Trump, DC Homelessness, and the National Guard

Claiming that D.C. crime is out of control, President Trump has brought in the National Guard. Never mind that crime rates are down in the District. The optics are compelling.

Trump blames homeless people. As Fox News reported, he is giving them two choices – jail or homeless shelters to treat mental health and substance use disorders. If these choices seem reasonable, they aren’t. Sending someone to jail who hasn’t committed a crime is a bad, even unconstitutional, idea. Like our new South Florida gulag, this notion offends many of us. And many, if not most, of the people who are chronically homeless have seriously undertreated mental health conditions. Jails and shelters don’t have the money or resources to provide that treatment. What this boils down to is comfort. Seeing homeless people congregating makes some people uncomfortable. President Trump is suggesting that the freedom to congregate peacefully is a freedom reserved only to some of us – not everyone. There’s bigotry there. I can’t say this strongly enough – I really, really hate it when Donald Trump demonizes people with serious mental illnesses. He does it all the time. To a layperson, it seems like the loss of his older brother many years ago to a substance use disorder affected him deeply, facilitating a loss of empathy for others. But I hate it just as much when more empathetic people blame local elected officials for the congregations of homeless people in their cities. As if by simply accepting homeless people in their communities they are putting out a welcome mat for those wanting to cheat the system. Some of these empathetic people are the ones who have normalized Trump’s invented concerns over DC crime rates by suggesting that the Guard might be serving a useful function in militarizing our nation’s Capital and taking on homeless people. They argue that “people” know that something needs to be done. But here’s a truth – homeless people, especially people with serious mental illnesses – aren’t the problem here. All they want to do is live in peace. I recently lived for the better part of seven years in the DC area, dividing my time between Old Town Alexandria and Palm Beach County. During those years, I experienced no crime in my transitional neighborhood in Alexandria, nor in DC. I walked, ran, and recreated in those areas day and night. I held my national conference at a hotel one block from one of the largest congregations of apparently homeless street people in the Capitol area. I never once felt unsafe. Meanwhile, my Palm Beach County home – four miles from Mar a Lago – was burglarized two times and my car there was broken into three times. So, why not deploy the National Guard there? Like many, I was once a little wary of homeless people. I’m not even sure why – probably because someone told me they might be dangerous. Then I walked the streets of one large city with my homeless son, Tim, and realized that they were just his neighbors and friends. So now I try to carry a few dollars with me when I think I might run into someone who is homeless, just in case he or she asks me for a little help. I think about Tim, smile, and give them something. I can afford that much. Invariably, what they give back to me is something more – a thank you and a “God Bless You.” A blessing from the heart from someone who doesn’t even know me? That is one of the most Christian things I know. And it feels like God – whoever you may think he or she is – is truly channeling those kinds of genuine blessings. I am not naïve. I know that crime exists, and I know that homeless people get much of the blame for it. But I also know that a convicted felon lives in the White House. He scares me a whole lot more than people who look and act like my son did.

For the Health of Our Community, Can We Plan More in Advance?

Mayor Florsheim has proposed a budget with a 2.7 mill increase for the coming fiscal year. This will mean an increase in taxes of approximately $500 per year for a home with a market value (not an assessed value) of $250,000, with larger increases for many homes in our city. While I appreciate the time and effort that went into his budget calculation, like many people I don’t believe that this is a sustainable increase on top of the increases of the past few years. What I appreciate even more is that the Mayor has invited members of the public to work together to offer their own perspective and suggestions to the City Council. In the past few weeks, I have offered several short-term suggestions, including a job freeze, a search for an alternative health insurance provider, and greater advocacy at the state level for fairer PILOT funding for Middletown. As an example, the Mayor’s budget proposes $77,800 for a Grantwriter versus zero from the Finance Department. Maybe we wait on that? ...

Veterans and Mental Illness

On a sultry June morning in our national’s capital last Friday, I visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial . Scores of people moved silently along the Wall, viewing the names of the men and women who died in that war. Some stopped and took pictures. One group of men about my age surrounded one name for a photo. Two young women posed in front of another, perhaps a grandfather or great uncle they never got to meet. It is always an incredibly moving experience to visit the Wall. It treats each of the people it memorializes with respect. There is no rank among those honored. Officer or enlisted, rich or poor, each is given equal space and weight. It is a form of acknowledgement and respect for which many veterans still fight. Brave Vietnam veterans returned from Southeast Asia to educate our nation about the effects of war and violence. I didn’t know anything about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when I entered the Connecticut Legislature in the...

Kamala Harris's Very Good Medicare Home Health Care Plan

My wife Pam and I bought private long term care insurance about twenty years ago. It’s a pretty good deal. For about $100 per month, we will someday – when we need it – be eligible for up to $200 a day toward either home health care or nursing home care. Add it up – it could save us hundreds of thousands of dollars as we age. I’ve been a big supporter of long-term care insurance since I was a Connecticut State Legislator in the 1980s. But to be honest, it’s never quite gotten the traction it should have. One of the reasons is that when people are young and healthy, they aren’t thinking about what their long-term care needs might be thirty or forty years down the road. But that’s when premiums would be most affordable. The bigger problem is that it’s really hard for insurers to predict the costs of long-term care that far in advance, too. The costs of care often far exceed those that are estimated way in advance. As a result, the policies that Pam and I have aren’t even offered anymore...

Our Health Policy Matters

Search This Blog