Everyone seems to offer a response to the State of the Union address these days. We even got two televised responses last night. So I thought I would as well. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot to say. The President spoke mainly about the future. Presumably, he and his advisors felt this would be the best political strategy. Was it? Who knows? I’ll leave that to the partisan political commentators on television or in the newspaper. But from my perspective, the speech was a missed opportunity to talk about how a lot of Americans are still hurting today, and what this President is going to do about it – for make no mistake about it, there are many things he can do.
Let’s break it down. The President told us that education was critical to the country’s future, but didn’t say anything about helping the one million homeless children and youth living in unsafe conditions attend school while their families obtain housing. President Obama also talked about veterans, but he failed to reiterate his recent statement that the US should have “zero tolerance for veterans homelessness” (he did mention it at a White House event earlier this week).
I also heard a brief mention of housing, but only as part of an argument for government consolidation, premised on a belief that too many federal agencies focus on housing. Would that this were true. Where was any mention of the foreclosures that continue to plague American communities, with the related simple pledge to release $1 billion in federal funds to help temporarily unemployed or sick homeowners pay their mortgages and avoid losing their homes? This is money that Congress already gave to the Administration, that will expire at the end of September with the federal fiscal year. Not to mention, there wasn’t any promise of finding additional funds.
And finally the President talked about tax reform. How does that impact homelessness? Well, the home mortgage interest deduction costs the government 3-4 HUD budgets each year. That’s real money. And consequently, many of the serious tax reform proposals out there recommend capping it. If we do that, the question is what to do with new revenues – support our fellow Americans when times are tough or simply reduce the deficit. A creative hard-charging Administration could work with Congress to get tax reform complete before the 2012 elections, ensuring that a percentage of new revenue helps support our social safety net.
Will the Obama Administration be willing to fight for average people like this? It’s hard to say. They’ve got 2012 on the brain. But for people who are homeless today, that’s a very long time to ask them to wait.
Yesterday, the Huffington Post featured a front page story about the “The New Face of Homelessness.” Within hours, thousands of readers posted comments, many telling of their own personal struggles with facing foreclosure, eviction, and homelessness. Their stories are harrowing, and they underscore our need to do much more to prevent and end homelessness in these troubling times. Here is just a sampling of the stories that were told:
“We’ve been struggling for a few years now. This is not new. We can barely keep enough food in the house all month. I can’t remember the last time I bought anything like clothes for myself. Plus the IRS takes any income tax we get in for student loans I’ve defaulted on. My little girl is severely handicapped and I cannot work because I care for her 24/7…They cut her SSI in half. They’ve stopped paying for her seizure medicine out of the blue. The price of food is insane. The cost of renting a decent home has not gone down. Utilities keep going up too. But income has been cut. We live a bare bones existence. There is nothing left to cut from our budget.” – susiesiouxsie
“I am presently on hold with the DC unemployment office waiting to apply for extended unemployment compensation, and this hold music is maddening. It’s been 30 minutes—thankfully it’s free to call on google. It is so easy for your life to change for the worse like this, no matter how careful you are. I’m educated, I had a few months’ worth of savings to live on, and here I am…still looking for a job. If I had kids to support, we would be in a shelter by now.” – ckevere (more…)
Everyone’s talking about Ted Williams these days. My twitter feed is abuzz with congratulations for him, YouTube is counting hits of his video clips in the millions, and most of the news sites I frequent have something to say about Ted, his voice, his reunion with his mother, his job offers…
And I say congratulations to Ted! I am pleased to see he will no longer have to live on the streets and that others will be able to experience his “golden voice” on the airwaves for what we hope will be a long time to come.
Ted’s is the kind of rags to riches story we all love – and I think we’re especially enamored by it because it emerged from the web 2.0. We still love to believe that the United States is a place where dreams come true, and we point to stories like Ted’s to prove that the American Dream is alive and well.
I have a couple of problems with this. First, while Ted’s is an excellent story, there are millions more people experiencing homelessness that will never garner such media attention. The family sleeping in their car because they lost their home may not ever see the limelight, even if their youngest daughter is a math whiz. We may never find out that the homeless veteran seeking shelter from a cold winter’s night is also a gourmet cook. I do not mean to imply that talking about Ted Williams is a bad thing, simply that talking just about Ted Williams misses the point. Homelessness is a national human rights crisis, and not everyone who sleeps on the sidewalk tonight will get the help they need quickly enough. Some of them will die of hypothermia. We should be talking about that.
Secondly, I am disturbed by the implication that it is “news” that people experiencing homelessness might, in fact, possess talents and skills. My mother taught me, and I’m betting yours did too, that everyone has something to bring to the table. Everyone has some unique gift or talent. The trouble is, we’re not always looking. Rather than seeing Ted Williams as an extraordinary phenomenon, I’d prefer we saw him as a reminder that all people have value.
May the story of Ted Williams be one that inspires the nation to believe that anything is possible. And may our “anything” mean ending homelessness for all, not just for one very talented man.
-Whitney Gent, Development & Communications Director
Everyone seems to offer a response to the State of the Union address these days. We even got two televised responses last night. So I thought I would as well. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot to say. The President spoke mainly about the future. Presumably, he and his advisors felt this would be the best political strategy. Was it? Who knows? I’ll leave that to the partisan political commentators on television or in the newspaper. But from my perspective, the speech was a missed opportunity to talk about how a lot of Americans are still hurting today, and what this President is going to do about it – for make no mistake about it, there are many things he can do.
