Grand Forks homeless shelter maxed out
June 19, 2012 at 2:15 pm in Grand Forks Herald
The Northlands Rescue Mission in Grand Forks is at full capacity, and may need to start a waiting list if the number of homeless seeking shelter continues to rise, according to Executive Director Dave Sena. The shelter had nine new residents check in Monday for a total of 125. Six of the residents are sleeping on mattresses in an overflow area. Continue Reading
Now do you get it ACSC union employees? If you don’t take the Final Offer someone else will. There are several unemployed factory workers in the US who would love the opportunity to take your job. It’s tough out there to find a job period.
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How many people that have newly arrived in GF, are going to stay here, when they experience 30 below zero weather?
The weather may look dandy to outsiders right now, but the brutal winter will eventually return.
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I had relatives that lived on the prairie in a sod shack that survived winters in the RRV. When times are tough people are willing to stick it out. It’s money that keeps people warm. It provides them with food and shelter.
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So grand forks needs to start building sod shacks?
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They would probably be affordable housing. They could come with a little sod garage and some garden space. That would be lovely.
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I considered one of those once…Only the modern version is called a Earth Home….And are a far cry from the old sod homes. I still think they’d be great for our winters up here, but I heard they really don’t hold value because not many people want them now days…But there’s some really nice designs, and the money you’d save on climate control….Might be worth looking into again..
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Those pioneers who lived in sod shacks came from northern Europe mostly back then. They were from climates much like ours. Not like those coming up from the south where I laugh in the winter when I’m down there listening to them complain about the fridiged 40 degree weather. I remember some young guy who came up here from FL to compete in some sport say something like, “I heard it was cold in ND, but nobody ever warned me about it being so cold that you couldn’t breath out side?” That’s the kind of rude awakening some of those people will be up against…..
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1st they are on the wrong side of the state. 2nd this problem will become self correcting in December
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What’s happening in December? Are you referring to winter? Don’t you realize people are moving here from cold weather states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois? My neighbor’s kid moved back from Alaska after 20 years of living there. I wonder if he’s prepared for cold weather.
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No. North Dakota Winters (TM) are SPECIAl and UNIQUE and only a born and bred North Dakotan can handle them. True story.
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bber
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That was sarcasm, by the way.
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Thank you for explaining that to me. It’s good to see more women commenting on these boards.
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I would be interested in finding out if they have a policy on how long a person can stay there.
They indicate that during the harvest they have migrant workers staying there. Why?
Is it a hotel for temporary workers that is paid for by the tax payer?
How many of these people are from our community that are there trying to get back on their feet?
My guess is the vast majority will stay there and treat it like a free place to live and eat as long as they can.
125+ Homeless in Grand Forks. I call foul on that one.
These are people who will leave our community as soon as they run out of benefits and who is paying for it?
We are.
I believe in helping our neighbors in the community through hard times but i draw the line at freeloaders coming here from another state just to collect benefits.
Where are these 125 people working?
Oil fields arent here. They are way across the state.
I would be strongly against any expansion or increased capacity of a shelter.
You have to draw the line somewhere and 125 seems more than generous for a small community of our size.
Now maybe we could get the Herald to do some actual reporting and get the info people really want.
Where are these people coming from?
How long are they allowed to stay?
What is their contribution to the process other than a free place to eat and sleep?
That would be real reporting.
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I have a feeling it is very similiar to the Care and Share in Crookston. You don’t have to be truly looking for work and can still stay and eat for free. Free clothing too! I have a problem with helping people that are not helping themselves.
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I have a problem with people assuming strangers are “not helping themselves” when they probably do not know ANY of the people staying at the mission personally, nor do they care to get to know them.
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good.
I have a problem with people who actually believe 100+ Grand Forks community citizens just happened to become homeless overnight.
If thats not the case, the people must be from other locations.
How long does a person require to get on their feet?
I’d say no more than 1 month should allow sufficient time to get a job even at Walmart and find a place to live.
You may not be living well but its a start and your not homeless at that point.
The shelter isnt a motel, yet it seems many are using it as such.
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the mission is a CHRISTIAN-BASED non-profit, run mostly through funds donated from individuals and families. If you do not want to give to the mission, then don’t give your money to the mission. (A large portion of the people I work with also stay at the mission. I’ve seen many of them looking for work.)
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Then I guess you don’t have a problem with me, because I work with some of these individuals, so I do know them, and I can say with absolute conviction that quite a large majority of them are NOT looking for work. That in my book, is NOT helping themselves.
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I really haven’t been around farms for some time so I don’t know if there’s actually many family farms left that aren’t mega corporate farms now days. I know growing up when the migrant workers came up to Argyle that the family farms would generally have an old school house they’ve fixed up for them or a trailer or something. The farmers back then knew that they needed to provide something if they wanted them to work the fields becuse they really don’t make a lot of money in the first place to pay for housing too. If these mega corp farms aren’t doing that then in a way it’s another subsidy to a coporation that’s already raking in many subsidies…
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As for your other questions about where these people come from since the oil fields aren’t here. They’re either on the way there or back. I saw that in the 80′s. Someone tells them there’s great paying jobs all over so they hop in the car with not much more of a plan than to get here and then find there’s no place to stay so that makes it tough to get work, and the few hundred dollars they used to get here are quickly dwindling. That’s where they’re most likely coming from….
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Captain:
The easiest way to find an answer to your questions is to pick up the phone.
There is a limit on how long you can stay. I do not remember what it is.
Most of the 125 cannot come up with a down payment for an apartment and there is no such thing as a cheap hotel, so those are out
Many of those in the shelter are chronically homeless. They are street drunks and/or addicts who are basically unemployable.
I do not want to paint with too broad a brush. Many are simply working poor who are trying to get on their feet. Unfortunately they are the minority.
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No, it is not a “hotel for temoprary workers that is paid for by the taxpayers”. It’s my understanding that the Rescue Mission is a Christian-based nonprofit, not a federally-funded entity. Most of its revenue comes from donations from individuals and businesses. If you don’t want to give to the mission, then don’t.
http://www.nrmission.com/about-us/finances-and-statistics/
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Dave Sena runs a first class operation and has been praised for doing so. The focus of the mission is to get people back on track so they can live a productive life.
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I am not above admitting when i make a mistake.
I misspoke when i said this cost the taxpayers money.
It does not.
But, my objection to people staying there for extreme periods still stands.
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So the Grand Forks Northlands Rescue Mission doesn’t get taxpayer funded “contributions”???
Seems to me the City of Grand Forks provides yearly tax-funded support.
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if it does, i didnt see it in their financial statement.
Doesnt mean its not there, i just didnt see anything from the city.
Which begs the accuracu of the Heralds poll question.
Should Grand Forks build another Shelter?
Seems to me they havent built one yet if this is truly a christian based shelter.
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Would you rather the homeless slept on the lawn of the courthouse or a city park? I see this in the TC’s quite often. It’s a little scary when you are walking. We saw one outside the Excel Energy Center on Saturday as we walked from the History Museum to the Children’s Science Center. The father of a family walking ahead of us told his kids that is what they would amount to if they didn’t go to school and get good grades. I thought…wow…nice way to scare the crap out of your kids….it might be effective though. The panhandlers are all over the place here. I saw one the other day holding a sign that said: Obama promised change I want sum. He didn’t get any from us. We gave him a bottle of water instead. It was hot out. My son told me not to give them money. He said some of them make up to $75,000 a year tax free. If that is true…I have no idea.
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The shelter is a 2 edged sword. There are people that really need a place to stay so they can get back on their feet and recover from whatever problems they had. And there are people who use it as free housing until they have overstayed their welcome. It keeps people off the streets and out of trouble for a short period of time but it also attracts people to the city that otherwise would move on to a different one.
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Good point.
Thats why we do not need to expand the cyurrent shelter nor build another one.
More open space will only attract more non-contributing members to our community.
They could probably lower the number if they made the entire property off limits for smoking.
Drive by there and see how many of them can afford the $5+ a day for smokes. It looks like a convention center for the tobacco industry.
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Good points, but then we have either a hobo village like we had down by the old NP bridge back in the 60′s (I don’t know how many years before that). Or we have people sleeping in parks, and maybe by stores. Or we have people commiting petty crimes to get three hots and a cot ( There was an old wino year ago who basically had a swinging door at the jail in the winter because they’d barely let him out and he’d be back drunk after stealing candy or something from Woolworths….Until they sent him up to the state hospital for treatment….A few times over the winter) All in all I think places like the mission might be the cheaper and more practical solution because jail is quite a bit more for housing than the mission.
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Homelessness is an American problem. Thinking that if we do not build it they will not come is simply false. There were homeless long before the shelter and there will be homeless long after it is gone.
If you do not have a shelter they will make their own. They will not leave and anti vagrancy laws are largely unconstitutional. If you do not find them a warm place to sleep, they will find one for themselves, and that usually means breaking into something.
You can either deal with the problem or its effects. Either way you will deal with it. BTW, it cost 10x as much to keep someone in jail overnight as it does to keep them in the shelter. That is why every big city has a shelter program (as well as the private ones). It is cheaper to house them than arrest them.
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The shelter is similar to “low-income housing” in that the more of it a city has, the more of it the city needs.
There is a limitless quantity of honest-and-temporarily poor, lazy lifetime poor, and mentally-unstable poor. They’ll go where life is easiest, and when it isn’t easy, most of them will find something productive to do. Too much assistance is counterproductive–it destroys initiative.
There’s WAY too much assistance as-is.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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What about those who either can’t find work who want work or those who can’t find work with enough pay to even afford someplace? Do you think they’re such a rare number that they hardly exist?. You probably don’t see it as much around ND ruight now, but in many parts of the country there’s a lot of people with degrees and/or experience in certain sectors that have layed foo thousands. These people are often having to go into work they’re not trained for but can get because of a degree in something else. I knew someone who managed the repair depatrtment at Nintendo who suddenly had electrical engineers and programmers with a lot of experience working in a department that was entry level at best….Just because of the tight job market. So there’s a lot of peopl with far less to the resumes who aren’t finding work……Many of those are coming up here because of the rumors of jobs……Sort of a modern version of Grapes Of Wrath….
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There are many programs in place right now, such as the Family Self-Sufficiency program, that encourage people to work, help them save money, and motivate them to do what they can to eventually become independent. The question is: Should taxpayers be paying to run these kinds of programs? Your answer is obviously “no”. I am happy to chip in to help strangers, even if a portion of them “abuse” the system.
The truth is, we (taxpayers) pay no matter what social welfare programs are put in place. We pay for people when they go into the emergency room, when people are incarcerated, or even when people without the money to pay for their burial pass away. If we do not help educate and provide for the basic needs of those that are most in need, we will pay more in these other areas. Giving people a chance at bettering their situation will hopefully improve the situation of our society as a whole.
Obviously, if we took away places like these shelters or “assistance” programs, the real thing to discuss would simply be, what next? What are the better alternatives? I’m always open to new ideas that could possibly work better than the ones in place right now.
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I got to know the shelter rather well a few years ago. My oldest son couldn’t get with the program so I got him a bed there (it is amazing how your friends evaporate when you become homeless).
This was meant to be a lesson, a life altering, not life changing event so he had it better than most. I made sure he had enough to eat but not enough to smoke (cigarettes) and since he doesn’t drink I didn’t have to worry about that.
He was in the shelter about two weeks before he made other arrangements. He was working the whole time. A huge contributing factor to family homelessness is down payments. Many working poor can handle $400 – $600 a month rent, just not the upfront costs (down payment, electricity, etc.).
He spent every night afraid, just like I wanted. He doesn’t even drive down in that area of town if he can help it.
I am an emergency nurse and paramedic. The people he lived with are the people I have worked with my entire adult life. I know them on a first name basis. He is a skinny white boy from the suburbs. He didn’t realize how sheltered he had been.
Lets just say he was glad to go to Afghanistan rather than risk going back.
Therapeutic homelessness is a card no parent should hesitate playing when their 17-18 year old begins to think the rules are for someone else.
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Your stock just went way up. God bless you for having the stones to do what was needed.
Most parents would have bailed the kid out until he “graduated” to prison.
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A lesson I learned very young (I went to nursing school when I was 20): 1. give choices whenever possible, but do not offer choices where there are none 2. Do not make a rule if you have no intention of enforcing it. That just confuses the kid.
In my house I have only four rules. Live within them and I am always willing to help (I have 7 kids, 4 white and 3 brown). Break them and I will make you homeless in the middle of a blizzard. I will not have the sanctity of my castle disrespected by a guest (My kids know it is my house. If they want a house they have to go buy their own).
1. Work or go to school. No exceptions. Period. If you are laid off, fired, or quit you are at the community college signing up for one of the start anytime courses or you are gone. I will give you two weeks to find another job, after that you are the cat in the old Flintstone’s cartoon: on the door step.
2. No alcohol or drugs in my house. I do not care what age you are. If you plan on going out and partying with your friends, you had better blow 0.0 on the breathalizer and pee negative on the test (I am a nurse, of course I have a stash of home drug tests. I do not make idle threats).
One son left 12/31 and did not return till 1/2. He knew better than to risk it. He text his mother to let her know where he was. That is just respect.
3. Do your share around the house. I am not picking up your crap.
4. Treat your mother with respect. If you develop a mouth you will be gone.
I am not a tyrant. In fact the smart kids learned early on I am impulsive. More than once those in my good graces were woke up and told to pack enough clothes for two days and ended up in Vegas later that afternoon.
I love my kids but make no mistake. It is my house. You are always welcome to leave and go make it on your own. I will not be hurt.
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Seven kids…in this over-populated world? You mentioned your son didn’t use condoms….did you? I only have one and we don’t need a mile long list of rules at our house. He knows what the right thing to do is. But it’s easy to keep an eye on him because we only have ONE. Your apartment sounds like a home for wayward teens.
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We are a Brady Bunch operation. The brown ones aren’t mine. I just feed, cloth and otherwise be the dad they didn’t have (Sperm donor left when the youngest was two. Has never paid one cent. That is why mine will always pay if I have to take it out of their hide for them). They had never been on a vacation until their mother and I hooked up.
They can be fun but they are boys. They are simpler to raise than girls: beat them; early, often, and without remorse. As long as you remember that boys are the dumbest animals Noah let on the arc you will be fine.
Boys are ignorant. They do not do hints. They are oblivious even if it is right in front of their face. They have no common sense and even less impulse control. As long as you don’t seriously expect them to act like they have a brain until they are 30 you will do fine.
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I do admire you for taking on three step kids. Not alot of men have what it takes to be a great step dad. I wanted a quiet life so I went with just the one. We haven’t had to spank him…yet. But he’s 18 now so that time has probably passed. He could probably spank me if he tried. I probably need it more than he does. He’d have to catch me first though.
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What about those who either can’t find work who want work or those who can’t find work with enough pay to even afford someplace? Do you think they’re such a rare number that they hardly exist?. You probably don’t see it as much around ND ruight now, but in many parts of the country there’s a lot of people with degrees and/or experience in certain sectors that have layed off thousands. These people are often having to go into work they’re not trained for but can get because of a degree in something else.
I knew someone who managed the repair depatrtment at major gaming company in WA. who suddenly had electrical engineers and programmers with a lot of experience working in a department that was entry level at best….Just because of the tight job market. So there’s a lot of peopl with far less to the resumes who aren’t finding work……Many of those are coming up here because of the rumors of jobs……
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When it comes to working poor, it is not the rent but the incidentals that get you. If you are a minimum wage jokey working 32-40 hours a week, you do not make enough to live AND save enough for down payments. Forget about a vehicle to get to work. If there is more than one of you trying to live off that, forget it. Impossible.
One of the most successful anti homeless programs paid security deposits for working poor. Amazingly successful for about $500 a family. Cheap at any price.
Before anyone goes there, you will always have those who abuse the system. You don’t give them much thought. They are a cost of doing business, like shoplifting in a grocery store; you can mitigate it, but you will never stop it.
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Off topic but tangentially related (very tangentially): do you think the kid who supplied the other kid the bath salts should be tried for murder?
I do not. Murder is me killing you. Taking drugs is suicide. Should the dude be prosecuted for giving him the drugs, sure. Did he commit murder? Absolutely not. He did not force the drugs down the other kid’s throat. By all accounts the kid went looking for drugs and gladly took them when he found them.
Murder may make the family feel better because it allows them to place the blame someplace other than where it belongs: the kid who took the drugs.
Sure, you can argue the kid would be alive if the other kid hadn’t given them to him. You can also argue that if he had not went looking for them he would not have found them; or if he refused to partake when he found them he would still be alive.
Personal liberty comes with personal responsibility. This story just highlights what few kids realize: some decision do not come with a do over.
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Well from back in the days when I sometimes stayed at the good old Crowbar Hotel (Often it came under the heading of being drunk and having the right to remain silent….But not the ability to do so….Surprising how I’ve never been a guest since quitting drinking and all else in 1980). I do know that in most crimes…Especially serious crimes…They always stack a series of charges and whatever they can that really carries the most weight. They do it for leverage and plea bargining. I really doubt that the murder charge will be there long. In fact it’ll probably be reduced to man 3 or even lower once they cut a deal for him to perform a grand song fest of names and other facts. Which has probably already happened.
I have to say that’s one happy go lucky mug shot there. Especially compared o the other shots they’ve had lately…Unless that’s a school picture or something. The kid looks like an easy break. Anyone who ever sold anything to him is probably out of state or maybe even the country by now…He has that “Fat Lady” look when it comes to singing…
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What until the drugs wear off…he won’t be smiling then.
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I was thinking roughly along the same lines: make some headlines for your next re-election bid then plea down to time served and 5 – 10 years supervised probation.
I keep going back to a study we discussed in school. Prison is such an abnormal environment that after 10 years you are no longer able to function in society. Therefore, if you are planning on releasing these people back into society, prison sentences need to be less than ten years or life without parole.
There is another study (reproduced numerous times) that also shows a way out of our present quagmire but it is so unpopular its recommendations go like this:
The recidivism rate is roughly 68% (approximately, I do not have the exact numbers here with me).
If you get a GED or HS diploma while in prison it goes down to about 62%-65%. Not much but some.
If you have 2 years of college or a marketable technical skill (auto mechanics, welding, computer repair, heating and cooling, etc) it plummets to less than 50%
If you get a bachelor’s degree it is less than 20%.
Given the cost of incarceration, for me the answer is simple. If you have some malcontent like this kid, you lock him up until he gets his diploma and then a skill. You want parole? I want a marketable skill.
As a tax payer it only makes sense.
Now don’t go off on the liberal bleeding heart trip. I am neither. As I have said numerous times before: I am an emergency nurse and paramedic. I play in the dirty side of the pool for a living. These people are not abstractions; they are how I make my living (the only place I fly into more often then the reservation is the prison).
I just want something that works. I cannot speak for ND, but in AZ where I recently came from, private prisons were the only growth industry in the state. That says many many bad things about the future.
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Hell…I mostly agree, butyou hear the screams about anything other than a closed cell with bread and water. Any time there’s a prrposal to do something that will help some of them get work on the outside there’s people who go absolutely ape over it. I think it’s the very people who benifit from alol these new prison systems who help stoke those feelings.
On the other hand there’s not a whole lot of the so called Liberals (Really not that many of the true blue libs left…..Most of us considered Liberals today would have been considered conservative Dems not long ago) Who are out spreading the word about how expensive it is to continue the dumb systems we have in place today.
We don’t even have to go into prison to see where so many foolish ideas have started us on a slippery slope. Well actually it all does fit together. If we continue to make it tougher for the improvished to have good local schools, and make it an unsafe environment, and make it generally more difficult to have jobs all the way around…..Then that money we are told we can’t afford to spend on programs for the poor ends up being far more money building new prisons and paying to house those who look for another means to supposrt themselves.
We don’t have to be bleeding heart Liberals, but we also don’t need to be heartless turds. There’s sensible ways to work through all of this, but there’s so damn much greed at the top that I really think we will have to go through another full blown depression before people finally stop listening to the propaganda and start to insist our government starts acting like it’s for all the people, and not just the money makers…..
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Agreed. The first step is to decriminalize marijuana. Regulate it, tax the hades out of it, and pay for healthcare. By decriminalizing marijuana 85% of your border crime just disappeared over night.
Secondly, personal liberty equals personal responsibility. For this belief to have any meaning it means everyone gets a shot. That means equality of chance, not outcome. If you refuse to send your child to school “X” because it is old, worn out, and in a neighborhood that you would not go to without an armed escort; why do you think it is ok for the other kid to go there?
Finally, we know what works. This is not rocket science. Most of the proven interventions have been around for years: that is how they got proven. Quit blaming the kids because the parent should have been sterilized at birth. The kid will either turn out to be a functioning member of society or a copy cat of their parents. The difference is often just a few easy steps: yearly eye exam (if Johnny can’t see how do you expect him to read), school meals (No learning takes place while hungry. Catholic nuns knew this in the 1800s, how did we become so quick to overlook it). A safe environment. If it is harder to get on a plane than go to class something is backwards. I don’t care if you have armed guards and metal detectors at every door of the elementary school. If you make the kid feel safe (that includes enough staff to keep a lid on the most obvious bullying) they will learn.
What does that school remind you of? 1954. It was one of the few things the 1950 did right.
Let me rephrase that: a white school in a good district in 1954. Not a black school or a school from a poor part of the country, those schools looked then like ours look now … dysfunctional.
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I enjoyed reading the dialogue between you two, tundrabeast and flyingnurse. For the most part, I agree with what you both have written. I am not certain I am willing to agree, though, that marijuana should be legalized. I know that prohibition of alcohol didn’t stop people from drinking, but I think drinking has become far more prevalent since Prohibition ended. Alcohol is advertised and glamorized far too much.
On the other hand, if marijuana could be legalized but private individuals and companies not granted the right to advertise…but would that stand a constitutional test?
Just brain storming–If the marijuana industry were nationalized (no need to tax profits, all profit to the government to be used for health care) advertising could easily be contolled. My home town had one liquor store named the “____Civic Improvement Association.” It was just a full as any small town bar, but all profits went to the city. I used to think it ironic that a business selling something that was so often abused could have a name like that.
Wouldn’t Glenn Beck, Rush, and like-thinkers love that, especially if it happened under a Democrat’s presidency?
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I don’t know a great deal about this, but one of the biggest hurdles to legalizing pot is that years ago our country went to the UN and brought some document that basically said all these countries ho signed it wouldn’t make marijuana legal. So we’re kind of in a bind with that. I’m guessing we could break it if so desired, but then there’s all that blow back about how America can’t even hold on to their own demands.
Although this is one area where you wish states could vote to do things their way….We really can’t allow that because we used to have this thing called slavery that some states thought was just dandy so we pretty much have to adhere what we as a country decide is legal.
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You are correct Tundra: drugs are a federal gig. The same rules have to apply across the board.
That said, enforcement is not uniform. Some states are lax, others are strict. It is this inconsistency that will doom the keep it illegal effort. Lawyers love inconsistencies. That is how they win their cases.
Medical marijuana is completely illegal because it flies in the face of federal law, & as the backers of SB 1070 found out; federal law trumps state law. Since the Feds are not actively challenging these medical marijuana laws, they are in fact giving their tacit ok
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You’re right. Your comments are off topic, but…I totally agree. There was no intent to commit murder.
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Ronald Reagan (now would be labeled a Democrat) assured us that if we allowed the richest people in this country to keep their tax money, prosperity for all would “trickle down”. we have had 32 years of structuring our government and economics this way. Get used to the idea of homeless shelters, when “the hard rain” comes, many of us will knocking on their door. Of course this will never apply to you. After all you are special. And so it goes…..
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I can take one homeless worker into my house here in Duluth, but I have certain criteria that must be met. For instance, it has to be a fit female between the ages of 18 and 45, disease/drug free, social drinking acceptable, no pets, no kids, no living relatives, a love for fitness and no emotional baggage.
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You’re not asking for much are you?
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Like in the Neil Young song then huh? A man needs a maid…..Someone to get the house cleaned and then leave? Quite honorable.
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Close. So close that there really isn’t very much difference to what I was thinking.
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I had a great dream a couple of months ago about you. In it you died a horrific death. Oh man….it was the best dream ever. It was so real that for a while there I thought it really happened. What a disappointment to find out it was just a dream.
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I won’t be dying any horrific deaths. I plan to depart atop a pile of my foes and have my carcass set adrift on Lake Superior on a viking funeral barge that is set on fire.
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You’re still the same. You still aim high. Welcome back Dead.
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Well, you’re quite the charmer, aren’t you?
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I’ve never been accused of that before. I prefer to let everything be free and right out in the open and in your face so that there can be no grounds for misconception. What you see is what you get.
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Womankind thanks you for that.
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They have, many, many times over.
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