Bush's Housing Secretary
talks tough on who will be permitted to return to public housing in New Orleans:
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson shed little light Monday on the future of public housing in hurricane-battered New Orleans, but said that "only the best residents" of the former St. Thomas housing complex should be allowed into the new mixed-income development that replaced it.
...
"Some of the people shouldn't return," Jackson said. "The (public housing) developments were gang-ridden by some of the most notorious gangs in this country. People hid and took care of those persons because they took care of them. Only the best residents should return. Those who paid rent on time, those who held a job and those who worked."
Surely we can agree that criminal gang members shouldn't be out on the streets of any city; this is a law enforcement matter, not one for public housing.
But the definition of "desirables" in Jackson's is disturbing: Those who paid rent on time, those who held a job and those who worked. By those lights, tens of thousands of Michigan workers went in one day from some of the state's "best residents" to "undesirables," not based on their own behavior, but on the ruthless realities spawned by globalization. Our value as citizens and residents under this categorization is based solely on the economics of big business, as corporations do their periodic employee bloodletting to bolster the bottom line.
Talk about not being in control of your own fate. Talk about reinforcing the absolute worthlessness of showing up for work on time, doing your job, playing by the rules.
It seems to me that any discussion about dealing with the effects of downsizing and restructuring needs to begin with the premise that human beings are more than their job. Ignoring other aspects of a person - contributions as community volunteer, parent, neighbor - is not only going to breed sterility, it's ultimately going to create an undercurrent of populist resentment that may well come back to bite the masters in the ass as this country struggles with a shifting economy.
Simply put, just because I have a paycheck, I don't necessarily bring value to my community. Is the teenager who rings up your order at Taco Bell a "better resident" than the stay-at-home mom who believes giving her attention to her children is helping to shape better human beings? Does the auto-parts salesman add more to his city than the retiree who volunteers for the literacy program 20 hours a week?
Under the simplistic guidelines set forth above by the Bush administration, everyone in this country is just one pink slip away from being considered a "bad resident." The only comfort we can take in this is that we're not alone in that category, which is cold comfort indeed.