I wonder, do folks who can pull the levers to disburse our tax monies really understand what's goin on out here? I swear, it's as if they live in a freakin fairy tale.
Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback and Sorrows of Empire (Youtube has a video of him discussing his latest work), talks in one of those books (both of which are excellent discourses on the behavior and future of the US) about the super-elite who drive past ghettos and slums in their armor-plated limos, impervious and inoculated to and against the suffering and misery they're passing. They pull into gated communities that insulate them from the realities of the rest of the world and they then make policy and spending decisions based on their own flawed perceptions of how things are in the world.
It's all about priorities kiddies - ya either take care of yer own or ya don't. I don't know how we can continue claiming the moral high ground when we can't put a pregnant woman into housing without delays......In recession, babies starting out homeless
'I am shocked that I let us get this far down,' laments a jobless dad
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - -- At 5 weeks old, with a crown of dark hair and big blue eyes, Anastasia is one of the newest faces of the economic crisis. She was born homeless.
"When we are lucky enough to be settled, we will tell her that things were not always as easy as you may think," said Angela Garcia, 26, laying her infant down in a crib crammed into the corner of a small room at the Broward Outreach Center in Pompano Beach, Fla. She shares the room with her husband, David Henson, and their two older daughters, ages 2 and 6.
In Fort Lauderdale, Demali Staple's youngest child, 4-month-old Jabari, is another recession baby, entering a world gripped by the worst economy in more than a generation. When Staple finishes work as a landscaper, she picks up her son and his brother Alvash, 3, at a day care center and they return to a room at Covenant House, a shelter for runaways and homeless youths.
"There are days when I want to give up," said Staple, 21, a single mother. "But I don't want my boys to go through what I went through. So I push myself."
"When we are lucky enough to be settled, we will tell her that things were not always as easy as you may think," said Angela Garcia, 26, laying her infant down in a crib crammed into the corner of a small room at the Broward Outreach Center in Pompano Beach, Fla. She shares the room with her husband, David Henson, and their two older daughters, ages 2 and 6.
In Fort Lauderdale, Demali Staple's youngest child, 4-month-old Jabari, is another recession baby, entering a world gripped by the worst economy in more than a generation. When Staple finishes work as a landscaper, she picks up her son and his brother Alvash, 3, at a day care center and they return to a room at Covenant House, a shelter for runaways and homeless youths.
"There are days when I want to give up," said Staple, 21, a single mother. "But I don't want my boys to go through what I went through. So I push myself."
The report analyzes data from 2005-2006. It estimates that 1.5 million children experienced homelessness at least once that year and says the problem is surely worse now because of the foreclosures and job losses of the deepening recession.
The report's state rankings reflect performance in four areas: child homelessness per capita, child well-being, risk for child homelessness, and state policy and planning.
The top five, or best-performing, states were Connecticut, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island and North Dakota. At the bottom were Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, New Mexico and Louisiana.
Illinois ranked 13th, with more than 30,000 homeless children.
Pennsylvania, at 14th, had more than 43,000 homeless children. "If we could freeze-frame it now, it would be bad enough," said Sen. Robert Casey Jr., D-Pa., who wrote a foreword to the report. "By end of this year, it will be that much worse."
For pregnant women and newborns, health concerns are magnified by poverty and homelessness. Studies show that homeless children are more likely than other children to have asthma and ear infections and suffer from emotional and behavior problems.
"It is not ideal in any way, shape or form to have a baby in a shelter," said Patricia Mantis of The Coalition to End Homelessness.
For struggling parents such as Garcia and Henson, shelter living with an infant means access to free diapers, some clothing and even a stroller. They also benefit from counseling supplied by Broward Outreach Center caseworker Shirley Favali.
Quarters are tight, a bathroom is shared with dozens of others and there is none of the extended family support that many young parents rely on.
During weekdays, Alisa, 6, goes to camp while Garcia stays in the shelter's family wing with her baby and daughter Alexis. If Garcia can find day care for Alexis and the baby, she plans to begin looking for a job.
"We never thought this would happen," Henson, 31, said of the couple's spiral into homelessness that accelerated when he lost his construction job in January. "Really, I am shocked that I let us get this far down."
Together for seven years, Garcia and Henson grew up in Hollywood, Fla., and lived there in a rented apartment. When they no longer could afford it, they moved in with Garcia's mother. He worked day jobs through labor pools.
After a fruitless bus trip to find work in Texas, where Garcia's father lives, the couple returned to Broward County this spring, broke.
Henson recently found a job in a Home Depot warehouse, and Favali said the couple are on track to qualify for a move to transitional housing, where they can stay rent-free for up to 18 months.
"I think they are really trying," Favali said. "They are motivated."
Staple also is trying. "I am saving all the money I can," said Staple, who catches a 7 a.m. bus so she can drop the kids off at day care and get to work by 8.
With the baby in her arms, and Alvash bouncing on a couch, Staple looked around a lounge-type playroom in the former motel that Covenant House runs as a family center.
"This is not the life I imagined, being in this position," she said. "I'd still like to be a nurse, or get my GED and go into the military. But, look, I'm here now."
