Locking out New Orleans' poor | Salon News: "The FEMA housing assistance that many hurricane evacuees have relied on to pay rent in other cities will expire on June 30. HUD officials say that former residents of public housing in New Orleans are eligible for the agency's own disaster housing assistance program to continue receiving aid. 'What they don't seem to understand is that people want to come home to New Orleans,' said Juakali. 'They don't want to sign another lease in Houston or somewhere else.'They are going to have to live somewhere, why not at home with other friends and family? How about we do something to break the cycle of poverty in the area? Why not pay them to come back and clean up? Urban renewal of their own homes, isn't that supposed to give one pride and a sense of purpose? Wouldn't it make them want to improve the rest of their lives to match? It would be direct proof that if you worked hard you could get somewhere in this world and they might encourage their kids to do better. But no, our response is to segregate, repossess and disperse all at the same time.
Ten months after the Katrina, at least 80 percent of public housing in New Orleans remains closed. Six of ten of the largest public housing developments in the city are shuttered, with the other four in various states of repair. Fewer than 1,000 of the 5,100 families who lived in the older housing developments before the storm have returned, according to the Housing Authority of New Orleans. HANO, as it is popularly know, has been under the direct control of HUD since going into federal receivership in 2002. Jackson announced last month that HUD would invest $154 million in rebuilding public housing in New Orleans, and that he would work with the city to bring displaced residents home. But critics say they see mismanagement and neglect echoing the disastrous government response in the early days of the catastrophe. And some fear that government officials and business leaders are quietly planning to demolish the old projects and privatize public housing."
The other post that I wrote was about the "wonderful" Dr. Bill Frist. It seems that a newspaper in the heartland is more than a little concerned about his predilection for killing animals that he had befriended and used for experiments when he was younger.
"Desperate, obsessed with my work, I visited the various animal shelters in the Boston suburbs, collecting cats, taking them home, treating them as pets for a few days, then carting them off to the lab to die in the interests of science. And medicine. And health care. And treatment of disease. And my project.I think FBI profilers would be interested in the rest of his psychological makeup. He even admits to feeling a little crazy. You can try to justify his behavior by saying that he ended up helping people but there is an underlying current of cruelty in this man and he doesn't deserve to be president. Watched closely for other deviations, but not president.
"It was, of course, a heinous and dishonest thing to do, and I was totally schizoid about the entire matter. By day, I was little Billy Frist, the boy who lived on Bowling Avenue in Nashville and had decided to become a doctor because of his gentle father and a dog named Scratchy. By night, I was Dr. William Harrison Frist, future cardiothoracic surgeon, who was not going to let a few sentiments about cute, furry little creatures stand in the way of his career. In short, I was going a little crazy."
Frist recently commented about the power he felt when holding the last beats of a dog's heart in his hand. Good thing little Scratchy had a decent hiding place while Frist was in med school.
We need a fully functional president to get us out of the mess the current one created from his fantasy world.
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