"Originally, the whole community only had two social workers left. The three people you saw today, in addition to me, were just transferred here. This proves one thing: you must have offended someone. Someone wants to drive you away from here," the female social worker said.
"You performed well today. As soon as they get in, they'll nitpick on all sorts of details, then point out that your welfare actions don't meet community requirements, using this as an excuse to drive you out."
"What if we just don't leave?" Diana whispered with frustration. She knew asking was irrational, but she couldn't help it, "Can they forcibly evict us using force? Who can they beat?"
"I've heard you are superpower users. They indeed can't beat you, nor can the police and guards. But, they can sue the people you are helping," the female social worker said, "If I'm not mistaken, some here should be temporary residents; they need to re-enter society later. If entangled in lawsuits, they might never find work again."
"Suing the rescued?!" Diana genuinely felt ridiculous, raising her voice. Others in the café looked at her, forcing her to lower her tone, then said, "On what grounds? Is it a crime to be rescued?"
"Many. Disturbing community peace, resisting arrest, assaulting officers, illegal assembly, and so forth." The female social worker sighed, "These people may already have lawsuits against them; even reopening old cases could leave them in a helpless state."
Diana pressed her lips tightly. The social worker continued, "Now, you need to quickly find them a way out. If something goes wrong, you can't just leave them on the main street in this snowy weather; they'd all die."
"But...but..."
"I know you mean well, and they surely know too. You possess such strong powers and don't use them for crime, but desperately try to save people, proving you're all good people." The social worker paused and said mournfully, "This country has a lot of good people, but unfortunately, good people can't save this country."
Returning to the shelter, Diana appeared somewhat disheartened. Her emotions urged her to confront directly, yet her reason reminded her the social worker was right; she must find these people a way out, or it might indeed harm them.
The robust ones are fine; after days here, replenishing so much energy, surviving this winter shouldn't be a problem. But, what about the frail, elderly, and sick ones?
Before she could come up with solutions, another wave of people arrived. This time from the health office, insisting there was a risk of infectious disease due to the large gathering, requiring thorough disinfection here. During which, everything and everyone must temporarily move out.
Hal could only demonstrate what Green Lantern disinfection meant. He used superpowers to eliminate all viruses and bacteria in places the health inspectors could reach. He'd never known he had this power; indeed, when pushed to the limit, people can do anything.
After health officials left, environment management office personnel came, claiming the homeless gathering destroyed the cityscape and must be relocated swiftly. Diana looked at the rundown factory buildings and the deserted streets, wondering what exactly destroyed the cityscape here.
A few of them argued at the door again. Thank this snowy day for the plummeting temperature; ordinary people without superpowers can't last long here. After a while of wrangling, the environment management office also left.
Then came the Federal Bureau of Investigation, claiming there's a fugitive mixed among them, wanting to go inside for checks. Demanding they show proof and search warrants, which they couldn't provide. Finally, Victor forged a call from a superior to forcibly remove them.
Throughout the day, everyone was exhausted. They couldn't understand; was it just about rescuing a few homeless people? Whom could they really threaten? Just a few hundred people; even if they trafficked drugs, they wouldn't sell much, right? Is it worth mobilizing such connections for this little money?
The few of them genuinely couldn't comprehend, as this was evidently abnormal. All sorts of personnel and police summoned today clearly exceeded the scope of the mob or local government. Could it be the Federal Government stirring trouble again?
Just because they didn't move the Capitol Building back?
But upon further thought, this doesn't seem right. If the Federal Government targeted these superpower users, there are better ways to scatter them, like going after their families or hometown, fabricating charges to sue them, or sending some superpower users to confront them. Even if they can't win, they can cause chaos.
However, these tactics are clearly not aimed at superpower users, but rather the common homeless people. Repeatedly harassing the shelter managers, exploiting various legal texts and drafts to find loopholes, or having law enforcement take turns intimidating, just to sabotage the efforts.
"What do you think is going on?" Ron asked.
"They might just not want anyone to set this precedent," Arthur pondered aloud, "Haven't you noticed, this entire matter isn't difficult at all; helping these people hardly takes much effort."
Everyone nodded, having realized that things weren't as tough as they initially thought. After the previous incidents, they were prepared for a dramatic showdown with the Federal Government and local authorities. While not quite like a spy thriller, it definitely would resemble an action-packed siege.
They were even prepared for distrust, rejection, and even insults. After all, these homeless have fallen to society's bottom rung, where any number of disasters might occur; they'd certainly be highly vigilant, persuading them wouldn't be easy, and getting hurt in reactive defenses would be normal.
Yet, things went smoother than they imagined.
There is a lot of information online about the homeless, which made it easy for them to investigate the distribution of homeless people. When they went to find them, because the weather was too cold and too many were too hungry, when you said you could offer them something to eat, they had no reason to distrust you. After all, staying in place was waiting to die, going out to risk it at least offered a slim hope, so it was easy to bring them away.
There was no obstruction during the transportation phase, and you could even hire professional trucks. The several truck drivers they contacted were nice people, even during such snowy weather, there were those willing to take a trip, clearly not entirely for the money.
After arriving at the shelter, although there were some minor arguments, the vast majority were fine, willing to do what they could, help each other, and even comfort them in return.
Speaking of the total input in all these matters, aside from energy and emotion, actual material investment did not exceed US$200,000. Although the superpower component cannot be counted in, all parts could be completed without superpowers, hiring more ordinary people would work as well.
Although there are only a few hundred people here, the homeless in the entire city amount to tens of thousands. If all these tens of thousands were rescued according to this standard, the cost wouldn't exceed a billion.
Last year, Metropolis's municipal management funds were about US$150 billion, with green maintenance costs alone amounting to US$6 billion. As known, aside from Central Park, Metropolis virtually has nothing substantial in terms of greenery, this US$6 billion mainly maintains the air.
Just taking a fraction of this fund, even a fraction of a fraction, could let these tens of thousands of homeless people get through the winter. Execution-wise, there's no difficulty, it wouldn't take long, spending a week could almost solve it, even with low efficiency, dragging it out for a month or two would eventually solve it.
But no one does it. This means the difficulty in rescuing the homeless never lies at the realization level. Governments, organizations, departments, and even individuals don't do so, not because they can't, surely something more abstract is obstructing them.
When encountering such things, the few of them feel a bit bewildered because their enemy is invisible and intangible.
When community workers come to inspect, can you kill them all? When health officials come to check sanitation, can you detain them? Even when the Federal Bureau of Investigation comes to mess around, you can't use forceful means against them. Because the people coming aren't here with malice towards the Justice League or these homeless individuals, they purely follow procedure, their superiors sent them to inspect, so they must come; otherwise, who would willingly face wind and snow to come to such a remote place to argue?
Moreover, among them, there are those good people who want to give them reminders. The people coming from various departments are hinting, both openly and secretly, that you have offended people, this matter won't go through, advising them to have early backup plans, not to waste effort.
It can be said, in all these events, none are truly bad people, many can even be termed as good people with humanistic brilliance. Logically, with so many human resources directed toward one purpose, somehow it should succeed, but in fact, it doesn't.
On the second day of the heavy snow, Diana received a mysterious call. The person on the phone said, "Hello, Mistress Prince, I am calling you under personal capacity. I just want to remind you, someone is investigating the public art land you applied for in Billtge Community, they seem to want to accuse you of illegal use of leasing plots. This litigatory document I can only help suppress for three days, you must resolve the trouble in three days. Please hurry, goodbye."
Diana's hair stood on end. She immediately went to find Ron and said, "When we rented the factory, what did we write down as its use?"
"Back then there was no welfare use," Ron said, "You chose a category in your industry, public space art…"
"They found out," Diana said. Then she took out her phone and asked Victor, "Is it still possible to change now?"
"Can't change," Victor said, "because there's no item for rescue, couldn't find it among all the use items, and there's no related law or bill."
"Then why can those rescue points… don't tell me everyone is illegal?"
"They should be using the community free land clause."
"Can we use it?"
"But this thing requires a whole community vote and pre-approval, now surely too late," Victor appeared somewhat worried, he said, "Once the lease usage is violated, not only might there be evictions, also need compensation."
Just as this was mentioned, the phone rang again, Diana answered the call, the voice on the other side was somewhat gruff: "What kind of nonsense are you up to? I agreed to rent you the factory land because you said you wanted to do some art sculpture, now someone's calling me saying you're helping the homeless there?!"
"Sorry, sir," Diana quickly apologized, she said, "I didn't deliberately deceive you, just…"
"We are doing performance art," Ron took the phone and said, "This is a social experiment of behavior art."
The other party seemed to distrust this nonsense, but only snorted twice and replied, "Alright, great philanthropist, I must tell you, someone has contacted me asking to sue you for illegal land use. I don't have the leisure money for these things, but you'd better be careful, both community and municipal could file charges, and once on the court, I won't testify for you."
"We'll immediately find a solution," Diana said, "Thanks for the reminder."