I am slow to rise this morning.
Our puppies generally wake me up at 6 AM, every morning for "puppy potty time". First, they come and sit at my bedside, then they start growling in a low, pleading guttural tone to try to wake me up and get me out of bed. If I fail to wake up, they move closer to my ear and begin sternly barking at me,... which always works. I get up and put the coffee pot on to begin percolating liquid brown thunderbolts of energy that will soon fill Granny Annie's cup and re-invigorate my soul.
In the meantime, me and the puppies are out the door and leisurely tour the neighborhood for the next 10-15 minutes as they check the bushes, trees and fire hydrants sniffing around for any whiffs of messages left on the "doggie internet". Max and Millie answer the canine messages by leaving their own pungent whiffs of personal responses for the next interested doggie browsers.
In unrelated news this morning, when I returned from our morning ritual, I saw an article written about the problem of "homelessness", in the news. I am not surprised that there is an increase of homelessness, as our country is increasingly moving so rapidly, everyday, forward in technological and scientific advances. Those persons who have not had the educational opportunities to learn and study in fields of such expertise, are left behind in an increasingly contracting world of "good jobs". These jobs are unavailable for people with limited skill sets in a global market of employment. Education still continues to be the bedrock staple of how to open up worlds of economic opportunities and escape poverty. We live in a hard world and it appears by all accounts, to just be getting harder every day. It seems unconscionable, that America is the richest country on earth and yet it is reported that there were approx. 25,000 homeless people living on the streets in L.A. last year. Streets populated by families with children. as well as single individuals. Sadly, for those children as well as for their communities, their state and our country, their individual opportunities for a better life, will be thwarted by ignorance, poor health and possibly even crime as a by-product of poverty. It is shameful, that this statistic is NOT shocking any more and could be true in ANY city in America.
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Sudden crisis for families forced to live on street: LA County fix
Los Angeles County “families in crisis” may get more money to help them with immediate needs as the Board of Supervisors has voted to allow dollars once designated for permanent housing to be spent on “crisis housing.”
The goal is to get families off the street until longer-term solutions can be found.
Supervisor Janice Hahn recommended creating more flexibility in the way housing dollars are used.
“Every night, more than 800 families are homeless, on the street, with nowhere to go,” Hahn said in her motion at Tuesday’s board meeting. The motion was co-authored by Supervisor Sheila Kuehl.
With a vacancy rate of less than 2 percent in some cities in Los Angeles County, it can take on average three to nine months to find permanent housing for eligible homeless families.
Emergency shelter has to be secured every night, but so-called “crisis housing” can be set up for months at a time and provides families with a safer, more stable place to live.
Very little funding has previously been made available for that kind of interim housing.
Rev. Andy Bales, CEO of the Union Rescue Mission, thanked the board and emphasized the need, saying the demand at the shelter was worse this year than during the recession which followed the 2008 financial crisis.
“We’ve hit a high this year of 196 moms and kids and dads at the mission. 136 were children,” Bails said. “We’ve never seen anything like this … the numbers at our mission are up 55 percent and the giving is down 30 percent.”
Hahn said it was simple.
“This is one of those things where we’re basically getting rid of some bureaucracy,” Hahn said. “We are getting rid of some red tape.”
—City News Service
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