Ignoring blogger's advice Rapid City, Allender losing homelessness battle

From the days of card tables and stock pots filled with steaming soups every Sunday on the banks of Rapid Creek Deirdre Monahan, Pat Zent and their intrepid group of Food not Bombs volunteers provided an alternative for people otherwise subjected to persecution at the hands of the christianic religionists who operate the Cornerstone Mission and shared goodies with as many as seventy people each week.

After the 1972 Flood that wiped out Teepee Town and killed some 238 people, mostly poor American Indians, the feds gave Rapid City rent supports to house those displaced by the disaster but today the Rapid City Police Department is staffed by white supremacists and bigots. A former police chief now Mayor Steve Allender has been accused of managing "a bunch of racists." Now he's saying it costs Rapid City some $15 million every year to address homelessness.

American Indians in the RCPD are ridiculed, reviled and rejected by their relatives.  

Back in 2013, NPR's Planet Money reported on an experiment in Kenya.

The results from the study are encouraging, says Johannes Haushofer, an economist at MIT's Poverty Action Lab who was one of the study's co-authors. "We don't see people spending money on alcohol and tobacco," he says. "Instead we see them investing in their kids' education, we see them investing in health care. They buy more and better food." Getting money made people happier, less stressed out. [What Happens When You Just Give Money To Poor People?]

Rapid City's population is about 11% Native but South Dakota's jails and prisons are overwhelmingly warehousing American Indians. Journalist Tim Giago sees little difference between Rapid City and Ferguson, Missouri where Michael Brown's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against that police department. Daniel Tiger chose to take out two Rapid City police personnel with him rather than be gunned down in cold blood like Christopher Capps was. After another high profile racism incident the Rapid City Rush has an alcohol-free family section in the civic center. 

Homeless veterans are often refugees from combat and despite lies from the South Dakota Republican Party video lootery, payday loan sharks, domestic violence and homelessness are inextricably linked putting children at risk to more catastrophic consequences far more often than has happened in states that have legalized or lessened penalties for casual use of cannabis. 

According to the South Dakota Housing for the Homeless Consortium, there were 353 homeless people counted in Rapid City in January 2020 in a 24-hour time period, which is about 33% of the total homeless population in South Dakota. There were 1,058 total homeless in the state, as of January 2020. The data shows for the second year, American Indian or Alaskan Native made up about 77% of Care Campus admissions, 12% were White, 8% did not specify, 3% were Black or African American and 0% were Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latina and two or more races. Allender said enabling homelessness through free food must stop and it puts those who are homeless at additional risk. “That full belly won’t mean anything to them when the temperatures dip and the winds come up and they’re out there alone,” he said. “We stand by, ready to help those in need, but this is not an exclusive government responsibility.” [Growing homeless population straining city resources, mayor says]

Even Palestinian refugee and Muslim Hani Shafai wants to house Rapid City's perpetual homeless population. 

Hey, Mayor Allender: expand Medicaid for these people then offer a $3000 stipend to those who qualify, more for families and veterans then encourage people to flee South Dakota's unforgiving winters.