# FEMA camps have begun: Homeless first



## Twobottom (Sep 29, 2013)

South Carolina has now begun putting homeless people into FEMA camps. Who will be next?


http://www.prisonplanet.com/fema-ca...less-its-not-a-conspiracy-theory-anymore.html

http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-co...ma-camp-opens-for-business-video-2702614.html


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

I would like better confirmation of this happening than PrisonPlanet. They're not known for their veracity.

I do believe it's coming, I just didn't think it was already happening.


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## Explorer (Dec 2, 2003)

If you do a search for this it is in many places. However, not the MSM yet.


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## campfiregirl (Mar 1, 2011)

Actually, there is a MSM link within the Prison Plant article: http://money.msn.com/now/post--columbia-sc-to-exile-its-homeless


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## Reboopie (Sep 12, 2013)

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3795397

Huffungton Post reported back in August. 


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## logbuilder (Jan 31, 2006)

campfiregirl said:


> Actually, there is a MSM link within the Prison Plant article: http://money.msn.com/now/post--columbia-sc-to-exile-its-homeless


It seems as though the prisonplanet piece was based on the msn piece. However, in the msn piece, there was no mention whatsoever about FEMA. Rather, it says the facility is a charity. Now it may turn out later that FEMA is involved but this seems like the common practice of taking an article and morphing it into something that fits the agenda of another and blasting it everywhere as fact.

Regardless of the above, the program they are starting seems like an overreach to me but that is just my opinion.


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## logbuilder (Jan 31, 2006)

Reboopie said:


> http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3795397
> 
> Huffungton Post reported back in August.


And there is no mention of FEMA camps in there either.


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## Reboopie (Sep 12, 2013)

The issue is that we are putting homeless in camps, which agency that runs them is not as important. The fact that the camps exist and Americans find the camp acceptable is the issue. 


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## Wolfy-hound (May 5, 2013)

It's really not a "camp" it's a minimum security prison. If the people are arrested under the charge of "homelessness" and placed into a secure facility they are not able to leave(police guard prevents leaving), then it's a prison.

There's nothing at ALL new about this, other than the city trying to call it a "remote shelter" rather than a prison. Many cities have ordinances that make it illegal to be homeless, they may simply call it different terms. 

Saying "AMericans find the camp acceptable" is also not true. Some people may think it's fine, some more may not quite understand it's a prison. Most people don't think the homeless should be placed in prison simply because they don't have a home. In fact, if it were challenged, I wouldn't be surprised if it were found to be illegal because "debtor's prison" doesn't exist anymore.

Putting the facts with a LOT of erroneous information(trying not to say outright lies) in order to push the conspiracy theory that FEMA wants to shove the American public into camps for some bizarre reason tells me that website/media source should be put on the shelf along with the "Batboy runs for PRedident!" and "BiGFOOT Impregnated Lindsay Lohan!" rag papers.


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

It's pretty bad, but who stands up for the homeless?


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## oregon woodsmok (Dec 19, 2010)

Put me down as a yes for "prisons" for the homeless. A huge part of the problem is that funding was cut for the mentally ill.

Those people who are homeless because they are mentally ill should be moved back into "insane asylums" to get the help that they need.

As for the rest, I see no problem with having a place where they can sleep safely and out of the weather and get some help reintegrating into society.

The only reason I could see it as an issue would be if they are not allowed to leave, which is probably not going to happen with our current court system.

The huge numbers of homeless is causing problems in some of the big cities and someone really should do something to try to help them get back on their feet.


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## firestick (Oct 19, 2008)

My question is what about the homeless like many I know who are that way by choice, either those who live in an RV of some type or even those who choose to live on the street. Sounds as if some think because people make a different choice they must be wrong and so must be forced to live the way others believe they should. Why? What happened to choice? 
Many here live a different lifestyle than your typical city dwelling 9-5er. Are they wrong? should they be forced to change? Remember that you may be the one declared "strange" next and locked up for your own good.
Ernie please chime in on this.


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## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

On a fire trip to OR this year just about every Interstate overpass in the bigger cities had homeless living underneath them. ND, MT and OR had quite a few encampments. The most memorable one was in Portland. Huge multilevel? cardboard structure painted with flowers and trees. Very nicely done, very artistic. It also had a fireplace of sorts as smoke was coming out of the chimney! The last time I was in Portland was 40 years ago. It was my first duty station and first city to ever live in. It did have a skidrow back then. I knew where it was and we frequently would buy some MadDog and drink it with the winos! Heard some great stories, some unforgettable characters dwelled there. Alot of these fellows were homeless by choice. They seemed happy. And Portland was a great city for being homeless then as they seemed to tolerate them.


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## Wolfy-hound (May 5, 2013)

I think there should be some resources to help homeless people who want and need it. I definitely want mentally ill people to have resources available for them.

If the city had the money to have this "remote shelter", why didn't they have it before? They're feeding and housing the homeless now, just with them locked up!

If someone wants to live in a tent in the woods(and the property owner does not object or the woods are public lands) or make a camp under a overpass, and they CHOOSE to do so, why force them into the cookie-cutter lifestyle?

But if a family or a person has lost everything due to losing a job, illness, etc and they don't have anywhere to stay, folks should want to help them back onto their feet. Not house and feed them forever, but assistance to get back up where they can live life without lying in a gutter.


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## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

No gold star for you Wolfy.


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## Reboopie (Sep 12, 2013)

It is not just a place to stay, it is a jail. It states in the article that they have to have permission to leave and a police officer is on the road. The "good" people don't want to see the homeless so they are placing them in camps on the outskirts of town. It does not mention services being available to the people taken to the camp. 


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## logbuilder (Jan 31, 2006)

The way I read it was that they could leave whenever they wanted but they had to schedule the trip on a shuttle ahead of time. I suspect they would also have to know where they are going. My thoughts was this was to keep folks from going into the city during the day and coming back there at night. The problem that this 'solution' is attempting to fix is the problem downtown where homeless people are causing problems.

In Seattle, there are a lot of homeless. You can't walk two blocks without someone asking for money or a smoke. In the mornings shop owners find folks sleeping in their doorways and they have to get them to leave so they can open their businesses. Many stop lights have someone standing there with a sign asking for money. You'd probably have to live in a big metro area to understand the problems it can cause the city. They passed a law a few years ago that panhandling was illegal. There seemed to be a drop for a couple of months and then it was business as usual. The police couldn't enforce it for several reasons, one being they had no room in the jails and the shelters are full every night anyway.

Just explaining it from a big city perspective. I offer no solutions.


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## Twobottom (Sep 29, 2013)

I often think about the nature of money, and how much trouble it causes people in their lives and how trying to live without it is made more and more difficult by those who control it. Money is the greatest lever by which a very small elite group of people control us all. Think about it...everything you need and want in life is basically boiled down to these pieces of paper, that only THEY can print.

Now you might say you can become self reliant and live off the land to large degree but you still need money to pay your property tax or they will take it from you and kill you if you resist. So then you might decide to swear off money altogether, shake off the yoke, and try to live freely in the way that many philosophers, prophets, and wise men have done in the past. These men were seeking true happiness, or inner peace, and most rejected materialism, at least to some degree, as a means of achieving it.

Well now if you seek that path in life, at least in south carolina ( so far ), they will pick you up against your will and take you away to a camp, or a cell, or some other place because you don't carry their paper money and don't live as they do.


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

firestick said:


> My question is what about the homeless like many I know who are that way by choice, either those who live in an RV of some type or even those who choose to live on the street. Sounds as if some think because people make a different choice they must be wrong and so must be forced to live the way others believe they should. Why? What happened to choice?
> Many here live a different lifestyle than your typical city dwelling 9-5er. Are they wrong? should they be forced to change? Remember that you may be the one declared "strange" next and locked up for your own good.
> Ernie please chime in on this.


Not sure why you want me to chime in on this, but you don't have to ask twice. 

Ultimately, if you do anything at all different from the mainstream, people will turn against you. I think primarily because it offends their choices.

It's like trying to explain to someone why you homeschool if they have children in public school. There's no way to explain it that they won't take offense. 

When I had plenty of money and my family decided to live the way we do, we were just eccentric and a threat to no one. But I've noticed that now that we're not flush with cash, people look at us askance.


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## homstdr74 (Jul 4, 2011)

I hope it doesn't seem as if I'm romanticizing the homeless shelter thing by saying this, but years ago most communities had what were called "poor houses". The poor in the County were taken care of there in exchange for them taking care of the fields, garden, animals, and general upkeep of the place. In our County the Sheriff's wife cooked for them as well as the prisoners.

I don't know how others feel about life, but I have never thought that I was entitled to anything, even begging from others, as long as I was capable of doing something. Seems to me that a reciprocal deal for these homeless people such as the one I described in the above paragraph would work for everyone involved, taxpayers included. The homeless lodgers could pay their way by raising their own food and maintaining the grounds and buildings where they lived. 

Or are there laws that prevent people from trying to maintain a sense of dignity?


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

homstdr74 said:


> I hope it doesn't seem as if I'm romanticizing the homeless shelter thing by saying this, but years ago most communities had what were called "poor houses". The poor in the County were taken care of there in exchange for them taking care of the fields, garden, animals, and general upkeep of the place. In our County the Sheriff's wife cooked for them as well as the prisoners.
> 
> I don't know how others feel about life, but I have never thought that I was entitled to anything, even begging from others, as long as I was capable of doing something. Seems to me that a reciprocal deal for these homeless people such as the one I described in the above paragraph would work for everyone involved, taxpayers included. The homeless lodgers could pay their way by raising their own food and maintaining the grounds and buildings where they lived.
> 
> Or are there laws that prevent people from trying to maintain a sense of dignity?


You aren't familiar with the 19th century concept of the "poor house"?

They were so bad, that the Irish fled their homeland in leaky ships that sank as often as they made it to America rather than be put into a poor house.


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## homstdr74 (Jul 4, 2011)

Ernie said:


> You aren't familiar with the 19th century concept of the "poor house"?
> 
> They were so bad, that the Irish fled their homeland in leaky ships that sank as often as they made it to America rather than be put into a poor house.


I don't know much about the history of the Irish poorhouses, but if it had anything to do with the British occupying that Nation for 600 years up until the 1920's, it was bad.

Nothing's perfect, but the "poor houses" as were established in this country up 'til, in some instances, the 1960's, were more or less as I described them.


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## arcticow (Oct 8, 2006)

There was a county "poor farm" just outside my hometown. This was no Irish debtor's prison or anything like, but a clean, decent place for folks to live and work with dignity while feeding themselves and families and getting started over. No one forced them there, or held them there, and tried hard to assist them to get ready to NOT need it any more.


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

arcticow said:


> There was a county "poor farm" just outside my hometown. This was no Irish debtor's prison or anything like, but a clean, decent place for folks to live and work with dignity while feeding themselves and families and getting started over. No one forced them there, or held them there, and tried hard to assist them to get ready to NOT need it any more.


I know at least a dozen religious communities that set aside similarly, and there's probably hundreds of "hippie communes" that do the same.

The problem I see with government run poor houses (or whatever term you want to call this sort of thing) is that when people pay for something, they want everyone who is being paid for to live LESS comfortably than they do.

I've heard it said a dozen times on this forum alone ... "Poverty shouldn't be comfortable." And then they go on to complain about people on welfare putting steaks in their shopping cart.

So if you made a poor house even remotely liveable, someone would come along demanding that it be made deliberately WORSE in order to inspire those people to go out and get a job and become productive citizens again.

If you fall on hard times, I see no shame in begging. We all are beggars in some shape, form, or fashion.

As an independent craftsman, I beg people to buy my wares so I don't starve. An employee begs his employer to pay him for his time. The politician begs the public to keep him in office. 

Am I supposed to look down upon the man who begs for his bread out of charity because he has no labor or craft to fall back on? It's not in me to do that anymore.


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## homstdr74 (Jul 4, 2011)

Ernie said:


> I know at least a dozen religious communities that set aside similarly, and there's probably hundreds of "hippie communes" that do the same.
> 
> The problem I see with government run poor houses (or whatever term you want to call this sort of thing) is that when people pay for something, they want everyone who is being paid for to live LESS comfortably than they do.
> 
> ...


Do you actually think it's better to beg for your bread than work for it? The work that would be required of those in the County workhouse would be to produce that which was eaten by the producer(s).

No, you don't "beg" others to buy your crafts, you try to promote them so that others might see them and find them suitable for themselves to the extent they would buy them. I see no correlation between you and a beggar, other than your humanity.

As for possibly diminishing the "self-esteem" of the poor by asking them to work for their own bread, well, everyone has to learn to "tough it" once in a while, and if a person is out hoeing weeds for his food, I'm not going to run him down for being poor, in fact quite the contrary, I'm thinking he's got some sense of being proper about him.


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

homstdr74 said:


> Do you actually think it's better to beg for your bread than work for it? The work that would be required of those in the County workhouse would be to produce that which was eaten by the producer(s).


Nowhere in my message did you see me say that. You're bringing baggage to the conversation that isn't there. If I thought it was better to beg for my bread than to work for it, I wouldn't have blisters, burns, and scarred knuckles from working with hot metal and sharp knives. 

BUT, my point is, there's a lot of problems that bring a man down to the level of begging for his food and I'm not in a position to judge why he's there.

And my Lord didn't command me to require him to do something in exchange for his food. I was simply commanded to feed him. It would be great if I had the means to give everyone a job in which they could earn their bread and prop up their self-esteem ... but I can't.

So if I see someone hungry I simply try to feed them and I ask nothing in return.


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## homstdr74 (Jul 4, 2011)

Ernie said:


> Nowhere in my message did you see me say that. You're bringing baggage to the conversation that isn't there. If I thought it was better to beg for my bread than to work for it, I wouldn't have blisters, burns, and scarred knuckles from working with hot metal and sharp knives.
> 
> BUT, my point is, there's a lot of problems that bring a man down to the level of begging for his food and I'm not in a position to judge why he's there.
> 
> ...


OK, I'm not going to argue about this, you have your mind made up and so do I. 

I do not begrudge people charity, but I do think that workhouses are a viable option for that segment of the populace who are down on their luck and who would rather not starve and sleep out in the cold if they could help it.


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

homstdr74 said:


> OK, I'm not going to argue about this, you have your mind made up and so do I.
> 
> I do not begrudge people charity, but I do think that workhouses are a viable option for that segment of the populace who are down on their luck and who would rather not starve and sleep out in the cold if they could help it.


Well, let's tweak the conversation a little, because I think it's valuable, even if you feel it's an argument.

Who should run these workhouses? FEMA? The FedGov? Sheriff Joe in Arizona? The banks to whom many of these homeless undoubtedly owe money?

The system I would prefer is that Christians of property simply reach out to those in need who they know and say, "Look, I've got 50 acres here. I can squeeze another family in somewhere. There's water and sunlight and good soil and maybe together we can pull through this."

Why do you think that doesn't happen more?


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## homstdr74 (Jul 4, 2011)

Ernie said:


> Well, let's tweak the conversation a little, because I think it's valuable, even if you feel it's an argument.
> 
> *Who should run these workhouses?* FEMA? The FedGov? Sheriff Joe in Arizona? The banks to whom many of these homeless undoubtedly owe money?
> 
> ...


As to the first question in bold above, since all politics are local, that would be under the purvey of the County Commission and thus the office of the Sheriff, most likely. I honestly think that could be worked out past the gossips-who-don't-like-anything into something workable. We've even had difficulty with the latter crowd in establishing a Sheltered Workshop for the disabled, so I don't see any worse hassles with something like that.

As to your second question in bold above: Why do I think that doesn't happen more? I'll answer your question with a question: How many Americans have read works by people such as Peter Maurin?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Maurin

Besides that, there are logistical problems associated with such an endeavor. OSHA, Social Security Administration, etc. would obviously try to get involved in that sort of situation, so how would you cope with that? I mean, sure it would be great and we could always use the help, but there are other considerations: healthcare, clothing, personal items, etc. 

It's difficult to run one family's affairs, but when you take on more than that there's inevitably problems unless you can find a situation that fits your situation like a glove.

As you can maybe see I am not opposed to what you are saying, but I think too much about the practical aspects of it to the extent I always talk myself out of it.


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## Fowler (Jul 8, 2008)

I find this whole conversation funny.


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## farmgal (Nov 12, 2005)

Its a matter of hygiene and disease. We cant have people just relieving themselves where ever. I think its a good idea. We dont know the specifics.


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## Lookin4GoodLife (Oct 14, 2013)

homstdr74 said:


> The poor in the County were taken care of there in exchange for them taking care of the fields, garden, animals, and general upkeep of the place.


The problem with it "now days" is a lot of people want to be taken care of but they don't want to take care of the fields, garden, animals and general upkeep of the place in exchange. So who ends up taking care of them? Taxpayers. I have no problem with "welfare" systems to take care of the less fortunate. But I feel that *everyone* who draws a dime should have to do something in return for it. Sitting on your duff with your hand out is a "no go" in my book. And I'm not talking about the physically or mentally disabled who can't do anything.


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

Lookin4GoodLife said:


> The problem with it "now days" is a lot of people want to be taken care of but they don't want to take care of the fields, garden, animals and general upkeep of the place in exchange. So who ends up taking care of them? Taxpayers. I have no problem with "welfare" systems to take care of the less fortunate. But I feel that *everyone* who draws a dime should have to do something in return for it. Sitting on your duff with your hand out is a "no go" in my book. And I'm not talking about the physically or mentally disabled who can't do anything.


Think about what you're saying there.

A human being is CAPABLE of doing something in return for the government's provision so they should do something. 

If they're CAPABLE of doing something, why do they need the government to do something for them at all?

Why are they not doing something for a paycheck, or for their own profit, or simply to provide for themselves from their own labor?

That's the issue which needs addressing. What has happened to America, the land of opportunity, that a person who is completely capable of earning their keep can ONLY go to the government in order to do so?

Frankly, I don't care if a person decides to spend their life under a fig tree and contemplating enlightenment, but I do object to the government forcing me at gunpoint to feed them.


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## Lookin4GoodLife (Oct 14, 2013)

I know what *I* was saying, but I'm not sure what *you're* saying.  I have no problem helping a man when he's down. Supporting him forever with him doing nothing in return for it, I won't do. I don't think the government should be doing it either.


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## logbuilder (Jan 31, 2006)

Ernie said:


> If they're CAPABLE of doing something, why do they need the government to do something for them at all?
> 
> Why are they not doing something for a paycheck, or for their own profit, or simply to provide for themselves from their own labor?


Seems to me it might be _easier_ and involve_ less work/effort_ to get it from the gov rather than earning it on your own. _That's_ a problem.


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

logbuilder said:


> Seems to me it might be _easier_ and involve_ less work/effort_ to get it from the gov rather than earning it on your own. _That's_ a problem.


I think it absolutely would be easier. Certainly looks easier.

But there's two issues here for me:

1. You belong to who provides your provision. God can provide for me, or the government can. I'd rather belong to God.

2. It may be easier now, because the government is giving it out freely, but it's very much similar to the "free food" that comes out of a deer feeder on a regular schedule. And hunting season is about to open.


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