This, That, and the Other

The mayor was under a lot of pressure to reverse the growth of the homeless population in her city. “Tent cities” were popping up all over town and the citizens were concerned about all of the used syringes and needles on the streets and the growing crime rate in those areas.

With a tremendous amount of pressure to act to resolve the homelessness issue in her city, the mayor agreed to commit to coming up with an effective solution. She had been reading about steps taken by an old city in Europe that had successfully addressed homelessness, and so she took a trip abroad to study what they did.

Upon her return, the mayor proposed that the town move all of the homeless people to the other side of the river. The city would cover the cost of their relocation and would even provide tents for the homeless to live in. Unfortunately, the town council rejected her proposal, with many on the council objecting to how close the new tent city would be to the main part of town. Using an “out of sight, out of mind” approach, they wanted more distance between the homeless and the rest of the city.

The frustrated mayor reached out to her counterpart in the old European town she’d visited. That mayor suggested a rather controversial solution. After thinking about it, and the threat to her re-election bid if she failed to address the homeless problem, the hometown mayor agreed to the unconventional approach. When she told the rest of the town council what her new proposal was, they greedily agreed to proceed.

The next day, demons from the underworld came to the surface at the behest of the mayor and the town council. The demons physically moved the riverbank a mile to the east, almost tripling the width of the river.

The townsfolk were thrilled to have the homeless people moved further away from the city. And the popular mayor, having delivered on her promise to rid the city of its homeless, won her re-election bid by an overwhelming margin.

But there was an unanticipated price the city had to pay for calling up the underworld demons. The demons demanded property rights to much of the new development in the parts of towns from which the homeless had been relocated.

Soon the former tent city sites were replaced with glitzy casinos, fancy massage parlors, and gaudy brothels. The town became known as “Sin City” and the more upstanding residents fled to the east side of the river, where the homeless people had been relocated, and started to buy up land and build sumptuous homes.

At the next town council meeting, the new, well-to-do residents of recently built homes on the regentrified east bank of river demanded that the new mayor commit to taking action to remove the homeless from their community.

Written for Kira’s Sunday Scribbles (sketch at the top of the post), plus for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (reverse), Ragtag Daily Prompt (needle), Word of the Day Prompt (act & commit), and Your Daily Word Prompt (abroad).