Don’t take my word for it;


“There’s no good way to say this, but we are a nice community to be homeless in,” he said. By that, he means that our social service agencies such as The Banquet and Bishop Dudley Hospitality House are strong, well-run organizations. The churches in Sioux Falls are financially stable. The people are generous.



I become less surprised each time Poops tells us exactly what he thinks. First he didn’t sign up for the job, then he thinks candidates are jealous of him when he uses inside information to benefit his campaign, then he is angry about alleged pervert cops now he acts like living homeless in Sioux Falls is the lap of luxury.

It is amazing how incredibly tone deaf our mayor is. He has NO clue of the amount of slum housing and poverty we have in this city, and he doesn’t seem to care, as long as the non-profits take care of it for us.

The city has the resources to make public transit, employment and housing better, but they live in the shiny glass house on the hill and wish the minions below the best of luck.

Many of our issues with food insecurity, housing, addiction and employment could be simply fixed by seeking higher wage employers to which Poops response is ‘we can’t continue this wage inflation, it’s not sustainable.’ But I guess we can continue to allow non-profits to bail out the poor?

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read this article about the DTSF developers behind Cherapa XXX;

And concerns about Cherapa Place colliding with Bishop Dudley Hospitality House or Union Gospel Men’s Center have not made developers wary. Although there might be the possibility that rising values could cause the shelters to sell, overall Pendar Properties hopes to work on a solution that works for all parties.

“I think what we do is we make this work together. There is a division, but it can be something we make positive,” Scherschligt told the Argus Leader.

Gee, like putting them somewhere else to begin with? It reminds me of the quiet zones. This stuff should have been negotiated to begin with, now we are going to throw even more tax dollars at the problems (that is who is paying for the quiet zones and eventually the relocation of the shelters).

I don’t expect our leaders to have a ton of vision, well maybe I do, but common sense would be nice.

I have often assumed that it was only a matter of time that people started dying in the parking lot at the Dudley House. Only a few months ago a stabbing occurred across the street and we also found out recently that calls to that intersection (area) make up 20% of ALL police calls in our city.

Now someone has died in their car in the parking lot due to a fire. While there is an ongoing investigation, some of my city hall moles have told me what initially was found. It was likely NOT foul play or an ACCIDENT. There is also a rumor going around that the person was a resident of the facility but was having some conflicts with them.

Like I said, the investigation is ongoing, but the SFFD needs to be upfront and honest with what happened, no matter what it was. You must first face the truth before solving a problem.

As you know, I have been pressuring the Mayor and the City Council to act with a task force that involves the entire neighborhood and other city resources. I have been told over the last couple of days the new Police Chief has been trying to come up with a strategy to fix some of the issues. I remain adamant this is a community issue that must to solved publicly and transparently involving many groups. I would even be willing to serve on the task force since this issue does overflow into my neighborhood almost a mile away.

I honestly believe that the reason no public task force is being put together is because it is 4 months from an election and if certain people in office just ignore the problem or try to quietly solve it on their own it will just go away.

I wish Chief Thum the best of luck, but I think he knows this will take a village to solve not a quiet baton.

In November, the Director of the Dudley House Homeless shelter, Madeline Shields, shared her frustration with Jon Micheals on FORUM. While she praised the SFPD she shared a lot of frustration with how the VA doesn’t help (without using their name) and that Public Transit is almost non-existent on the weekends. While I would agree with her public transit is a complete turd mobile and the VA is a joke, there are solutions.

She said that it is hard for people who live in the shelter to get to work on the weekends if they work at hotels without public transit. First off, the hotels could pick them up since most of them have shuttle buses and secondly, this is what happens when you build a shelter where there are few jobs nearby for those who live there.

As for the VA, why not have a constant/permanent contact with them, or better yet, get in touch with our supposed three pro-veteran congressional delegates and tell them the issues (oh that’s right none of them have ever served.)

Shields also said that in order for them to get work, they must have a birth certificate to get an ID and those items should be FREE to the residents. Or, the shelter could start and endowment fund to help them pay for it? They come up with $200 a day for lunch, but don’t have a fund for IDs? OR get a hold of our legislators and get it changed.

There is also a need for more FELON FRIENDLY housing, which I would agree, but developers and contractors work on a GREED only basis. TIFs for Condos NOT for former CONVICTS.

She also says many choose to live outside instead of taking advantage of the shelter. While this is true, they certainly don’t need to be using your parking lot, we can come up with options.

I get her frustration with how many government programs are set up OR not set up, but this is why I have been telling people you have to put many heads together to come up with a solution(s). Just going on FORUM and complaining about it doesn’t fix it.

Honestly, I don’t understand the resistant to trying to solve this issue. Shields is right, it’s not all in her lap, but she has to be willing to reach out for solutions. Homelessness doesn’t solve itself on its own. Maybe after the City Council and Mayor get their 30% raise next year, they’ll start tackling the homeless issue ☹