So, Massachusetts “opened up its arms” to the evacuees from New Orleans, some of whom were old, infirm and had to be lifted off the plane that landed yesterday at Edwards (another is expected today).
Two weeks ago, nobody gave a rat’s patoot about these same old, infirm people, or the poor families, including some with kids. All of a sudden, the milk of human kindness flows.
Each day, this expiation of whatever it is – guilt? frustration? a need for otherwise privileged people to do something “meaningful” – morphs into a more and more bizarre Theater of the Absurd.
According to the Boston Globe, four state legislators flew – presumably on the taxpayers’ dime – to Houston “to try to persuade other evacuees in the Astrodome they would be welcomed in Massachusetts”.
You’d think there were no people in need here, that they have to be imported to give the legislators and social service agencies something to do.
Per the incident commander for the Department of Public Health, “everyone would be given 30-day membership in the MassHealth public health insurance program, allowing them to get immediate hospital care and prescription drugs. The arrivals will also have access to a medical clinic on the base.”
Is that right? Well, how about my friend, a 27 year resident of Cape Cod whose daughter has a chronic medical problem? My friend was laid off in June, but she and her daughter can’t get MassHealth, or even access to a clinic.
I don’t understand any of this. It’s as if one kind of hell is more worthy than another – that living on the second story of a building that was flooded with sewage confers more nobility than being chronically homeless or living in a rat and roach-infested apartment for years.
Think I’m overreacting? Read this from today’s Globe:
…after Hurricane Katrina displaced hundreds of thousands along the Gulf Coast, yesterday’s sweep (of shantytowns built under bridges in the Back Bay) also brought new attention to the plight of Boston’s homeless, estimated to number about 6,000 people.
Complaints about the drug and alcohol abuse in the shantytowns have been going on for at least two years, but it isn’t until someone was sexually assaulted that our public servants did anything about it.
Per City Councilor Michael Ross: “It’s tragic that there aren’t, primarily, state and federal resources to do what needs to be done. You’re talking about the shutting down of methadone clinics and shelters,” Ross said. “This is a problem that comes right down to health and human services . . . especially for substance-abuse treatment.”
Amen, brother.