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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (44565)	5/15/2004 11:16:37 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 793718

The welfare industry doesn't like it because it cuts a lot of them out of the loop. Sure, like union busting. You want to do the same work. You just want different people doing it. So, my question remains, how is this program conservative? Or is "compassionate conservatism" the same old thing, just repackaged, promoted, and implemented by Republicans, which is what this looks like?

To: LindyBill who wrote (44565)	5/15/2004 11:36:51 AM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793718

I would like to see an inventory done of all the programs in all the departments in the federal government whose function is to help the homeless. Since we still have a problem, then all the money we currently spend is totaly wasted. Then demand that Congress prune the dead wood before they come back to the taxpayers for even more money for yet another attempt to help these people. That would be the fiscally conservative approach.

To: LindyBill who wrote (44565)	5/15/2004 12:51:34 PM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793718

In the late 70s, I was the adult service worker placed in charge of deinstitutionalization in our city. My job involved finding placements and serving as liaison between the community, the available services (MH/MR, food stamps, SSI and Medicaid) and the newly released. My only "tyrannical" actions were to arrange these services pre-release, and to assist if there were problems. I see Mangano advocating the same sort of system-- the provision of support services, a roof, food stamps-- it sounds to me like a return to the structure of the initial release program as it was envisioned (or at least as my community interpreted it). The "tyranny of social workers" is ideally what should have enabled the newly released to function-- to eat, to be sheltered, to work at local workshops, to get medical care and medication. Sadly in large cities, the system broke down rapidly where resources and social services were inadequate to begin with and you wound up with an enormous influx of people who weren't capable of self-care and weren't followed up on to ensure they were taking meds or getting services. I am unclear what is different in Mangano's approach- it seems to me an attempt by a practical person to restore some accountability to a system that wasn't given enough support in the first place and failed by creating an underclass of homeless, mentally ill people. He seems to be reestablishing the guidelines that should have made for a successful placement. To run a cost-effective business. Get rid of the superfluous and redundant. Or is he advocating that the support system be organized by volunteers or private organizations rather than government services? They will still have to deal with the government system for specific resources- like SSI, Food Stamps, Medicaid- or is he saying (as you seem to be) that you provide the roof and food stamps, and forget them? Who follows through on the necessary services? It was much easier to deal with an institutionalized populace that had been evaluated for needs prior to release and was by its very situation trained to submission, than to identify and work with those who have been living on the street. I wonder who he has doing the evaluating? Guess I just need to hear more. It just didn't sound that "new" to me from the original idea of 30 years ago. I was lucky enough to work in a closeknit, very small community with wonderful people. Even so, I left social work disillusioned with the system and with no desire to return to it. It is a system guaranteed to create dependency and doom people to a cycle of poverty.