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A consortium of local nonprofits are asking Blaine County to take more aggressive action to help the nearly 100 residents they say are living out the winter in “substandard housing” without heat, electricity or running water.
During the Blaine County commissioner’s regular meeting Tuesday in Hailey, The Hunger Coalition, Alliance of Idaho, Blaine County School District, Blaine County Charitable Fund, Blaine County Recreation District and St. Luke’s Center for Community Health delivered a cosigned letter asking the county and other jurisdictions to declare a state of emergency, mobilize local resources, create a task force and establish a “robust communication platform” to take on the what they view as an ongoing crisis.
“Many area nonprofits have come together in recent weeks to provide short-term assistance, and in doing so, have no doubt averted medical emergencies and even fatalities,” the letter states. “But our nonprofits are not equipped to provide longer-term, systemic solutions. We are not experts in emergency housing or emergency response operations.
“Disaster and crisis management is a legitimate function of government, which is responsible for the health, safety and well-being of our communities.”
The letter comes eight days after the closure of a temporary shelter at The Community Campus in Hailey. The shelter took shape through coordination by local organizations with help from government officials and the Red Cross.
The need for the shelter arose after nearly three dozen people were pushed out of their temporary hotel-room accommodations on Dec. 27 as hotel rooms across the Wood River Valley filled for the holiday season, Blaine County Commissioner Angenie McCleary said at the time.
The hotel rooms had been funded by the county, the city of Ketchum, the Blaine County Charitable Fund, the Blaine County Housing Authority and The Hunger Coalition in response to hundreds of Peruvian families arriving in the Wood River Valley—more than 150 with children—seeking asylum in the United States.
Now, the organizations say that temporary housing answers like hotel rooms are not sustainable through the winter. On Jan. 21, 48 individuals that are being temporarily housed in the county’s hotels with lose their accommodations due to preexisting reservations, according to the letter submitted to the county.
The organizations also referenced families living in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, some with young children. Living in cars, sheds and trailers, these families do not have access to basic amenities such a heat, electricity or plumbing.
On Jan. 4, the letter states, more than 100 people were being housed by case managers from The Hunger Coalition, Blaine County Charitable Fund and St. Luke’s in temporary locations, like hotel rooms and private homes.
“The nonprofit organizations who have been managing this humanitarian crisis and coordinating temporary housing efforts are reaching a breaking point,” the letter states. “We do not have adequate staff, resources, and cannot mobilize in the manner that government can and is designed to do. Eventually our funding for temporary housing will also run out.”
The letter calls for emergency declarations from Blaine County, Ketchum, Sun Valley, Hailey, Bellevue, and Carey “to send a loud and clear message to our state government as well as mobilize local resources.” It also calls for a “solution-oriented taskforce” to draft and implement safe housing policies and practices, as well as for the county government to set up a platform capable of “real-time situational reporting by community stakeholders.”
On Tuesday, Muffy Davis, chair of the Blaine County commissioners, said the board could continue discussing “possibly a resolution or proclamation” to spread awareness of the situation, but doubted it met “the true definition of a disaster.”
Blaine County Emergency Manager Chris Corwin said Gov. Brad Little would need to uphold any disaster declaration coming from the county, and such a declaration would only result in “emergency” funding for seven days.
“If you go to the [Federal Emergency Management Agency definition of “disaster”] … it is something related to people being removed from their housing, having a severe weather situation and losing their homes due to cold weather or maybe having no power in their homes,” Corwin said. “You need to have an event to pinpoint. This is typical, average weather for our region. People have come here without proper housing—[FEMA] is not going to support that.”
Corwin added that a disaster declaration would also not necessitate an appearance from the Red Cross, which facilitated homeless shelter setup training in Hailey last month.
“They told us during our training, they can’t come without a disaster declaration but can decline to come during a disaster,” he said.
In the meantime, Davis asked for all groups to continue to collaborate.
“I think right now what needs to happen is all parties need to come together in support,” Davis said. “We’ve discussed what the county can do and what it can’t. We have to look at other ways to address this, and we need everyone to come together to find these solutions. There are issues with employers held accountable, so it needs to be everyone coming to the table.” 
Here is some more "fertilizer" to add to this cow pie.
The United Nations is funding our illegal alien problem. The UN is paying illegals, and the non-profits who assist illegals, to cross our border. No kidding! Look it up. The illegals are making way more money to cross than they could ever hope to make than if they stayed in their jobs at home.
Most of UN funding comes from American taxpayers. Nice little racket Biden and the Dem/Republican establishment have going on here. You wonder why we have this explosive problem. Look no further. This is a type of money laundering (of which the Biden/Clinton Family is expert at) where the politicians can escape being revealed for secretly funding the mass Border Crisis by moving the money through the UN and non-profits who then give cash to illegals. The illegals are making $40k from the UN and non-profits. The politicians can claim deniability for this racket once the money goes to the UN. And the UN can claim deniability by sending the money to non-profits. And then presto magicko! Every one who wants it has cheap labor, or sex.
Nice to see how our local politicians and non-profits have picked up this new business model. How else to explain this insanity of giving all our money to illegals at the expense of our desperate locals competing for the same affordable housing.
Humanitarian crisis?!?! I think you mean Border crisis. We have a serious illegal immigrant problem! If you sneak into our country without a plan and a place to live with children and sleeping in a car, you should be arrested for child endangerment and neglect. Then deported back to Peru or Mexico. Blaine county residents are FED UP.
And what about the “illegal” employers who pay them less with no responsibility for providing shelter knowing there is no decent housing available leaving that up to others to provide. They know full well it is illegal and are never held accountable. If they weren’t offered jobs here they wouldn’t be here.
Agree. And now it seems like our taxpayer funds will be diverted into supporting illegals. The liberal governments in our local towns declared these towns as "sanctuary" and now want the citizens to pay for it. Absurd!
These nonprofits, or NGO’s are the reason we have this problem here in the valley. All you liberal elite that donate tons of money to these NGO’s are really being cómplice to the biggest human smuggling operation in recent history. Note to you: these Peruvian immigrants who are coming to the valley recently are not from the indigent class in Peru. These people have money and resources, either from themselves or family members. What’s happening here is that are seizing on an opportunity that Biden’s open border has created. Their relatives are encouraging them from coming here, telling them about the high paying nonskilled job opportunities here , the free medical care, free schools, food and even Christmas gifts for the kids. Then what happens is once they get here, those same relatives will drive them over and drop them off to some local nonprofit for shelter or food pickup. They ALL know the script by now: tell them you are a single mother that doesn’t have a husband, or tell them you don’t have food or even a coat or shelter. Tell them you have suffered domestic violence. I’m sorry to say these people are knowing the system now and taking advantage of it. The government funds SHOULD be going to help locals not people who are felons. And yes crossing the border illegally is a felony. Unless of course you have been coached by both your family members and the human smuggles(the cartels) to say you are just a humble asylum seeker.
1. Why is it the county's problem, if these people don't have housing? I sure hope they don't use county dollars to house these people. Taxpayer funds should be used to benefit the county and county residents not for public or free housing.
2. I've lived here my entire life and I have never seen non-profits fight this hard for locals, who maybe struggling to make ends meet, or may be losing their house or need housing. Most locals have two or more jobs to make ends meet. WE ALL KNOW ITS EXPENSIVE TO LIVE HERE! We have people from Shoshone, Twin Falls, Gooding, Jerome commute here because this county pays better than other counties!!! YOU DONT HEAR THEM aren't crying about not having FREE or AFFORDABLE house. They sucked it up and bought/rented in another town and make their commute daily! NONTHING NEW!!!
3. Why is it everyone's responsibility to provide food and shelter for these people. As an adult, if you don't have shelter/housing for you or your family then you figure it out! You don't sit and cry and expect for everyone to just give you handouts! IF YOU CAN'T FIND SHELTER/HOUSE then just like everyone else you look in other surrounding towns for housing. THERE ARE HELP WANTED SIGNS IN TWIN AND THERE ARE RENTALS AVAILABLE TOO! SHOCKER! but wait twin falls county and county residents don't hand out free food or FREE hotel rooms!!! WHY WOULD THESE PEOPLE LEAVE AND FIGURE IT OUT FOR THEM SELVES.
THESE NON-PROFITS ARE DOING MORE HARM THEN GOOD!!!! THESE PEOPLE ARE ADULTS AND PARENTS THEY NEED TO FIGURE IT OUT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE! FLEEING A COUNTRY DOESNT MEAN YOU GET A FREE PASS TO ANYTHING.
Thank you Joshua Murdock for pointing out the craziness of having a 30 million dollar animal shelter (aka The Four Seasons of animal shelters), yet not having even the most basic housing for humans in this area. It's just bizarre. And to all the anti-immigrant people on this thread, I'd remind you that if you yourself had been born in some of these countries, no doubt you would seek asylum in a safer country to protect yourself and family. Do some simple research into the factors that are driving people to flee places like Guatemala and Mexico and Peru. It's a live or die situation.
The shelter was gladly supported because it is a worthy project. Supporting illegals just encourages more illegals. Now these local governments want our taxpayer funds to support them. That's a problem!
IME certainly did their part. Great free fundraising advertisement, guys, for our local non-profits. I'm sure they'll make millions after this story.
The #1 answer to all these problems? BUS TICKETS!!!!! You can give i!!eg@ls bus tix to any Sanctuary City in the country and they will enjoy, food, shelter, education and healthcare. What a life!
Who are these people running our local non-profits anyway? I get it, that this is a GREAT opportunity for cash and relevancy. Your donor base eats these stories for lunch. The Lefties have a brain damage though to be sending you money for your made-up "crisis," but it's a free country (supposedly) and people can spend their money however they wish. Your propaganda brainwashing program continues to be a great success, aided by our local gov'ts and this IME newspaper of course. Nevermind that these failed programs are creating a great deal of suffering by keeping immigrants here and exploiting their cheap labor. Funny how the i!!eg@ls get hotel rooms over our legal local workforce who are in a housing crisis themselves. But employers have to pay real wages to those folks, and inflation is killing them, so best to kick our locals out of the county and make way for the i!!eg@ls. Good plan. Thanks for your donation.
What is happening here is a microcosm of the i!!eg@l a!i@n crisis on our border. The Dems campaign and get elected on Open Borders and so Biden takes this as a mandate to break our immigration laws. The lefty lying media keeps this narrative going in order to solicit the bleeding heart libs, and the result is a great trade in sex and human trafficking along with the booming Chinese/Big Pharma fentanyl biz. Hmmmm. I bet some of these local donations are coming from the cartels. Why not? Keeps this lucrative system running as planned.
(IME is censoring my post because of "profanity." I guess any mention of i!!eg@l a!i@ns is not considered profanity. Illustrates my point, doesn't it.)
beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?"
Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor.
“Most people without documents in the United States entered the country legally. Some have overstayed their visas. Some are waiting for visas or extensions to be processed. That does not mean that they are “illegal.”
If you have ever run through a stop sign or driven above the speed limit, you have committed an illegal act. This does not mean that you are an “illegal driver.”
Using the word “illegal” to describe undocumented immigrants is dehumanizing, inflammatory, and inaccurate. “
Call it what you will but more to the point is the reality that the democrat who is President of the United States is prepared to send 30,000 (1,000/day) without paper to Mexico and allow 30,000 (1,000/day) with paper into the United States.
“President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a weekend visit to the Texas-Mexico border, along with a new immigration plan that would allow 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter the country and be able to work legally for up to two years.
In order to qualify, the migrants must apply from their home countries, pass a background check and prove they have a financial supporter in the U.S.
As part of the plan, the Biden administration also will begin to use the emergency health order known as Title 42 to expel the same number of migrants from those four countries to Mexico if they attempt to enter the U.S. illegally. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Mexico has agreed to accept up to 30,000 migrants a month from those countries under Title 42.”
Complete, utter, absolute, incomparable STUPIDITY! This is the Webster's definition of "Illegal Alien." Webster's is a dictionary, by the way. You should try it sometime.
"Illegal Alien" noun : a foreign person who lives in a country without having official permission to live there.
Please use whatever brain cells that remain active in your cranium to note that this definition is not a moral or value assessment. It is a term for people who are in a country, any country, illegally. God Bless! You people are as dumb as rocks!
If a driver has their license revoked because of a DUI, yet continues to drive their vehicle, illegally, they are indeed an "illegal driver." But you're free to show up in court with them and argue on their behalf, in front of the judge, and try to explain how no humans on planet Earth can be called "illegal." Next you can go to the all our Idaho prisons and tell all the inmates that none of them are "illegal." There's one in jail now awaiting trial for the murder of four college students in Moscow. He would agree with you completely and appreciate your support. You could even appear as a character witness explaining how he is not "illegal" just because he (or whoever did the deed) murdered people. And after all your wonderful community service getting us educated on this issue, you could start a non-profit and join our other local non-profits in support of the "non-illegal aliens" that our city and county politicians are twisting themselves inside and out for trying to provide free houses and hotel rooms.
In the winter of 2017–18, private donations totaling $30 million ($14 mil. + $16 mil.) paid for a new animal shelter to replace the existing animal shelter, and a new performing arts center to replace the existing performing arts center. They’re both wonderful places, to be sure. But in that same winter, two people died homeless in the Wood River Valley. The priorities are more than a bit mixed up. No one should go without housing (or heat, sanitation or food) in an area that’s home to such an obscene concentration of wealth — and especially not in a place where thousands of housing units sit vacant most the year.
"No one should go without housing..."?! Are you nuts?! I support shelters, so maybe you could say no one should go without a cot. But a house? A hotel room? God, I wish you people would actually stop and listen to your drivel.
As we sit in our warm homes reading this story, it seems the immediate answer is to establish a homeless shelter, and not just for one week. Our non profits and county and city leaders can discuss solutions for months, but this is our disaster now, whether it meets the definition or not. In the longer term, our county needs a place to house people who are living in dangerous situations. The Inn at Ellsworth in Hailey is on the market for $2.6 million. Perhaps a group of donors could fund the purchase with the county running it as a shelter and transitional housing. Lastly, I haven't read anything about employers coming to the table. Why not?
Well said. From this article it seems like there is no leadership at the elected levels to deal with the immigration or housing crises. If we stick our heads in the snow, maybe the problem just solves itself? Not likely. At the very least, government should be the convenor of parties who can do something about it, including employers. Our government structure in Blaine County seems ineffective in dealing with crises in general. We have the cities that work on things within their borders, and then the County Commission seems only to want to deal with things not in the cities, but won't lead on the county overall. They recently stepped away from even taking on housing as an issue, as they won't create a Housing Authority or materially contribute to the 5B Housing plan proposed by Ketchum. The can keeps getting kicked.
Winter solves our problem as far as i!!gals go. FREE BUS TIX! Gov't should not be the go-to for solving problems. You've said this before. Time to trust the free market system in some of these issues.
Newsflash! This is a mountain town. Open your eyes and look around you. We have winter here. It's not California or Arizona or Texas. Your plan is what? Buy a hotel so that immigrants have a place to live for free? Insanity. All you are doing is perpetuating an unsolvable problem. Maybe you should study the California situation a little more closely. Gov Gruesome and the SF Mayor are finally trying to clean up their streets and the homeless camps. How's that working out for them now? Hint: it's not. They created the problem, just as the politicians and non-profits are doing here, but it's become too big. Stop ruining our small mountain town with your insipid ideas.
Why does "our county" need to support people who are here illegally? The US has become a highly technical country that does not need a new underclass without education or the skills necessary to contribute to this country.
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Here is some more "fertilizer" to add to this cow pie.
The United Nations is funding our illegal alien problem. The UN is paying illegals, and the non-profits who assist illegals, to cross our border. No kidding! Look it up. The illegals are making way more money to cross than they could ever hope to make than if they stayed in their jobs at home.
Most of UN funding comes from American taxpayers. Nice little racket Biden and the Dem/Republican establishment have going on here. You wonder why we have this explosive problem. Look no further. This is a type of money laundering (of which the Biden/Clinton Family is expert at) where the politicians can escape being revealed for secretly funding the mass Border Crisis by moving the money through the UN and non-profits who then give cash to illegals. The illegals are making $40k from the UN and non-profits. The politicians can claim deniability for this racket once the money goes to the UN. And the UN can claim deniability by sending the money to non-profits. And then presto magicko! Every one who wants it has cheap labor, or sex.
Nice to see how our local politicians and non-profits have picked up this new business model. How else to explain this insanity of giving all our money to illegals at the expense of our desperate locals competing for the same affordable housing.
Humanitarian crisis?!?! I think you mean Border crisis. We have a serious illegal immigrant problem! If you sneak into our country without a plan and a place to live with children and sleeping in a car, you should be arrested for child endangerment and neglect. Then deported back to Peru or Mexico. Blaine county residents are FED UP.
And what about the “illegal” employers who pay them less with no responsibility for providing shelter knowing there is no decent housing available leaving that up to others to provide. They know full well it is illegal and are never held accountable. If they weren’t offered jobs here they wouldn’t be here.
Agree. And now it seems like our taxpayer funds will be diverted into supporting illegals. The liberal governments in our local towns declared these towns as "sanctuary" and now want the citizens to pay for it. Absurd!
They should be dropped off at John Kerry's house and at every democrat in the valley. They have created this insanity.
They should all be deported. They are illegal. Its that simple.
These nonprofits, or NGO’s are the reason we have this problem here in the valley. All you liberal elite that donate tons of money to these NGO’s are really being cómplice to the biggest human smuggling operation in recent history. Note to you: these Peruvian immigrants who are coming to the valley recently are not from the indigent class in Peru. These people have money and resources, either from themselves or family members. What’s happening here is that are seizing on an opportunity that Biden’s open border has created. Their relatives are encouraging them from coming here, telling them about the high paying nonskilled job opportunities here , the free medical care, free schools, food and even Christmas gifts for the kids. Then what happens is once they get here, those same relatives will drive them over and drop them off to some local nonprofit for shelter or food pickup. They ALL know the script by now: tell them you are a single mother that doesn’t have a husband, or tell them you don’t have food or even a coat or shelter. Tell them you have suffered domestic violence. I’m sorry to say these people are knowing the system now and taking advantage of it. The government funds SHOULD be going to help locals not people who are felons. And yes crossing the border illegally is a felony. Unless of course you have been coached by both your family members and the human smuggles(the cartels) to say you are just a humble asylum seeker.
1. Why is it the county's problem, if these people don't have housing? I sure hope they don't use county dollars to house these people. Taxpayer funds should be used to benefit the county and county residents not for public or free housing.
2. I've lived here my entire life and I have never seen non-profits fight this hard for locals, who maybe struggling to make ends meet, or may be losing their house or need housing. Most locals have two or more jobs to make ends meet. WE ALL KNOW ITS EXPENSIVE TO LIVE HERE! We have people from Shoshone, Twin Falls, Gooding, Jerome commute here because this county pays better than other counties!!! YOU DONT HEAR THEM aren't crying about not having FREE or AFFORDABLE house. They sucked it up and bought/rented in another town and make their commute daily! NONTHING NEW!!!
3. Why is it everyone's responsibility to provide food and shelter for these people. As an adult, if you don't have shelter/housing for you or your family then you figure it out! You don't sit and cry and expect for everyone to just give you handouts! IF YOU CAN'T FIND SHELTER/HOUSE then just like everyone else you look in other surrounding towns for housing. THERE ARE HELP WANTED SIGNS IN TWIN AND THERE ARE RENTALS AVAILABLE TOO! SHOCKER! but wait twin falls county and county residents don't hand out free food or FREE hotel rooms!!! WHY WOULD THESE PEOPLE LEAVE AND FIGURE IT OUT FOR THEM SELVES.
THESE NON-PROFITS ARE DOING MORE HARM THEN GOOD!!!! THESE PEOPLE ARE ADULTS AND PARENTS THEY NEED TO FIGURE IT OUT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE! FLEEING A COUNTRY DOESNT MEAN YOU GET A FREE PASS TO ANYTHING.
Thank you Joshua Murdock for pointing out the craziness of having a 30 million dollar animal shelter (aka The Four Seasons of animal shelters), yet not having even the most basic housing for humans in this area. It's just bizarre. And to all the anti-immigrant people on this thread, I'd remind you that if you yourself had been born in some of these countries, no doubt you would seek asylum in a safer country to protect yourself and family. Do some simple research into the factors that are driving people to flee places like Guatemala and Mexico and Peru. It's a live or die situation.
The shelter was gladly supported because it is a worthy project. Supporting illegals just encourages more illegals. Now these local governments want our taxpayer funds to support them. That's a problem!
IME certainly did their part. Great free fundraising advertisement, guys, for our local non-profits. I'm sure they'll make millions after this story.
The #1 answer to all these problems? BUS TICKETS!!!!! You can give i!!eg@ls bus tix to any Sanctuary City in the country and they will enjoy, food, shelter, education and healthcare. What a life!
Who are these people running our local non-profits anyway? I get it, that this is a GREAT opportunity for cash and relevancy. Your donor base eats these stories for lunch. The Lefties have a brain damage though to be sending you money for your made-up "crisis," but it's a free country (supposedly) and people can spend their money however they wish. Your propaganda brainwashing program continues to be a great success, aided by our local gov'ts and this IME newspaper of course. Nevermind that these failed programs are creating a great deal of suffering by keeping immigrants here and exploiting their cheap labor. Funny how the i!!eg@ls get hotel rooms over our legal local workforce who are in a housing crisis themselves. But employers have to pay real wages to those folks, and inflation is killing them, so best to kick our locals out of the county and make way for the i!!eg@ls. Good plan. Thanks for your donation.
What is happening here is a microcosm of the i!!eg@l a!i@n crisis on our border. The Dems campaign and get elected on Open Borders and so Biden takes this as a mandate to break our immigration laws. The lefty lying media keeps this narrative going in order to solicit the bleeding heart libs, and the result is a great trade in sex and human trafficking along with the booming Chinese/Big Pharma fentanyl biz. Hmmmm. I bet some of these local donations are coming from the cartels. Why not? Keeps this lucrative system running as planned.
(IME is censoring my post because of "profanity." I guess any mention of i!!eg@l a!i@ns is not considered profanity. Illustrates my point, doesn't it.)
“You who are so-called illegal aliens must
know that no human being is illegal.
That is a contradiction in terms.
Human beings can be beautiful or more
beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?"
Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor.
“Most people without documents in the United States entered the country legally. Some have overstayed their visas. Some are waiting for visas or extensions to be processed. That does not mean that they are “illegal.”
If you have ever run through a stop sign or driven above the speed limit, you have committed an illegal act. This does not mean that you are an “illegal driver.”
Using the word “illegal” to describe undocumented immigrants is dehumanizing, inflammatory, and inaccurate. “
Call it what you will but more to the point is the reality that the democrat who is President of the United States is prepared to send 30,000 (1,000/day) without paper to Mexico and allow 30,000 (1,000/day) with paper into the United States.
*.....that`s 30,000/month
From the Texas Tribune
“President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a weekend visit to the Texas-Mexico border, along with a new immigration plan that would allow 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter the country and be able to work legally for up to two years.
In order to qualify, the migrants must apply from their home countries, pass a background check and prove they have a financial supporter in the U.S.
As part of the plan, the Biden administration also will begin to use the emergency health order known as Title 42 to expel the same number of migrants from those four countries to Mexico if they attempt to enter the U.S. illegally. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Mexico has agreed to accept up to 30,000 migrants a month from those countries under Title 42.”
Is this satire? do you leave your front door wide open for people to just come and crash rent free?
Complete, utter, absolute, incomparable STUPIDITY! This is the Webster's definition of "Illegal Alien." Webster's is a dictionary, by the way. You should try it sometime.
"Illegal Alien" noun : a foreign person who lives in a country without having official permission to live there.
Please use whatever brain cells that remain active in your cranium to note that this definition is not a moral or value assessment. It is a term for people who are in a country, any country, illegally. God Bless! You people are as dumb as rocks!
If a driver has their license revoked because of a DUI, yet continues to drive their vehicle, illegally, they are indeed an "illegal driver." But you're free to show up in court with them and argue on their behalf, in front of the judge, and try to explain how no humans on planet Earth can be called "illegal." Next you can go to the all our Idaho prisons and tell all the inmates that none of them are "illegal." There's one in jail now awaiting trial for the murder of four college students in Moscow. He would agree with you completely and appreciate your support. You could even appear as a character witness explaining how he is not "illegal" just because he (or whoever did the deed) murdered people. And after all your wonderful community service getting us educated on this issue, you could start a non-profit and join our other local non-profits in support of the "non-illegal aliens" that our city and county politicians are twisting themselves inside and out for trying to provide free houses and hotel rooms.
In the winter of 2017–18, private donations totaling $30 million ($14 mil. + $16 mil.) paid for a new animal shelter to replace the existing animal shelter, and a new performing arts center to replace the existing performing arts center. They’re both wonderful places, to be sure. But in that same winter, two people died homeless in the Wood River Valley. The priorities are more than a bit mixed up. No one should go without housing (or heat, sanitation or food) in an area that’s home to such an obscene concentration of wealth — and especially not in a place where thousands of housing units sit vacant most the year.
"No one should go without housing..."?! Are you nuts?! I support shelters, so maybe you could say no one should go without a cot. But a house? A hotel room? God, I wish you people would actually stop and listen to your drivel.
100% this.
As we sit in our warm homes reading this story, it seems the immediate answer is to establish a homeless shelter, and not just for one week. Our non profits and county and city leaders can discuss solutions for months, but this is our disaster now, whether it meets the definition or not. In the longer term, our county needs a place to house people who are living in dangerous situations. The Inn at Ellsworth in Hailey is on the market for $2.6 million. Perhaps a group of donors could fund the purchase with the county running it as a shelter and transitional housing. Lastly, I haven't read anything about employers coming to the table. Why not?
Well said. From this article it seems like there is no leadership at the elected levels to deal with the immigration or housing crises. If we stick our heads in the snow, maybe the problem just solves itself? Not likely. At the very least, government should be the convenor of parties who can do something about it, including employers. Our government structure in Blaine County seems ineffective in dealing with crises in general. We have the cities that work on things within their borders, and then the County Commission seems only to want to deal with things not in the cities, but won't lead on the county overall. They recently stepped away from even taking on housing as an issue, as they won't create a Housing Authority or materially contribute to the 5B Housing plan proposed by Ketchum. The can keeps getting kicked.
Winter solves our problem as far as i!!gals go. FREE BUS TIX! Gov't should not be the go-to for solving problems. You've said this before. Time to trust the free market system in some of these issues.
Why? It would showcase their legal responsibilities.
Newsflash! This is a mountain town. Open your eyes and look around you. We have winter here. It's not California or Arizona or Texas. Your plan is what? Buy a hotel so that immigrants have a place to live for free? Insanity. All you are doing is perpetuating an unsolvable problem. Maybe you should study the California situation a little more closely. Gov Gruesome and the SF Mayor are finally trying to clean up their streets and the homeless camps. How's that working out for them now? Hint: it's not. They created the problem, just as the politicians and non-profits are doing here, but it's become too big. Stop ruining our small mountain town with your insipid ideas.
God bless you for pointing out the white Elephant in the room.
Why does "our county" need to support people who are here illegally? The US has become a highly technical country that does not need a new underclass without education or the skills necessary to contribute to this country.
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