Tell me AGAIN how the Democrats are going to help homeless people????

[bobbolink]

Look at what was FULLY ELIMINATED from the "stimulus bill":

• $1.25 billion for project based rental

• $2.25 billion for Neighborhood Stabilization


• $1.2 billion for retrofitting Project 8 housing


So, more homeless people and LESS housing.

Thanks, Dems, for caving. We DO appreciate you thinking of us.

:nuke:

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

1. Don't forget school nutrition and all other school funding.

[bobbolink]

4. Yanno, it's soooo easy to care about Education.

HOUSING?

pppffffftthhhh.....

It just doesn't make your list, does it?

[uppityperson]

35. School nutrition programs are about poverty, and about the homeless

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

38. Thank you. That was my exact point.

Sadly, there are some children in this country that find their only dependable meal coming from the school nutrition program. And the necessity of education is a way for some of them to get out of poverty. No where did I suggest that I didn't care about homeless people in my statement, I was merely providing further detail on how the children of homeless or transient families are being hurt further by what is being done.

I'd also like to say that things like food stamps can be the difference for a family that's lost their income from being on the streets or not.

[stillcool]

2. I've been noticing a phrase..

but I'm not sure of what it means..."Re-directing money". Maybe someone can splain.

[tsuki]

25. To Defense. nt

[stillcool]

41. How? If it can go to Defense it can go anywhere.

[Lucian]

3. It makes me think there are no Democrats in the government.

Since they are all caving to the Republicans.

Tell me again who controls the House, Senate, and Presidency???

[bobbolink]

5. "Tell me again who controls the House, Senate, and Presidency???"

The corporations?

Yup, that's it.

[Lucian]

14. Yep.

[TornadoTN]

18. Normally, I don't jump on that meme

But anymore, I'm a full-time subscriber.

We have no leadership in Congress, period. Reid & Pelosi are ineffectual corporatists that are doing nothing for the people in their leadership role. It's all about capitulation and rolling over, letting the Republican's control the debate and the news cycle. I used to think they were just inept, but I've come to realize that this is their plan.

Obama can only do so much, but I'm even tiring of the lack of using the bully pulpit to shape the agenda since its clear that the Dems in Congress will do nothing to help.

[AyanRand Is Dead]

67. To be fair though.

It's the media that's giving the right-wing so much air time to drown out the Democrats. They just want to generate advertising revenue and sell newspapers. They don't care about the country, they only care about playing both sides off of each other to further their bottom line.

[TornadoTN]

20. Delete, DUPE

[Earth Bound Misfit]

65. DING DING DING****

[bobbolink]

6. "All we have to do is get OBAMA into the White House, and it will all be better."

"Just keep hoping..."

:nuke:

[uppityperson]

34. "it will all be better"? No. But now there is a chance to change things.

Keep working, keep contacting your representatives, keep running for office yourself.

[book_worm]

46. Yes, all these problems would have magically disappeared if Hillary would have won.

[bobbolink]

7. Silly me... when it says "page couldn not be shown" I believe them.

About the same as believing the Dems. :nuke:

[U4ikLefty]

8. About as much as they will help gay people. n/t

[bobbolink]

11. Not to mention, HOMELESS GAY PEOPLE.

[sniffa]

9. I'm also pissed they removed the funding

for free wireless around highway overpasses.

[bobbolink]

10. Yeah, that's SOOOO central to life.

[sniffa]

12. Then tell me how homeless people are going to get online then?

Democrats don't care about the homeless.

"Oh, with Obama in the White House we won't have to trudge down to the library anymore. Just hope."

[bobbolink]

13. that's not the question I want to know.....

What I REALLY want to know is, what is it about poverty and homelessness that makes you CRAVE disrupting and negating anything real about poverty?

What drives you to do this?

The world is waiting breathlessly for your answer.

[sniffa]

17. I doubt the WORLD is waiting BREATHLESSLY for my ANSWER

Especially to the QUESTION you FRAMED in THAT manner.

[jwirr]

27. And what makes you think school nutrition programs are not about

real poverty?

[bobbolink]

48. Actually, if you read what I originally wrote, I was talking about homeless people.

Would it be OK with you to have ONE thread talking about the

IGNORED

need for low-income housing?

[maryf]

15. Call your reps and senators about this!!

The bill is going to be talked about for a while, we need to take care of the people, forget the tax cuts, they don't help those who don't pay taxes because they are too poor...(except, of course, for sales tax and hidden fees...)

Call Congress, and the President
Congressional switchboard: 202-225-3121
(ask for your representative’s office) and your senators'...

Demand housing for all!
the number one cause of homelessness is lack of housing, 3 applicants for every two units, 3,000,000 without their own home...

[bobbolink]

19. Too late...it's a done deal. And there are those who called AGAINST it because

"it didn't specifically say "AMerican" workers.

:crazy: :nuke:

Nope, too bad for us homeless people.

We got SHIT.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[maryf]

23. I'm not sure its a done deal...

The house and the senate have to concur on a bill, with some noise it could be replaced...its not done until its signed...call anyway everybody!! can only help...

[bobbolink]

31. "with some noise it could be replaced" riiigghhtttt... and we all KNOW I can count on Dems to make

noise on my behalf!

Riiigghgghhhttttt!

pppphhhfftttt!!

[JNelson6563]

76. You are correct.

A web-based call in campaign could help in regard to gets into the final version, once they're reconciled.

Julie

[sandnsea]

71. No it is not a done deal

It goes back to the House and we can still fight to keep these things when it comes out of conference, as some of us Democrats who don't give a shit have been doing for days now.

And how did your Economic Recovery Event go this week-end?

[leftstreet]

16. The Central Leadership Corporation will be building more bridges

See...that way the homeless will have more places to live!

It's a WIN!

obligatory:
:sarcasm:

[blues90]

21. It's all about the middle class .

As if there is ever some sort of trickle down flow of money from there to the poor. By the time the middle class is in their comfortable warm bed the trickle has dried up to dust and a cardboard box.

Why don't they just say it out loud , the poor don't matter and be honest about it.

When I was an assistant manager at a ford dealership one older fellow came in and he did his best to wear a suit and you could see it was worn but you could also see he was real and willing yet when I took him into my bosses office he was turned down flat and I asked why so quick and was told look at the guy , don't get these peoples hopes up , we would never hire him and I said you could have gave him hope , he was willing to do any job you had and we do have openings he could have done, so you took his hope and stomped it into the ground.

This entire framing use defining class as if that has any thing to do with being human is wrong thinking. Or pull yourself by bootstraps when they don't exist.

We can spend billions on wars and political campaigns but to give a break which by comparisson pales to the defined "poor" is beyond the scope of humanity. Or these fake religious leaders with their rants on if you can't take care of yourself well then starve, starve will find them someplace of favor when they leave this earthly coil.

[MadHound]

24. Frankly I don't think it's even about the middle class anymore

Cutting money for education, for college education, for mass transit and family planning. All of these are programs that would help everybody, yet they're being sacrificed on the altar of bipartisanship and the Dems' unwillingness to fight.

It's simply another version of the two party/same corporate master system of government, engaged in that mummer's play of good cop/bad cop.

[Myrina]

26. ... by making more of them?

:shrug: The longer they 'strive for bi-partisanship' with the petulant children who simply will never learn to play nice with others (a.k.a. the GOP), the closer to the iceberg we get.

[ColbertWatcher]

28. Hopefully those programs will get full fiunding from the budget instead of ...

... through this bill.

[maryf]

29. Don't hold your breath...

Housing is so appropriate to be in this bill, if its marginalized and dismissed here "hope" wains; but we gotta keep their feet to the fire...

(I am so pissed that the words hope and change will never be the same for me again)

[bobbolink]

32. oh yes indeedy... more "hope"

With all these people in our corner... yeah, right....

[readmoreoften]

30. The homeless are on the list but right below "helping" Iraqis and Afghanis.

What help from the Democrats would look like is a purely theoretical question because it'll never happen, but even in theory, if it looks like other sorts of 'help' they've signed off on, no help at all may be preferable. The Hutto Detention center for "illegal families" with kids under 12 locked up in cells for 23 hours a day comes to mind.

[bobbolink]

33. Yup, that's about it. "Progressives" we can count on.

:nuke:

[tom_paine]

36. I share your anger, bobbolink. This whole jobs bill has been made by the Bushies to be completely

ineffective.

There can be little doubt the Bushies wish to destroy the economy, probably to assist with The Shock Doctrine and the reimplementation of the Feudal European State (with Plausible Deniability so the peasants can still delude ourselves we are free, with a little help from the endless tape loop of lies and bullshit supplied by the Bush Lie Machine and the Corporate M$M that is pretty much their second arm).

The Feudal European State being the idea of Bushie Heaven, so long as they have antibiotics and DVD players.

And maybe more than a few Congressional Democrats' idea of Heaven, too.

Sadly, bobbolink, poor people have been largely edited out of our National Corporate Infoganda Media in much the same way Jews were excised from Germany's Bushified Media of the 1930s. They same way Soviet Communist enemies like Trotsky were eliminated from Russian history.

By the time-tested and oh so very true tenets of advertising, PR, and psychology, this sort of excision works and works WELL, time and time again, no matter the nation it is attempted in and nomatter how "free" a people supposedly are.

I share your anger at this betrayal. A nation or a people can be judged on how they treat their weakest and most vulnerable. I don't have to tell you what that says about our nation and it's people, and just what we have degenerated into since the Bushies took over in 1980.

I have had a theory for quite some time now, that it is possible to MASK a nation's descent into barbarism with "good economy". I have said for many years, that it is very possible if the coming Greater Depression hits (I didn't call it that specifically, but like many DUers, I could see the Greater Depression coming as a direct result of 30 years of Bushies stealing the wealth of the people) that our National Mentality, which I believe MAY be very close to those who bouyed Hitler into power, will show itself rapidly if times ever get truly tough.

As we enter the coming Greater Depression, we will soon find out how true my theory is. Obama's election (or shall we say "permitted ascent to the throne") might push that back a little bit, if we are lucky, but I fear the long-term reengineering of the National Mind which the Bushies have spent so much money and destroyed so many honest people to achieve, will remain with us.

Why do I bring that up? Because reversing that Bushie National Mental Reeingineering is about the only thing that has any hope or chance of making our leaders more responsive, or our nation less barbaric. I know, it's a long shot, and how does one do it without resorting to Bushie Perfidy and Propaganda ourselves?

Obama is trying with sweet reason, but I have my doubts that our National Mind can ever again be effected by reason, only advertsing, propaganda, media saturation, and repetition. Not with the M$M repetituously reinforcing the Death of Critical Thinking to anyone who lays eyes to it.

But really that is the only answer, I think. A National Change of Heart. From the bottom up, because it is unlikely to come from the top, other than Obama, and the Bushies have hamstrung him in many ways before he even got started.

The reality, I am afraid, is the Greater Depression and THEN we will TRULY SEE what all these Bushie Polcie State laws were for, and it sure ain't "foreign terrorists".

Good luck, bobbolink. As always, whenever the Elites debase a National Economy and make off with the loot that is equivalent to the prodctive efforts of hundreds of millions of generations over decades, it is always the weak and poor who suffer.

This Greater Depression will be much worse for the poor, I think, because our Elites (Obama and a handful of other maybe the only few exceptions, and they are hamstrung by debt and a corrputed government) have long ago, it seems, decided that they have no connecton whatsoever to us peasants and that they are actually Members of the Global Aristocracy, which has no allegience to any nation, though the ones running companies nations have to pretend and provide Plausible Deniability.

Good luck, bobbolink. I think the hardest times any of us could ever imagine are coming, and the poor and weak, as always, sadly, will suffer first and worst.

Unlike the Great Depression, though, obscene wealth inequality will not contract (more than marginal blips quickly erased) not one bit.

No Great Compression, as Krugman calls the post WWII contraction of wealth inequality, THIS time.

[bobbolink]

63. I agree with so much of what you're saying... but...

blaming it ALL on the "bushies" is not only not accurate, it's very dangerous.

It's waaaay past time to look at it NOT in terms of "RW" and "progressives", but of corporate and non-corporate!

For instance, my two "Dem" senators took low-income housing OUT of the bill!

Now, I guess, the argument could be made that they are following the "bushies", but they are DEMS.

In name only, of course.

[uppityperson]

37. I wish there was more funding for those, wish they hadn't gotten cut.

[maryf]

39. kick, nt

[KoKo]

40. Sadly...Bobbolink, I think they are leaving it up to the "Churches" and mostly you are "unseen."

That's what I'm thinking. But, I wouldn't give up hope. What the Media Spin about what Dems & Obama re doing is probably far different from what they are REALLY DOING.

And, you know what, Bobbolink? I really do believe Obama does care about Homeless along with the rest of folks on the Poverty Line just falling over into Homeless.

I still have hope he will BE the CHANGE THAT WE BELIEVED...But he's only been there three weeks. But, three weeks is a long time when you are losing or lost your job...or you've been in the Streets surviving under Bush Implosion of Economy.

I have to hope there's something that will sort out. If there isn't then the Netroots have to PUSH BACK...but I don't know if that will give enough time for those who have already lost everything...

Peace!

[bobbolink]

74. The churches you disdain care a whole lot more and DO more than "progressives"

You'll have to carry the hope in Obama for me, because I have none.

And a lot of that is reflected from what I get from Obamites themselves.

Zero.

"I have to hope there's something that will sort out. "

How many deaths in that waiting in hope?

WHY can't there be ACTION? WHY can't any of you hopefuls actually be in our corner and even make some simple phone calls?

Do you have any idea how much some of us are suffering? Dying?

Yes, I know... you'll be mad at me for putting the truth straight out there.

It's damn time somebody did.

[bvar22]

42. The Democrats didn't just "cave".

These Centrist Democrats actively joined the Republicans in the cutting.

Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Mark Begich (D-AK)
Tom Carper (D-DE)
John Tester (D-MT)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Jim Webb (D-VA)
Mark Warner (D-VA)
Michael Bennett (D-CO)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
Mark Udall (D-CO)
Joe Lieberman (I-CT)

[bobbolink]

50. Oh yes, indeedy! We Coloradans got rid of Salazar, the RW dupe, and gained two more

in his stead.

THAT'S what people volunteered for, worked hard for, gave money for.

:nuke:

Yet, a real populist like Mike Miles was trashed.

Question... it was "the gang of 20".... there are 13 on that list.. who were the other 7?

[maryf]

43. morning kick...nt

[blindpig]

44. Bobbie, Bobbie, Bobbie.....

They love the poor so much that they're gonna make a whole lot more of them and keep those who are poor that way.

It gives them the opportunity to lecture about bootstraps & responsibility & stuff, which confirms their worth & moral certitude.

[bobbolink]

47. You have it, exactly! We serve a very important role... we give the "progressives" someone to look

down their regal noses at.

"When I fed the hungry, I was called a saint. When I asked WHY they were hungry, I was called a Communist." Dom Helder Camara

[earth mom]

56. Quit disrespecting progressives. Put the blame squarely where it belongs on the corporatist

bastards who put money and profit and themselves ahead of everyone and everything else.

The rest of us real progressives have been against what the bastards in Washington DC & Wall Street have wrought to no avail.

Why in the hell do you think most of us are here on DU?

Because no one in power is listening or gives a damn. And I'm talking about the bullshit "hope and change" too! :argh:

As I've said before, it's past time for the people to go all French on their gawd damn asses! :grr:

[bobbolink]

62. Don't tell me what to do. I don't take orders from authoritarians.

My two DEMOCRATIC senators just took low-income housing out of the goddamned bill, so stop with the damned erroneous meme that only the RW does the wrong thing!

Oh, and some of the Democrats "put money and profit and themselves ahead of everyone and everything else."

So, wake up your own self.

[earth mom]

70. I agree with you that most of the dems in Washington DC are just as corrupt as the rethugs.

And I'm sorry you have been screwed over by your corrupt dem senators.

However that corruption does not extend to most of us here on DU.

It's very obvious that you're mad at us-the middle class and working class people on this board-but we aren't the ones calling the shots in Washington DC.


You need to take the chip off your shoulder and direct your anger at those bastards responsible-not DU members who do not wish you ill.

[bobbolink]

72. In the first place, YOU'RE the one with the chip... telling others what to do.

In the second place, OF COURSE we are mad at muddleclass people.... you IGNORE US!

REad thread after thread, and you find that all any of you think of is muddleclass people.

THEN look at the pleas for taking action and making a simple phone call about housing for instance..... a VERY FEW bother to reply.

Oh, and I haven't seen YOUR NAME on any of those threads that you were willing to make a simple phone call, so look yourself in the mirror and start understanding what it's like to be IGNORED. The opposite of love isn't hate... it's INDIFFERENCE. You don't have to wish anyone ill... just be indifferent and ignore them... that is MORE DAMAGING. So, look yourself in the mirror... YOU are just as indifferent as anyone else here, and authoritarian to boot.

"Walk a mile in the shoes..."

[earth mom]

79. You are blaming the wrong people and you know it.

But I'm not going to continue to waste my time ever again to tell you that.

I'm done.

But just know that you are the one responsible for pushing people away from your cause by shaming and blaming them.

Perhaps people here are ignoring you and are indifferent for that very reason. Did you ever stop to think of it that way?



I'm not your enemy.

That said, Good luck to you.

[blindpig]

78. 'Progressives' are by and large cheerleaders of capitalism.

Except when it rapacity strikes too close to home, then they start whining about 'corporatism', as though it's something different than late stage capitalism.

That's the difference between a leftists and a progressive, a leftists knows that capitalism is the enemy and strives end it's innate injustice and exploitation.

[graywarrior]

45. I'm going to start taking matters into my owns hands

[bobbolink]

49. ????

I guess we're supposed to ask... what would that entail?

Or would you prefer to remain mysterious?

[graywarrior]

52. I'm gonna run for senator so I can have medical coverage

[TBF]

57. Everyone should have the same health plan as Congress. They work for us -

why should we have less?

[graywarrior]

60. They'd have nothing if not for us!

[tekisui]

51. Keep the heat on them.

A lot can be re-admitted during Conference Committee. We will see what the final bill holds when it is sent to Obama's desk.

[Joe Fields]

53. This is the sad, infuriating and unforgivable truth.

This is an issue that, although they may think they can duck, they cannot. It's going to hit them square between the eyes, and sooner than most people think. Do the politicians REALLY think that there are going to be FEWER homeless people, thanks to their cozy corporate policies?

This act of taking those appropriations and other important humanitarian projects out of the bill PROVES beyond ANY doubt just where their priorities are.

They can ALL go to hell, and, may they all somehow find a way to choke on their diamond and ruby encrusted flag lapel pins.


Joe.

[serrano2008]

54. I doubt this is going to hit them square anywhere. They'll all still get re-elected.

Very, very, very few politicians will stand up for the lower class or even the middle class. We greatly outnumber the upper middle and upper class, so why do we keep voting these A-holes back into office?

[dajoki]

55. Its a friggin' shame...

but I had a strong feeling that something like this would happen as soon as Obama started courting the repubs for support for the stimulus. You cannot negotiate with them about anything, it passed the House without one single repub vote. We don't need them to get things passed, the Dems control both houses of Congress and the Presidency, its time to put up or shut up. If the repubs want to make fools out of themselves by filibustering, let them, if the Dems held their ground, they would win. Its a shame but there can be no bipartisanship, I am sick to the max about our government, both Dems and Repubs. NONE of them are for the poor people!!

[kenny blankenship]

58. You won't be so lonely anymore

(the homeless will be getting lots of new company)
and that's something.

[dajoki]

59. Is that supposed to...

make a homeless person feel good?

[951-Riverside]

61. *kick*

:kick:

[defendandprotect]

64. When is DU's Call-in-Day for the HOMELESS . . . ???

[bobbolink]

83. Yes, thank you!

We aren't on the radar, as the saying goes.

We can eat cake.

[KoKo]

66. I don't think they ever addressed it. And Repugs even cut food stamps...

I hope the House restores the funding. Thanks for keeping this issue up there. As more and more folks get thrown out of their houses this is a huge coming issue. I'm hoping that there will be other bills coming off the stimulous that will deal with this...

I know hope is not enough for those living homeless for too long, though.

[bobbolink]

84. We need to stop this blaming it all on the RW! It was my two DEM senators

who were instrumental in engineering all this!

:nuke:

I know it makes you feel better to have a convenient enemy to blame, but that goes NOWHERE in solving this mess!

[rockymountaindem]

68. It's a pisser

every time someone acts like the "middle class" (which apparently means anybody between poverty level and 2 million dollars per year these days) is the lowest rung on the economic ladder.

And I am *not* please that Udall helped work on those cuts. Hopefully they will be restored in the conference committee.

[varelse]

69. I think we need a poverty awareness YEAR

one month isn't enough :/

[bobbolink]

80. Do you think ANY amount of time will get through to "progressives"?

Look how many never read ANY of the information in those essays.

Yet, consider that they know all there is to know about poverty.

:grr:

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

73. Wow. You? Disappointed? Bitter? Nah....... No Way..... You??

[pinto]

75. $8.6 billion remains in Senate version (vs $13.5 billion in House bill)

Public Housing:

• Public Housing Capital Fund: The bill provides $5 billion to the public housing capital
fund to enable local public housing agencies to address a $32 billion backlog in capital
needs -- especially those improving energy efficiency in aging developments -- in this
critical element of the nation’s affordable housing infrastructure. $3 billion will be
distributed by formula and $2 billion competitively to incentivize innovative and largescale
projects. The investment will also yield significant economic benefits, including
generating $2.12 cents in local economic activity for every dollar and creating or
preserving 140,000 jobs in the housing construction sector devastated by the current
recession.

• Project-Based Stability: The bill provides just over $2.1 billion for full year payments to
owners receiving Section 8 project-based rental assistance. By providing funding for a
full year, it will send a signal to these owners and others thinking of investing in
affordable housing that the government can pay their bills on time and in full. In
addition, owners that want to participate in the energy retrofit program will have to agree
to additional periods of affordability and it is important that they have confidence in the
government’s ability to pay their bills.

• Homelessness Prevention Fund: The bill includes $1.5 billion for homeless prevention
activities, which will be sent out to states, cities and local governments through the
emergency shelter grant formula. The funding will be used for prevention activities,
which include: short or medium-term rental assistance, first and last month’s rental
payment, or utility payments. As such, most of this funding will go directly into the
economy of local communities as the funds will be used to pay housing and other
associated costs in the private market.

http://appropriations.senate.gov/News/2009_02_08_UPDATED_Appropriations_Provisions_of_American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act.pdf?CFID=5495885&CFTOKEN=23274179

see also

http://www.propublica.org

It's up to the conference committee now to negotiate between the two funding levels. I assume the $8.6 billion will be an absolute floor for any negotiations. :shrug:

[bobbolink]

81. So?

that doesn't even BEGIN to cover what is being

DESTROYED

Every Year!

"Let Them Eat Cake", right?

[katty]

77. the msg? go home homeless

[bobbolink]

82. Let's finally be honest.. the TRUE MESSAGE, is GET RID OF YOURSELVES, HOMELESS PEOPLE!

:cry: