Compassionate Termination Suggested

"How do we create an environment in downtown to recognize the needs of the homeless and balance the needs of other people who come there to live and work and to be entertained?" Mayor Kay Barnes

It is my information, gleaned not only from published reports but from discussions with various sources and from eavesdropping on people in restaurants, cafes, and halls, that "homeless" people are to be kept away from the Library District - the downtown area historically dominated by the Kemper family. Jonathan Kemper, president of Commerce Bank and a trustee of the Kansas City Public Library, has used his influence to move the library to an old renovated bank across the street from his office. "Jonathan's building" will serve as the centerpiece for the commercial real estate remake.

Kansas Citians are more than glad that Mr. Kemper made the new library happen. Of course critics have expressed concerns over certain details, for instance the removal of the library from its traditional residence in the historic Civic Center. And questions have been raised about the financial structuring of the deal and what seems to be an exorbitant cost of renovation in comparison with average square foot building costs for similar projects.

But the most controversial detail is the alleged plan to banish unspecified persons, commonly referred to as "homeless" persons, from the eight-block Library District area. That "covert" plan, which everybody seems to know about, wrongly identifies homelessness with criminality. Of course common sense dictates that the crime rate would be higher within a houseless vagrant population, given their natural Hobbesian right to survive by any means, than among people who enjoy housing, but I have not seen statistical studies to that effect - I did see statistics several years ago indicating that the United States Congress had one of the highest crime rates of any group in the nation. However that might be, I overheard a conversation among political and business lieutenants that the police would cooperate with Kemper's Tower Security force and Kemper's Yellow Jackets to keep "homeless" people out of the Library District, directing them to the Compassion Zone a few blocks east. Allegedly Mayor Barnes, and definitely many downtown residents, approve of that unpublished plan.

Now the official public rhetoric asserted by the library's director, Mr. Joe Green, welcomed "homeless" people to the library, and he asserted that they will not be a problem. Of course there has in fact been a problem in the past, not only because of the instinctive fear of poverty among the bulging-belly bourgeoisie, but because a few unruly vagrants and petty criminals have in fact managed to ruin everyone else's enjoyment of libraries. Patrons lost that enjoyment with help from library administrators who failed, after taking their seat upstairs via the private elevator, to protect quiet enjoyment of the old facility by the dwindling number of traditional library patrons.

If it were not for the failure in security which continued the status quo, and gave everyone good cause to believe that the new library would be blighted accordingly and to firm forceful steps to prevent it, we would not be having such an acrimonious and hurtful discourse over "homelessness" in respect to the Library District and surrounding neighborhoods. No doubt some good will come of the controversy. Perhaps the laws, regulations, and standards of decency will be observed and enforced everywhere, and perhaps more effort will be made by political and business leaders to give people who want good homes and houses a hand up instead of devoting most of their time to serving big business to such an extent that many hard-working but impoverished Kansas Citians are saying of the big corporate projects, "There ain't nothin' in it for us."

No, of course not,  "homeless" people should not be banned from the new library because they do not have housing, nor should they be penned up in the Compassion Zone. Yet there are a few people who do have homes and jobs who should resign from their positions or be involuntarily terminated. There are plenty of us to take up the slack. That would help create a new library and community that would recognize the needs of people who come downtown to live and study and work and play.