Bush Homeless Czar Replaced
The National Coalition for the Homeless asked for a new director of the InterAgency Council on Homelessness to set a new direction for the federal government. The Obama Administration has made that change this last week. Philip Mangano was let go, and replaced by Peter Dougherty formerly of the Department of Veterans Affairs as acting director. This is a huge step, and it will make a huge difference in national policy toward addressing homelessness. I have never been a fan of Mr. Mangano after listening to his same tired speech over and over. I met with him once in DC as part of my position with the National Coalition for the Homeless Board of Directors, and could not stand to hear him spin and pass off propaganda as fact. So, I skipped the other meetings with Mr. Mangano over the last few years.
David Corn wrote the book Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandel and the Selling of the Iraq War with Michael Isikoff, a perfect book for the career of Philip Mangano and his quest to end homelessness. He has a lot of nerve claiming a success when homelessness is up across the country and more and more children have become homeless in America. He wrote this amazing piece of fiction upon his departure taking credit for a decrease in homelessness (fiction), re-framed the countries response to homelessness (except in New Orleans), and I think he took credit for the election of the first African American President. He used the same Abolishinist themes in his going away letter that he used in every speech that he made over the last seven years in 350 different cities.
My big issue was that mainstream programs like public housing and the voucher program were decimated over the last 10 years, and Mangano never spoke up to criticize his boss for proposing these policies. He calls this the Abolitionist Agenda, but I am not sure that John Brown and Frederick Douglas would support this characterization. This was more like the Separate But Equal agenda where you try to solve homelessness for one group (long term homeless), while all the rest of the populations suffer. This is not a Housing First model as detailed in his letter of resignation. This is a Housing After You Hit Rock Bottom approach. Homeless people who have suffered the longest will be offered housing while all the other affordable housing in the community will be condemned and taken down.
Thank you for leaving the stage, Mr. Mangano. Now we can get to work solving this national embarrassment of homelessness.
Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.
Showing posts with label Mangano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mangano. Show all posts
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Mangano Must Go!!!
National Coalition Asks for New Interagency Council Director
The National Coalition for the Homeless sent a letter to President Obama. Full disclosure: I have a board position with the National Coalition Coalition for the Homeless, and helped start this process.
National Coalition for the Homeless
2201 P Street, NW
Washington DC 20037-1033
202/462-4822
The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States of America
The White House
Washington DC 20500
The National Coalition for the Homeless wishes to congratulate you on your inauguration as the President of the United States, and to commend you for pledging to reduce poverty during your term in office. We look forward to working with you as you implement action steps to fulfill pledges made during your campaign to address domestic poverty, including its most extreme manifestation – homelessness.
We understand that a number of entities within the Executive Office of the President have been assigned with responsibility for policy development regarding poverty, among them the Office of Mobility and Opportunity, Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and Office on Urban Affairs. We note the rapidity in which appointments to these new offices are being made.
Thus we are disappointed that a statutorily-established executive branch entity that must also be a central player in your Administration’s poverty activities – the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) – is lacking an appointment of your choosing to its Executive Director position. We urge you to make a prompt appointment of a new ICH Executive Director – an appointee who will advance your vision for an America where all people prosper and thrive, including those among us with the greatest needs.
Moreover, we call upon you to use the appointment of a new ICH Director as your moment to signal a change in direction in the current national approach to ending homelessness and as your opportunity to articulate an aggressive mandate to eliminate homelessness from our nation during your term of office.
Regrettably, the prior Administration took a narrow approach to homelessness policy – focusing the bulk of its energy toward single adults with disabilities who experience homelessness for long periods of time (the “chronically homeless”), to the abject neglect of those people who are also homeless for lesser periods of time and/or due to factors other than disability and family status. It also foisted the preponderance of responsibility for homelessness planning on city and county governments, while failing to establish a role for the national government itself. Moreover, exorbitant sums of money were spent on population counts and information management system acquisition, while investments in affordable housing, supportive services, and emergency responses fell far short of need.The current ICH Executive Director is tied to these policy choices. It is urgent that you accept his resignation and appoint someone with fresh ideas and a new mandate, including addressing the foreclosure crisis and its impact on homelessness, particularly among renters.
President Obama, the time for definitive and decisive action to end homelessness for the 3.5 million Americans who experience it annually (and growing due to the economic recession and foreclosure crisis) is now. People experiencing homelessness or at risk of a housing loss are waiting impatiently for bold leadership on this topic from your Administration. The national government can no longer deprive any one homeless “subpopulation” from resources and services in order to fund whatever is the “current hot trend” in social policy. It can no longer let the national human needs budget stagnate while asking counties, cities, and towns to stand the gaps. Our elected and appointed officials at the sub-national level can no longer flail on their own without the national government as a reliable and dependable partner.
We urge you to appoint an ICH Executive Director with the professional skills and personal attributes necessary for mobilizing all component agencies of the Council, as well as state, local, and private partners, toward the development and implementation of a national strategic plan to end homelessness. The plan must end homelessness for all and single out no subgroups over others for preferential consideration. The national strategic must embrace housing for all, universal livable incomes as a minimum standard, freedom from crippling health care debts, educational opportunities for all, and federal protection or repeal of laws and actions that make it illegal to be poor. The plan must articulate concrete action steps and timetable for reaching these aims. We also encourage you to convene a White House summit on homelessness in your first term to raise awareness of the issue and to draw on the collective wisdom of government officials, advocates, services providers, and homeless families and individuals in devising strategies to prevent and end homelessness.
We believe that by your election the American people have spoken. They have said that it is time tackle once and for all time seemingly intractable national problems. Certainly homelessness is among those challenges that have plagued American society for far too long. We urge you to quickly name to the ICH Executive Director position an individual with the leadership ability to implement our shared vision of an America free of homelessness.
We look forward to being consulted in the appointment of the next Executive Director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness, and in helping that appointee advance your forthcoming national strategic plan to end homelessness.
Sincerely,
Michael Stoops
Executive Director
The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless supports the message in this letter, and we hope that the administration picks a new InterAgency Council on Homelessness Director.
Brian Davis
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
The National Coalition for the Homeless sent a letter to President Obama. Full disclosure: I have a board position with the National Coalition Coalition for the Homeless, and helped start this process.
National Coalition for the Homeless
2201 P Street, NW
Washington DC 20037-1033
202/462-4822
The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States of America
The White House
Washington DC 20500
The National Coalition for the Homeless wishes to congratulate you on your inauguration as the President of the United States, and to commend you for pledging to reduce poverty during your term in office. We look forward to working with you as you implement action steps to fulfill pledges made during your campaign to address domestic poverty, including its most extreme manifestation – homelessness.
We understand that a number of entities within the Executive Office of the President have been assigned with responsibility for policy development regarding poverty, among them the Office of Mobility and Opportunity, Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and Office on Urban Affairs. We note the rapidity in which appointments to these new offices are being made.
Thus we are disappointed that a statutorily-established executive branch entity that must also be a central player in your Administration’s poverty activities – the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) – is lacking an appointment of your choosing to its Executive Director position. We urge you to make a prompt appointment of a new ICH Executive Director – an appointee who will advance your vision for an America where all people prosper and thrive, including those among us with the greatest needs.
Moreover, we call upon you to use the appointment of a new ICH Director as your moment to signal a change in direction in the current national approach to ending homelessness and as your opportunity to articulate an aggressive mandate to eliminate homelessness from our nation during your term of office.
Regrettably, the prior Administration took a narrow approach to homelessness policy – focusing the bulk of its energy toward single adults with disabilities who experience homelessness for long periods of time (the “chronically homeless”), to the abject neglect of those people who are also homeless for lesser periods of time and/or due to factors other than disability and family status. It also foisted the preponderance of responsibility for homelessness planning on city and county governments, while failing to establish a role for the national government itself. Moreover, exorbitant sums of money were spent on population counts and information management system acquisition, while investments in affordable housing, supportive services, and emergency responses fell far short of need.The current ICH Executive Director is tied to these policy choices. It is urgent that you accept his resignation and appoint someone with fresh ideas and a new mandate, including addressing the foreclosure crisis and its impact on homelessness, particularly among renters.
President Obama, the time for definitive and decisive action to end homelessness for the 3.5 million Americans who experience it annually (and growing due to the economic recession and foreclosure crisis) is now. People experiencing homelessness or at risk of a housing loss are waiting impatiently for bold leadership on this topic from your Administration. The national government can no longer deprive any one homeless “subpopulation” from resources and services in order to fund whatever is the “current hot trend” in social policy. It can no longer let the national human needs budget stagnate while asking counties, cities, and towns to stand the gaps. Our elected and appointed officials at the sub-national level can no longer flail on their own without the national government as a reliable and dependable partner.
We urge you to appoint an ICH Executive Director with the professional skills and personal attributes necessary for mobilizing all component agencies of the Council, as well as state, local, and private partners, toward the development and implementation of a national strategic plan to end homelessness. The plan must end homelessness for all and single out no subgroups over others for preferential consideration. The national strategic must embrace housing for all, universal livable incomes as a minimum standard, freedom from crippling health care debts, educational opportunities for all, and federal protection or repeal of laws and actions that make it illegal to be poor. The plan must articulate concrete action steps and timetable for reaching these aims. We also encourage you to convene a White House summit on homelessness in your first term to raise awareness of the issue and to draw on the collective wisdom of government officials, advocates, services providers, and homeless families and individuals in devising strategies to prevent and end homelessness.
We believe that by your election the American people have spoken. They have said that it is time tackle once and for all time seemingly intractable national problems. Certainly homelessness is among those challenges that have plagued American society for far too long. We urge you to quickly name to the ICH Executive Director position an individual with the leadership ability to implement our shared vision of an America free of homelessness.
We look forward to being consulted in the appointment of the next Executive Director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness, and in helping that appointee advance your forthcoming national strategic plan to end homelessness.
Sincerely,
Michael Stoops
Executive Director
The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless supports the message in this letter, and we hope that the administration picks a new InterAgency Council on Homelessness Director.
Brian Davis
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Mangano Must Go!!
More Harm Than GoodThe Washington Post did a profile of Phil Mangano, the Director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness today. (Thanks to CynDe for sending the link). I guess Mr. Mangano is working on securing a job in the Obama administration. There was some mention in the article from NPACH advocates about Mr. Mangano's problems, but they did not go into enough detail. There was also a feature on one of the NPR programs Tell Me More yesterday about Mr. Mangano in an effort to bolster his resume. Anyway, I don't think that the NPR host or the Post gave enough of the other side of the story on Mr. Mangano. Here is my impression of Mr. Mangano from my position in Cleveland and Board Member of the National Coalition for the Homeless. Bottom line for President Elect Obama get rid of Mr. Mangano. Send him back to Boston to write his memoir on the relationship between his struggle against homelessness and the abolitionist movement, which can sit on the shelf next to all the Ten Year Plans to End Homelessness.
Why Mr. Mangano should be fired, and why he has caused great harm to homeless people in America:
1. Hurricane Katrina: The largest number of people made homeless in a few short days in the history of the United States. It would seem that the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness would take the lead in the recovery effort. Since Mr. Mangano had instead focused on "long term homelessness," they had no ability to deal with natural disasters and were as unprepared for Katrina as the rest of the Executive Branch. Mangano never spoke up and said that there was a problem or that the administration dropped the ball in the destruction of one of America's great cities.
2. The Phrase Chronic Homelessness: This expression came into vogue under Mr. Mangano. I and many homeless people hate this phrase. It sounds like a disease that homeless people have contracted. Does it catch or spread through some kind of airborne pathogen? Homelessness is already a politically charged expression that many homeless people hate to use, but add the word "chronic" and it is like being tagged with the label "Black Plague Victim."
3. Malcolm Gladwell is Wrong: The entire theory that Mr. Mangano champions is based on Malcolm Gladwell's 2000 book The Tipping Point. Gladwell has a history background, and is a writer/journalist. He is not a social scientist or a researcher. He is a good observer of culture and then attaches scientific principles. It is a good read for the masses with simple explanations of complex problems. Basing public policy and millions of dollars on the work of one British/Canadian writer seems extreme to me. Hey, I like George Carlin, but I would never suggest that we put all our health dollars on Broccoli as the cure for Cancer as Carlin had recommended. I have talked about this flawed Malcolm Gladwell strategy here and here and here. Basically, Gladwell followed one homeless guy around and found that he costs our society a bunch through incarceration, emergency room, and mental health care costs besides shelter and food costs. This is all correct, but as I have said many times is that if you remove this guy from the system and put him in housing the emergency room and jails are not going to pay the shelters the money they saved so that the shelters can serve others. The other issue is that a focus on long term homeless does not work for every community in the United States. It may work in Boston and New York City, but this policy is harmful to Jeffersonville, Indiana and Lorain County, Ohio. There is not one policy created in Washington that will cure homelessness throughout the United States.
3. He never criticized his Boss: Mangano was a good soldier for the Bush administration. He travelled the country racking up huge frequent flyer miles spreading the gospel that George W. Bush cares about ending homelessness in America. This was the biggest spin campaign in the history of politics. It was all a big show with ribbon cuttings instead of offering real solutions or real money. They pulled the rug out from under Public Housing and gave the cities chump change for permanent supportive housing. The Mayors got to champion a brand new apartment building, but did not see that the Public Housing was falling down around their cities. Mangano took money from shelters and put it into brand new buildings for the long term homeless. He never told us how to pay for the long term management of these buildings, but they sure looked nice when they opened. Mangano never said anything bad about the Bush administration lack of a real housing policy (until this last week). The HUD budget submitted by Bush to Congress has for the past seven years called for major cuts to the major housing programs, and Mangano never said anything about how this would only increase homelessness.
4. Ten Year Plans Are Fake: Mr. Mangano cannot speak for more than six minutes without using the phrase "ten year plans". The first 10 year plans were passed in 2000, so we should start seeing an end to homelessness in those cities in 2010? The dirty secret is that many of these plans were only to solve long term homelessness or 10-20% of the population. While we spent a substantial portion of our resources (every new dollar for five years) on solving 10-20% of the problem. The damn broke over the last two year and many of cities were flooded with homeless people while HUD was focused on single adults with a disability. Most of the plans are sitting on the shelf. Others are discredited and forgotten, and the few that are left are suffering because of the recession. In Cleveland, family homelessness is way worse than it was in 2002. We did all this work on providing 400 new apartment units for single adult homeless people with a disability and it has not had any impact on the shelters or homelessness. There are five people waiting for help for every person we took off the streets. The ten year plans in almost every city will be quickly forgotten as soon as the ink is dry. Besides, why do we have to wait 10 years to solve homelessness for everyone?
5. Homelessness Has Grown: Bottom line is that a person should be measured on the success based on the numbers of people suffering. If you are appointed homeless czar and homelessness increases: you get fired. If you are paid to coach a football team and they lose 12 out of 16 games in a season: you are fired. If you are put in charge of rebuilding Iraq, and it breaks out into Civil War: you get fired (or you get the medal of freedom--but that is a different problem). Despite HUD trying to reclassify homeless people or change their status, by nearly every measurement there are more homeless people than there were at the start of the Bush Administration. We do not trust the HUD count, but I do trust the Cleveland Public School numbers. The school district has had a program to serve homeless children for 20 years, and they saw a 40% rise between 2006 and 2007. Even though we have developed more shelter beds in Cleveland, we still have people sleeping on mats on the floors in our shelters. More homelessness means the guy in charge has to go.
6. Families are Suffering. When I started working with homeless people, families were served first and were provided the most resources. This changed with Phillip Mangano who forced shelters and homeless services to focus on long term single adults. Now, families have to split up, and they spend much more time homeless in Cleveland. They have a hard time finding rental assistance, and children are on the move in great numbers. There are long waiting lists for housing, and a Mom has little chance of finding help with rent. We removed welfare with time limits, and now families struggle to keep their heads above water with stagnant wages. The Homeless Czar rarely talked about families. Mangano did not see the Foreclosure Tsunami that has destroyed many cities in America, and caused such pain to families. He never said that the Bush push for a "homeownership society" might not be the best policy for everyone. There is now a five year wait in Cleveland for families to get a rent subsidy for housing thanks to Bush policies.
7. He Never Criticized Bad City Policies. For the past dozen years, many cities that Mr. Mangano visited were developing policies that only made homelessness worse. They were passing anti-sitting or panhandling laws to make it illegal to be homeless. This would only extend the time a person will not be able to find housing or a job. It is a fact that those with a criminal background have a harder time finding stable housing or a decent job. Never when Mr. Mangano was shaking these Mayor's hands did he raise the issue of bad local policies. He had a great speech and heaped praise on these Mayors for their fake 10 year plans, but never said anything about sending the police out to arrest people sleeping on sidewalks. We never heard anything about compounding the problem with incarceration of mentally ill people. It is like presiding over the ribbon cutting of a new dam, and ignoring the screen door built into the center of the dam.
8. We Needed Some Coordination Among the Federal Agencies. The InterAgency Council was supposed to break down barriers in serving homeless people. It was to coordinate all the federal departments so that the HUD rules match those of Health and Human Services, the Department of Veteran Affairs, Education and Labor, etc. This never happened. We still do not have a common definition of homelessness among the agencies. Everyone of the agencies have done stupid things that harm homeless people. They do not work together to reduce the time it takes to be judged disabled or speed up the employment help. They do not have a common screening mechanism or work together to have one agency provide supportive services while the other provides housing. The federal government is just as dysfunctional for homeless people as they were when this crisis started in 1984.
Mr Mangano: you were wrong about the policies to end homelessness and you were silent on the injustices done toward homeless people over the last eight years. There are still 22 days to get the Medal of Freedom from this White House. It is time to move on; take your Powerpoint and look at a job again in the entertainment industry. Hey, how about traveling the country pushing a 10 year plan to restore the status of the Compact Disc?
Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Disability and Long Term Homeless
Two Interesting Stories About Poverty
Marcia Bufford Update
In case you missed it Andrea Simakis had a very good story/summary/update on how Marcia Bufford has fared since the shooting in 2006 that appeared in yesterday's Plain Dealer. We had regular blog updates last year about Bufford here and here and here. I really like Andrea's writing, and she weaves a very good story with her profile of Marcia. Anyway, Marcia has struggled with poverty, and the inability to find a job that does not require her to be on her feet. She has struggled paying her bills and complete her school. She has had a real hard time with her recovery, and thanks only to the kindness of strangers was she able to walk in her own graduation Saturday. She appeared on Channel 3 on Tuesday night, and then Friday was in the Plain Dealer. Marcia is still a member of the NEOCH Board of Trustees, and helps out whenever she can.
The most amazing part of this story is that Marcia Bufford has a bullet lodged at the base of her skull and the State of Ohio has determined that she is not disabled. How can you get shot in the face and walk with a cane and yet not be disabled? The system for determining disability is broken and needs to be fixed. They seem to turn everyone down and force them to hire an attorney to get the scraps offered to disabled people in America. It is a disgrace to treat fragile populations like this, and make them grovel for a small check that does not cover fair market rent anywhere in the country.
Update: There was an article in the Akron Beacon Journal about the need for more judges to look at all the backlog on cases last week. I missed it, but here is the link.
The Bush's Car Salesman Speaks
This morning on Weekend Edition with Scott Simon, he interviewed Phillip Mangano who heads up the federal Interagency Council on Homelessness. Mangano is the snake oil salesman for the Bush administration--putting a positive face on domestic policy toward homeless people. He sounds so sincere and so determined, but it is a house of cards. As I have said before, there is no way to address homelessness in America while cutting funds to Public Housing and the Housing Choice Voucher program. It is fake to push these 10 year plans while making families, youth and the unemployed the next long term homeless in America with budget cuts to the housing programs. These guys will all be long gone when the cities discover these 10 year plans don't work and have not solved homelessness. How about we solve homelessness for everyone living in the United States instead of pitting one population against another?
Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
Marcia Bufford Update
In case you missed it Andrea Simakis had a very good story/summary/update on how Marcia Bufford has fared since the shooting in 2006 that appeared in yesterday's Plain Dealer. We had regular blog updates last year about Bufford here and here and here. I really like Andrea's writing, and she weaves a very good story with her profile of Marcia. Anyway, Marcia has struggled with poverty, and the inability to find a job that does not require her to be on her feet. She has struggled paying her bills and complete her school. She has had a real hard time with her recovery, and thanks only to the kindness of strangers was she able to walk in her own graduation Saturday. She appeared on Channel 3 on Tuesday night, and then Friday was in the Plain Dealer. Marcia is still a member of the NEOCH Board of Trustees, and helps out whenever she can.
The most amazing part of this story is that Marcia Bufford has a bullet lodged at the base of her skull and the State of Ohio has determined that she is not disabled. How can you get shot in the face and walk with a cane and yet not be disabled? The system for determining disability is broken and needs to be fixed. They seem to turn everyone down and force them to hire an attorney to get the scraps offered to disabled people in America. It is a disgrace to treat fragile populations like this, and make them grovel for a small check that does not cover fair market rent anywhere in the country.
Update: There was an article in the Akron Beacon Journal about the need for more judges to look at all the backlog on cases last week. I missed it, but here is the link.
The Bush's Car Salesman Speaks
This morning on Weekend Edition with Scott Simon, he interviewed Phillip Mangano who heads up the federal Interagency Council on Homelessness. Mangano is the snake oil salesman for the Bush administration--putting a positive face on domestic policy toward homeless people. He sounds so sincere and so determined, but it is a house of cards. As I have said before, there is no way to address homelessness in America while cutting funds to Public Housing and the Housing Choice Voucher program. It is fake to push these 10 year plans while making families, youth and the unemployed the next long term homeless in America with budget cuts to the housing programs. These guys will all be long gone when the cities discover these 10 year plans don't work and have not solved homelessness. How about we solve homelessness for everyone living in the United States instead of pitting one population against another?
Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
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