A fawning “report” in the Aspen Daily News breathlessly announced more federal COVID funds for Glitter Gulch, otherwise known as Aspen, Colorado. To be exact, $538,073.
You know the place. It’s where the house pictured above just sold for $72 million, and houses routinely go for $3-5,000/sq ft. Where insiders such as newspaper reporters and city council members get slope-side multimillion dollar homes for dimes on the dollars under the taxpayer-subsidized housing program.
The fed money this time is for Aspen’s vagrants. Er, I mean “homeless.” Er, I mean “persons experiencing homelessness.” Whom, we’re told, are camping on the sidewalks and pooping in the gutters because they’re afflicted with something called “shelter-resistance.”
Pity the left’s Sisyphean task in the dictionary of euphemisms. Once they find and roll up the hill a suitable euphemism for “vagrant,” such as “homeless,” the euphemism rolls back down the hill because it becomes associated with people who behave like vagrants.
Then they have to find and roll up the euphemism hill another heavy, awkward boulder, such as “persons experiencing homelessness.” But alas, that one rolls back down for the same reason – it becomes associated with persons who behave like vagrants.
If the left started calling vagrants “saints,” their media allies would of course go along with them, and also demand that everyone else go along with them, but the word “saints,” too, would soon be abandoned because it would become associated with people who behave like vagrants.
Remember when the word “equity” was not associated with anti-white discrimination and urban riots?
Back to Aspen’s vagrants. Aspen already has a “homeless shelter” for people who say they can’t afford a roof over their heads but nonetheless choose to live in one of the most expensive places in the world. I’ve talked with the guy who runs it, and he’s honest and pretty competent. He told the newspaper reporter that he averages “five to six regulars per day.” He told the reporter there’s been no recent uptick in the usage. (So why’s this part of COVID relief?)
Do the math. Divide the fed money of $538,072 (this is just the new fed money and doesn’t include previous federal, state and local money) by six users of the service. That comes out to about $90,000/user. (In fairness, however, I should note that they say part of this money will go to “data entry and administrative costs.” Huh.)
Here’s a suggestion. Let’s give each user $10,000 to just go away. We can even throw in bus fare to San Francisco where they strive mightily to attract vagrants/homeless persons/persons experiencing homelessness who are afflicted with shelter resistance. In fact, if we play our cards right, I’m guessing that San Fran would put up half the $10,000.
With the savings, we could build more $72,000,000 mansions where rich people could loll about while patting themselves on the back for their generosity in squeezing a half mil out of taxpayers in Toledo to support their personal Aspen feel-goodery.
the Aspen beat 
Once the word is out, the ‘er “home challenged” from parts unknonwn will most certainly set their sights on Aspen. Who wouldn’t? I lived in Hawaii off and on over the course of 50 years. The gradual creep of homeless camps from the rural areas (San Francisco) to the city parks and beaches of Honolulu, was readily preventable if only the powers that be insisted that homeless utilize the new shelters provided for their benefit. Instead, the “homeless” preferred oceanside living where there were no rules against drug use. No one dared object less they be judged as unsympathetic. One brilliant solution was giving free oneway tickets back to the mainland courtesy of Honolulu taxpayers. A perpetual revolving door was established. It wasn’t bordering on insanity, it was insanity. It’s the reason I finally gave up and left the islands and haven’t looked back.
Glenn,
Did someone ask for this money? Was it just the result of a money blimp? How did it settle in Aspen and not Parachute, Rifle, Silt or New Castle? Is there an Aspen lobbyist? Maybe one of the guides has a $72,000,000 home in Aspen?
Hysterical and oh, so true. Come to think of it, wasn’t vagrant up the euphemism hill from bum? Also, if you look into some of the taxpayer funded programs, a good deal of the money gets syphoned off by those who run the various non-profit services. Some of the administrators pay themselves very handsomely.
Wow Glenn,
I was just getting ready to send a few dozen bus loads of folks from San Francisco to Aspen.
Maybe yours and ours will pass each other somewhere in Nevada.
So, a vagrant by any other name…. Shakespeare is still relevant.
A century ago, before euphemism inflation, these people were known as bindle stiffs — literally, useless persons with bundles (not shopping carts, which represent “bundle inflation.”) Back then the revolving doors were freight trains, not buses and airplanes, which represent transportation inflation.
During the Great Fire of 1910, bindle stiffs found in the streets and rail yards of Spokane were rounded up and sent to the front ranks of the firefighters in Idaho and Montana, much as such people in London had been impressed into service in the British Navy. This anticipated “workfare,” a popular notion in the late 20th century that soon died on the vine. Today we are more enlightened.
“Unhoused.”
Aspen certainly does pose housing challenges to those who neglected to bring money, and find themselves in competition with those capable of spending thousands per night. When I lived in Aspen in the eighties, I adopted strategies including a hide-a-bed sofa in my office, which was less unusual than one might think.
It can be difficult enough for a working professional who is insufficiently grubstaked, and requires creativity, hard work, and flexibility.
Definitely not an appropriate venue for those who expect to support themselves with cardboard signs. There are plenty of places that are less expensive–most of them, actually–for those who don’t care to try at all.
Fair observations, Joseph. On the other hand ….
That piece is just as good the second time around…
I hadn’t read that before. Thank you for the link.
I heard about ten years ago Aspen sheriff dept actually sent homeless people to Hawaii with one tickets ….was that true?
I never heard that one. I’d be very surprised. More likely, the sheriff paid for the one-way tickets TO Aspen.
Persons enjoying a nomadic lifestyle…
“Urban campers”
Neal Boortz used to call them ‘urban outdoorsmen,’ which has become my favorite euphemism
Realistically, the money for Aspen’s very well run programs to help the homeless (or whatever we choose to call them) has little to do with helping the homeless and a great deal to do with keeping Aspen’s affluent comfortable enjoying their wealth.
rkd, please abandon your plans to inform Glenn Beaton’s fans out of natural law, common sense, reality–please, just go back to your lib/lefty/”progressive”/moral relativist/subjectivist/secularist/humanist/Democrat robot reading habits at Aspen Times–they love your kind there. And then go off in the corner and have sex with yourself. You will feel much better then than after such a post about “Aspen’s very well run programs to help the homeless…”” Ha, ha, ha, oh yes bureaucracy is “very well run,” Oh, yes!!! Ha, ha, ha, and HA, HA, HA AGAIN!!!!!! Ha, ha, ha!!!!
Homeless … vagrants … housing challenged … etc.
Let’s just revive the terms like hobos, bums and winos.
These are much better descriptors for much of these people.
Whatever we choose to call them, what I want to know is why Twitter’s Jack Dorsey — at the opposite end of the wealth spectrum — tries so hard to look like one of them.
Ouch!!!!
Today’s local rag outlines a proposal to spend $15,000,000 on Aspen’s homeless problem which will include separate locations for tents, for RV’s, and include administrative offices. Insanity!