THE DAILY BLADE: Homelessness In The Time Of Obama
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's annual survey, homelessness rose in rural or suburban from 23 percent in 2008 to 32 percent in 2009, reports The Associated Press:
Homelessness in rural and suburban America is straining shelters this winter as the economy founders and joblessness hovers near double digits - a "perfect storm of foreclosures, unemployment and a shortage of affordable housing," in one official's eyes.
"We are seeing many families that never before sought government help," said Greg Blass, commissioner of Social Services in Suffolk County on eastern Long Island.
"We see a spiral in food stamps, heating assistance applications; Medicaid is skyrocketing," Blass added. "It is truly reaching a stage of being alarming." …
The crunch is seen in suburbs around the country.
Northeast of Atlanta, foreclosures rose 77 percent from 2008 to 2009, said Suzy Bus of the Gwinnett County Coalition for Health and Human Services. About 60 percent of the county's homeless are children 9 and younger, she said.
"People equate homeless to a guy under a bridge, but it's a lot more complex than that, and it permeates much further into our society than a lot of people realize," Bus said.
Homelessness amongst the formerly middle class will undoubtedly increase as “the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits,” reports The New York Times:
Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.
Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives - potentially for years to come. …
Every downturn pushes some people out of the middle class before the economy resumes expanding. Most recover. Many prosper. But some economists worry that this time could be different. An unusual constellation of forces - some embedded in the modern-day economy, others unique to this wrenching recession - might make it especially difficult for those out of work to find their way back to their middle-class lives.
Labor experts say the economy needs 100,000 new jobs a month just to absorb entrants to the labor force. With more than 15 million people officially jobless, even a vigorous recovery is likely to leave an enormous number out of work for years.
Some labor experts note that severe economic downturns are generally followed by powerful expansions, suggesting that aggressive hiring will soon resume. But doubts remain about whether such hiring can last long enough to absorb anywhere close to the millions of unemployed.
With a vote of 62-30, the Senate advanced Harry Reid’s (D-NV) $15 million jobs creation bill that exempts companies hiring Americans unemployed for at least 60 days from paying payroll taxes on those workers through the end of this year, and grants a $1,000 tax credit for each new employee who remains on the payroll for at least for 52 weeks. Several features of last year’s “stimulus” bill were also reprised in the new measure, including new funding for highway and other public construction projects.
Considering the significant number of white collar professional jobs lost since the start of the recession, a jobs bill that only creates manufacturing and construction jobs will do little to ease the plight of the growing number of middle class homeless who went to college or graduate school, are highly skilled and followed all the rules to climb the ladder of success.
Dems Are Inside, Outside, Upside Down
The Washington Post reports that New Castle County (DE) executive Chris Coons “is one of a handful of Democrats vying to win races in open seats that could swing the balance of power in the Senate … seizing on the sour national mood to cast themselves as reform-minded outsiders, willing to drive a wedge between themselves and Democratic leaders as they vow to shake up the political establishment that their party controls.” Pointing to MA Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), who “cast himself as a feisty independent who shares voter contempt for the status quo,” Dem pollsters and pundits think this is the “message” Americans want to hear.
But Coons was recruited to run by none other than Vice President Joe Biden, which seriously undercuts his “outsider” cred. Seeing how President Barack Hussein Obama has governed in the first year of his only term in office - after having spouted soothing centrist-sounding positions during the campaign - voters have learned to discern the difference between the message and the messenger. As the WaPo notes, “In none of the races are the insider-vs.-outsider distinctions as clear as Democrats might like them to be.”
In Memoriam
Fran Lee, September 28, 1910 - February 13, 2010
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