City officials met with Larry Rice and his army of homeless guys Tuesday about the downtown Hopeville Tunnel. The tunnel is an old railroad tunnel under Tucker Boulevard that has become a makeshift homeless shelter for those both downtown and downtrodden for some time now, and Reverend Larry Rice is even known to direct people it’s direction. However, the city says the conditions are “inhumane” and the tunnel needs to be destroyed.
“What we have here are really inhumane conditions,” Siedhoff said. “I find it shameful that Reverend Rice would actually direct people into conditions like this.”
The Rev. Larry Rice of New Life Evangelistic Center is the tunnel group’s biggest advocate. He wants city officials to give an acre of land to the founders of ‘Hopeville’ at least until they can find better accommodations.
For one, we can’t even imagine how an ancient railroad tunnel being lived in by tons of homeless people can be anything but a hellhole at this time, so though we haven’t been there, we see the city’s point on that one. But yes, that sucks for the homeless people shacking up in that tunnel that now have less than a month to get out. No one likes to move. You have to beg all your friends for boxes and then when you get enough boxes it just bums you out because you know you could totally make a kick ass fort with all these, but you have to use them to pack up plates and stuff instead. Then you have to hire a moving company or do the thing yourself which totally sucks either way. Plus if you get your friends to help, its like you’re their indentured servant forever afterwards because they are always going to be all like “Yeah, I could get the next round…but I did help you move that one time seven years ago.” Plus there is…wait. These people are homeless! What do ya got? The 14 coats you wear at once, all year-long and maybe a shopping cart full of cans. If you have much else, you really ought to be thinking about selling some of it and moving up in the world.
Rice later released a statement that though his goal of packing more homeless in to an abandoned tunnel might not be working out, his “Go break in to the cars of the 22 year olds that spend all weekend at the Landing” program is working great.
KSDK talked with a Hopeville inhabitant who said “If you want to help, do more than just badger us or talk down to us like all we want to do is just beg for what we want, ask for what…” Shut up homeless guy!
via KSDK
More: YouTube video of Hopeville
