governance objectives
Mark's broad governance objectives are summarized as:
1 establish and aggressively pursue a forward-looking and fully responsible energy policy
2 establish open and responsive government
3 empower socially and economically disengaged residents and revitalize struggling neighborhoods through creative, public-private collaborations
4 encourage and support grassroots revitalizations of neighborhoods
5 enhance all modes and infrastructure of transportation
6 accommodate, assist and enable destitute people effectively and responsibly
7 improve waste management
1 INSTITUTE AN ENERGY POLICY THAT WOULD PROVIDE INCREASINGLY SAFE, RESPONSIBLE, RELIABLE AND ECONOMICAL ENERGY
2 PURSUE A COALITION APPROACH TO REMEDIATION OF SUPERFUND SITES AND PROTECTION OF OUR DRINKING WATER
3 STIMULATE "FULL-SPECTRUM ENTREPRENEURSHIP"
4 ENCOURAGE AND SUPPORT GRASSROOTS REVITALIZATIONS OF NEIGHBORHOODS
5 ENHANCE ALL MODES OF TRANSPORTATION
6 ACCOMMODATE, ASSIST AND ENABLE DESTITUTE PEOPLE EFFECTIVELY AND RESPONSIBLY
7 IMPROVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
Following are elaborations of Mark's governance objectives:
1 INSTITUTE AN ENERGY POLICY THAT WOULD PROVIDE INCREASINGLY SAFE, RESPONSIBLE, RELIABLE AND ECONOMICAL ENERGY
Gainesville Regional Utilities and customers of it must move more aggressively than they have moved from destabilizing, dirty, dangerous, destructive and volatile energy sources, including coal, natural gas, nuclear fission and biomass, to reliable and safe renewable energy sources that have the least economic, environmental and social costs in the long run.
I would promote a new energy policy that would re-mission Gainesville Regional Utilities to become an energy future manifester and not, primarily, an electricity and natural gas seller. I would advocate that the utilities company would:
o promote and facilitate implementations of increased numbers of energy efficiency and conservation measures
o promote and facilitate installations of increased numbers of distributed, privately owned renewable energy systems
o promote and facilitate installations of widely distributed electric vehicle charging stations throughout Gainesville
o promote and facilitate installations of widely distributed natural gas and propane gas filling stations for vehicles in Gainesville.
I would seek to promote those through:
o advocating increased numbers of feed-in tariff projects
o advocating establishment of GRU-administered and private-organization-administered revolving loan programs
I would convene with other determined, objective-minded, clear-thinking, knowledgeable, well studied and diligent city commissioners and citizens a panel to thoroughly and publicly scrutinize the present biomass electric generating plant project. My fellow panelists and I would very publicly report the findings of our panel as we would receive them through a dedicated Internet site, through e-mail updates, through social networking updates and through news releases. Upon completion of our inquiry, my fellow panelists and I would present summaries of the findings and conclusions of our panel, and we would promote our recommendations that we would deem prudent through the same Internet communications channels and through a series of public presentations around the city.
I would promote social marketing that would encourage citizens to:
* implement energy efficiency and conservation measures in buildings
* install renewable energy systems
* use non-motorized transportation
* use public transit
* use alternatively powered vehicles
2 PURSUE A COALITION APPROACH TO REMEDIATION OF SUPERFUND SITES AND PROTECTION OF OUR DRINKING WATER
I would build a coalition of communities throughout the United States that have Superfund sites--like the Cabot-Koppers-Beazer Superfund site in north Gainesville--to pressure the federal government together to accomplish what those communities have been unable to accomplish individually:
* increase funding for the Superfund trust fund through the increase of assessments on petroleum and chemical industries
* exact from polluters of Superfund sites funds necessary to fully and safely remediate those sites and to compensate victims of the contaminations where that is possible and, where that is not possible, pressure the federal government to pay for those costs from the Superfund trust fund.
Highly contaminated and suffering communities like ours must not settle for "small bandages" on "large cancers."
I would work to assure that Gainesville businesses would store, handle and dispose of hazardous wastes properly, so Gainesville would never again have hard-to-remediate, chemically contaminated properties.
I would work to establish neighborhood hazardous waste collection centers throughout Gainesville.
I would promote social marketing that would encourage citizens to:
* use environmentally benign cleaners, polishes and conditioners
* repair fluid leaks of vehicles
* properly dispose of hazardous wastes
* use no horticultural chemicals and fertilizers or properly use minimal amounts of environmentally benign ones
3 STIMULATE (FOSTER) "FULL-SPECTRUM ENTREPRENEURSHIP"
I would promote what I call "full-spectrum entrepreneurship:" a variety of public and private initiatives to continuously increase business literacy across the age, education and income spectra of Gainesville. I would work to transfer and adapt the entrepreneurship revolution that is occurring in the high-technology sector in Gainesville to the low-technology sector. I would work to establish additional entrepreneurship education and training programs such as those currently offered through Junior Achievement and at the GTEC. Those programs would be staffed by knowledgeable, creative, enabling, dynamic and results-oriented instructors and would include:
o summer entrepreneurship classes, workshops and camps for junior high school and senior high school youth
o year-round education and training programs for adults
I would work to establish additional business incubators throughout Gainesville that would provide free and low-cost cubicles, offices and shops for those aspiring entrepreneurs who have proven themselves to be motivated, capable and persistent during their entrepreneurship trainings and who continue to demonstrate those qualities after starting their businesses. I envision a time twenty to thirty years from now when starting and operating a successful business would be as natural to most of our citizens as breathing.
I envision "business starting centers" co-located with education and training centers for trades businesses, service businesses and retail businesses--the kinds of businesses that unmarried, unemployed or under-employed young people and NASCAR dads and soccer moms could start and run. The education and training centers would be inviting and and accommodating to those who have many knowledge, skill, experience, financial and cultural challenges but who can be civil and who are sincerely desirous of building their capabilities.
4 ENCOURAGE AND SUPPORT GRASSROOTS REVITALIZATIONS OF NEIGHBORHOODS
I would encourage and support concerned, community-minded and determined neighborhood residents and business owners to plan and implement measures to enhance security, minimize crime, improve appearances, promote home ownership, promote renovations of buildings and cultivate businesses in their neighborhoods. I would enlist the strong support of all relevant city departments in that work.
5 ENHANCE ALL MODES OF TRANSPORTATION
I would seek to enhance transportation in and around Gainesville by working to:
o add small and efficient buses to the Regional Transit System fleet for use on low-ridership routes and at low-ridership times of day on otherwise high-ridership routes
o add natural gas- and electric-powered buses to the Regional Transit System fleet
o establish and promote upscale, right-sized, roomy, wireless-Internet-equipped, express commuter bus service between Gainesville and outlying communities (deboarding only within the periphery of the city)
o establish park-and-ride ("kiss-and-ride") parking lots (along inter-city bus routes) on the outskirts of Gainesville beside highly traveled commuting routes
o increase the number, qualities and safety of multi-purpose (bicycle) routes and trails
o perform timely vegetation control along multi-purpose routes and trails (This would be good work for new entrepreneurs who would offer work for disadvantaged and other-abled workers.)
o increase the number and improv the qualities and configurations of bicycle parking spaces at commercial, education, recreation and government destinations
o install electric charging stations a public bicycle racks to charge electric bicycles, motor scooters and motorcycles
o increase the number of bicycle stowage spaces on transit buses or add specially built bicycle stowage trailers to buses
o maintain roads and bridges sufficiently to minimize their costs of ownership
o increase the penalties for fraudulent practices in the cab industry
o conduct occasional, random inspections of cabs to detect fraudulent practices
o establish a waiting area for cab drivers in the southeast corner of the passenger terminal of Gainesville-Alachua County Regional Airport (The heat experienced by cab drivers while waiting for passengers in cabs in summer is brutal.)
o establish an online carpooling and ride sharing facilitation site
o conduct ongoing social marketing campaigns to encourage walking, bicycle use, public transportation use, trip planning (errand consolidation), carpooling and ride sharing, telecommuting, living near workplaces and alternatively powered vehicle use
6 ACCOMMODATE, ASSIST AND ENABLE DESTITUTE PEOPLE EFFECTIVELY AND RESPONSIBLY
I would promote policy on assisting and enabling destitute persons that would be characterized by compassion with accountability.
I would continue to expect effective and responsible social services from social service providers and considerate and responsible behavior from destitute people.
To recognize the following is sensible:
o Destitute people will not spontaneously cease to exist.
o Destitute people need places to eat, eliminate, sleep, shower and keep their belongings.
o Destitute people consume community services and cost a community money.
o Desperation drives some destitute people to engage in hostile behavior and in property and violent crime.
o The destitute sector of the population has higher incidents of criminal behavior, mental illness and addictions than the general population.
o Poverty is expensive in lost productivity, in social services, in property losses and injuries from crimes and in criminal-justice services.
o Engagement in at least some positive activities, including volunteer work of destitute people's choosing, is good for destitute people and for the community.
o Adverse living conditions make positive morale, productivity and success difficult.
o Sleeping and storing of belongings by destitute people in many unauthorized outdoor areas and shelters creates problems and costs for for destitute people and for everyone else in a community.
o Some communities have successful campgrounds for destitute people.
o Provision of a limited-size, well managed, enabling campground would help destitute people advance and would not institutionalize homelessness or attract homeless people from outside of our community.
o Provision of well managed, small-scale transitional housing would not adversely impact neighborhoods.
I would encourage members of our entire community do their parts to:
o respect destitute people
o expect civil behavior from all destitute people
o expect at least modest ongoing contributions to community life and at least modest ongoing self-improvement for those who have capacities for those
o present to destitute people "ladders" to full integration into community life: sequences of "rungs" in which each successive "rung" appears to destitute people to be attractive and reachable from each previous "rung"
o establish and deliver a wide variety of incentives for behaviors that lead to positive life outcomes and benefits to the community
Such incentives could include entertainment and sports tickets, gift certificates for movie rentals, meals, deserts, cell phone service, bicycle service, thrift store merchandise and personal care. In addition, those whose activities are positive could participate in drawings for refurbished notebook computers, bicycles and scooters.
Such behaviors would include avoiding citations and arrests, performing volunteer services, attending classes, receiving passing grades, seeking work, working, etc.
o establish and impose a wide variety of disincentives and reform-aimed counseling and activities for behaviors that lead to negative life outcomes and adverse effects on the community
Such disincentives would include progressively severe sanctions and creative sentencing. Such counseling and activities could include victim facing, restitution, peer counseling, psychological counseling, ethical counseling, spiritual counseling (of the perpetrators choice), etc.
o offer to unmotivated, destitute people and to motivated, destitute people not accommodated elsewhere campsites in a privately owned and operated, tightly run, campground for destitute people
Operating organizations would condition admittance upon presenting monthly police clearances and upon appearing outwardly sober. Campground staff members and security officers would strictly enforced rules for safety, security, maintaining quality of the facility and comfort. Zones in the campground would offer various qualities of accommodations, various numbers and qualities of facilities and amenities and various opportunities. Campground staff members would assign campers to zones based merit through points that they would earn from positive behaviors or that they would lose from negative behaviors.
o offer to motivated, destitute people accommodations in privately owned and operated, intensively managed, small-scale, scattered-site, habilitative transitional housing units that would provide safe, clean, comfortable, orderly and efficient living space
A variety of charitable organizations would own and operate such housing units. The organizations would tailor the facilities and operations of them to the particular needs of the clients who the organizations would accommodate. Such housing units would be continually staffed by at least one part-time staff person whose compensation for his or her services would be free accommodations and food in the facility. Volunteer hosts, mentors, life coaches and friends from the organizations that would operate the units would supplement the guidance and support that staff members would provide to the residents in much the same way that volunteers perform those roles in the churches of the Interfaith Hospitality Network in our city. Such housing units would afford structure; supportive relationships; inspiration; motivation; encouragement; understanding; feedback; guidance; assistance; incorporation into a social network; referrals to available facilities, services and programs; good nutrition; recognition of milestones and celebration of successes. Such housing units would be sufficiently small, well planned and well managed that they would likely encounter little resistance from residents in the neighborhoods in which the units would be located.
o expect operators of social service centers and feeding sites to keep their sites and the environs of their sites free of nuisances by removing litter and by denying services to those who may be excessively troublesome
o offer fresh vegetables and fruits with free meals
o offer multi-vitamin and -mineral supplements and vitamin C supplements for free
o offer lock boxes (like post office boxes) in a secure room in which destitute people could store their state identification cards, driver's licenses, passports, birth certificates, academic transcripts, diplomae, military discharge papers, resumes, lists of references, deeds, titles, contracts, wills, powers of attorney, living trusts, precious metals, jewelry, cash, bank account documents, critical receipts, warranties, keys, digital media, etc.
Destitute people would pay for lock boxes with cash or with volunteer service in the community. Staff members of the lockbox facility would remove and compactly store the contents of the lock boxes of destitute people who would fall behind in lock box rental payments until the owners of the contents would pay box rental fees that would be in arrears.
o provide free interview and work clothes and secure storage space for interview clothes between interviews
o offer showers when the work and school schedules of destitute people allow
o offer meal services when the work and school schedules of destitute people allow
o provide low-cost laundry facilities to destitute people (so fewer of them would discard good clothes after they would become soiled)
o hire ex-offenders
o provide accommodations or institutionalization for physically or mentally incapacitated, destitute people
o increase efficiency and effectiveness of social services by reducing waste of donated time, money and materials
Mark Venzke on homelessness solutions in Gainesville, FL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSwidScu8DY
7 IMPROVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
To increase the safety and convenience or our waste management systems, I would:
1 establish and aggressively pursue a forward-looking and fully responsible energy policy
2 establish open and responsive government
3 empower socially and economically disengaged residents and revitalize struggling neighborhoods through creative, public-private collaborations
4 encourage and support grassroots revitalizations of neighborhoods
5 enhance all modes and infrastructure of transportation
6 accommodate, assist and enable destitute people effectively and responsibly
7 improve waste management
1 INSTITUTE AN ENERGY POLICY THAT WOULD PROVIDE INCREASINGLY SAFE, RESPONSIBLE, RELIABLE AND ECONOMICAL ENERGY
2 PURSUE A COALITION APPROACH TO REMEDIATION OF SUPERFUND SITES AND PROTECTION OF OUR DRINKING WATER
3 STIMULATE "FULL-SPECTRUM ENTREPRENEURSHIP"
4 ENCOURAGE AND SUPPORT GRASSROOTS REVITALIZATIONS OF NEIGHBORHOODS
5 ENHANCE ALL MODES OF TRANSPORTATION
6 ACCOMMODATE, ASSIST AND ENABLE DESTITUTE PEOPLE EFFECTIVELY AND RESPONSIBLY
7 IMPROVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
Following are elaborations of Mark's governance objectives:
1 INSTITUTE AN ENERGY POLICY THAT WOULD PROVIDE INCREASINGLY SAFE, RESPONSIBLE, RELIABLE AND ECONOMICAL ENERGY
Gainesville Regional Utilities and customers of it must move more aggressively than they have moved from destabilizing, dirty, dangerous, destructive and volatile energy sources, including coal, natural gas, nuclear fission and biomass, to reliable and safe renewable energy sources that have the least economic, environmental and social costs in the long run.
I would promote a new energy policy that would re-mission Gainesville Regional Utilities to become an energy future manifester and not, primarily, an electricity and natural gas seller. I would advocate that the utilities company would:
o promote and facilitate implementations of increased numbers of energy efficiency and conservation measures
o promote and facilitate installations of increased numbers of distributed, privately owned renewable energy systems
o promote and facilitate installations of widely distributed electric vehicle charging stations throughout Gainesville
o promote and facilitate installations of widely distributed natural gas and propane gas filling stations for vehicles in Gainesville.
I would seek to promote those through:
o advocating increased numbers of feed-in tariff projects
o advocating establishment of GRU-administered and private-organization-administered revolving loan programs
I would convene with other determined, objective-minded, clear-thinking, knowledgeable, well studied and diligent city commissioners and citizens a panel to thoroughly and publicly scrutinize the present biomass electric generating plant project. My fellow panelists and I would very publicly report the findings of our panel as we would receive them through a dedicated Internet site, through e-mail updates, through social networking updates and through news releases. Upon completion of our inquiry, my fellow panelists and I would present summaries of the findings and conclusions of our panel, and we would promote our recommendations that we would deem prudent through the same Internet communications channels and through a series of public presentations around the city.
I would promote social marketing that would encourage citizens to:
* implement energy efficiency and conservation measures in buildings
* install renewable energy systems
* use non-motorized transportation
* use public transit
* use alternatively powered vehicles
2 PURSUE A COALITION APPROACH TO REMEDIATION OF SUPERFUND SITES AND PROTECTION OF OUR DRINKING WATER
I would build a coalition of communities throughout the United States that have Superfund sites--like the Cabot-Koppers-Beazer Superfund site in north Gainesville--to pressure the federal government together to accomplish what those communities have been unable to accomplish individually:
* increase funding for the Superfund trust fund through the increase of assessments on petroleum and chemical industries
* exact from polluters of Superfund sites funds necessary to fully and safely remediate those sites and to compensate victims of the contaminations where that is possible and, where that is not possible, pressure the federal government to pay for those costs from the Superfund trust fund.
Highly contaminated and suffering communities like ours must not settle for "small bandages" on "large cancers."
I would work to assure that Gainesville businesses would store, handle and dispose of hazardous wastes properly, so Gainesville would never again have hard-to-remediate, chemically contaminated properties.
I would work to establish neighborhood hazardous waste collection centers throughout Gainesville.
I would promote social marketing that would encourage citizens to:
* use environmentally benign cleaners, polishes and conditioners
* repair fluid leaks of vehicles
* properly dispose of hazardous wastes
* use no horticultural chemicals and fertilizers or properly use minimal amounts of environmentally benign ones
3 STIMULATE (FOSTER) "FULL-SPECTRUM ENTREPRENEURSHIP"
I would promote what I call "full-spectrum entrepreneurship:" a variety of public and private initiatives to continuously increase business literacy across the age, education and income spectra of Gainesville. I would work to transfer and adapt the entrepreneurship revolution that is occurring in the high-technology sector in Gainesville to the low-technology sector. I would work to establish additional entrepreneurship education and training programs such as those currently offered through Junior Achievement and at the GTEC. Those programs would be staffed by knowledgeable, creative, enabling, dynamic and results-oriented instructors and would include:
o summer entrepreneurship classes, workshops and camps for junior high school and senior high school youth
o year-round education and training programs for adults
I would work to establish additional business incubators throughout Gainesville that would provide free and low-cost cubicles, offices and shops for those aspiring entrepreneurs who have proven themselves to be motivated, capable and persistent during their entrepreneurship trainings and who continue to demonstrate those qualities after starting their businesses. I envision a time twenty to thirty years from now when starting and operating a successful business would be as natural to most of our citizens as breathing.
I envision "business starting centers" co-located with education and training centers for trades businesses, service businesses and retail businesses--the kinds of businesses that unmarried, unemployed or under-employed young people and NASCAR dads and soccer moms could start and run. The education and training centers would be inviting and and accommodating to those who have many knowledge, skill, experience, financial and cultural challenges but who can be civil and who are sincerely desirous of building their capabilities.
4 ENCOURAGE AND SUPPORT GRASSROOTS REVITALIZATIONS OF NEIGHBORHOODS
I would encourage and support concerned, community-minded and determined neighborhood residents and business owners to plan and implement measures to enhance security, minimize crime, improve appearances, promote home ownership, promote renovations of buildings and cultivate businesses in their neighborhoods. I would enlist the strong support of all relevant city departments in that work.
5 ENHANCE ALL MODES OF TRANSPORTATION
I would seek to enhance transportation in and around Gainesville by working to:
o add small and efficient buses to the Regional Transit System fleet for use on low-ridership routes and at low-ridership times of day on otherwise high-ridership routes
o add natural gas- and electric-powered buses to the Regional Transit System fleet
o establish and promote upscale, right-sized, roomy, wireless-Internet-equipped, express commuter bus service between Gainesville and outlying communities (deboarding only within the periphery of the city)
o establish park-and-ride ("kiss-and-ride") parking lots (along inter-city bus routes) on the outskirts of Gainesville beside highly traveled commuting routes
o increase the number, qualities and safety of multi-purpose (bicycle) routes and trails
o perform timely vegetation control along multi-purpose routes and trails (This would be good work for new entrepreneurs who would offer work for disadvantaged and other-abled workers.)
o increase the number and improv the qualities and configurations of bicycle parking spaces at commercial, education, recreation and government destinations
o install electric charging stations a public bicycle racks to charge electric bicycles, motor scooters and motorcycles
o increase the number of bicycle stowage spaces on transit buses or add specially built bicycle stowage trailers to buses
o maintain roads and bridges sufficiently to minimize their costs of ownership
o increase the penalties for fraudulent practices in the cab industry
o conduct occasional, random inspections of cabs to detect fraudulent practices
o establish a waiting area for cab drivers in the southeast corner of the passenger terminal of Gainesville-Alachua County Regional Airport (The heat experienced by cab drivers while waiting for passengers in cabs in summer is brutal.)
o establish an online carpooling and ride sharing facilitation site
o conduct ongoing social marketing campaigns to encourage walking, bicycle use, public transportation use, trip planning (errand consolidation), carpooling and ride sharing, telecommuting, living near workplaces and alternatively powered vehicle use
6 ACCOMMODATE, ASSIST AND ENABLE DESTITUTE PEOPLE EFFECTIVELY AND RESPONSIBLY
I would promote policy on assisting and enabling destitute persons that would be characterized by compassion with accountability.
I would continue to expect effective and responsible social services from social service providers and considerate and responsible behavior from destitute people.
To recognize the following is sensible:
o Destitute people will not spontaneously cease to exist.
o Destitute people need places to eat, eliminate, sleep, shower and keep their belongings.
o Destitute people consume community services and cost a community money.
o Desperation drives some destitute people to engage in hostile behavior and in property and violent crime.
o The destitute sector of the population has higher incidents of criminal behavior, mental illness and addictions than the general population.
o Poverty is expensive in lost productivity, in social services, in property losses and injuries from crimes and in criminal-justice services.
o Engagement in at least some positive activities, including volunteer work of destitute people's choosing, is good for destitute people and for the community.
o Adverse living conditions make positive morale, productivity and success difficult.
o Sleeping and storing of belongings by destitute people in many unauthorized outdoor areas and shelters creates problems and costs for for destitute people and for everyone else in a community.
o Some communities have successful campgrounds for destitute people.
o Provision of a limited-size, well managed, enabling campground would help destitute people advance and would not institutionalize homelessness or attract homeless people from outside of our community.
o Provision of well managed, small-scale transitional housing would not adversely impact neighborhoods.
I would encourage members of our entire community do their parts to:
o respect destitute people
o expect civil behavior from all destitute people
o expect at least modest ongoing contributions to community life and at least modest ongoing self-improvement for those who have capacities for those
o present to destitute people "ladders" to full integration into community life: sequences of "rungs" in which each successive "rung" appears to destitute people to be attractive and reachable from each previous "rung"
o establish and deliver a wide variety of incentives for behaviors that lead to positive life outcomes and benefits to the community
Such incentives could include entertainment and sports tickets, gift certificates for movie rentals, meals, deserts, cell phone service, bicycle service, thrift store merchandise and personal care. In addition, those whose activities are positive could participate in drawings for refurbished notebook computers, bicycles and scooters.
Such behaviors would include avoiding citations and arrests, performing volunteer services, attending classes, receiving passing grades, seeking work, working, etc.
o establish and impose a wide variety of disincentives and reform-aimed counseling and activities for behaviors that lead to negative life outcomes and adverse effects on the community
Such disincentives would include progressively severe sanctions and creative sentencing. Such counseling and activities could include victim facing, restitution, peer counseling, psychological counseling, ethical counseling, spiritual counseling (of the perpetrators choice), etc.
o offer to unmotivated, destitute people and to motivated, destitute people not accommodated elsewhere campsites in a privately owned and operated, tightly run, campground for destitute people
Operating organizations would condition admittance upon presenting monthly police clearances and upon appearing outwardly sober. Campground staff members and security officers would strictly enforced rules for safety, security, maintaining quality of the facility and comfort. Zones in the campground would offer various qualities of accommodations, various numbers and qualities of facilities and amenities and various opportunities. Campground staff members would assign campers to zones based merit through points that they would earn from positive behaviors or that they would lose from negative behaviors.
o offer to motivated, destitute people accommodations in privately owned and operated, intensively managed, small-scale, scattered-site, habilitative transitional housing units that would provide safe, clean, comfortable, orderly and efficient living space
A variety of charitable organizations would own and operate such housing units. The organizations would tailor the facilities and operations of them to the particular needs of the clients who the organizations would accommodate. Such housing units would be continually staffed by at least one part-time staff person whose compensation for his or her services would be free accommodations and food in the facility. Volunteer hosts, mentors, life coaches and friends from the organizations that would operate the units would supplement the guidance and support that staff members would provide to the residents in much the same way that volunteers perform those roles in the churches of the Interfaith Hospitality Network in our city. Such housing units would afford structure; supportive relationships; inspiration; motivation; encouragement; understanding; feedback; guidance; assistance; incorporation into a social network; referrals to available facilities, services and programs; good nutrition; recognition of milestones and celebration of successes. Such housing units would be sufficiently small, well planned and well managed that they would likely encounter little resistance from residents in the neighborhoods in which the units would be located.
o expect operators of social service centers and feeding sites to keep their sites and the environs of their sites free of nuisances by removing litter and by denying services to those who may be excessively troublesome
o offer fresh vegetables and fruits with free meals
o offer multi-vitamin and -mineral supplements and vitamin C supplements for free
o offer lock boxes (like post office boxes) in a secure room in which destitute people could store their state identification cards, driver's licenses, passports, birth certificates, academic transcripts, diplomae, military discharge papers, resumes, lists of references, deeds, titles, contracts, wills, powers of attorney, living trusts, precious metals, jewelry, cash, bank account documents, critical receipts, warranties, keys, digital media, etc.
Destitute people would pay for lock boxes with cash or with volunteer service in the community. Staff members of the lockbox facility would remove and compactly store the contents of the lock boxes of destitute people who would fall behind in lock box rental payments until the owners of the contents would pay box rental fees that would be in arrears.
o provide free interview and work clothes and secure storage space for interview clothes between interviews
o offer showers when the work and school schedules of destitute people allow
o offer meal services when the work and school schedules of destitute people allow
o provide low-cost laundry facilities to destitute people (so fewer of them would discard good clothes after they would become soiled)
o hire ex-offenders
o provide accommodations or institutionalization for physically or mentally incapacitated, destitute people
o increase efficiency and effectiveness of social services by reducing waste of donated time, money and materials
Mark Venzke on homelessness solutions in Gainesville, FL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSwidScu8DY
7 IMPROVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
To increase the safety and convenience or our waste management systems, I would:
- work to establish neighborhood hazardous waste collection sites
- work to have drivers for the Public Works Department expeditiously remove clearly un-salvageable furniture and appliances from customary waste removal spots
- work to remove coarse landscape wastes (tree trunks and branches) expeditiously and to establish a composting operation in which to dispose of those landscape wastes
- work to establish an at-cost recyclables collection service for businesses