The Reagan Legacy: Homelessness

A Shining City on the Hill Overlooking Millions of Homeless People

This week marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States. It also marks 30 years since the start of the Reagan presidency and the explosion in homelessness in America. Reagan's legacy has grown significantly since he left office to the point of a mythology that has little basis in fact. In the mid 1980s, during the Reagan presidency, the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless along with many other homeless groups were founded. This was in response to the explosion in homelessness and the growing number of families experiencing housing instability.

This was not a partisan issue or a media driven issue. Homeless shelters were built in the 1980s and they were full. Going back all the way to the early 1950s and the development of public housing for returning veterans, the US government led by presidents from both parties developed affordable housing. One of the most dramatic expansions in affordable housing occurred during the Richard Nixon administration. There was a huge tax cut at the beginning of the Reagan presidency with a promise of massive cuts to government that never materialized thus destabilizing the government. Domestic spending on poverty related programs were cut, but not to equal the decline in revenue from the first tax cut. The Reagan administration had to repeatedly increase taxes to try to pay for the expansion in military spending and that tax cut the first year. There were cuts to legal services, jobs programs, massive cuts to funds for cities, and cuts to public transit that helped people get to work in America's cities. The network of family shelters in Cleveland started in the mid 1980s. Before the 1980s, family homelessness was a short interruption to housing and the charities and religious groups would pay for a hotel stay. Most of these shelters in the 1980s were temporary structures in the basement of government buildings, churches or empty retail spaces. No one thought that this problem would be around for 30 years.

The Heritage Foundation and the National Review have written many stories trying to rehabilitate the Reagan legacy including attempts to cast doubt on the explosion in homelessness. Carl Horowitz of Heritage Foundation in 2004 pointed to the acceptance of divorce, and the courts allowing people to become homeless by striking down vagrancy laws in the 1970s and the media driving this story as the big reasons for explosions in homelessness. Horowitz claims that Washington DC activist, Mitch Snyder, built a straw man in Ronald Reagan and the media ate it up. Horowitz blames the courts for providing civil rights to all people thus allowing homeless people to become visible. He just dismisses the fact that there were all these people who no longer had a place to live, and blames the courts for allowing them to be visible. If America could have just hid the population, this would not have become a story and homelessness would not be tied to President Reagan.

Reagan attacked "welfare queens" and claimed homeless people slept on grates by choice. This was the beginning of the hostility toward low income and homeless people, and it was led by the Reagan Administration. The United States has yet to recover from this class warfare on those without money. There developed a common narrative in the United States that poor people were lazy, criminals, or crazy. This was the beginning of the assault on government and the pervasive thinking that government could not do anything well. There was massive distrust in government from Viet Nam War, Watergate, and the many veterans traumatized and living on the streets of America. We gave up on solving problems as a country and lionized the individual. We championed those who picked themselves up by their boot stapes even as we made it more difficult to start businesses or survive without government help. We have consolidated wealth and income inequality has exploded making it nearly impossible to break through to turn good ideas into income.

The reality in Cleveland is that during the eight year presidency of Ronald Reagan, the number of shelters expanded dramatically. People filled those shelters, and they were not always the best places to live. There were large numbers sleeping on the street not because it was cool or fashionable, but because so many people had no where else to live. They slept on steam grates in order to survive and feel safe. If you only had a couple of bucks in your pocket and some warm clothing left, is it better to sleep on the street visible to police driving by or in a remote industrial site with no protection from thieves and gang members? We did not fulfill the promises made to people with mental illnesses over the previous two decades that we would provide community care in lieu of locking fragile individuals away in asylums. We demonized a segment of our population beginning in the 1980s and we are still paying for those decisions today.

Brian
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Retirement of a Local Organizing Legend

Photo by Toni Anderson of the NEOCH Photo Project from 2009. Tim Walters is on the right and Steve Cagan is on the left.

Tim Walters Retired from May Dugan Center

Community organizing is not as valued as it was in Cleveland in the 1970s and early 1980s. Curiously, homelessness exploded in Cleveland in the late 1980s when community organizing began to decline. But one of the legends of organizing retired last month from the May Dugan Center here in Cleveland. Tim regularly attended the Homeless Congress, and kept MetroHealth honest (obviously not with regard to capital contracting) for the last 20 years. One of the most important services offered by Tim was his expertise on utility issues locally. No one who represents the interests of consumers knows more about the utility regulations than Tim Walters. This is a huge hole for the community to fill. There is no funding for this type of activity, and there is no one else who has this knowledge. We all thought that Tim was going to work fighting the good fight until the end of this century. Tim had to sit in on hundreds of meetings and hear politicians blather on and on just to stay informed about potential roadblocks or table scraps that may be available for the neighborhood.

Community organizing is no longer valued in the Cleveland. We all have to prove with deliverables and logic models and measurable outcomes our value. No one seems to see the value of just getting poor people together in the same room to talk about their own community. No one will give money anymore to have agencies host meetings between the disenfranchised and the power structure. Foundations and government do not understand the insight of the people receiving the government assistance or social services. We pay lip service as a society to asking for feedback, but we do not pay hard cash for this service.

Tim is the modern day monk scraping together a living from various agencies, but everyday listening to his constituents and working to solve problems. His faded jeans were his community organizing robes. He tried to work out the problem of how do you order your birth certificate at City Hall if you have to have ID to get to the birth certificate office? He worked on the problems of out of state slum lords in the neighborhood, and the attempts to preserve access to health care on the near west side. He was involved in Civil Rights issues and voting, but he never grandstanded for publicity. Tim has done a ton of walking for peace, universal health care, universal housing, and against unfair labor practices over the years.

Tim is still going to be around and is going to spend more time with his grandchildren. We are going to miss being able to call over to get an answer to a question. We are not going to have his ear on the West Side to pick up issues and pass them along when he heard about a problem at a meeting or talking to people he sees at the Center. Tim was the glue that bound lower income people together on the near West Side and prevented corporate interests from destroying the neighborhood. Tim has had a great career as an agent of change and a defender of social justice. I was able to see Tim receive a resolution from Congressman Kucinich on Monday recognizing his long career in community organizing. It was read or will be read soon on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Brian
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Grading the Administration 24 and 25

Weekly Grades of the Administration on Poverty: B

For the week of July 6 to July 12, the administration spent a great deal of time on health care reform which gives them an automatic D as their lowest possible grade. For the first week in July right after the holiday the administration accomplished a great deal. There are a few things that they get points off for this week including the release of the flawed report assessing the number of homeless people. We complain about this every year, but that was a previous administration which never really paid attention to domestic issues. The HUD report is based on flawed data with so many caveats that it is basically useless. There was a great deal of discussion about the flu pandemic, but nothing about how low income or poor people would deal with an epidemic.

The good things that happened this week include:

1. The President gave a jobs speech in his weekly radio address. This is the key to our future, and the administration needs to spend more time on creating jobs.
   
2. The Administration released another "recovery in action" blog entry highlighting how the stimulus dollars are being used. Most were transportation or transit programs, but it is good to see these stories laid out.
   
3. The Vice President's wife who works as a professor at a Community College, championed higher education and pushed for an expansion of funding for community colleges. She introduced a goal that the United States would have the largest per capita population by 2020 in the world. Right now the U.S. is tenth or eleventh in the industrial world in percentage of citizens obtaining a higher education degree.
   
4. Hospitals agreed to give up $155 billion to make the health reform system work.
   
5. HUD made available an additional 2,500 family unification housing vouchers for the United States. Yes, this is a drop in the bucket but they get some credit.
   
6. The administration has worked to develop a Declassification Center in order to attempt to set a standard for releasing public documents. Again, transparency from government always gets additional points.
   
7. Along with the hospital initiative, there was a roundtable by VP Joe Biden and HHS Kathleen Sibelius on the problems with the current health insurance system and the impact on small businesses.
8. HHS released a small grant request for $40 million to help local communities expand child healthcare programs.
9. The preservation relief act (HR 2887) was introduced. This bill would use tax credits to try to expand affordable housing options in the United States.
   
10. Finally, there was an attempt to reduce the number of new housing vouchers in a bill to reform. The bill would have effectively gutted the effort to expand affordable housing, but lost on a mostly party line vote.
    

Overall a B for this week.

Weekly Grades of the Administration on Poverty: C

Such a good week last week, but the week of July 13 to July 19 there was a lot of talk, but very little action. There was more on health care so they get up to a D, but not a lot of other items tackled this week. Cabinet Secretary Gary Locke volunteered in a homeless shelter in Arizona. The President focused his weekly radio address on health care urging law makers not to wait anymore. Biden and Sibelius were also out stumping for health care reform on the Sunday talk shows and a forum on reform for senior citizens. There was a new Surgeon General introduced this week who was an inspiration to all women. Alabama's Regina Benjamin has run a rural health clinic for years, and had to rebuild the facility three times due to natural disasters and fire.

The President talked to the kickoff of the 100th anniversary of the NAACP and hit all the right notes. He talked about housing issues, and that there are too many people incarcerated in the U.S. Obama was clear that discrimination had not ended and included discrimination of all minorities including gays and lesbians. The President also went to the hardest hit state in the union, Michigan to talk about the push for more community college funding. He was bold in saying that some of the manufacturing jobs will not be coming back, and urged the citizens of Michigan to look elsewhere. Economic recovery advisory, Lawrence Summer delivered an important speech about the state of the U.S. economy. He said that the worst is behind us and we are on a good path toward recovery. I am not sure if I believe this, but if the administration keeps saying this it may boost confidence.

There were additional maps added to recovery.gov site to make it easier to navigate. From the map it looks like only two companies have benefited from the stimulus dollars in Northeast Ohio. Finally, a new direction was announced in the administration's urban agenda. The domestic policy group met to discuss the urban agenda, and announced that various cabinet secretaries would tour the country looking for innovation and any where that government is slowing innovation. They will start in Philadelphia, Denver and Kansas City. Overall a C for the week.

Brian
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Dream/Home at Dobama

Cleveland Hts. Playwright Captures Foreclosure Crisis

Dobama Theatre, currently residing at the Playhouse near the City of Cleveland Clinic, staged a wonderful play about the impact of foreclosures on Greater Cleveland. I am no expert on foreclosures, but my wife is, and she was impressed that the playwright captured all the ancillary problems. Sarah Morton wrote the play Dream/Home in an attempt to capture the hardships associated with losing a home in a neighborhood. I am sorry that I did not see this earlier so that I could have warned people to catch it before it ended. I was impressed that she used the stories about the 1933 riots over foreclosures into the play.

Morton had characters that included the head of a local bank, neighbors, elderly facing housing issues, teenagers facing displacement, a number of Mom's, and real estate agents. I thoroughly enjoyed the play even though it was depressing. I hope that Ms. Morton is able to sell this play to a national audience. It is a fantastic representation of the devastation in neighborhoods because of the foreclosure crisis. Morton did a great job demonstrating the concept of a home. She spent a great deal of time looking at this concept from the perspective of everyone with a stake in the neighborhood. A special recognition of Rodney Freeman who played the grandfather neighbor "George." I really enjoyed his performance. I had the privilege of speaking after the Friday show with Sarah Cruise of Interfaith Hospitality Network for a post play talk. It was amazing how many people stayed for the discussion, and most had great questions.

Since the crisis is not abating, and after seeing the play laid out in such stark colors, I had to wonder if it was time to start protecting our neighbors from any further foreclosures? Would the new County Sheriff go ahead with kicking a family to the street with young children if a large number of neighbors showed up to block access to a house? Shouldn't we protect children from displacement especially children in families that have a parent working and trying to save their home? Just because a family loses one income or they are only able to find part time employment, should we force them into a homeless shelter? These families may not have read their documents, and were persuaded into taking out a bigger loan then they could handle, but they do not have to shoulder all the blame for these exotic loans. They at least have to share responsibility with the banks that gave out these loans. These homeowners did not create this financial crisis caused by reckless business executives, and the homeowner never got a bailout. They did not want to lose their jobs and they did not plunge the country into a recession. No matter what, a point made by Ms. Cruise on Friday was an innocent child never deserves homelessness.

Brian
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Semester Grades for the Administration: 1

Obama Administration Earns a B- for First Semester Struggle to Reduce Poverty

The grades are in for the first semester of the Administration, and the executive branch earned a B-. This is not bad for the first 18 weeks of the new administration. They earned only one solid A in the first 18 weeks with the signing of the stimulus bill. They had one A- last week after the homeless/foreclosure/renter bill was signed into law. They did get one F in week 12. If we were grading on a curve in comparison to other administrations in Europe, Asia and South America, I am sure that they would have received a B+ or better.

The country has dealt with an auto industry in free fall, a Supreme Court vacancy, a financial collapse, recession, 30 plus banks that failed, rising unemployment, a housing bubble bursting, foreclosures, the fallout from US torturing detainees, Guantanamo Bay prison, North Korea and Iran, lawsuits filed against the previous administration, a federal budget, and two wars. It is amazing that any attention was paid to poor people, health care, the environment or homelessness. Just compiling the above list it is almost like we can summarize the first semester of the administration as: the good news is that they won the popular vote to take the leadership of the United States, the bad news is that they won the popular vote to take the leadership of the United States.

Unlike a few other administrations, this group will not be taking the summer off. We will have grades at the end of August for the summer semester. Next week, we will again post the list of areas that the administration needs to dedicate some attention with regard to poverty to begin to get their grades up to the A level. There is a long list of problems that they have not even begun to address including rural issues, Katrina, and jobs, jobs, jobs.

Brian
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Grading the Administration 18

Weekly Grades for the Administration on Poverty: C

This was a slow week, because Congress was on vacation for Memorial Day, and the administration focused a great deal of attention on the Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor. A few things did happen that will have some impact on homelessness and poverty, which lead me to give the Government a "C" for this week.

There was a new focus on Open Government by the administration with more work on making the federal bureaucracy more transparent. As always, the more information on the workings of government the better for everyone.

There was $252 million distributed to Indian, Native and Alaskan tribes through HUD for housing and development issues through the stimulus. This is one of the poorest populations in the United States, and they deserve about 10 times that amount.

A bill to reform the Neighborhood Stabilization funding was introduced right before Congress went on vacation. This would allow the federal government to recoup any of the profits realized by the government after disposition of these funds.

One thing that slipped by me two weeks ago with the signing of the renters in foreclosure bill by President Obama was that those rules were effective immediately. So, any renter living in a building in which their landlord goes into foreclosure has some ability to continue with their lease after the sale of the property. This is huge and is right now the law of the land.

There were three hearings scheduled for the this week by the Congress in which the administration staff will have to testify. These include a hearing on the status of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Wednesday. There is a hearing on the same day to lay out the plans by the Veterans Administration and other federal offices to assure that there is an end to homelessness among veterans. Finally, on Thursday there is a hearing on the Housing Choice Voucher Program and the reform attempts. Set your TiVo to tape C-Span in the evening over the next few days.

Not much else that had any impact on poverty.

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Grading the Administration: 17

Weekly Grades for the Obama Administration on Poverty: C-

Grades are slipping this last week. There was a lot of work done over the last week on health care reform. There was a great deal of discussion, but I am not sure on the progress. The health care industry promised to control costs over the next 10 years. This seems bogus to me. They have raised the rates on my employees health care between 8-16% EVERY YEAR over the last 10 years. So, how about a rollback? Not raising rates as much does not seem to be much of a compromise. I actually think that they realize that the jig is almost up, and they are trying to get some sympathy from the public as this debate starts. The health care insurance companies, drug industry, and health care corporations are the main source of the crisis and should not be at the table for this upcoming debate.

Other things that happened last week in the struggle to end poverty include:

1. A town hall forum on the problems of debt and the problems in the credit card industry.
2. A progress report was issued on the Stimulus dollars. This did not get much attention because only 6% of the funds are out the door. But the www.recovery.gov site has a lot of great data. They break up the funds by state or by agency, and everyone has the opportunity to see how their federal dollars are being used. It is actually interesting to see the large amount of funds being spent on bridges and roads compared to housing and health care. I like it, and for the policy wonks out there, it is a virtual schmorgaborg of information.
   
3. $1 Billion was released for housing renovation at Public Housing last week.
   
4. $1.79 Billion was released to help those living with AIDS be able to pay for medicine.

Still nothing on New Orleans, and hurricane season is fast approaching. Still most of the goals under "Poverty" on the White House website have very little details and are not even started. Some of the plans have begun to trickle in over the last few days regarding preventing homelessness in various cities. It will be interesting to see if HUD allows some of these plans to go forward. For example, Las Vegas is going to use its $2 million to remove a tent city from the area. This does not seem to be consistent with the goals of the funds to set up a system to prevent people from entering shelters. There is a long way to go to fill the holes we dug for ourselves over the last 40 years in creating generational poverty. Semester grades come out the second week in June.

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Grading the Administration 10

Weekly Grades for the Obama Administration on the Struggles to Reduce Poverty: C+

The weekly report card for the Obama Administration and their struggle to reduce poverty has them at a C+ for this week. Some of the items that the President worked on this week included one press conference and one town hall forum. Both were heavy on discussions about health care (not including the marijuana question) and education. These are critical issues to tackle in order to reduce poverty. But as always this is just talk until it has passed the Congress. There was another nominee announced for HUD to lead the Federal Housing Administration. The Obama Administration championed the extra $250 that everyone on disability will be receiving in the next month. Some might think that this is a positive, but I view it more as an insult and results in a lowering of their grade. I mean, these individuals have to figure out how to live on a small amount of money, and now the government is sending them a few coins to go out and spend. How about an increase in the disability check every month so that these Americans are not doomed to poverty for the rest of their lives?

The other items that the administration worked on this last week including more defense of the progressive budget for 2010, and Obama talked about veterans issues at a number of the press briefings. There was the answer to the question about homelessness at the press conference, which needed work but at least he answered the question. The big issue for this week, which gave the administration the most points was the Community Service bill that passed the Senate. This is a tripling of the number of mostly young Americans who will be working on reducing poverty. This is a huge step.

Brian

Grading the Administration 1

Weekly Poverty Grades for Obama Administration: B-

Every week we are going to try to assign a letter grade to the new administration on how they are doing with regard to reducing poverty with a concentration on housing/homelessness. It is hard not to compare this administration to the last, and their record on poverty. We will try to avoid that, because in all honesty every week would be an A on that scale. It is difficult to focus on these activities every week, when it has taken decades for us to get the country in this bad shape. I mean, we have now come to accept that a certain percentage of our population will become homeless and will not have basic health care, an opportunity for a job, or a roof with some privacy. There is so much riding on this administration probably because of all the promises made, and that we can no longer grade on a curve.

Week #1 is a B-. This week is difficult to judge because the administration really only had 4 days to accomplish anything, but it is a good baseline. Here are a few short takes on why:

• The new HUD Secretary was approved by the Senate this week, and he knows about housing issues and is not afraid to say the word "renter", "affordable", or "homelessness." He comes from an affordable housing background, and pledged to work on family homelessness. He is planning to take an active interest in stabilizing the housing market. All these are important, and a positive step.
  
• There is a great deal on the White House website about poverty. [It actually says the word "poverty" with only one click away from the home page. Can you believe that?] Yes, these are just words, but that is the second step in community organizing. Write down the problems, agree on a course of action, solicit support, implement, repeat. So, in four days, we are on step 2. Not bad.
  
• The stimulus package will include an extension of unemployment. This is a critical program to stabilize the current workforce while changes are made. Again, at this point just talk.
  
• Pledges on the website of support for National Housing Trust. Good step, but again at this point is just talk.
• Executive Order to open information of the Executive Branch to the freedom of information act. Most would not see the relationship between FOIA and poverty, but it is actually critical. It is impossible to figure out a solution, when we spend all of our time arguing about the facts. We need the information released quickly and without distortion, so that we can then develop solutions. This order moves the administration into the "B" territory on the struggle against poverty, because it is so critical for democracy to have an open and transparent government.
  
• The new ethics rules are also important for the same reason as above.
• Retired General Eric Shinseki was approved by the Senate as the new Director of Veterans Affairs, and spoke often of his goal to make sure that homelessness is not part of the re-integration of veterans from combatant to civilian.
• There is mention on the White House site about urban policy. While short on details, there is a reference to more affordable housing. There is nothing about homelessness, but at least the administration recognizes the need for a focus on urban issues. The other new part of the website is a section on rural issues. Even shorter on details and again no details on rural homelessness, but it is a step.
  

Areas that need work in order to move that grade up to an A:

• Nothing on Katrina or general preparedness of the gulf coast. (There is a statement under additional issues: "President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast."--but no real action statements.)
  
• No actual jobs were created this week--I think that "Job Creation" should be listed as an agenda on the White House website.
  
• Temporary workers are still not on the agenda.
  
• No one actually received health insurance.
  
• The education system is still not working for many children left behind.
• College is more out of reach than in any time since the 1930s.
  
• The economic stimulus package has not passed.
  
• There was nothing proposed or introduced to protect fragile populations from civil rights violations.
  
• Give us more details on these agenda items of poverty, urban and rural issues.
• Nothing new happened with regard to homelessness in America.
  
• Poor people are still facing incredible--some might say indefinate--debt issues.
  

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.