Homeless Soccer heads to Gainesville

I'll admit it--when i first saw the headline "Will Soccer Solve Homelessness?", i LOL'd...literally.

but it's really not that stoopid!!

gainesville (FL) has recently enacted laws which prohibit panhandlers from begging from road medians. this, plus a crackdown on a "tent city" located a few blocks from downtown gainesville, led local activist Anthony Lyons to form a task force charged with creating a homeless soccer team which will be modeled on other such programs located, apparently (!), around the world. (PROOF: here's a link to a website for the "Homeless World Cup")

my original take on this was to just ridicule it, like The Yankee Hooligan does here:

"...Keeping with the spirit of the event, it looks as if they found it (the trophy cup...ed) in the garbage. Also, it isn't, unfortunately, a cup, so the winners still haven't got a pot (or cup) to piss in. Forget the trophy, why don't you give the winners a house?"

...pretty funny, but i think i can buy into the organizer's belief that playing soccer can provide structure and focus to some homeless folks' lives. and i especially buy into how, in order to play, you've got to be clean and sober.

i'm pretty convinced, in my own mind, that homelessness is a problem caused by laziness. i don't mean just that they're too lazy to get a job (though i would certainly agree with that), i mean that they're just too lazy to care. whether this is because of drinking and drugging, or some form of mental illness, or you lost your job therefore losing your house because you did NOTHING to prepare for the worst...there's something in the mind of a person that's just not right if it would allow you to allow yourself to fall that far down. life can be overwhelming at times, but most people have the faculties to at least keep a roof over their head. maybe this soccer stuff will reinforce positive thinking and behavior, provide a stage where they can feel some sense of accomplishment, etc... i just don't see the downside.

it's a lot better idea than the local church here in downtown gainesville which lets these bums come in stinking drunk or high on crack and lets them eat, sleep, and shower with no incentive to change behavior.




link to a video interview with gainesville organizer Anthony Lyons