By Mark David Blum, Esq.

The City of Syracuse is becoming famous for its inhumanity toward its weakest and most defenseless citizens. As the City Administration tends to do with everything else, Syracuse is trying to drive its poor and homeless from being visible without so much as lifting a finger to help. George Huggaber is barely ten days in his grave and in his honor, City police and work crews went out yesterday and drove more homeless and hungry people out from their Pearl Street shelter.

In probably the quote of the year, police spokespeople declared that they are driving the homeless from shelters into the open in the middle of winter because, “a vehicle that rolled over the guardrail in a crash would mean almost certain death for a person sleeping below.” Apparently in the opinion of City leaders, the one in a million chance of a car overturning on a guard railing off the highway at that specific spot and then falling on top of these homeless folks is justification to summarily throw all their worldly goods in the garbage and send the homeless back out wandering the streets without even a doorway in which to rest. By the same logic, we should ban all scissors because someone might run with them and put an eye out.

While I may be the last person to invoke Christian values, I do wonder to where those values evaporated in this predominately Christian community. In my very humble opinion, this attitude of City leaders is offensive and contrary to strongly held principles of this nation and of most of the religions worshipped by its citizens.

It is sad that homelessness, poverty, unemployment, and mental illness plague the city in such large numbers. Maybe instead of expending valuable police and judicial resources or offering up a few dollars at holiday time, citizens actually worked face to face with some of these folks, or fed them, or housed them, or trained them. Don’t chase them away. Imprisoning them is not the answer. Wasting more valuable police and judicial resources will not cure the problem. Hiding the ugliness from our eyes does not mean the cancer is not there eating away at our collective soul. Maybe if we resolved the root issues, the City might be able to direct valuable and limited police resources to handle real crime.

To quote President Theodore Roosevelt’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, " We can best prove our thankfulness to the Almighty by the way in which on this earth and at this time each of us does his duty to his fellow-men."

Blessings from God or from Mother Earth or just the results of your own sweat and toil should always be treasured. Never forget that everything around you; your family, your job, your wealth, and your happiness … all of it, can be gone in an instant. Like many of you, I once felt invincible. I once felt as though nothing could harm me and I could weather any storm. Homelessness and standing in food lines changed that arrogance.

In my own life and business one rule has dominated. My employees always ate before my family and my family always ate before me. This is the duty owed by one to those dependant upon him or her for support. We as a nation likewise share this responsibility one to another. It is reported that 35 million Americans, or more than twelve percent of all of us go hungry at least part of the time. To me, that is a national shame.

Onondaga County has hundreds if not thousands of homeless and hungry people yet our Republican Legislature voted themselves a pay raise and focus their energies on raising the age to buy cigarettes by one year. The first order of business after the recent elections was for the Democrats in the New York State Senate to start talking about a pay raise for themselves. Yet, tens of thousands of their constituents go without food and shelter. Now, Syracuse throws these people out into the streets.

Before one dollar of an American taxpayer’s money is spent on trips, bridges to nowhere, wars, offices, staff, or pay raises, the first pennies must be spent to assure no human being goes without food, shelter, education, and healthcare. Anything else is a misuse of public funds and a violation of the most basic public trust.

Growing up “American” has always had in it a certain element of ethnocentric superiority. From day one, we are taught that we are the Richest, Most Powerful Nation on this Earth. As we mature we come to accept that capitalism and our natural resources and our military might have established us as safe from all threats; foreign and domestic. We count as among our blessings that we are of a very few peoples on this earth who can go to bed at night with confidence that our government and military will keep us safe and that our homes and government will be in place in the morning.

At least most of us do.