Richard Tripp’s February blog

( Click on Pictures to enlarge!)

 

 

First off this month I would like to introduce you to the newest member of my family, Alexander Leroy Clark, he was born on January 31, 2012 at 11:58 PM in Springfield Missouri; he makes my 6th   great grandchild. In the first picture he looks like he's in deep thought, in the second picture he looks like when he wants attention he knows how to get it.

It's time to start preparing for the spring break event, which will happen on Saturday, April 7, 2012 at the Scottish rites Temple building at 1330 E. Lynnwood Blvd. between noon and 5 PM on that day, on April 6 & 7^th we will be preparing for the event by setting up tables, chairs, and sorting materials to hand out to the poor and homeless at the spring break event, please feel free to go to our website at www.coppinc.com to find out how to help and what time to be there each day.

This is the same location that we held our event last year, and we want to thank the Scottish rites organization for the use of their facilities again.

Also at the event this year we will be presenting the second annual Compassion Awards to members of our community that have helped us help those hurting over the years, the award goes to special people that have gone  above and beyond normal means to help us take care of Kansas City’s poor and homeless brothers and sisters, the compassion award goes to those that truly shows what compassionate people are really about, they walk the walk, not just talk the talk, and personally I think they are truly very  special Heroes in our community.

While we have had a very mild winter so far, we have had several homeless brothers die partly because of the elements and partly because of human error so to speak.

In December they found a homeless brother frozen to death in a park at 8^th and Harrison.   I have been told by several homeless brothers and sisters that this person tried to get into several of the shelters and the members of the staff at the shelters turned him away, because he had the smell of Alcohol on his breath. What a senseless death.  Also in January we had a homeless brother burned to death when his tent at his camp caught on fire. This homeless brother I knew personally, and I think what happened is he had a Epileptic  seizure and fell into his camp fire. What a waste of a life.  It tears my heart out every time I hear of one of these brothers and sisters dying from the elements or stupidity.

I'm sure you all have seen the commentary in the newspaper and on television about the homeless camps that are being cleared out by the KC PD. Starting about three weeks ago the police started raiding homeless camps throughout the metro area.  You can bet for every one you hear about there’s ten you don’t hear about.  I would like each of you reading this to think for a moment and ask yourself the question:  If someone got in a fight on your corner,  would it be right for the police to come in your house and tell you that because something happened on your block completely out of your control, that you would have to pick up and move your belongings... Especially if you didn't have anywhere to go and you knew that the police were going to throw away all of your personal belongings in a trash truck.  What would you do?  How would you react? Innocent of the assault , but because it was nearby , they could use that excuse to destroy everything you had and at the same time arrest you and make you pay for them to haul your belongings away.  In a sense that's exactly what happened to the people in the camp the police just cleared out. Would you be angry?

I just saw an interview of a police officer talking about the conditions the people living at the camps had to face and how no one should live like that.  Well Mr. Officer... I pray that you never have to live under those conditions because I don't think you could survive it. And if you think the majority of the homeless likes living in the conditions they have to live in your wrong. The majority of the homeless brothers and sisters would love to have a home, and be able to pay the bills when they come in every month, and have a job with all the benefits, but unfortunately due to the economy and other factors that opportunity has passed a lot of them by. A majority of the homeless brother and sister's living in the camps do it for one reason and one reason only... it's called survival. 

With that said I would like to ask members of  my community to join with me in calling faxing and writing all of our city, and county officials and ask them to please stop the tyranny and Gestapo tactics being used on Kansas city’s poor and homeless brothers and sisters that are just trying to survive, and remind the politicians that we the public put them  in office,  and we can vote them out of office if they let these kind of actions continue to happen to the poor here in our community.    

  Richard G Tripp director Care Of Poor People