Editor:
The other day while driving down Broadway I observed a drunken/drugged, bare-chested man pin wheeling onto Broadway without looking either way for traffic, causing multiple cars to slow down in order for him to cross the street. I thought to myself how this scene would look to anyone wanting to start a business or maybe a young doctor and family thinking about opening a practice in our beautiful part of the world. A half minute later I was in front of the Blue Heron Lodge with the usual handful of patrons outside doing whatever they do, which wasn’t working in the traditional sense. I then noticed police were there and plywood was being put up in the front of the hotel (“Blog Jammin’,” Feb. 12). “Finally!” I thought to myself.
Congrats to Police Chief Mills, the Eureka police, the Eureka City Council, Brian Gerving, Greg Sparks and anyone else involved in the shutdown of what was one of the first impressions you get of Eureka entering from the south. The filth in these rooms is disgusting and the owners, the Squireses, should be made to pay for any expense incurred by the city for having to maintain their property, the lodging permits that they failed to obtain, court costs, code violations, rents incurred by their guests and anything else that the city can fine them for. I believe the majority of the Blue Heron residents are getting some kind of aid and I’ll bet the Squireses were right behind the checks collecting their rent. The Squireses ripped off their residents and through them, us. For years that hotel/motel was a blight on the city both visually and economically. The Blue Heron, with less than 1 percent of the city’s hotel/motel rooms, generated 11 percent of the emergency calls to the city.
Again, thanks to all involved and to the Blue Heron, I say good riddance!
— Rick Brennan, Eureka
This article appears in Big Beer.
If most are under public assistance programs, I have to wonder what the monthly rent was? If an individual was on SSI/SSP they may receive $927 (includes food allowance for no cooking facilities), they would not be eligible for Food Stamps. What was the rent? I know from personal experience being on SSI/SSP staying at a motel it cost $650 a month leave $227 for food and not having cooking facilities that went fast. So, were folks charged 30% of their income or 80%?
One reason some of these motels who rent out monthly need to be closed and changed to low-income housing in my mind. If you are barely making it month to month and having to pay outrageous rents for a poorly kept room (does not take away personal responsibility) you never have an opportunity to change your condition – In a way owners of these types of facilities need to be looked at differently; are they assisting society by taking all they can get or allowing for individuals to improve their situation by charging a fair rent?
Considering the costs of the outrageous response required by law enforcement, social services, mental health temporary housing, and now the lawsuits, attorney’s and settlements, this property should have been taken over through eminent domain allowing tenants to stay housed while repairs were made. Wasting limited taxpayer dollars chasing after the destitute, their flop houses, shopping carts and bicycles is ineffective, costly and cruel. Our police chief and city government needs to do their homework!
The only “public service” they accomplish with these counterproductive polices and practices is job security for the fire and police needed to respond to another abandoned building, and the new homeless herded into temporary shelters and issued senseless citations they can’t pay.
Utah’s conservative government discovered that gifting the homeless modest apartments for as long as need is cheaper than temporary shelters, incarceration, mental health and emergency room admissions, and it has almost completely ended the army of walking-wounded plaguing their streets.
This guy seems more concerned about what some rich asshole thinks than how poor people actually have to live. Man… who’s the real scumbag here? Why don’t you do something positive to change your city other than kicking back and take joy like a psychopath in the fact that MORE people just got put onto the streets, and became that much more desperate and vulnerable after getting cheated on both ends from our thug police force and a slumlord?