As if the Mayor didn’t already have his hands full with taxes, hookers, cranksters, and internet scandal. Bill Shinn is having to open up the debate on the land use plan of the Naval Weapons Station and making room for the growing homelessness problem. I though his “Quit Having Sex” policy was going to do the trick but I guess not.

City leaders are debating how to accommodate some of the county’s homeless population on the shuttered Concord Naval Weapons Station.

City Council members are trying to decide whether Concord should put $25 million into a trust for homeless services and housing throughout the county, or instead approve a plan for 260 “homeless” housing units on the former military base. The federal government, through its base closure laws, requires that communities overseeing a base closure dedicate part of the land or money made off it to homeless causes.

Required by law…Looks like Billy better figure something out quick. Nothing I heard about in the land use discussions had anything to do with the homeless. Lots of clustered villages, road construction and parks but nothing for the Concord homeless.

But the best quote from Bill Shinn came later in the article.

“Yet we have the experts here telling us that people only stop being homeless if they have permanent housing, so I’d just like more information.”

I don’t know about you Bill but that just sounds obvious and I wouldn’t need an expert to tell me!

I would think that creating jobs and putting these people into drug rehab and giving them other support mechanisms would be the key.

There are about 4,000 homeless people countywide, and in a given year 10,000 to 12,000 utilize services offered by soup kitchens, food banks or the like, said Councilman Bill Shinn.

“We have to be careful when we talk about the homeless — they’re not under bridges and peeing on trees,” he said. “That’s a stereotype.”

I’ve read many stories in the Contra Costa Times and on other local blogs about homeless people sleeping under bridges and peeing on trees. First off, under a bridge is a great place to sleep if you don’t have a home and where else are these people supposed to go pee? Sure we don’t have the issues like in cities like San Francisco where people are defacating in the streets but to say that homeless people don’t pee on trees is a bit ridiculous. People with homes pee on trees if their drunk enough.

This is going to be an interesting story to follow. What Concord decides to do is going to have a major impact on the city. You can throw the buzz word “World Class” into it if you want but I doubt it will be anything close.

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