One tale of woe.
A friend of mine works for the Shreveport Police department, has been providing security at Hirsh (local shelter for approx. 1500 souls).
He picked a family of 3 to specifically help, he and his wife went and bought $178 worth of clothes for this family, which was gratefully accepted.
He told the father that he was going to try and find them a more permanent home. So he talked with some church folks that have camps for revivals, conventions etc.
One church had a modest 2 bedroom home at one of these camps and the church offered to pay for this families needs until they could get on their feet(find work).
My friend was excited beyond belief that he had been able to find a nice safe single family home for this family in only 24 hours.
As soon as the arrangements had been made he drove to Hirsh to tell this family of their good fortune. When he told the father, the fathers reply was I have to talk with my wife. This somewhat baffled my cop friend, but he disregarded his own reaction and figured they were just so stressed out that excitement wasn't in their capabilities.
So the father gets back to him and tells him they would like to go see it. They do and when they get back to Hirsh the father informs my cop buddie they have decided to stay at Hirsh.
Apparently they were used to living on govt handouts and the thought of having their own home and the expectation of finding work and fending for themselves, wasn't something they wanted to do.
These are the folks that elected Naggin Nagin and our lost Gov. Blanko on their promises of improved hand out programs.
There are many folks in these arenas that want independence and thier lives back, but unfortunately there are many from the inner city of N.O., that have never worked and entitlement is a way of life that they do not want to change.
As myself and many of the people of North Louisiana have discussed, there are many of us that would happily provide for folks caught in this tragedy, the problem is trying to determine those who want a helping hand from those that want to be taken care of.
As my cop buddie found out, he thought he had found a family with strong character that wanted a helping hand, sadly that wasn't the case.
Lots of folks that have the means to provide a home or share a home are reluctant to do so, it's damn tough to determine the character of the potential recipients. So we continue to donate and physically help loading, unloading, distributing, etc. We work the assumption that those that want a helping hand will shine above those that just want to be taken care of and we are keeping a vigilant eye for them.
I pray for those that want a helping hand that are stuck with those that just want to take what is given, even if it isn't theirs.
The strong will survive and the rest... Well Texas is going to find out their welfare rolls are about to expand massively. You see the welfare mentality isn't changed by catastrophe.
Sad but true... |
