The Homeless, the Community Activists and the Underpants Gnomes
“Us gnomes are geniuses at corporations.”
–South Park, Episode 217
Phase 1: Get people to donate public benches to the community.
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Keep homeless people off the benches.
I think they need a new Phase 2:
A community activist thinks a few couch potatoes, strategically placed on sidewalk benches in an upscale shopping district, will keep transients on their feet and on the move.Esther Viti, who oversees the donation of public benches for a merchants’ association in La Jolla [California], sent an e-mail to 45 other activists last week asking them to sit in three-hour shifts, no bathroom breaks allowed.
“After all, you MUST OCCUPY THAT BENCH continually for three hours to prevent that homeless person from sitting on that bench,” the e-mail said.
Donors weren’t happy that transients were sleeping on benches they had provided for the public, Viti said.
Apparently some community activists’ mission statement is to make the world beautiful by wiping out all the ugly people. Go figure.
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Remember what I asked in this post, about high-profile do-gooders such as Jimmy Carter opting not to specialize to their comparative advantage (i.e., making lots of money) and then donating the fruits of their (more valuable) labors to their target social cause (in Carter’s case, Habitat for Humanity), and instead working for the cause directly (i.e., wastefully)? Well, how pathetic would someone have to be for their comparative advantage to be sitting on a bench to shoo away the homeless?
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Or maybe, in classic capitalist fashion, we could automate the process?
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I think Carter works for Habitat for Humanity to set an example for others in a way that donating money does not.
As a former La Jolla resident, I can't say that this 'activism' surprises me. The amount of contempt in that city for anyone middle-class or under was phenomenal.
I suppose we should be grateful, though, that the city council did not, by some magical means, approve of paying the bench warmers for their services. Fortunately there are plenty of homeless-hating elderly retirees with sufficient free time to donate that the council will likely never need to turn to such ridiculousness.
Honestly, I cannot imagine the mindset of someone who would donate a bench and then complain, with a straight face, when people use it.