I'm sick of being unsafe downtown

[threeplusfire]

http://community.livejournal.com/austincommunity/5575081.html

Summary: Patrons of the Alamo Drafthouse go to the location on 6th street, Austin's vaunted (overhyped) 'entertainment district' and have their tires slashed by a homeless guy who felt they owed him money for free parking. (They try to direct you to an empty spot, and they expect to be paid.)

This happened not very far from where Mike and I were parked last night. As in maybe a block or two away from our car.

It's strange. I walked around Prague at 3am intoxicated to the gills. I walked home from a subway stop at midnight through Spanish Harlem in NYC and was offered crack. I had drinks in a bar with a bunch of guys who were likely organized crime. I slept in the Frankfurt airport. I lived next door to a drug dealer in hooker central off I-35. But nowhere makes me feel as uncomfortable and unsafe as downtown Austin. WTF?

One of the enormous problems is that Caritas and the Salvation Army set up shop directly across the street from each other on 7th street. (Which I would like to point out that the police headquarters is three freaking blocks from this area) I feel sorry for the homeless families and legitimately hard luck folk who need their services because the area is overrun with crackheads, drug dealers and strung out psychos. They panhandle aggressively and can be threatening. They wander around intoxicated and jabbering nonsense. They piss on the sidewalk. They are a damned menace and I'm so done with ignoring it.

I am going to write letters to all the businesses down there that I probably won't go to as much in the future. I'm going to encourage others to do the same. I'm also going to write letters to the police department, the city and the news. I have little hope that just the voices of concerned citizens will do anything. But maybe the businesses downtown will get involved and lend their weight to ours.

Comments

[antebellumcafe.livejournal.com]

I hate to say it but I think it got worse after Katrina.

[brienze.livejournal.com]

We always pay the $6 to park at the lot behind Alamo, which is usually pretty uncrowded compared to the $5 lot caddy-corner to it. And to be fair, I never just take a stroll down Sixth Street... I walk from my car to a business and back. But in doing that, I've never encountered a problem. It kinda takes actual shooting for me to get upset, though.

Letter writing certainly couldn't hurt, especially since you can say that you used to be a regular patron and won't be anymore.

[puella.livejournal.com]

What would you like to see happen? Where should those people go?

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

In a perfect world? I'd like to see the crackheads who slash tires and hassle people in jail. Instead of spending time standing around or writing fines for bars letting people smoke, maybe they could be dealing with the blatant drug dealers. I'd like to see the families and people with kids in a shelter in a better location as far as safety/schools, etc. (Actually, I'd prefer to see a couple smaller shelters spread out rather than one big warehouse but that's just a different kettle of fish. Something more like co-op housing maybe. More accessible shelters for the blind, people with service animals or wheelchairs.) I think the Salvation Army shelter's proximity to 6th street and all that only encourages a certain amount of bad behavior that is detrimental to the community and to the people there who need help and who aren't out mugging people.

There is the argument in austincommunity that demanding payment for pointing out free parking is good because it gives money to people on the streets. I think that's a shitty long term plan of help personally. What kind of message is that anyhow? Quite honestly, I don't think any of the people engaged in this activity are doing it to make sure they buy food for their kids. Couldn't we do something better by throwing money into programs for job training, education, mental health assistance, drug rehab? What if we paid to park in city lots and meter spaces at night, and that money went into those programs? What if we gave MHMR the funding it needs so they can stop dumping patients from the State Hospital on the driveways of every ER in town? (Seriously that was the plan they came up with last year in dealing with budget issues. WTF?)

[antebellumcafe.livejournal.com]

If you're going to write letters, post the addresses. I'll write letters too.

From street to psych unit to jail to street to...

[abbismom.livejournal.com]

In my perfect version, no-one would ever give panhandlers (including the aggressive kind you described) any kind of money, ever. That would stop it because they would have no motivation at all to panhandle.

Instead, put that money towards the programs you describe above, that put healthy expectations of the people they are helping.

It's a very, very huge problem in downtown Austin...has been for a long time.

sigh.

[nimlowyn.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the mentally ill with no place to go. Their population is thick in Los Angeles; Skid Row in particular is infamous. This is when happens when a person is given absolute authority over their health care, even WITH a severe mental impairment.

Re: sigh.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hear you and I know you speak from experience. :/ It's been particularly awful since the state facility just started dumping them at ERs who don't have any ability to provide long term care.