Skip to main content

The Bee's golden boy, John Kraintz, not so golden

There was a very long and very glowing article on John Kraintz in the Sacramento Bee on Sunday, "Homeless man has key role in Sacramento debate," that requires a response from SacHo.

It is a core tenet of this blog that the truth about homelessness and homeless people get "out there" to the public. Unhappily, despite the enormous amount of coverage of homelessness in the popular local media, the public continually gets distortion. Cynthia Hubert is the reporter the local homeless-help industry thinks is the most friendly toward them, and, yep, her articles, with just an exception or two, have a distinct skewed quality.

Make no mistake, John Kraintz deserves a lot of credit for his interest in and work for the homeless. He is a bright, amiable, thoughtful fellow. As a longtime chronic, intends-to-remain-homeless person he fits in with 10% of the community. Certainly, as a part of the enabled homeless population, weighing in in support of Loaves & Fishes' enabling policies, and having opinions that are enough in accord with the radical-leftist put-an-end-to-capitalism leadership at most core homeless-services nonprofits, his is a necessary voice.

But where, when opinions are sought by the Bee and other local media, are the voices of homeless people, like the majority, who don't want to be ensconced in homeless hell?

You cannot blame John for getting (and enjoying) the attention he has gotten. He is useful to the homeless-help industry as a poster boy to motivate donations. He is useful to the media that needs a prop homeless person to make their articles seem to have gone outside the homeless-help industry agitprop. By using him exclusively, as the homeless-help industry and media do, it becomes grotesquely distorting.

Most people in Homeless World Sacramento are seeking — or, at least, welcoming — of regular work opportunities. The vast majority aren't wanting to overhaul America in the image of the Soviet Union. A voice from the majority of homeless isn't heard in the Bee or on the mayor's ad hoc homelessness committees.

Another element that demonstrates the wildly out-of-whack quality of Cynthia Hubert's article is the rat-a-tat-tat of insistence that John is incredibly successful as a homeless advocate. Indeed, the truth is that the Safe Ground Campaign has run into the ground.  It failed.  It's over.  Here are the hallmarks:
Tent City was not "turned around" to becoming a successful start for a legalized homeless encampment. Indeed, at its end, it was suddenly described as "notorious" [by Cythia Hubert!] and was shut down with Libby Fernandez standing behind the Mayor at the time its forced closure was announced.

The C Street encampment was a fiasco from the get-go, proving that the public must never allow thirty people to crowd into a half acre to live in tents, flagrantly violate zoning laws, and make the lives of neighbors miserable.

The Edenic vision of a Tuff Shed utopia was DOA because the public and the resistant city council people and county supervisors were never courted, nor could they easily be now what with all that has preceded.
And finally, to John's great abiding discredit, he was corrupted, helping to engineer a wholesale "jumping of the list" that resulted in relatively undeserving homeless people [John and his safe ground pals] getting 4 1/2 full months of shelter, at a motel no less, at the expense of the most vulnerable to the cold and rain who will need to compete for short stays at whatever shelter for the winter comes along.  [Except for John & friends, a total of about 22 people, and 32 men at the former-detox center, we're still awaiting word of what winter shelter there'll be.]

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

More obstacles revealed in effort to make Mather cottages habitable

Mold, asbestos and lead paint, oh my! The 35 cottages out at Mather Community Campus seem closer to being condemned today than ever again being inhabited. But the expectation that some of the cottages can and will be restored to house homeless families before spring abides. A report in the Sacramento Bee tells us ... Some [of the cottages] have extensive mold, a county analysis showed. It's not clear how the county planned to deal with lead paint and asbestos, [Rancho Cordova] Councilwoman Linda Budge said. Still, hope of getting some of the cottages in shape such that homeless families can move in is in play, though not before New Year's day.  Word of where the money might come from to make needed restorations has not been forthcoming, though it is known that the Winter Shelter Task Force hopes to hold a fundraiser to boost the pool of funds to meet the need to keep homeless people warm and safe. At the end of October, placing families, totalling 105 individuals, was

Ron Russell and Summerhills Realty

Readers of this blog should be aware that I am receiving some information that Summerhills Realty and someone named Ron E. Russell is using this blog as a reference in an effort to scam homeless people.  Be aware that Mr. Russell and his business is cited as a possible perpetrator of fraud by a website called Ripoff Report .  See this webpage .  Also, there is this claim of fraud against Ron Russell Properties at the website BizClaims - Latest scams, frauds and complaints . Please be aware that the information of being 'ripped off'' may be coming from only one source is coming from multiple sources, with perhaps as many as twelve persons/couples now pursuing legal action after paying thousands of dollars for services and receiving none of the services that were promised/contracted. While I know neither Mr. Russell nor Summerhills, I do know that an inordinate number of “in links” from readers of this blog have come via summerhillsrealestate.com for quite some time.  I

Loaves & Fishes implicates Buddhism and Jack Kornfield in its June Donations Plea.

The Sukhothai Traimit Golden Buddha was found in a clay-and-plaster overlaid buddha statue in 1959, after laying in wait for 500 years. It's huge and heavy: just under 10 feet tall and weighs 5 1/2 tons. At the beginning of their June newsletter , Loaves and Fishes relates a story, taken from the beginning of renowned Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield's 2008 book The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology . The first part and first chapter in Kornfield's book is "Part I: Who are you really?" and chapter 1 is called "Nobility: Our Original Goodness," which ought to serve as a clue to what the beginning of the book is about, not that that sentiment isn't strewn through-out the chapter, section and book such that what Kornfield is telling us should be crystal clear. Somehow, the not-ready-for-primetime management at Loaves & Fishes have managed to use Kornfield's wise and kindly words in a way that mangles th