Grace Ross: Patrick’s Christmas Hypocrisy

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Grace Ross, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

Grace Ross, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

I get it. You want to be a good guy. You especially want to be a good guy when you’re asking thousands of your wealthy supporters to come to a party to give you tens of thousands of dollars for the opportunity to be in your presence. You certainly wouldn’t want people to feel like it’s all about you and the money, so you ask folks to bring some $20 gift cards for homeless families.

Diane Patrick, who I met on the campaign trail in 2006 (I got to know and like), she went through a very painful and traumatic abusive relationship herself. She has spoken out many times and has prioritized trying to do something about domestic violence issues. We know she gets the situation of folks who find themselves homeless because of domestic violence; presumably she wants to be supportive of such families.

So with the invitation to this very expensive holiday fundraiser for the Governor comes a little note. Below the little section saying that tickets are $100, $250 and $500 is a little section that says that the “Governor and Mrs. Patrick encourage attendees to bring gift cards to CVS, Target, Shaw’s, Stop and Shop and Wal-Mart as well as flatware and small electronics for homeless families.”

Here’s the problem with all of this. The Governor has been on a trajectory now for a few years to cut shelters specifically for homeless families, not homeless single adults.

At this point, although the state has more families in shelters or hotels than it ever has, advocates conservatively estimate that some 70% of the folks who would have traditionally been eligible for shelter have now been shut out by draconian regulations.

They redefine things like escaping domestic violence and what it means to be homeless. Some have argued, who’ve been around for a long time, that the figure is closer to 90% of families that would have been previously eligible for homeless shelters can no longer get in. Now, you’re only homeless if you and your children have just stayed in a place not fit for human habitation.

Given the foreclosure crisis driving up rents at the same time as undermining jobs and driving down incomes, homelessness is predictably going to skyrocket through no fault of the vast majority facing it. We know the numbers facing homelessness with the credit ruined and/or income problems will seriously curtail access to regular housing but a gift card can’t make up for a denial of shelter.

The first lady has made very clear in the brief pieces of her own personal stories that she shares publically that the critical moment was when someone listened to her story and took it seriously. She says that moment came when she was first getting to know a certain future governor. But the regulations would deny somebody who hadn’t learned how to tell their story yet, shelter no matter what they did because the new shelter regulations for someone escaping domestic violence require you to have a professional or a police or a court report showing that you have been the victim of domestic violence.

Many folks escape with only their clothes on their back and their children in tow – hopefully, under the radar so that their abuser won’t be able to find them. The present regulations* won’t even recognize domestic violence is the reason that they’re homeless if they have the luck of being able to crash on someone’s couch for a few weeks.

At that point you’re no longer considered homeless because of domestic violence just because you’ve managed to creatively found a way to house your family briefly? And if you can’t go back and talk to teachers who knew your kids when you were being abused because it would be dangerous to be seen by your ex in the place you use to live? And you didn’t find your voice before you left so that you had talked to a policeman or filed a domestic violence report?... I’ve dealt with women who were fleeing who were terrified to talk to their long-time doctor because they might by mistake trip across their ex and have their life directly threatened.

When you finally run, risking your life – because when you finally break away is when you are in the most danger – all you should be worrying about is your and your childrens’ safety. The new regulations make the declaration that the abuse was not your fault a rebuttable presumption... Like we need to be second-guessing victims who probably second-guessed themselves to the point of endangering their own lives. The man who listened to Diane Patrick must know this.

Heart-wrenching testimony at hearings has spoken to the impossibility of getting housing as a domestic violence survivor with kids at this point (It’s hard to believe the reality of what I am saying, I know, so there are five real stories to watch).

And I’m sorry, but no amount of trying to be a nice guy with gift cards can make up for the ugliness of a policy that endangers the lives of thousands of families across our state every night. There’s no amount of gift cards that somebody can glue together to create a roof over a family month after month, even with breadwinners out looking for jobs everyday that aren’t there. No amount of asking for gift cards can ameliorate the impact of a policy that shows a level of negligence and ignorance impossible for someone who has lived through domestic violence or has been married to somebody who lived through domestic violence.

The juxtaposition of a few gift cards and tens of thousands of dollars and thousands of families required to live in places unfit for human habitation simply cannot be reconciled.

I want a different gift for the Winter holidays, for Christmas. There is an opportunity here. One that requires honesty, and courage in the face of a terrible economy for the majority of folks and a sweet economy for a very few who are still making money. It is not ok for there to be no place to put your head but a manger when you live in the second highest income state in the one of the richest countries in the world.

There is an opportunity here: if Patrick is truly the guy who wants to help homeless families, he can do some things that are real – change the shelter regulations and step out in front of the still accumulating foreclosure damage – so those who went through what his wife did can have a safe roof over their heads and all our families can have a roof over their head, sheltered, while our overall economy and they themselves in their lives recover.