Federal Failures: Homeless Employment And Terrorism
On December 6th, 2015 I
spoke at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in DC about the possible closure
of the CCNV Shelter c. 2018 and the need to connect able-bodied
homeless people to living-wage jobs. I told them about a federal
effort to connect homeless people to employment in 1988. That effort
ended with about half of the homeless people who took advantage of the
program obtaining employment and half of THAT group remaining
employed for at least 13 weeks. All in all, a quarter of the homeless
people who sought employment through this program remained employed
for at least a quarter of a year. 25% is a failing grade anywhere in
the world (except the baseball stadium). No robust effort to get
homeless people working has been made by the feds in the last 27
years – when Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik were in diapers
and I was just months into my eventual six-year tenure as a tractor
driver (similar to an airport luggage train but used to haul hospital
freight) at Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Florida. After discussing
this failed effort by the U.S. Department of Labor, I emphasized this
principle:
“If something is the
right thing to do, then no matter how hard it is or how long it
takes, you should stick to it until you get it done.
Some might argue that I should be
telling the homeless people to apply the aforementioned principle
when it comes to finding a job. I would argue that my time is better
spent influencing government which has more resources than the
homeless to use the force of law so as to create an environment that
is conducive to all able-bodied people being able to find living-wage
employment and affordable housing. I won't send those who lack
resources on a wild goose chase while government employees and
contractors make six figures for ostensibly trying to end
homelessness – and have failed for 11 years and counting.
I told the congregants that DC Mayor
Muriel Bowser has begun to make efforts to connect homeless people to
employment, though she is focused primarily on the heads of homeless
families right now – leaving homeless people who don't have
dependent children with them to linger for an unspecified amount of
time (hopefully not until Doomsday).
I find it odd that, though hundreds
of able-bodied and single homeless people have advocated to
government about their employment and housing needs since as far back
as 2006, it's been only the disabled who have gotten needed services
until this year with able-bodied singles having to wait for nine
years and counting.
I laud Mayor Bowser for her nascent
effort, though the patience of those for whom I speak is running
thin. It stands to reason that, had the feds continued the effort
they began in 1988, they might have figured out by now how to
overcome the employment challenges faced by homeless people. That, in
turn, would have made the work of local governments around homeless
employment easier. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
I'm keenly aware of yet another failure
by the feds. I turned 12 just 26 days after Ronald Reagan's first
inauguration in 1981 which I watched on T.V. At Bernardsville Middle
School in New Jersey (Mr. Louis Ferrante's classroom). I recall my
father discussing different news events with my mother and older
siblings at the dinner table – those events including terrorist
hijackings of airplanes. By the time Bush 41 took office, I'd come of
age and was living in Gainesville, FL. Others may recall him saying
that he “doesn't bend to empty threats or negotiate with
terrorists”. He oversaw a 28-day war in Iraq in which 130 Americans
died (two-thirds from “friendly” fire) and he had all the public
support he needed – yet he refused to depose Saddam Hussein
(possibly due to having foreseen the quagmire we are now caught in).
Fast forward to September 2001 and we
have Bush 43 beginning the “War on Terror” – albeit in
Afghanistan. He would prove not to be even half the man his father
was. He was worse at ending terrorism than DOL was at connecting
homeless people to employment. To his credit, unlike DOL, he didn't
give up. He threw good money after bad and oversaw an astronomical
loss of life, leaving a colossal mess for his successor. Job
security, by all means.
The failures of Bush 43 have caused the
U.S. Government to lose whatever moral and intellectual standing it
had in the world when he took office. They are seemingly innumerable,
though I'll list a few here:
1 – The first invasion of the War on
Terror was in Afghanistan. Obama found Osama in Pakistan 10 years
later. We've yet to get out of Afghanistan – like a husband who
grabbed the super glue by accident instead of the Vaseline.
2 – Then it was onto Iraq in March
2003 where the U.S. military failed to pay Saddam Hussein's border
patrol. Border patrol officers left their posts for paying jobs so
they could feed themselves and their families. The borders were left
open for potential terrorists to enter Iraq.
3 – Our military caught Abu Bakr
Al-Baghdadi in 2004, determined he was just a small-time street thug
– not military business – and let him go. He now leads ISIS.
4 – We killed Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi,
the leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq, in June 2006. We allowed a remnant of
Al-Qaida in Iraq to remain. That remnant was gathered by Al-Baghdadi
and reformed into ISIS.
5 – We killed Saddam Hussein in
December 2006. This caused Sunnis who didn't want to seem like they
were fighting for Hussein's release to step-up their sectarian
violence insomuch as it would not be perceived as support for a
fellow Sunni whom they'd parted ways with long ago now that he was
dead.
6 – We had numerous failed attempts
to properly vet police academy applicants and ended up with many of
them becoming the attackers during or after training. Police cadets
kept having graduation parties during which they were bombed and
killed. (“Play that funky music til you die.”)
7 – We disbanded Saddam's military.
Many of his former officers now fight for ISIS while the new Iraqi
military that we're trying to build can't fight their way out of a
wet paper bag and are running from the former-military-turned-ISIS.
8 – We allowed U.S. weapons to get
into the hands of ISIS – whether they were stolen from U.S.
military installations or from a poorly-trained Iraqi military. (The
Iraqis aren't the only ones our military can't train.)
9 – In a strange twist of fate, ISIS
has now attacked our oldest and closest ally: France. (With friends
like that, who needs enemies???)
10 – Now we have had what was very
likely an ISIS-inspired attack in San Bernadino, California. The
concern it created has been multiplied a hundred-fold by the
realization that the male perpetrator was an easy-going, prosperous
and likable person who may have been influenced by his wife to carry
out an attack that left 14 dead and 21 wounded before these two
people were gunned down by cops hours later. Now we know that we
can't trust even the nicest guy or a seemingly innocent woman. (It
wasn't poverty that bred crime in this case.)
Whew!!!!! What a list!!!!!
The federal government's failures on
Homeless Employment And Terrorism lend themselves to the notion that
Republican administrations – and, to a lesser degree, Democratic
admins – are colossal failures at both foreign and domestic
policies. The end of Bush 41's administration on 1/20/93 was, by my
prediction, the beginning of a 40-year dry spell of sensible
Republican presidents, with his son having been the last GOP
president until at least 1/20/2033. (I wouldn't be surprised if the
GOP held a majority of both chambers of Congress and of the
governorships until then. I predict that will be the case.)
All of this begs the question, “How
do we define work???”. If federal and local governments can fail to
end homelessness for decades, give up on a moral effort to connect
poor people to living-wage jobs and then actually increase the threat
of terrorism that they ostensibly sought to eliminate, how do their
efforts qualify as work??? How do we hold government's feet to the
fire and ensure that they will create an environment that is
conducive to every able-bodied person being able to find
employment??? While I don't have all of the answers, I've decided
that I'll do all that I can to impress upon government that failure
is not an option – no matter how hard it is or how long it takes to
succeed. When it comes t getting government to focus on homeless
employment, I'll succeed or I'll die trying; because, I know it's
the right thing to do.
After all, if Muriel Bowser
succeeds in this respect, I'll support her for president from 2025 to
2033, preceded by Hillary of course. Just sayin'.....
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