not a great solution, but it also wasn’t tenable. My point is that you should understand that not all housing insecure populations are just good people that bad things happened to. Those not in a place to get help or actively using drugs can be dangerous. I certainly would not let my son near that group, nor would I gleefully accept an encampment near my house
He should have opened a soup kitchen if he wanted to help. He can’t appoint himself sheriff (and it’s a bad idea anyway considering how police were basically created to keep the poors in their place, which would make homeless people naturally distrustful of them), and more importantly the idea that they have to “gain approval” to be worth helping is a red flag. I’m not saying it’s okay that he died. But he put himself in harms way and I cannot say I’m surprised.
you are mistaken. a self-appointed gatekeeper getting in the middle of a violent argument between desperate people doesnt make a good guy. the context you highlight provided makes him look more like a clueless, self aggrandizing busy body than anything else.