What I am about to transcribe is the city's Federally Funded Grant paperwork to the city of Berkeley, California. The money goes to the homeless of Berkeley, allegedly. That is the year I came into this town. I don't know where this money is supposedly going, but most of us on these streets did not see any of it. And the wording is too much. "Prevention" is in there, when they did nothing to prevent anything. If you want the "homeless" to get off these streets, then get them off these streets. Provide housing of some sort. Complaining about this problem and doing nothing to alleviate it is shear madness.
"Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Funding"
"The City of Berkeley has received a grant of $1,332,952 in Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing (HPRP) funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The program provides direct case management assistance and/or direct housing assistance payments to prevent individuals and families from becoming homeless or to help those who are experiencing homelessness to be quickly re-housed and stabilized.
"Who qualifies for services
-Individuals and families with an immediate housing crisis, or who are homeless; and
-Have a household income at or below 50% of area median income (below $41,550 for a family of three); and
-Have a current income or income potential that will allow the household to independently cover its rent and household expenses within a short period of time.
-Live in the cities of Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville or Piedmont.
"Accessing the Services
"There is a 24-hour referral through the 2-1-1 hotline. Callers are screened and assessed to target those most likely to become homeless without assistance.
"The 'Department of Housing and Urban Development as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act' sounds so Third Reich it's not funny any longer, everyone. This is not a Panicky Nancy situation. Look at how that is worded. What does it even mean? Does anyone ever ask tough questions anymore? Is everyone bought and paid for?
"The program provides direct case management assistance and/or direct housing assistance payments to prevent individuals and families from becoming homeless or to help those who are experiencing homelessness to be quickly re-housed and stabilized."
Nobody is "quickly re-housed" or even housed, for that matter. This is a fallacy, a misnomer, a fantasy. What are the statistics on successful "re-housing" I wonder.
$1,332,952 is quite a bit of money. Sure, in the larger context of things, it is not. I do realize this, but again, when the system wants to say that amount of cash is a lot, depending on how they're spinning it (usually in the context that you're screwed and they are not and they want theirs [cash] and don't care that you don't have yours to give them theirs, which is never really theirs anyway, because they're stealing it from you the entire time and claiming otherwise the entire time), that is how it gets played. So, I say screw their context and criteria, because they aren't the ones needing the money. We are! And we're not seeing it distributed. At least correctly, anyway.
And if they're funding B.O.S.S. (Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency) and M.A.S.C. (Multi-Agency Service Center) that's most likely the problem. For that amount of cash you would think it would be allocated correctly and without waste or corruption creeping in. Without bed bugs. Without rampant theft. Without racial preference. But then again, this is an extension of government and we can all see how corrupt they are. All this stuff trickles down, to us. Again, instead of fixing these problems they are played off as "misappropriation" or some other choice legal term they can maneuver behind.
This same city's leaders decided to spend almost $12 million more on animals than they did human beings? And I am not saying the animals should be ignored. I love animals as much as the next person, but humans should always remain priority over animals. And judging by both problems still existing for the past ten years, when the animal shelter burned down, why not combine both issues? I don't understand the logic in spending so little on one end and so much on the other, when both needed managing and both could have had a hand in helping one another.
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