The National Guard will be in Ballard for at least another month, helping out at the food bank and with St. Luke’s Edible Hope Kitchen.
Six members of the Guard arrived in Ballard at the beginning of April, and have been filling in the volunteer gap at Ballard Food Bank, as many of the regular food bank volunteers are in the “at risk” category and unable to offer support.
Washington National Guard spokesperson Karina Shagren tells My Ballard that the Guard has also been assigned to help at St. Luke’s Edible Hope Kitchen— Guard members have been out helping provide meals and water for the unsheltered near Ballard Commons Park.
Colleen Martinson from the Ballard Food Bank said it’s been great to have the extra pairs of hands at the food bank; the Guard members have been helping in the new drive-thru food bank, unloading trucks, and packing up and delivering food.
The National Guard is helping with food efforts statewide to ease the effects of COVID-19 on food banks around Washington. Shagren says the Guard will be in Ballard until the end of May.
Photo: Ballard Food Bank on Facebook
Thanks for your service. Please clean out all the hobos while you’re here.
My favorite was the question on the millennium COVID dog crew that meets in the park and appear to be completely oblivious to the pandemic, social distancing, Hep-A and the homeless population. One of their dogs was literally rolling around in a campsite previous occupied by homeless man who was diagnosed with Hep-A. I’m pretty sure they aren’t washing their dogs when they bring them back home to run around the house so hopefully they are fully vaccinated.
Even a homeless guy asked if they were crazy…that’s saying something.
Everyone recognizes that there’s a homeless problem. You can do two things:
1. Continue living your life or
2. Become fearful and paranoid of the homeless. Shut yourself in, listen to angry men on the radio lie to you and comment excessively on neighborhood blogs about how there’s a homeless problem.
Sounds like they are choosing to live their lives. How about you?
The social distancing thing, I can’t answer that one. It’s not just Those Darn Millennials™; it’s people from all walks of life. Take the morons protesting around the country. Can’t cure stupidity I guess.
You don’t have to accept it. Vote out the bums whom allow it, support your Police.
Tell the next homeless person being rude or disrespectful to move on. You have a right to be where you are and not allow bad behavior. Take control of YOUR life if the Liberals that run this city won’t.
The fact that you think this (1) a local problem and (2) a liberal problem shows that you don’t understand the situation at all. Just more proof that we need to stop listing to your ilk when it comes to homeless solutions.
Funny, Texas doesn’t have this problem. Or Nebraska. Or Illinois. Or Michigan. Or Connecticut. Or the majority of other states.
Just California, Oregon and Washington. You know, progressive crapholes that are soft on crime.
That’s where the drug addicts are coming from. Duh.
how did the National Guard get roped in to help st luke’s program?
Because there are American citizens in desperate need during a pandemic. State Active Duty is one of their purposes.
Nope, it’s because the presence of these responsible and hard working men and women in uniform might keep the bum, drug-fueled sh*t show on the Commons in line.
I personally thanked the Guardsmen and women when I drove by this week and some bum yelled at me why I didn’t thank him.
I laughed so hard.
The Guard are there to act as upmarket Mall cops. You can guarantee they have direct lines of communication with the police department and will call them when the a$$holes of the Commons start going haywire
Go home Harley Lever, you’re drunk.
Thank you National Guard ! But the more we feed them the more that will come !
Dan Strauss, our councilman, keeps sending out a message to the effect that he has no authority, that the solution to the Commons problem includes input from the Mayor, the police, business, etc. etc. What would be nice would be some statement by our councilman as to what HE thinks the solution should look like. The “I don’t have total authority” card is no doubt true, but that doesn’t mean he can’t tell his constituents what he’d like to see happen . . . and when. How can the city reopen the park to kids and the library to patrons in a month if nothing changes? Librarians didn’t sign on to be homeless center workers. The Commons wasn’t supposed to be a safe injection site.
he’s just filling the position, not going to do a thing to make things better for the taxpayers of Ballard.