Apparently, the footbaths from volunteers weren't enough to ease the horrid plight of Berkeley's homeless youths. Such as Cheddar Cheese, now 20, who left home some 10 years ago. The story in today's Berkeley Daily Planet never explains why he left then, but you can just imagine the vast repertoire of parental oppression paradigms facing a 10-year-old: "Clean UP your room, Cheddar, and I mean N-O-W." Or maybe: "No, I'm quite sorry, Cheddar; age 10 is simply to young to know you're gay and leather-friendly. I don't care WHAT your teacher says. Wait a while, will ya?"

Frankly, if Cheddar was being sexually abused, and that's why he needed out, at age 10, he ought to frickin' say so, because otherwise I'm just not really inclined to lend him any karma. Besides, the claim could be B.S. Either way, life has to go on for the world's Cheddars, even if they're still having issues with authority. Public sector allies who righteously channel their pain aren't moving the ball any closer to the end zone.

According to Jane Micallef, secretary of the city’s Homeless Commission...the city couldn’t force young people to leave the streets and seek shelter.....Many youths are afraid of rules and regulations and want to live a barrier-free life, she said, so they can be found snuggled up in nooks and corners all over the city, in the tree-lined pathways on the UC Berkeley campus, or just about anywhere the cops won’t be able to get a hold of them.

Umyeahbut, the thing.....see....about a desired....."barrier-free life".....for homeless teens, and adults of any age....is that someone still pays....despite bogus claims in the Berkeley Daily Planet that these societally-subjugated, crevice-appropriating revolutionistas actually manage to cagily evade "The Man."

Who pays?

Taxpayers.

Taxpayers who fund the police officer time spent enforcing sit-and-lie ordinances. Who else pays for the homeless? Your mom and dad; grandparents; co-workers; and maybe you, too: the generous donors to homeless programs who hope and expect that the able homeless will get back on their own two feet before long.

So......since there's obviously not a lot of creative thinking coming out of Berkeley right now, I've got a plan for Cheddar Cheese and his ilk. And it maybe even works for some of the 30- and 40-something homeless - unwilling to enter training programs for sous-chefs in terminally insolvent restaurants geared to homeless "customers," or understandably unwilling to become ad salespersons for homeless advocacy "newspapers" which might be purchased, but never even glanced at afterward, by dutiful liberals traversing the painfully progressive parking lots of independent Seattle organic grocery chains. My epochal insight into homeless jobs policy came via this NYT article in today's Eugene Register: "With Too Few Drivers, America Can't Keep On Truckin'."

Faced with what trucking experts describe as the worst labor shortage in the industry's history, recruiters are canvassing cities and holding job fairs to entice new drivers. Fueled mostly by retirements, the driver shortage grew dire, industry economists say, starting in 2000, when average wages in construction and other blue-collar jobs surpassed those of long-haul drivers. With predictions that the shortage of 20,000 drivers will grow nearly fivefold within a decade, trucking companies are offering generous 401(k), stock option and health care packages to new recruits, plus cash bonuses and prizes to drivers who refer viable candidates. In hopes of stealing drivers from competitors, companies have begun outfitting more of their cabs with satellite radio and television. They also have introduced policies to allow truckers to bring pets and spouses on the road.

C'mon - just think about it for a minute. Truck driving is the perfect job for the non-addicted, sane ranks of the homeless, which means at least 50 percent of them. If only local, regional, state and federal governments would repurpose homeless aid for instructional scholarships at truck-driving schools. Workin' the big rigs, the homeless can enjoy a new place every night. Sleep in their pissoir-equipped rides, if they want - a lot better than a sidewalk, park, doorway, shelter or SRO cubicle. Plus: no office politics. You, your pet poodle Che (or Sparky), Ani DiFranco on the iPod, a semi full of Wal-Mart tupperware or Tyson chicken, and the open road. America - land of opportunity. Yea, verily.

Homeless truck-driving scholarships: another connect-the-dots moment at Rosenblog.

UPDATE: There are real-life examples. Ed Reed, a Vietnam vet who became homeless, a drug addict, and a criminal - cleaned up his act and became a truck driver, with the help of the California Transportation Training Institute. Melvin Stewart is another formerly homeless vet who earned a license and became a commercial truck driver. A homeless truck driver talks about his life in a comment on this blog post.

TECHNORATI TAGS: BERKELEY, HOMELESS, JOB TRAINING, TRUCK DRIVER SHORTAGE

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at February 28, 2006 06:10 PM

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