The Big Bad Wolf Routine Is Getting Old
So the big bad wolf caved in on the homeless.
He didn’t blow their tents down — for now.
And of course he waited until Friday, the very last day, to make the decision, the day Frank Kane promised. Because that’s how this whole operation works: drag it out, stall, pretend it’s complicated, blame on others, then act like the last‑minute scramble is “leadership.”
Maybe someone finally found their phone and passed along the message. Who knows anymore.
This whole topic is worn out and run by idiots. Seriously — why can’t the people running things come up with a plan that stops the same stupid decisions from happening week after week? It’s like the entire administration is stuck on autopilot, and the autopilot is broken....actually the entire administration is just not "showing up".
When I say “idiots,” I mean the whole decision‑making structure — All 7 Council members, 1 Mayor, 1 Managing Director, 1 Public Works Director, 1 CED Director, Solicitors office, the Finance Director just because she doesn't have answers. Half the time nobody ever has answers. And homelessness isn’t going away, no matter how many times they pretend it will.
My suggestions are simple. There are only three because there only need to be three:
1. Leave them the fuck alone.
2. Put a dumpster and a portable toilet at their site.
The rule is simple: keep it clean. No trash, no mess. If the area gets trashed, they get moved. And if they keep trashing sites, they keep getting moved.
3. Find a plot of land and let people stay there.
Tents, tiny shelters, whatever. One location. One place where outreach workers can actually help instead of chasing people all over the city.
Why is this so difficult?
It shouldn’t be.
Evicting people with barely any notice — especially when they’ve been in the same spot for a long time — is just wrong. It’s not strategic. It’s not compassionate. It’s not even efficient. It’s just lazy governance pretending to be action.
Ignoring homelessness isn’t just negligent — it’s cowardly. A city doesn’t crumble because people fall on hard times. It crumbles when the people in charge decide those lives aren’t worth the effort.
If leaders can’t acknowledge the people who have nothing, they don’t deserve the authority to manage anything.
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13 comments:
Thank ABE homelessness is an industry that has made this area rich off of poverty claiming to help $10 to $1 and $1 helping with $10 being administrative cost?
Why don’t these homeless encampments ever show up in places like Wassergass or Seemsville? Seriously.
Notice Tuerk went silent on his social media after the city council meeting and only reappeared to show off the new speed humps on the west end and tout other recent successes. What happened to the spanish word of the day? What a joke.
Speed bumps do not need social media attention. Nor are they an accomplishment. Big deal
Being a person of certain age, I can remember when the word "homeless" first started to become a common term. It was when Reagan became president. Quick AI google search: :As governor of California and later as"president, Ronald Reagan pushed for the "deinstitutionalization" of the mentally ill, aiming to close large state mental institutions in favor of community-based care. This policy, fueled by scandals in hospitals and new medication, resulted in a rapid release of patients, but promised community care was never fully funded or implemented, contributing significantly to homelessness and increased incarceration of the mentally ill in the 1980s.
While some supporters of deinstitutionalization (including mental health advocates at the time) aimed to protect patient rights and move away from abusive, large-scale institutions, the failure to provide, or fund, a fully functioning community-based alternative is widely cited as a major driver of the modern homelessness crisis.",
"A systematic review showed two-thirds of unhoused individuals have a mental health disorder"
As much as I don't like our local leadership, homelessness is a national problem where those in need gravitate to larger cities where resources and some type of income will always be more available than smaller cities.
Not sure of a solution, but it would start with a more equitable taxing of billionaires who benefit so much from our cities and our country as a whole.
Of course, that would only be a benefit if we had someone in the mayor's office that is more bussinessman and less carpetbagger.
Homelessness is undeniably a national crisis — but that doesn’t give Tuerk and Council a free pass to sit on their hands while waiting for a miracle. National solutions take years; people living outside don’t have that kind of time. Instead of trying to figure out why the homeless are in Allentown or why they just don't get a job, or claim they are druggies with mental problems we should be helping these people. Talk like that just helps people lessen them in the mind so it is easier to discard them and their struggles.
Allentown and Lehigh county control zoning, shelters, outreach, enforcement practices, and the tone of their own moral compass. Pretending the problem is “too big” to act on locally isn’t realism — it’s avoidance dressed up as strategy. Something Tuerk has been able to perfect.
Get use to it. You have 3 years and 7 months to go with the carpet bagger. Just imagine the damage yet to come.
Okay, here we go again. The homeless crisis is a national problem, therefore the solutions need to be state and national not local. We've all seen the disasters that result when municipalities try to tackle this problem humanely. A flood of homeless results and the municipality is overwhelmed and squalor, crime, rampant drug use and overdoses,...the communities close the the homeless areas are deeply affected as well when this spills out on their streets, alleys, parks, and property. Let's not repeat that mistake here in Allentown. Instead let's ask why our local elected officials aren't demanding state and national responses to this issue?
Matt is a control freak and at this point he’s just networking for his “next” job. What has he really accomplished for Allentown??
Nobody pimped the homeless harder than Alan Jennings, think I saw him driving a Bugatti into Wind Creeks valet the other week!
Actually Alan spent the majority of his time on low income residents and their needs. He made a fair income, likely could have made more in the private sector. I say all this has not one of his biggest fans. Ce-Ce has always made the homeless her bread and butter issue.
¡midwaY midgetZ proPogaPe the sphincterZ of HoiTy tOitY bigwigZ whilE the freekz n geekZ swaB the deckZ of Jack shAckz in the GreeN DooR a job for downtroddEn foresT dwellerZ¡
Republican Redd
They will not solve anything not for lack of wanting but for lack of ability. What they will do is marginalize anyone who can solve problems and make sure that their problem solving abilities are suppressed.
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