BY DAN VALENTI

Sarcasm: I did an online search of the Lovely Linda’s new tagline called “Love Pittsfield”. This is what I found. GE’s two postindustrial toxic waste dumps that are called leaky landfills, including one that abuts an elementary school that is full of children. Could GE’s capped PCBs and the other possible capped industrial chemicals have anything to do with Pittsfield’s Level 5 public schools? Decades of population loss and decades of lost living wage jobs that is blamed on the late Jack Welch, who left Pittsfield well over 40 years ago and then made Pittsfield into GE’s dump decades later in return for the Good Old Boys receiving 30 pieces of silver. Predictable Pittsfield politics always screwing over the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski. Decades of excessively high state and local taxes. Overpriced Level 5 public schools. Matt Kerwood’s “Creative Accounting” scams and slush funds. A dangerous downtown – with daily shootings by the over 1,000 gang members who call Pittsfield home – that is also known as “Social Services Alley” and the inner-city neighborhoods that surround North Street’s empty storefronts called “The Ring of Poverty”. A growing underclass and homeless population. Mayor Linda Tyer living in a mansion in an elitist Gated Community with her third and richest husband yet: multimillionaire CPA Barry Clairmont, who says that he patrols inner-city Pittsfield at 3am. Marijuana odors stinking up residential neighborhoods with no action taken by City Hall. Backbencher useless State Representatives who do nothing in Boston in return for 6-figure public pay plus perks. PAC Man Richie Neal always cashing in at K Street’s corporate lobbyist firms. Maryland Markey spewing his HOT AIR in the Swamp about the Democrats’ Green New Deal propaganda while he openly supports GE’s plan to put a toxic waste dump that is also known as a leaky landfill inside of a watershed in the polluted Housatonic River in Lee. Elizabeth Warren doing nothing for Main Street USA, while she strongly supports the sitting U.S. President who took in more campaign donation cash from Wall Street in 2020 than any politician in U.S. history. Joe Biden charging the Kapanski family 41-year high U.S. inflation so he can eat more cake. The Dirty Bird (Berkshire Eagle)’s fourth rate yellow journalism that says all of this failed leadership is progress.

The majority of the council didn’t even want to discuss the homeless problem in Pittsfield? Maybe because that would lead to the subject of the illegal immigrants being brought into Pittsfield and that is a place they don’t want to go. What city doesn’t want to discuss its homeless problem and try to make the situation better? The councilors that voted for no discussion on this issue are not good for this city and no citizen should vote for them again.

“You’re Changing this World with your Love”.

https://www.berkshireeagle.com/news/local/berkshire-poodles-lee-kohlenberger-pittsfield-court/article_793b6dcc-3542-11ed-8b2f-1fb5504ff408.html

Why would Andrea Harrington pursue criminal charges in a civil contract case? Imagine if she did that in her own fraud case? She owed her credit card company way more that this guy owed his customer.

Andrea belongs in jail

How much does it cost to send a street painter to summer scohol?
Better question: How much will it cost the Kapanski’s to pay for the consultant to decide if our street painters need summer scohol?

Long post, but CK has them talking! Even though the article mentions CK’s perspective on the homeless as an enforcement one they should realize it was a way to get a conversation moving on the issue. The issue those who claim to be so concerned about and want to talk about only when they are ready to on their terms.

Berkshire Eagle:
Our Opinion: Pittsfield’s persistent homelessness problem demands the attention of our community’s open hearts and minds

It’s a topic before the City Council. It’s on the minds of readers who write us letters to the editor. And it’s certainly a relevant topic for those who live the issue every day on the streets. Pittsfield’s homelessness problem appears to be getting worse.
While it’s hard to get reliable and exact data on the problem, the Three County Continuum of Care estimates the homeless population in Berkshire County has nearly doubled over the last two years. Given the county’s demographics, it’s not surprising that such a trend would be particularly and disproportionately visible in Pittsfield. And it is — from the controversy-attracting encampments in Springside Park to an apparent increase in the number of folks living on or around the downtown streets to the noted increase in panhandling throughout Pittsfield.

This should distress everyone. First and foremost, it signals that more and more of our neighbors are struggling to make ends meet and, for whatever combination of reasons, are forced to live in extreme vulnerability. Aside from these folks’ experiences, there is also the residual effect on the entire community’s quality of life. Real public health risks emerge when people living amid public spaces don’t have access to basic amenities like medical care, bathrooms or sanitary products. Then there is the impact on the adjacent private properties, such as business-owners worried about the potential effects on attracting clientele and particularly tourists.
Some will downplay the suffering of our fellow human beings, merely regarding the issue as an inconvenience or obstacle to commerce and public order. Others will rightly acknowledge the humanity of people clearly in need of assistance, but assert that it is problematic to acknowledge community stakeholders’ real concerns, from public health and safety to socio-economic trends, as this issue seems to worsen. Yet the issue of homelessness demands not just our full attention but our open hearts and minds as well. Needless to say, it’s a complicated problem; that also means any workable solutions will be similarly complex and multifaceted, just like the systemic factors exacerbating the problem.

Yes, we have a housing crisis and stubborn inflation, but beyond economic matters our region and nation continue to grapple with an appallingly underequipped mental health system, a brutal opioid epidemic and myriad other forces outside of individual control that have complicated the lives of so many in our Pittsfield and broader Berkshire community. With job openings becoming more plentiful in the greater Pittsfield area, it stands to reason that targeted work placement and skills training programs could give some of these folks a bit more economic security and fill a regional labor vacuum in one fell swoop. Still, this or any one-track solution must confront the fact that there are often individual and institutional barriers between the ladder of upward mobility and those who need it most — whether that’s addiction and mental health crisis or lack of internet access and mailing address.

That doesn’t mean we should discard potential solutions like job placement, but it does mean we need a more holistic approach to match the breadth of a problem that is obviously outstripping the current services model. We must continue to think big about a future with systemic solutions to those persistent problems, but we also must think small, in the here and now, about what alternatives we can provide in the immediate future to folks facing deep struggles that have put them out on our streets. That demands our joint attention as a community. It will likely take some creativity. It will certainly not be cheap. Still, the costs of the status quo shouldn’t be acceptable to anyone.

Earlier this year, a community hub initiative debuted, aiming to bring together public safety, advocacy and service agencies for a multidisciplinary, more responsive approach to helping high-risk folks in the community — from the homeless to those experiencing housing instability before they become homeless. We’d like to hear from those involved in the hub effort on how their perspective of the problem and how a broader community response might evolve along with the problem.

At the most recent Pittsfield City Council meeting, Councilor Charles Kronick petitioned the council to hold a public hearing to address the impact of homelessness on the Pittsfield community. The petition was shelved, but we appreciate the councilor raising the issue. We note, however, that Councilor Kronick’s petition largely characterized pervasive homelessness and potential solutions as a matters of “enforcement,” which leaves out discussion of so many factors mentioned above that should be central to any conversation seeking to address this complex problem.
Perhaps there should be a public forum in Pittsfield, as Councilor Kronick suggested, but one that lets all perspectives speak: residents (both the housed and homeless alike), public safety agents, service agency workers, public health officials, business owners, community leaders — everyone. In fact, it could also be an opportunity to let the hub coalition better introduce its collaborative approach to the public while lifting up the substantive perspectives of specific organizations represented within the hub. Neither this nor any approach is going to suddenly highlight an easy, cheap, convenient solution to the problem of homelessness, but we owe it to our most vulnerable neighbors and our entire community to find the solutions worth pursuing. A day after the Pittsfield City Council saw the issue of homelessness on its agenda, an Eagle news story by reporter Matt Martinez gave readers an up-close-and-personal look at the daily realities faced by those experiencing homelessness in Pittsfield. He interviewed a couple who will soon celebrate their one-year anniversary with each other while living on the street. The woman is three months pregnant and has a urinary tract infection. They do not have regular access to clean bathrooms, and she cannot afford the medication she was prescribed to treat her UTI, which is not covered by her MassHealth insurance. Whatever disagreements and suppositions we might begin with in trying to tackle the homelessness problem, hopefully we would all agree that these folks need help, and that we can do more to provide a floor of dignity and amenity that might improve the quality of life for our entire community. Perhaps we won’t all agree on exactly what that help looks like or where it’s offered or how much it costs, but if we can at least agree on the morally necessary task of taking up that conversation together, we might get closer to the elusive solutions.