Crazy Conflict of Interest

I'm on the board of the Chamber of Commerce. The committee I serve on is the Smart Community Committee. The purpose of Smart Communitee is just what the name implies, do things smarter - greener, more efficient, etc. The presentation we saw last week was on Sustainability. Most of the focus was on growth management issues...one slide rocked me...then the moral dilema of the issue really shook me. And I had no idea.

It appears our little burrow of 90,000 is the best place in the Southeastern US to be homeless. With only 0.2% of Florida's population, we have 3% of Florida's homeless population...15 times what is should be relative to our population. Here's why...

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041022/MAGAZINE/410220331/1249

http://www.lighthousemin.org/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1119366547&archive=&start_from=&ucat=&

According to our fine city's Master Planner (the nice man giving us the Sustainability presentation), this is a major problem to the long term sustainability of our city. The drugs, prostitution, thievery, and general malfeasance that takes place around these two downtown locations (which are 400 yards away from each other), is a major detriment to our city's long term survivability. He mentioned that we have become the MECCA for homeless, attracting homeless folks from as far away as Portland, OR. He SAID (and I quote), "whenever these ministries come to speak at our church, I stand up and tell everyone do not support these ministries, its a problem."

I truly get his point. By doing our part and then some, we've made our community super attractive to the homeless from all over our region of the country.

However, we're called to be salt and light, to excercise our faith, to care for the poor and downtroden. Hence my dilema.

So where do you fall on this?

I'm leaning toward the fact that Jesus wouldn't care about bricks and mortar and property values and sustainability...all that stuff is crash and burn...but the souls of men are eternal. What an opportunity we have...what if we were to take this thing to the next level and cater to 6% or 12%? What if we cured the homeless problem in the Southeast?