Letters 2

Dec. 7, 2005

Drunk or homeless?
I attended a town hall meeting on homelessness at the library Nov. 14th mainly with one question in mind. Are they including drunks and druggies as homeless? I found out they are. 
Goodwill did a five-county survey of shelters, transition houses, tent camps, etc., and came up with, if I recall correctly, 500-some homeless people. When asked what percentage were substance abusers, the answer was a vague 30-some percent. 
I don’t consider people that choose a drunken street life as homeless. To put them in the same basket with abandoned teenagers, abused mothers, and the mentally ill is misleading. The same with including residents of transition houses and the Whiting Hotel; these are jail inmates who are sentenced to live in what are essentially alternatives to jail and pay rent. 
I worked at the Whiting a couple of years ago. I started out with a lot of compassion, and left rather disgusted by people who were manipulating local charities, turning down work, and staying drunk while maintaining a free roof over their heads.
I’ve been on the other side: rehabs, transition houses, and even briefly the Whiting, and it was all court and substance abuse related, and I was not surrounded by the homeless; I was in with people just like me.  
This pretty town does have an ugly underbelly that needs to be addressed, not ignored, we have people sleeping under bridges, in the hills, and in empty houses. When I moved out of a building bought by Hagerty Insurance -- and destined to be flattened -- I was sorely tempted to toss my keys to the nearest homeless person knowing they’d get a few months of shelter out of it.  Problem is it would no doubt quickly become a drunken crash pad.
The gray area between homeless and drunk needs to be defined, and although Goodwill   is essentially an admirable organization, the fact that they run the transistion houses, the Whiting and other court related services is questionable to me, and also seems to bolster what I believe is a misleading homeless census.

                          Mike Morey • TC


Face of the Dead
He is not my son,
brother, nephew, son-in-law or relative.
His fresh, young face
Is brave, resigned, serious,
girded to hide homesickness and fear,
as if he knew he was lied to,
betrayed by his recruiters.
If you must, shrug him off because he volunteered.
Now he is dead.
One can serve in the Army and never be a soldier.
When my turn came, I did not volunteer,  but I came back.
He returns in a coffin, a flag folded at graveside.
We say, “Whoever saves a life saves a world.”
Whoever takes a life, takes a world:
a world of career, wife, children, grandchildren
abbreviated, terminated, stolen from our future.
Without guilt (for I did not send him to war),
but with helpless sorrow and grief,
I mourn for that face among the fallen.

              Harley Sachs • Houghton

By the Numbers...

Results of of a three-day poll of 1,200 likely Michigan voters conducted by Strategic Vision, LLC on November 18-20.  
In the poll, 46% (552 respondents) identified themselves as Democrats; 42% (504 respondents) as Republicans; and 12% (144 respondents) identified themselves as Independent or other party affiliation.

When asked if they approved of Governor Jennifer Granholm‘s overall job performance, 45% of the respondents approved; 50% disapproved; and 5% were undecided.
 
When asked if they approved of President Bush‘s overall job performance, 31% of respondents approved; 59% disapproved; and 10% were undecided.  
When asked if they approved of the President‘s handling of the economy, 27% approved; 63% disapproved; and 10% were undecided.  
When asked if they approved of the President‘s handling of the war in Iraq, 33% approved; 55% disapproved; and 12% were undecided.

When Republican voters were asked if they saw President Bush in the conservative mode of Ronald Reagan, 32% said yes; 54% said no; and 14% were undecided.

When asked if they thought Michigan was headed in the right or wrong direction, 26% said right direction; 61% said wrong direction; and 13% were undecided.

When asked if they approved of President Bush‘s nomination of Samuel Alito, to replace Sandra Day O‘Connor on the United States Supreme Court, 51% approved; 35% disapproved; and 14% were undecided.

When asked if they would like to see the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, 35% said yes; 58% said no; and 7% were undecided.

When asked if they expected another terrorist attack in the United States in the next six months, 75% said yes; 10% said no; and 15% were undecided.

When asked if they favored an immediate withdrawal of all United States armed forces from Iraq immediately, 42% said yes; 49% said no; and 9% were undecided.

In a general election match-up for Governor, between Governor Granholm and Republican Dick DeVos, Granholm led 44% to 33% with 23% undecided.
  
When Republicans were polled on whom they would support in 2008 for the Republican Presidential nomination, Senator John McCain received 34%; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani received 24%; Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich 13%...
 
On the Democratic side, New York Senator Hillary Clinton led with 35%; former Vice President Al Gore received 14%; former North Carolina Senator John Edwards received 10%; Massachusetts Senator John Kerry received 7%; former General Wesley Clark received 5%; Delaware Senator Joseph Biden received 4% ...