Well, it appears that the Romney for President/Thumb Your Nose at BRAC plan to relocate 2,500 people to Camp Edwards on the Upper Cape has been postponed.
Seems that the folks who were to be shoved 1,800 miles from home, jobs and families were smart enough to figure out that a semi-permanent exile just in time for a Cape Cod fall and winter might not be in their best interests.
I’m as disgusted as the next person about the Bush administration’s ineptitude, but I’m beginning to wonder if incompetence isn’t the American Way and not something restricted to rich Washington Republicans.
Furthermore: people here have been cooing sanctimoniously about how they were going to find permanent on Cape housing for the relocated families. I’m wondering where.
There is almost no “affordable housing” on Cape Cod. I know people who have waited over 2 years for placement in subsidized housing. These friends of mine aren’t stumblebums either – one is a former teacher, a disabled Vietnam vet whose sole vice, if you can call it that, isn’t drinking, smoking or drug abuse but a weakness for chocolate.
The average cost to rent a year-round, 2-bedroom house or apartment is around $1,500 a month.
The average cost to buy a single family home on Cape Cod is over $395,000. For a home buyer with no equity, that requires a 6-figure family income.
Here’s another one: social and medical services. A second friend, the mother of two young children, needs heart surgery, but has been nursed along on Beta blockers for over a month while she waits in line for the ONE qualified surgeon in Cape Cod’s much-vaunted cardiac care infrastructure.
So, unless the planes were carrying 2,500 investment bankers and surgeons to Camp Edwards, why are promises being made that are impossible to keep?
I don’t know about you, but if my home had been destroyed and I’d been living in filth for the last week, I wouldn’t my tragedy to be used for some out of state hack’s political gain – especially since there’s no guarantee of any sort of happy outcome.