MR. & MRS. & MS. WHITE PLAINS VOICE. JULY 6, 2005: Dan Seidel notes an insidious side to the monitoring idea recently floated for the homeless:

What's next? Jews wearing yellow stars? ID Cards for homeless people? Get real!!! What are they, untouchables? Good way to stigmatize a growing segment of the population. This smacks of racism!!! The entire idea is preposterous in a country called America - read the Constitution - it's called the 1st Amendment - right to peaceably assemble and right to freely travel - who says one needs money to walk our streets? Who's the bright bulb with this ID idea? Brand that fool a Nazi in the making!!!

Dan Seidel

The CitizeNetReporter Replies:

The CitizeNetReporter Comments:

Dear Dan,

The I.D. Card idea was mine -- as a way to galvanize the Survey.

The problem of chronic vagrancy in White Plains during any weekday is nothing new. This reporter was getting bagels on the morning of the 4th of July, when an unkempt, wild-looking person walked into The Bagel Baron (on Mamaroneck Avenue) and asked for matches. He was unwashed, unkempt, obviously troubled. Mamaroneck Avenue has a number of these poor souls sitting on stoops, smoking, panhandling who can be seen sporadically any day of the week.

The city had a preview of the kinds of troubled persons the county lets loose on our streets every day when the young man, being turned away from Open Arms Shelter in February of 2004, committed suicide from the top of The Galleria garage.

The fact that the taped interview of the murder suspect has the suspect saying he had been walking around for two hours in The Galleria garage, without being observed or questioned raises serious questions as to municipal parking garage security, don't you think?  

The homeless should have a home base they can go to, during the day, where they can receive help -- even perhaps -- work -- perhaps putting together Mayor Delfino's press releases. 

Why hasn't anyone ever thought of that?

If they are homeless they should be able to i.d. themselves as such so they can be helped. Hence, the i.d. card idea.

Which I have to say was something I thought up considering the Westchester District Attorney's highly visible news conference on the subject raising the issue of why wasn't the nature of this suspect reported to authorities.

And who's bright idea is it anyway to turn them out at 6 A.M.? That's kind of cruel. How about giving them a lift to day labor sites? Having them pick up the litter around the county and pay them? 

Pathways for Housing of New York City seems to be the only agency actually having success at putting the homeless back on their feet, housing approximately 100 persons in permanent housing on the County's chronic homeless list, according to when WPCNR last checked.

Homeless shelters tend to perpetuate themselves by keeping permanent residents, and fought vigorously to keep Pathways to Housing out of Westchester County, seeing them as a threat to their own existence.  Pathways to Housing was contracted by the county because homeless shelters have had such a poor record of housing chronic homeless.

John Bailey

Executive Editor White Plains CitizeNetReporter