RA Student Center = Hobo Camp

[Yancy Derringer]

It's "super warm" in the student center. Who cares if your "super high" tuition money goes to keep stinking winos happy?

CU-Boulder student center becomes hangout for homeless
Extreme cold, plus new fireplaces in UMC, have made it an attractive place to take shelter

By Brittany Anas Camera Staff Writer
Posted: 02/11/2011 10:31:39 PM MST


John Hollembeak, 56, stays out of the cold and watches television Wednesday in the University Memorial Center on the University of Colorado campus.


On the most frigid winter days, John Hollembeak, 56, passes his time in the University of Colorado's student center.

From an armchair this week, he watched National Geographic on a big flat-screen television and snacked on a candy bar as others taking refuge from the cold slept on the couches.

The area in the east portion of the University Memorial Center, a student-funded public building, has become somewhat of a homeless enclave.

While the UMC has always tended to attract homeless people in the winter, the extreme temperatures this semester -- which have plummeted to below zero -- and a $2 million makeover that added televisions, a fireplace and more comfortable seating seem to be increasing the draw. The renovation was completed in the fall.

The Colorado Daily last week published a letter to the editor written by CU student Ali Flint, who complained that Boulder's homeless have taken over the new lounge areas. She said it's unacceptable that she pays $105.19 a semester in student fees to fund the UMC, which is catering to the homeless.

"It is absolutely appalling that students pay over $200 a year and cannot sit on the couches or enjoy the new fireplace because the homeless are busy enjoying those areas for us," Flint wrote.

She said she sees the same homeless people hanging out in the UMC every day.

Carlos Garcia, director of the UMC, said his office gets few complaints about the homeless, and if visitors break the rules or laws, they are kicked out, ticketed or arrested. But that rarely happens, Garcia said.

Because the building is a public space, the UMC administration cannot discern who uses it. He said the increase in the number of homeless people using the UMC typically lasts for six weeks in the winter. He acknowledged that the new fireplace has been an added draw this year.

"Every student union building in the country deals with this same issue," Garcia said.

When the homeless shelter closes for the day, Hollembeak said he takes refuge at the UMC because he doesn't feel judged by the students, and he enjoys having conversations with them.

"I'm homeless. I'm not proud of it," he said.

He said he had a place in Brighton until he lost his job as a mechanic in late 2010. This is his second time being homeless, he said, as he was temporarily without a place to live in 1998 when he was working as a carpenter.

CU junior Isabell Godlewski, who works at Jamba Juice in the UMC, said she doesn't mind that homeless people are hanging out in the center because they're not disrupting students, and there's plenty of space.

"It's super-warm in the UMC and it's so cold outside sometimes, so I'd rather them be in here than out there," Godlewski said.

[Virtual Bison]

The sad reality is that there is an epidemic of homelessness in the United States. This is largely due to the rise in unemployment, the lack of available work, the rise in evictions and forclosures and the fact that Federal, State and Municipal programs have been cut.

And private charities cannot cope with this. Furthermore private funds have been hit hard by the economy as well.

While I think it is not appropriate to have Student Unions become makeshift shelters, I cannot blame the homeless people for going there. If you are cold and hungry and have no where else to go than you will do whatever you need to to get warm.

Maybe a better idea than letting homeless camp out would be to find abandoned properties and convert them into shelters. Of course that would take money which the local governments do not have.

[Armando Ramos]

The sad reality is that there is an epidemic of homelessness in the United States. This is largely due to the rise in unemployment, the lack of available work, the rise in evictions and forclosures and the fact that Federal, State and Municipal programs have been cut.

No, that is completely false. This "homelessness epidemic" is just part of the leftist "Cloward-Piven strategy," whereby the American free market system is intended to be destroyed by swelling the welfare rolls to the point of collapsing our economy, and then implementing socialism by nationalizing private institutions.

See, e.g.,

The Cloward/Piven Strategy of Economic Recovery

Cloward-Piven Government

Obama, the Cloward-Piven Strategy, and the New World Order

[ham]

Well...the free market is like that...someone has the idea of setting up a churrascaria in a given area...perhaps the idea is good and he is doing well. One year later, you get 10 churrascarias in the same area (but could be plumbers, lawyers or anything )...three years later, the churrascarias have grown to 15 because some defaulting restaurants and road houses from the "old" fad have been converted to "hot" churrascarias. 5-6 years later, 3/4 of churrascarias have closed down and people turn to the red christs, the good socialist shepherd. Try mentioning you are paying for a degree, instead a filing a government form to get subsidized or taking out loans every time you enter a pay toilet...it turns out the majority thinks YOU are in the wrong...and of course, if you criticize welfare hogs and parasites, you are a "monster that wants them all on their knees or dead"...PFFT!

Carlos Garcia, director of the UMC, said his office gets few complaints about the homeless, and if visitors break the rules or laws, they are kicked out, ticketed or arrested. But that rarely happens, Garcia said.

-...-

CU junior Isabell Godlewski, who works at Jamba Juice in the UMC, said she doesn't mind that homeless people are hanging out in the center because they're not disrupting students, and there's plenty of space.

"It's super-warm in the UMC and it's so cold outside sometimes, so I'd rather them be in here than out there," Godlewski said.

Why does Ham think their response is kind of obvious?
One more reason to prefer DE/DL.

[Virtual Bison]

The sad reality is that there is an epidemic of homelessness in the United States. This is largely due to the rise in unemployment, the lack of available work, the rise in evictions and forclosures and the fact that Federal, State and Municipal programs have been cut.

No, that is completely false. This "homelessness epidemic" is just part of the leftist "Cloward-Piven strategy," whereby the American free market system is intended to be destroyed by swelling the welfare rolls to the point of collapsing our economy, and then implementing socialism by nationalizing private institutions.

See, e.g.,

The Cloward/Piven Strategy of Economic Recovery

Cloward-Piven Government

Obama, the Cloward-Piven Strategy, and the New World Order

I don't know about that. But I do know that most homeless people I know would rather be somewhere else.

[Armando Ramos]

Old thread, new article on the Cloward-Piven strategy:

The New Cloward & Piven Three-Prong Attack On Welfare, Immigration & Elections
If things progress at this current pace of “transformation,” and if we don’t start waking up to this three-pronged attack, in 10 years or so, our constitutionally constructed America may be virtually unrecognizable.
The Common Constitutionalist — November 21, 2018

Break the Welfare system - break the asylum/immigration system - break the election system.

Many of us who follow politics are either familiar with or have at least heard of Cloward and Piven – Richard Cloward and Francis Fox Piven. They were `60s era radicals dressed up as Columbia University professors. Of course, we can probably describe most college professors in the same manner.

The famous, or infamous article describing their plan was originally crafted in the 60’s, and re-released in 2015 on The Nation.com website as part of “The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue.”

The article is entitled, “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty.”

The essence of their scheme was/is, “A mass strategy to recruit the poor onto welfare rolls would create a political crisis that could result in legislation that brings an end to poverty.”

The strategy was/is to overwhelm the system – to so overburden government agencies with so many new welfare candidates, that the system collapses on itself. The theory is that the system could then be reset and reconfigured to resemble the redistributionist Marxist utopia these radicals have so long envisioned.

But now we can see the Cloward and Piven strategy to transform America being utilized across a whole spectrum of the left’s political ambitions – from redistribution of wealth, to immigration, to elections and voting.

It didn’t take long to begin to flood the system with new welfare recipients. As Glenn Beck explained: “from 1965 to 1974, due to the strategy and effort of Cloward and Piven, the total recipients on welfare rocketed from 4.3 million people to 10.8 million.”

The following year, 1975, New York City was forced to declare bankruptcy, due to its welfare system being overwhelmed. Total government spending estimates for FY 2019 are projected to be over $1.1 trillion. We’ve come a long way baby.

Seeing the success of their welfare state plan, the left has begun a full-throated campaign to overwhelm the immigration and asylum system.

If things continue at the current “caravan” pace, we should expect to see hundreds of thousands, if not millions more migrants flooding our Southern border in a concentrated effort to swamp our immigration/asylum system.

As of March, 2018, the American Immigration Council reported, “On average, asylum seekers had to wait around 1,000 days for their cases to be reviewed in an immigration court.” And these “wait” times will increase exponentially as more caravans arrive. This is not happening organically or coincidently. This is Cloward and Piven type design.

And lastly, our election system. As we’ve just witnessed, our election system hasn’t yet been overwhelmed, but is rapidly on its way. Aided by fraudsters like those in Broward County, Fla., early and absentee voting, same day registration and no ID required polling places, our system is heading for collapse.

Another way to facilitate a Cloward and Piven type collapse is the growing popularity of Automatic Voter Registration (AVR).

Although AVR is spoken about little, it is an insidious program. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a leftist social justice think tank, “Automatic voter registration (AVR) is an innovative policy that streamlines the way Americans register to vote. AVR makes two simple, yet transformative, changes to the way our country has traditionally registered voters.”

Notice the word “transformative.” The left loves this word, as it precisely describes their intentions for our nation.

AVR states that any citizen “who interacts with government agencies are registered to vote or have their existing registration information updated, unless they affirmatively decline.” In other words, all who receive welfare, food stamps or any other form of government assistance are automatically registered to vote. If they choose not to be registered, they must take the initiative to “opt out,” or remove themselves from the voter roles.

They leftists designed this program knowing very well that few will go to the effort of opting out.
“Currently fifteen states and D.C. have approved the policy, meaning that over a third of Americans live in a jurisdiction that has either passed or implemented AVR.”

If things progress at this current pace of “transformation,” and if we don’t start waking up to this three-pronged attack, in 10 years or so, our constitutionally constructed America may be virtually unrecognizable.