Indianz.Com > News > Elizabeth Cook-Lynn: The problem with Rapid City’s mayor
Homelessness, a pesky and inconvenient problem
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
We can all contemplate what is at hand as we watch and listen to our own Mayor Steve Allender (no historian, he) speak at a recent press conference at city hall (September 30) about “the homelessness.”
Allender was telling his audience that there has been an influx from the nearby Indian reservations and that “many are attracted by the free food served.” He calls this influx “the homeless.”
He says there are 11 groups providing the meals for these people. He says he talked to some of the people who are eating in the park who tell him they come “because they can get fed every day.” Another source of this information is the Sheriff’s office and the Police Department as well as the Cornerstone Rescue Mission personnel who go about “disbanding” homeless congregations continuously. It is a problem because this community cannot continue to absorb the cost, Allender tells his council.
He says “I am here to tell you that the government cannot adopt everyone who has failed to make it on their own.” He says that these people choose to camp outdoors in the park rather than seek “the homeless services that we have provided, nor will they even accept those services.”
He worries that this population has been growing.
Raid City mayor closed the press conference to our local corespondent saying she’s not a real journalist. He physically pushes a member of Mni Luzahan Creek Patrol stating he doesn’t want a circus inside.
Posted by Chynna Lockett on Saturday, October 17, 2020
NATIVE SUN NEWS TODAY
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Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is a retired Professor of Native Studies. She taught at Eastern Washington University and Arizona State University. She currently lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota. She has written 15 books in her field. One of her latest is Anti-Indianism in Modern America: A Voice from Tatekeya’s Earth, published by University of Illinois Press.
Note: Copyright permission Native Sun News Today
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