No Homeless Shelter in White Northern Kentucky

Homeless poop on the Suspension Bridge, Cincinnati, Ohio.

DSC_2048, originally uploaded by hjoew.

Let's face it, the economy is going for a nose dive right now in the United States. Times are hard. The value of the dollar is falling. The feds cut interest rates by .75%, then by another whopping .5% (they usually make more conservative moves, like .25). When the value of the dollar goes down, that's called inflation- the price for things stays the same in the rest of the world, but seems to get more expensive here. A great example of that is the increased price for barrels of oil. It's not really more expensive, our dollars just don't buy as much. We're being driven into a recession, and home mortgage foreclosures are up by 25% this year in Boone County.

But I digress. As I write this, I'm comfortably sitting at my computer in my warm, safe cozy home.

I have been haunted since I heard that there is no homeless shelter, at all, in Northern Kentucky.

Boone county, KY recently held a "point-in-time" homeless count, sponsored by the Boone County Human Services Department and the Vineyard Christian Church. The last point-in-time homeless count documented 45 homeless individuals in Boone County, 247 in Campbell County and 501 in Kenton County. Results of this year's count are expected back by the end of April.

There is the Fairhaven Rescue mission in Covington, but it apparenlty only can house men overnight, it isn't a place that routinely provides shelter to women and /or children.

There seem to be several shelters available on the Ohio side;

Drop-Inn Center Shelter House

Project Connect Homeless

Open Door Ministry

Cincinnati city Gospel Mission

Why is there such a difference? Lord knows that there are plenty of people with money living in Northern Kentucky, so the reason can't be financial. In the aftermath of Cincy's riots as well as the rising property tax situation, a lot of Cincinnati's well-off people have actually defected to NKY in recent years.

The reason can't be that there are more churches in Cincinnati. Northern KY is actually the World's cradle of Creationism, what with Ken Ham's Creation Museum and all. Many many people here are Pentecostal. A lot of people on my street are Catholic and even have the money to send their kids to private Catholic parochial schools.

I hypothesize that the cause of this disparity has to do with being biggotted, racist, ignorant, and the fact that people are just plain selfish.

For God's sakes, this is the area where people who *know they are well-to-do are asking for free Christmas presents! Yes, that's right! I went to my son's school in December to get names from the "Giving Tree", a charitable project where we take a name of kids or whole families from the tree and go buy them presents so they get something for Christmas. Well, while I was selecting names I ran into the lady who runs the project and found out very disturbing information. She said that almost all of the names on the tree were from families from our school! Now I know the economy is not doing well and consumer debt is at a record high, as well as unemployement and mortgage foreclosures- but PLEASE! These are NOT the kind of people I thought I was giving charity to! I thought I was helping REAL needy kids or the homeless or somebody who coudln't afford to buy their kids enough food... not middle class suburbanites!

Seriously, folks, this is a real disease. EVERY familiy that lives in this elementary school's boundaries is middle or upper-middle class. NONE of them are certifiably poor and the very fact that they think they need handouts so they can keep up thier glitzy, wasteful, middle or upper middle class lifestyle for Christmas makes me want to vomit.

Kudos to the black community in Cincinnati for taking care of the truly disadvantaged. You have real Christian values.

God-willing we can create something of similar heart for the homeless here in Northern Kentucky.