Wednesday, February 2
Today was the day of the rally for affordable housing. I started out the morning working on the Altria proposal with the Grant Writer, piecing together a budget, working on the wording and proofreading. Shortly before noon, I began working on some ideas for posters for the poster-making hour for the rally later in the afternoon. Then I spent time making the posters with co-workers who were all planning to attend the rally. Around 3.30 pm, a half-dozen of us from the Partnership went down to City Hall for the rally (see story on rally here).
The story on affordable housing goes like this: NYC has not spent any money on building, fixing or saving housing since the mid-70's. Meanwhile, just this year, Mayor Bloomberg has been planning to drop $300 million dollars on the "West Side Stadium," as it is commonly referred. The City's position is that the stadium will bring in countless riches to the economy (NY Jets and a group trying to bring the Olympics to NYC in 2012 are the biggest supporters). Of course, whenever the government moves to spend money on a grandiose money-making scheme (whether or not it will work) the "have nots" view these plans as frivolous at best, economic thievery at worst. Homeless people can't afford Jets tickets, goes the retort. It is the position of the Partnership that housing is the key to eliminating homelessness. There are other schools of thought out there (Prof. Shinn of NYU wrote a paper on this subject) that contrast this, but strong support exists for affordable housing as a major factor for preventing/"curing" homelessness. Personally, I haven't done enough research on it either way to determine for myself, but I went to the rally anyway to support the Partnership.
I worked a full shift today.
The story on affordable housing goes like this: NYC has not spent any money on building, fixing or saving housing since the mid-70's. Meanwhile, just this year, Mayor Bloomberg has been planning to drop $300 million dollars on the "West Side Stadium," as it is commonly referred. The City's position is that the stadium will bring in countless riches to the economy (NY Jets and a group trying to bring the Olympics to NYC in 2012 are the biggest supporters). Of course, whenever the government moves to spend money on a grandiose money-making scheme (whether or not it will work) the "have nots" view these plans as frivolous at best, economic thievery at worst. Homeless people can't afford Jets tickets, goes the retort. It is the position of the Partnership that housing is the key to eliminating homelessness. There are other schools of thought out there (Prof. Shinn of NYU wrote a paper on this subject) that contrast this, but strong support exists for affordable housing as a major factor for preventing/"curing" homelessness. Personally, I haven't done enough research on it either way to determine for myself, but I went to the rally anyway to support the Partnership.
I worked a full shift today.
posted by Ruth at 9:17 PM
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