Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

During the past week, the Manteca Bulletin ran a story describing how the city of San Jose recently bulldozed The Jungle, the nation’s largest homeless encampment, and is now in the process of clearing other encampments around that city before they grow even larger. A different article described how the legalization of marijuana in Colorado has attracted homeless persons from all parts of the country who are now, as a result, overwhelming the shelters and non-profit service providers in that state. And yet some writers to the Bulletin continue to call upon the city of Manteca “to open a shelter or transitional housing facility for our homeless residents who are currently residing on the streets”.

The question that this relentless demand for the city to build a shelter raises for me is this:  are these really “our homeless residents”, or are they more likely persons from many different places? The ‘family’ reported on recently in the Bulletin who supposedly moved to Manteca from San Diego and were begging outside of the post office, when questioned by persons at the scene offering them help, suddenly hopped into their van and took off. Were they really a family who had fallen on hard times, or were they just running a con? When questioned, they decided to high tail it. Why? That doesn’t sound like the response of a family desperately in need of help. And if they really were from San Diego, how did they choose Manteca of all places as a destination? Are we on some sort of homeless hotlist? ‘Manteca. The Family City: They can’t say no.’

Nobody wants to be intentionally mean to people in trouble, but no one likes being played for a fool either. Some years ago, I was in my driveway at the crack of dawn heading off to work when a young woman in a passing car stopped and asked me to help her. I approached the car and noticed that there was a baby lying on a blanket on the back seat. The woman told me that she’d been in a fight with her partner, and had left the house with the baby with nowhere to go. She said that she needed money for gas, so I looked in my wallet and pulled out five dollars. Apparently that wasn’t going to be enough because she, instead, offered me sex in her car for fifty bucks. Not wanting to wake the baby, I turned down her generous offer, assuming that she was a hooker or an addict with a clever new angle, and then wondered if the baby was actually hers or if she had just borrowed it for the night. Who knew? As we all know, often things are not what they initially seem to be. By the way, I still gave her the five bucks for some reason. But I digress.

I believe that former Mayor Weatherford was right when, while speaking on the subject of a homeless shelter, he pointed out that “If you build it, they will come”. And they will come, and continue to come, even if there is no room at the inn, so to speak. Another fact to consider is that the majority of homeless shelters require the residents to leave during the day. Is the city prepared for a daily influx of homeless persons from the proposed shelter, as well as the homeless who already roam the streets? The former mayor was correct when he warned that a homeless shelter, rather than being a solution, could very well exacerbate the current problem. He could also have added that, as the old adage puts it, “No good deed goes unpunished”.

Stephen Breacain

Manteca