Random Thoughts for the 50th Anniversary of the Tet Offensive

Last week was the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Pulitzer Prize winning photo just before the execution of the Viet Cong soldier as part of the Tet Offensive.  This marked the escalation of the Viet Nam war; the beginning of my dad's tour in country and the end of the Johnson Presidency in 1968.  The escalation of the war that would cost us the lives of over 50,000 Americans who could not find a doctor to sign a medical waiver for bone spurs in the foot.

I love NPR; and it is the background music of my life. It is public radio so really these announcers, reporters and journalists are representing our interests.  They receive some public money and rely on the public donations to stay in business.  There is no doubt that we are well represented by people like Nina Totenberg in the Supreme Court, Pam Fessler on Voting, and Laura Sullivan and her reports with ProPublica.  Each of these three have stories that made a difference from Anita Hill to the scandals at the Red Cross to Gerrymandering and the evils of ID for voting.  They have served the public well. 

One reporter who in my opinion is not pulling her weight is Mara Liasson at the White House.  She asks good questions but she also has many strikes against her. Those good questions do not turn into good stories or they get bogged down in being overly friendly with the administration.  Her biggest issue is that she also works for the biased Trump media outlet of Faux News.  Other issues include the reality that her stories are not memorable.  I can't think of one important story broken by Ms. Liasson, and I have never said, "I need to go back and listen to that Mara Liasson story again."  A quick Google search did not return one news story with her byline in the top 20 searches.  She is so dedicated to the "both sides do it narrative" that it colors her journalism.  What has gone on from the podium of the White House is so abnormal this past year, it is silly to mention previous administrations or the powerless Democrats.  At what point do you get angry and reflect that in your stories?  What do they have to do to get some passion and call out the suspicious and criminal behavior.  The White House communication lies with immunity on the airwaves of NPR.  Liasson is so prone to giving "both sides" of the story that she misses the forest for the fig leaf. Two weeks ago, every news outlet had sources to confirm that the President had ordered the firing of Mueller (even FauxNews), but NPR stated that they could not confirm the story.  What good is Liasson if she could not confirm this bombshell?  It is time to make Liasson a senior correspondent thinking of unique ways to talk about gross Thanksgiving meals and interviewing academics about the marvelous art of ancient Persia.

Speaking of NPR, have you noticed that on the local NPR affiliate WCPN the Friday news roundup show is heavily dominated by white commentators?  Yes, I realize that the host, Rick Jackson is African American and does a fantastic job, but the people who are commenting on the news are overwhelmingly not representative of Cleveland.  I went back six months in the WCPN archive to look at the commentators on the news over the last 25 Friday shows.  From July 2017 to the February 2, 2018 show, there were 75 guests (3 per show) and in all that time only 3 shows featured a member of a minority.  There was one African American in January 2018 and two times Andy Chow was a guest or 96% of the commentators were white.  Nearly every show was pretty white, older, educated, suburban and therefore came from one small segment of our society. 

There were two African Americans competing for Mayor of Cleveland during that span.  There were shooting deaths, the problems associated with charter schools, Medicaid work requirements, federal tax cuts mostly for the wealthy, using public money for improving playgrounds for the rich, and cuts to arts institutions with the cigarette tax that could be better informed with African American or Hispanic individuals who do not live in the suburbs.  I know that the audience is largely white, educated and suburban, but is that a chicken or an egg problem?  They are publicly supported with public money and donations so shouldn't they have to reflect the community they serve?  It is no wonder there is a boiling anger out in the community that white educated folks are talking down to all the rest of the population.  These announcers know nothing about the juvenile justice system for an African American teen.  They have no idea what goes on with the mom trying to figure out what is best for her kids poisoned because the only house they could afford was lead poisoned.  The white commentators cannot give a solid picture of the news if they do not understand poverty, or why kids carry a gun or the desperate hope that someone will come along to lift them out of the drug crisis in their family.  Young people, minorities, non-college educated residents of Glenville have opinions about the news and we should hear them every once in a while.

NPR did carry a story about the withdraw of FEMA food support in Puerto Rico that caused a stir because still one-third of the island does not have power.  It drew immediate condemnation especially from leaders in Puerto Rico.  In the most tone deaf statement of the year so far, the coordinator for FEMA on the island said,

"The reality is that we just need to look around. Supermarkets are open, and things are going back to normal," said Alejandro De La Campa, FEMA's director in Puerto Rico. "If we're giving free water and food, that means that families are not going to supermarkets to buy," De La Campa said. "It is affecting the economy of Puerto Rico. So we need to create a balance. "

FEMA had to back down after all the criticism, but still the idea of cutting off food when the power is out is insane.  How do people keep things cold or go to a job to earn money without electricity?  Just because you seek help from the government does not mean that you are undermining capitalism.  There is very little relationship between the two.  Everything is complicated if an island does not have the infrastructure to meet the basic needs of a population.  If a government cannot offer basic power, they owe the population at least free food and water. 

I have been trying to figure out why Mary Taylor is running for Governor.  In Ohio, Republicans are divided between the Kasich branch and the Trump core of the party.  Every Republican who got into the race at the beginning (Husted, DeWine, Taylor and Rennaci) appeal to the Trump followers of the party.  There have to be Kasich supporters who will vote in the primary.  Why is no one supporting Medicaid expansion or fake bipartisanship?  Why not try to expand the party instead of strictly appealing to the narrow Make America Great crowd?  What is the difference between the Taylor and Dewine ticket?  Why bother?

Now that I tried to get involved in the local Democratic party, I can say with first hand knowledge, they suck.  It is no wonder that people are turned off the party and Cuyahoga County does not have the power down at the Statehouse as they did in the 1970s and 1980s.  How could they not endorse one of the best elected officials in Ohio with Nickie Antonio?  She listens and tries to react.  She cares about her constituents even if they do not agree with her.  She truly tries to represent all her constituents and not just her donors or her fellow progressive Democrats.  This is the opposite of former Council President Marty Sweeney.  Does anyone remember one Marty Sweeney led initiative that benefited his constituency either at Council or at the State House?

Then the Democrats decided to not to give Kenny Yuko the endorsement blocked by John Barnes who got enough support so that the Dems will endorse no one in the State Senate vote. This is an outrage since Barnes is barely a Democrat regularly crossing the line and voting with Republicans when offered crumbs.  Barnes tried to eliminate the Cleveland Housing Court until the Plain Dealer revealed conflicts of interest.  We would be better represented by Michael Moore's Ficus tree over John Barnes.   How many good people are being turned away from participating because the Cuyahoga County Democratic party is so poorly managed?  Why doesn't substance and issues matter to the Cuyahoga County Democrats?

by Brian Davis

The Down Side of Permanent Supportive Housing

It was a jarring set of articles that appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer this week.  On the same day, that homeless social service providers were proclaiming victory over long term homeless by the year 2020 in Cleveland, there was the discovery of the death of two homeless people in the snow.  If only the two had lived to 2020, there problems would have been solved!  How can anyone say that they are within two years of solving long term homelessness on the day that two of our friends are found dead on the streets?  I view this in much the same way as I read the October headline from Russia proclaiming that they will defeat ISIS and declare victory in Syria by the end of 2017.  Both are propaganda efforts to bolster an embattled public leader with no basis in reality.

Then on Friday December 15, WCPN-FM with a couple of Cleveland.com executives on the panel took up the public relations effort by proclaiming how great these Permanent Supportive Housing units are in the community never mentioning the deaths on the streets.  How much would you wanna bet that if these properties were being proposed in Shaker, Pepper Pike or near one of these reporters homes they would be screaming about how they are untested, unproven, too great a risk and will destroy the neighborhoods?

I put together this on the weekend and then Mike McIntyre and the Sound of Ideas on Monday December 18 featured about 20 minutes on this same topic.  Mike tried to provide a much better presentation of the issues compared to the cheer-leading done by the Plain Dealer and the Friday news roundup.  He still only featured three advocates of the program who had benefited from this policy in Enterprise Community Partners, FrontLine's CEO and the main funder in the Sisters of Charity Foundation without any skeptic.  All three are really good people, but they are pushing a concept that they do not seem to recognize that there are winners and losers with Permanent Supportive Housing.  The winners are the agencies that hooked their wagon to this experiment and the 20% of the homeless population and the losers are the rest of the homeless population and the majority of homeless service providers who are struggling to stay in business.  The million dollar question is on balance is the community better off with Permanent Supportive Housing?

McIntyre asked good questions, but did not get good answers from these guests who were selling a product.  Mark McDermott saying we don't want to pit providers against each other may be a hope it is certainly not the reality with 450 shelter beds disappearing over the last 10 years  They treated Ann from Lakewood who was housing her disabled adult children nicely with their words, but in reality they were saying, "You are on your own until you have had enough of them and force them out of your house and they survive outside for one year."  Basically, this $130 million dollar collaborative is busy serving 800 people in the community and does not have the money or time to serve the 30,000 people who need their support services, housing assistance and a pillow inside on a cold night. In my opinion, these programs saved hundreds of lives and we at least built some housing in the community, but the advocates have over-sold Housing First as some utopia solution to homelessness.

A quick run down on the virtues mentioned in the PD article and the two WCPN radio shows:

• They do not require people to cure themselves before participating. This is a huge improvement over previous shelter/housing program policies.
• In Cleveland, they are beautiful units that are an asset in any community. (How to compare these PSH units to 9,000 abandoned properties in Cleveland?)
• They set a goal back in 2002-4 to build 1,000 units to end long term homeless, and they are on track for this goal. 
• They identify these statistics which appear to show how successful they have been. (There is no academic or even media scrutiny of these stats).
• It was mentioned to be good social policy "to get them off the streets." (They are us!)
• One positive in the PD story was that they did not use the offensive phrase "chronically homeless" like it was a disease.  Joe Frolik could not avoid using this offensive language.
• All the services come to you in these apartments to stabilize the individual in order to move the formerly disabled individual into permanent housing without all the services.
• Frolik mentioned that this was based on research out of Philadelphia and was pushed extensively by the GW Bush administration with the "compassionate conservatism" propaganda. This "research" claimed that 20% of the population were using 70% of the resources for homeless people.  
• The economics work because the $131 million we spent saves the community $6-7 million a year. Just for clarification it will take 18 years to get the money we spent back on the money we spent to date, which will not include the on-going maintenance and social service cost.  So, in reality, the public will never re-coup the money we spent on these housing programs.  
• Chris Quinn believes that this is the replacement of the closed down asylums from the 1970s, but he also said that this was "solving of homelessness" forgetting the qualifier "solving long term homelessness." 
• The moderator of the WCPN, Rick Jackson, mentioned Councilman Matt Zone championing that this is a model in the United States and is highly successful "a feather in our cap."
• Mark McDermott of Enterprise mentioned that we need an overall affordable housing strategy, but did not mention that we are no closer to that and in fact we have lost ground over the previous two federal administrations.
• The State of Ohio has come on board to help invest in this strategy identified by Frolik as a "remarkable programs that has had bi-partisan support."
• The County was given much praise for all the funds and work they are doing to serve the population on the Monday WCPN program both with HousingFirst and the shelters.
• These are safe places with 24 hours of services and security to monitor who comes and goes within the buildings.  (Something which the better shelters also have by the way.)

I will give the other side of the story below.  I wish the media would not just accept the research, and statistics without question.  Where is the push back and the skepticism?

"Once upon a time you dressed so fine
Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People call, say, "Beware doll you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you

You used to laugh about everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging your next meal

How does it feel?
How does it feel?
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone"
    by Bob Dylan

Here are the points that you never hear in this public relations campaign to push Permanent Supportive Housing:

• In my opinion, the research out of Philadelphia was flawed by arriving at a solution and then trying to build stats around that outcome.  In addition, the researcher in Philly benefited from this research by then becoming a consultant for cities to implement this strategy.
• The statistics are based on a one day count that takes place in one of the coldest weeks of the year in Cleveland.  It is tough counting people outside, and much easier to count people inside while sleeping in a shelter bed.  We lost 450 shelter beds over the last 10 years in Cleveland making it more difficult to count homeless people.  Besides these barriers to counting, there is also the reality that can one day be extrapolated to an entire year?  As an example, let's say the average temperature on January 23 was 22 degrees in 2017 while it was 17 degrees on January 23, 2016 does that mean that we have a 5 degree rise in temperature for the year 2016 compared to 2017?  It is absurd to compare one day to mean anything other than the number of homeless on one day.  It is useless information and should not be used for any purpose other than recycling. This is especially true when so many beds are closing every year.  It was not like these beds were sitting empty and these beds were wasted in our community.    
• Anyone who looks at this objectively has to see that this was a way to cut funding during the Bush Administration.  It was not like they came up with a good idea and found new money to experiment with this housing options.  When this started 80% of the dollars went to emergency and transitional programs in our community.  Now, 80% of our funds goes to Permanent Supportive Housing and only 20% goes to emergency services.  Transitional Housing was eliminated and the federal funds remained the same except one year of stimulus funding.
• These are people who are in housing and yet we are spending homeless dollars on these programs.  We lost 450 shelter beds over the last 10 years which makes it very difficult to serve the emergency needs of a family locally.  Remember, the PSH program is only for long term and disabled single adult individuals which are only 20% of the total population.  Our only strategy for serving homeless people caters to only a small number of the population.  The 80% are told to go find their own solutions or wait 5 years on an affordable housing waiting list. 
• The 1,000 unit goal is still not realized, but that had no basis in fact. It was pulled out of the air and did not take into account the assault on affordable housing during the time of constructing these units.  It also did not take into account the foreclosure crisis or the elimination of emergency services.   The Bush Administration while championing Housing First was at the same time starving the beast by trying to play games with affordable housing funding.  We have not created affordable housing for decades except for PSH and senior housing while we lost units because of age and financing.  The Obama administration was digging out from the recession and then faced sequestration which only added to the loss of housing for low income Americans. 
• Remember, this housing in Cleveland is largely for single adults with a disability.  It is not for families or even couples.  If you stay on a couch or with family or in a motel, you are not considered homeless. 
• There was mention that only two other cities had solved long term homeless which is a good talking point, but in reality is just spin.  No city has or will solve long term homelessness, because in spending all of its money on the problem they have created families, young people and other populations who became long term homeless during the time we were building all this housing.  There is no doubt that this has contributed to a decrease in the number of people who sleep outside, but they should not oversell their accomplishments.  There were plenty of other things that contributed to a decline in the number of people who sleep outside including some amazing people like Jim Schlecht and Toni Johnson working on this issue.  It is not just the buildings get built and poof there is magic the population declines. 
• It is not true that this is unique to Cleveland or that we are doing this better than other communities.  We are following the Dennis Culhane playbook because we are paying a lot of money to his Philadelphia consulting company to follow that playbook. 
• It is great that all these services come to these facilities to offer help, but the same was true of transitional housing and that was much cheaper for the community.  The average transitional shelter bed turned over twice a year, while the 700 units of PSH are housing and do not turn over.  These are great programs, but should have funded these projects with all new money to add to our tools of serving the homeless population.  Instead, we eliminated many programs to fund the HousingFirst initiative.  
• We also had no idea that we would create new sectors of homelessness because we are focusing all of our money on one very limited population.  There are families that are spending more and more time on the streets.  There are more seniors facing homelessness and we have had to do all kinds of contortions to be able to serve homeless youth that we finally recognized as being a problem.  
• During the time of building HousingFirst units, we have made it much more difficult to be defined as a homeless person. How do you prove that you have lived in 45 different street corners/abandoned buildings/couches and doorways over the last three years?  Now you have to accumulate 1 year of homelessness over the last year in order to qualify.  Also, any time spent in a basement couch does not count as homeless.  While the school district is struggling with huge numbers of families, the County is proclaiming success with the Housing First.  It is like they are throwing paper towels out to the homeless population with this story.  
• How can every other system be stressed under the pressure of the opioid overdose epidemic except the homeless system which is on the verge of solving long term homelessness?  
• The economics of this strategy does not work.  I believe that the community saves even more than the $6 to $7 million mentioned on the radio, but they are not saving homeless dollars.  The money saved is in the criminal justice system, mental health centers, and the emergency room.  The homeless shelters and social services will not see a dollar of those funds.  The MetroHealth system will not say, thanks for your help with housing Joe Smith who has been sleeping in the Flats for 10 years, here is the $50,000 that we spent on him last year.  
• Another economics problem is that the long term homeless are typically not using many shelter resources in the community.  For the most part, those outside and not using shelter resources, and so their moving inside does not free up a shelter bed or many homeless resources.  The long term homeless are not using the meal programs or the social services. 
• Overall, the system for homeless people is more fractured, more confusing, and less accessible before the HousingFirst initiative was created.  We have not reduced the number of people who die on the streets.  We have not reduced the overall homeless population.  We have not reduced the number of poor people in the community, and we have not stabilized the affordable housing market.  We have built 800 units of housing and placed 800 people who have huge barriers to living independently inside.  We should have done built these apartments years ago, and we should have used non-homeless money.  Think about how far ahead we would be as a community if we were able to provide for the emergency needs of families and the disabled people sleeping in Ann from Lakewood's house along with helping people who have multiple barriers to homelessness.  

by Brian Davis