Postview: Plan for homeless camp solves nothing

This week's editorial virtually writes itself.

The Civic Democratic Party (ODS)-led Prague City Council has approved a plan to construct a homeless camp on the outskirts of the city, and it's hard to think of a worse way to combat homelessness in the capital.

Recycled terminology from the Holocaust is often the stuff of sensationalist exaggerations, but this project is quite literally a concentration camp - a camp designed to concentrate a population of "undesirables" in a single, isolated location.

If this plan were ever implemented, it would create a permanent underclass of people with no hope of ever reintegrating themselves with society - a difficult enough task when it comes to the homeless. Implementing the plan would be a nightmare as it would likely force the police to turn their attention to rounding up homeless people and shipping them out of town. 

Councilor Jiří Janeček, who proposed the camp idea, betrays the sheer insanity of the proposal when he terms the camp an "oasis" and makes one wonder how such an insensitive person with no capacity or desire for problem-solving ever made it into elected office. The plan in no way seeks to solve what is a serious social problem and instead tries to sweep it under the rug. It is a simple case of out of sight, out of mind.

The only solace that comes in the aftermath of City Hall's decision is that the long incompetent tenure of the ODS and Mayor Pavel Bém as leaders in Prague is likely to end in October's local elections, with all signs pointing to a triumph for TOP 09.

TOP 09's penchant for slashing budgets does not necessarily bode well for potential public resources being dedicated to the plight of the homeless, but, to recycle another historical term, if their opposition to this camp idea is any indication there is hope, they would at least advocate capitalism with a human face.