Democrats like to believe they are the party of compassion and kindness, but the reality in most blue cities says otherwise. For years, homeless encampments have been springing up in liberal-run cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. And in recent years, this trend made its way into Phoenix.
Just blocks from the state capitol, amidst what was once a thriving business district, a sprawling encampment of around 1,000 homeless has come to be known as “The Zone.” It’s a place where drug use, drug deals, defecation, urination, sexual acts, assaults, rape, and murder are frequently committed out in the open—often with little to no consequences. The problem has even gotten so bad that the Phoenix Fire Department won’t respond to calls inside The Zone without assistance from the Phoenix Police Department and assurance that the scene of the incident is secure.
But crime within The Zone is only one part of the problem.
Rotting garbage and human waste have created sanitation issues and turned the area into a biohazardous slum that’s affecting the rest of Arizona. Photographic evidence submitted in court showed that this unmanaged sewage and trash ends up in storm drains which discharges into our rivers, washes, and retention bases. That’s right. It’s polluting our water on a daily basis!
You would think that the Green New Deal activists in Phoenix’s leadership who are so concerned with providing clean water would be horrified. But they’d rather hike water rates and cut allowances on their residents all while using tax dollars to build a $12 million community center. And if you think our statewide leadership cares, Governor Katie Hobbs recently vetoed a bill to ban tents in public places while Secretary of State Adrian Fontes called the situation in The Zone “not great” and recommended his favorite lunch order from a local sandwich shop.
This is the party of compassion?
The only answer to Phoenix’s homeless problem from most Democrat leaders has been to demand more money from taxpayers while they conveniently turn a blind eye to the problem. That’s why several property and business owners located within The Zone took matters into their own hands by filing a lawsuit against the City of Phoenix. Not only have they faced safety issues while operating their businesses in the area, but many of them have dealt with stolen property, exposure to drugs in the air, damage to their buildings, plummeting property values, and more.
Finally, a couple weeks after AZ Free News published its first investigative piece on The Zone, city leaders in Phoenix said they plan to come together to take action on the problem. But just like most of the business owners in The Zone have become accustomed to, it’s been crickets since.
Thankfully, the Maricopa County Superior Court recently ruled that the City of Phoenix was at fault for The Zone, which is a good first step to solving the problem. But it can’t stop there. The local business owners deserve to receive damages. The homeless deserve the treatment they need. And Phoenix’s elected leaders deserve accountability for their flat-out failures. It’s time to vote them out, so that all who reside in this great city can experience true compassion.
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