i’m hoping this blog post sparks a little bit of discussion.

in my immediate neighborhood, there’s a park called monroe park.  it’s surrounded by the campus of VCU and is one of the few green spaces left in my part of the city.  it’s a nice park with a lot of trees, but it’s also the place in the city with the highest population of homeless people.  multiple charitable organizations and churches come to the park weekly to offer food and support to the park’s homeless population.

the city of richmond recently decided that the park needs a makeover.  they’re planning a huge restoration of the park that will include some much-needed improvements.  this construction will require the park to be closed for about nine months.  homeless advocates are up in arms because they feel that this is an attempt by the city to make the homeless population there move on to other places and stop inhabiting the park.

i don’t know if that’s the city’s intent or not.  but at the same time, i can understand why a city would want one of its few green spaces to be a place where the city can congregate and not be surrounded by homeless people.

i guess i sit right on the fence with this issue.

a lot of my friends and people i know are saying that we should leave parts of the park open during the renovation to allow homeless people to stay in the park.

while i totally understand their viewpoint, i think the solution is that we need to provide facilities and places for our homeless population to go that are both convenient, provide support, and help give these people a leg up.  feeding people in a park helps the immediate problem of these people being hungry, but we need to build a better infrastructure that attacks the causes of homelessness and helps to get these people back on their feet.

you’ve got people who don’t want to shun the homeless population.

you’ve got a city that wants a park that’s not overrun by homeless people.

i get both viewpoints.

i just feel like there’s gotta be some way to be able to accomplish both.  it obviously would require the city to pony up serious money, the charitable groups to be open to focusing their efforts a little differently, and a supportive public.  and i know that’s easy to sum up in one little paragraph and 100 times harder to actually implement, but i hope that some kind of solution comes about that works for everyone.