This is a Guest Post.
Response to RGJ op/ed of April 13: City and County Support a Failed Approach to Homelessness for Many Rea$ons
by Paul D. White
Local developer Par Tolles’ sycophantic op/ed in the Reno Gazette Journal expressed the hope that homelessness could someday be ended in Reno.
While our homelessness could be eradicated almost overnight, it never will be until the local politicians and bureaucrats who benefit from this problem in a variety of ways are no longer in office. Tolles praised the County’s current homeless programs, notwithstanding the fact that their “no barriers” approach has no record of success anywhere … including Washoe County. Our vagrant-by-choice” population continues to grow exponentially, and our over-priced and under-performing programs would collapse without massive federal subsidies.
Why don’t our local politicians change from their failed approach, to a proven, privately-funded model they were offered 5 years ago? Because maintaining a growing homeless population guarantees growing federal subsidies for our local government, and guaranteed vendor contracts for numerous remora-like private organizations that sell us their homeless-related services. Part of these multi-million dollar subsidies go toward adding more unsuccessful homeless programs. What happens to the many millions of dollars that are left over? No one in our local government has expressed any interest in specifically addressing that question. Please join us in demanding a private audit of these public funds.
Paul White can be reached at:
educationcrusade@gmail.com
See Paul White’s Plan Here: