A couple of weeks ago the local Housing Authority announced more cuts due to a 10% reduction in funds from 2004 budget. What happened to the outpouring of good will from the hurricanes? We are approaching the two month mark since Hurricane Katrina, and then we survived Rita and Wilma, and now the federal government is now squeezing our own Public Housing Authority! This is a shortfall in the 2005 budget to say nothing for the expected cuts for 2006 and all the other programs that serve poor people that could take a hit.
How is this possible? Cleveland is not dissimilar to New Orleans. We have a large population that lives everyday in poverty. We cannot afford even one reduction in the number of affordable units of housing. We cannot absorb any reductions in Medicaid, Food Stamps, or reductions in our Job Training program. How hypocritical for federal officials to express concern over the poor and disenfranchised left behind in New Orleans and then turn around and force a 10% cut in funding for CMHA. Disgraceful.
Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
2 comments:
I agrree. Where is the outrage? Where are the jobs? What's happening to our country?
This situation makes me think of the "save the children" charities who collect money for children in third world countries hundreds or thousand of miles away, but think nothing of American children who live in the same conditions and are only several streets over. Americans have increasingly less of an attention span when it comes to dealing with an issue that takes more than a few telethons to solve.
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