Dear Editor,
Over a thousand years ago, a French monk said, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
It seems two recent initiatives by the town of Summerville are following his advice. Recently, the town council considered enacting a “hate intimidation” ordinance. It would criminalize any utterance or act intended to intimidate others because of “actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.” Never mind we have seen how this has been selectively prosecuted in other states against those who acted as good Samaritans restraining psychotic criminals on subways or protecting their homes with sidearms. Our council was all for it until a large turnout of citizens opposed it for this reason. They spoke of it as divisive and unnecessary in peaceful Summerville. Fortunately, the council postponed consideration until its May 9 meeting.
Another pundit once said, “If you build it, they will come.” The town council also recently voted to appropriate $250,000 to buy a property to construct a men’s homeless facility on Miles Jamison Road. This is after cutting critical public safety requests for fingerprint identification computers and police cars. Two decades of experience in other towns, cities and states show that efforts to serve the homeless are a bottomless pit. Once you establish a facility, other jurisdictions wishing to rid themselves of homeless purchase one-way bus tickets to jurisdictions that do serve them. That is how California ended up with one-third of the nation’s homeless. San Francisco, a city of just 750,000, spends more than $1 billion, one-third of its budget, on homeless services. There is now a cottage industry geared to demanding ever more housing, welfare funds, food and drug counseling for the homeless. But the numbers keep growing
Does Summerville really want to open that door to eventual bankruptcy? Because that is at the end of the road to hell when you attempt to “solve” your homeless problem
Peter Gorman
Summerville
