By Bill Rauch
The guy you don’t want to be is Beaufort’s Mitchell Ginsberg. Because once you have taken the step, history shows it is politically next to impossible to take it back.
Who was Mitchell Ginsberg? Or, as he was known at the time in New York Daily News headlines: “Come-and-Get-It Ginsberg.” Although he went to his just reward nearly 30 years ago now, Mitchell Ginsberg is still vilified in New York City government circles. Why? Because he was the Human Resources Administrator under New York Mayor John Lindsay who in 1968 threw open the city’s welfare programs to any and all who wished to apply.
And then he bragged about his innovative approach as “a new national model” to every media outlet who would have him so that they would carry the great news nationwide.
Ginsberg single-handedly created the moment when New York City became mecca for all those individuals everywhere who might be looking for a handout. There was no residency requirement: just show up, sign up, and get on the dole was all there was to it. And today with more that 15,000 of the city’s hotel and motel rooms filled daily with individuals whose stay is being paid for by the government, there’s politically still no going back.
In just the first year of Ginsberg’s new, big-hearted, come-one-come-all program, New York’s welfare caseload more than doubled with the city’s share of the costs jumping from $400 million to more than a billion dollars. But that was just the beginning. Because welfare recipients were automatically eligible for the city’s generous Medicaid program, those costs rose more. Altogether the new program hit the city’s budget for nearly $2 billion in its first year, and the costs have been rising ever since.
What does all that have to do with Beaufort?
To me, the eye-popping moment in the recent Beaufort candidates’ forum at USCB was when two sitting members of the Beaufort City Council suggested they would be interested in exploring on a modest basis getting Beaufort into the homeless shelter business. That was a new one.
Let me say here, right from the jump, kudos go to the Rooms of Grace program that is currently in the Lobeco area housing, feeding and counseling homeless men. And the same goes for all the efforts that other non-profit groups, including our churches, are making to feed and clothe our neighbors who are in need.
But is getting the city into the shelter business the way to go? First, are there any reasonable alternatives?
A four-county detention center in Hampton County in the undeveloped area west of Yemassee (after all the loose monkeys have finally been accounted for) has been floated in law enforcement circles.
From the perspective of Beaufort’s homeless issues, a regional detention facility elsewhere would at least eliminate the instances of individuals from who-knows-where getting out of the Ribaut Road lock-up with nowhere to go; stepping across the street with their last few bucks to enjoy a second-to-none Maryland Fried Chicken lunch; noting the friendly folks and comfortable surroundings of America’s often-cited No. 1 small town; and deciding to stay.
Also, no one, I am told, has contacted the Chatham-Savannah Authority for the Homeless to see if that organization on a contract basis might be willing to undertake addressing Beaufort County’s homeless needs. There is — however tenuous — precedent for working with Savannah.
In the “old Beaufort” days (of which I was a part) the cops and the lawyers and the judge used to sometimes all chip in to buy a bus ticket to Savannah for a newly free offender who was conveying unmistakably his reluctance to pursue one or more of the legitimate local revenue generating opportunities that were available to him in Beaufort County.
That was a somewhat more sensitive approach than the occasional old practice (not policy!) of loading wandering, unknown and apparently indigent men into the back seats of Beaufort squad cars for a one-way ride to that I-95 rest area just north of the Yemassee exits.
“That fella,” the cops used to say, “looked like he’d do better in a big city like New York or Miami where they have the services to help him.”
Which brings me back to the proposed “modest” Beaufort shelter. It’s not just the building. Or the meals. Or the liability. Or the around-the-clock, highly-trained and credentialed managers who will have to be hired to run the program. Nor is it the inevitable degradation of the surrounding neighborhood. It’s also the cost of the medical care; the cost of the psychiatric services; the cost of the addiction counseling services; the cost of the job counseling; the cost of the housing counseling services … for starters … that add up.
Count me with the cops on this one: there are some individuals who will do better in a big city where there are deeper pockets to provide the specialized services they need. R.I.P. Mitchell Ginsberg.
Bill Rauch was the Mayor of Beaufort from 1999 to 2008 and has twice won awards from the S.C. Press Association for his Island News columns. He can be reached at TheRauchReport@gmail.com.
