[PAA-Discuss] 50,000 Line Up for Housing Aid in Detroit

[Ron and Kris Graham]

We are reaching critical mass in this country and the shit is fixing to hit
the fan. Ron and I talked about this yesterday. The dumb shits in government
and global corporate don't seem to realize that the people are not going to
sit quietly for much longer while they (the gov't and global corporate)
continue to mercilessly skull fuck them. Things are going to go one of two
ways, folks. Either the people of the world and especially the United States
are going to rise up and kick the shit out of their oppressors and wage
bloody war all over the place or the people in their masses will wake up and
decide to change the way we do business i.e. stop the rampant consumerism,
tell the credit card companies to go and fuck themselves, stop paying rent
and mortgage payments and let the mortgage companies shit on themselves,
start growing their own food and/or joining co-ops, start being kind to one
another, helping their neighbor and learning to live harmoniously WITHIN
nature instead of working against nature etc.

 

Very dark days are upon us and darker days still are coming. There is always
light where there is darkness but we are going to have a hard time seeing
the light for the foreseeable future. 

 

Kris

 

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/lead-o08.shtml

 


50,000 line up for housing aid in Detroit


By Jerry White 
8 October 2009


An estimated 50,000 residents of Detroit filed into Cobo Hall convention
center on Wednesday seeking assistance to pay utility bills and keep from
being evicted from their homes. City officials, who expected around 3,000
people to apply for the aid, were overwhelmed by the turnout.

In a scene reminiscent of the crowds of jobless workers who lined up for
free soup during the Great Depression, a queue of tens of thousands of
workers and unemployed people wound around the downtown arena. Young mothers
pushing baby carriages, disabled workers in wheelchairs, senior citizens and
throngs of young workers and youth stood for hours waiting. Many had slept
on the streets the previous evening to be the first served.

Several people fainted during the wait and were treated by medical personnel
on the scene. By 11:30 a.m., Detroit's mayor, David Bing, made a public
appeal for citizens to stop coming to Cobo Hall. Hundreds of police,
including officers from Detroit's special Gang Unit, stood guard at the
entrances to hold back the crowd.

Several people were reportedly injured in the rush to enter the building
after the police finally opened the doors around noon. Those in line were
funneled through the glass doors and quickly sped toward a table where they
were handed applications and told they had to fill them out and deposit them
in boxes before a 2 p.m. deadline.

Wednesday was the last day for residents to apply for the city's Homeless
Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP). The program, funded by a
$15.2 million grant from the Obama administration's stimulus program, will
provide assistance to only about 3,400 people, according to Constance Bell,
a spokesperson for the program. In addition to the 50,000 applications given
out Wednesday, an additional 30,000 were distributed previously, Bell said.
This means that only about one out of 23 people who applied will see any
money.

The large turnout was based on fast-spreading rumors that the city was
providing $3,000 to low-income families in need of aid. Such is the level of
economic desperation in the city-where the official jobless rate is 29
percent and more than one-third of the population lives below the official
poverty line-that tens of thousands showed up.

The vast majority will not qualify for the aid, the city spokesperson
admitted. The HPRP program only provides temporary assistance to pay utility
bills for those who are already homeless or facing pending evictions or
foreclosures. Moreover, it will be paid only to those who are able to keep
up their housing payments after receiving the aid. No money will be used to
make mortgage payments.

Rather than informing those who showed up that their efforts were likely to
be in vain, city officials continued to hand out and collect applications
for the program. Their overwhelming concern was to prevent an angry outburst
from people who had suffered the indignity of waiting for hours and being
manhandled by the cops.

The lack of preparation and disorganization at the event is an indication of
how distant government officials are from the reality confronting the
working class and the extent of the social crisis. The 80,000 households
that applied for assistance represent roughly a third of the city's
population.

The real jobless rate in Detroit is much higher than the official figure of
29 percent, due to the tens of thousands who have given up looking for
nonexistent jobs. This crisis has been exacerbated by the forced
bankruptcies and restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler by the Obama
administration, which, with the support of the United Auto Workers,
destroyed thousands of jobs and slashed the wages and benefits of auto
workers and retirees.

Particularly striking were the thousands of young workers lining up for
assistance. Thirty years ago, a large number of these young people would
have been employed in city's many auto factories. Since 1970, however, the
city has lost three-quarters of its manufacturing jobs, wiping out the jobs
of 250,000 workers. Today, there is nothing but low-paying jobs for young
workers, without the slightest economic security.

Last month, tens of thousands of workers lined up at the state fair grounds
in Detroit after the regional gas and electric company, DTE Energy,
announced it was offering help to distressed homeowners and renters.
According to a report last month in the Detroit News, Michigan's two largest
power companies, DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, last year cut off heating
to a total of 181,000 customers. DTE has already shut off energy to 115,000
households, a pace that will far surpass last year's 142,000 cutoffs.

Detroit-which used to boast one of the highest rates of home ownership in
the nation--had the top home foreclosure rate in 2006 and 2007, and still
ranks among the highest in the US.

Detroit's economic decline has been long in the making. The living standards
won by auto workers gave the Motor City the highest per capita income in the
nation in the 1950s. The last three decades, beginning with the Chrysler
bailout of 1979-80, has seen an unrelenting assault on the working class by
big business and the government, culminating in Obama's restructuring of GM
and Chrysler. The deindustrialization of Detroit was symbolic of the shift
by American capitalism from manufacturing to the most parasitic forms of
financial speculation.

At 15.2 percent, the state of Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in
the US. Over the past decade, as the auto industry was downsized, Michigan
lost 870,000 jobs. The number is expected to rise to one million by late
next year.

Even as the demand for social services increases, state and city governments
are slashing spending for housing, education and health care to cope with
large budget deficits. The Obama administration, which handed trillions to
Wall Street, has offered no similar bailout to the states or the estimated
15 million people who are now unemployed.

The state of Michigan-facing a $2.8 billion deficit-is slashing programs
across the board. On the same day that thousands lined up for housing
assistance, Detroit's Democratic Mayor David Bing, a multi-millionaire
businessman, announced a "turnaround" plan to cut $500 million over the next
two years by permanently shrinking city government, selling off public
assets, privatizing and cutting services, and laying off more than 1,000
city workers.

The economic crisis is bringing much of the rest of the country to similar
straits as in Detroit and Michigan. Scenes of economic desperation are
increasingly common throughout the country, with free clinics attracting
crowds of thousands in California, Texas and other states, and thousands of
people lining up for a handful of available jobs.

The US is experiencing a social crisis unparalleled since the 1930s. In the
face of this crisis, the Obama administration is offering no serious relief
to the tens of millions of working people who face economic ruin.

The tragic scene that unfolded Wednesday in Detroit underscores the derisory
character of Obama's so-called "stimulus" and "recovery" schemes. The White
House has rejected out of hand any public works program to put the
unemployed to work. Instead, all of its policies-from the Wall Street
bailout, to the attack on auto workers, to its plans to slash health care
costs-are designed to protect the wealth and power of the financial elite.

 

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