Sam Ford Interviews Homeless for ABC 7

April 17, 2012, at his Ward 7 budget town hall meeting, Mayor Vince Gray said, “Just so people are clear. We’re not cutting those things. People will tell you anything. Sometimes they even think they’re right. We’re not cutting homeless services, we’re not cutting affordable housing, we’re not cutting Medicaid, we’re not cutting TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) and we’re not cutting the Summer Youth Employment Program.” Despite this, advocates for social services and affordable housing programs, like the Fair Budget Coalition who’ve been organizing around these issues, will assure you that the mayor’s proposed budget will in no way meet the growing need of DC’s low- and even moderate-income residents in these difficult economic times. In particular, the homeless families living in DC General, whose numbers continue to grow, do not believe maintaining an increasingly tenuous status quo represents their needs or wishes as taxpaying citizens of the District of Columbia. These families made their feelings known at the DC City Council Budget Hearing on April 30, 2012. Only two elected officials, Council Chair Kwame Brown and Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry were present at the hearing. ABC 7’s Sam Ford and the Washington Times’ Andrew Harnick covered the story.

The above videos make clear that DC’s safety net isn’t meeting the needs of many of our residents, but given the time constraints of a local news broadcast, it doesn’t go into much depth. For more insight, it doesn’t hurt to follow the analysis of folks like Howard University professor David Schwartzman, who routinely follows the DC budget.

Cross-posted from The Mail @ DC Watch written by David Schwartzman

Our Mayor proposes another DC budget balanced on the backs of the poor; should we be surprised? On April 20, we learned that our former mayor, Anthony Williams, has been appointed as Chief Executive of the Federal City Council, the leading local think tank of the 1 percent, or is it the 0.1 percent? (Note that Frank Keating, the former Republican governor of Oklahoma and now president and CEO of the American Bankers Association, is the FCC president). Anthony Williams served on Mayor Gray’s transition team and was also just appointed to head the new Tax Revision Commission. As CFO of the Control Board, Anthony Williams was a key architect of the Urban Structural Adjustment Program that balanced our budget on the backs of our poor, while favoring the wealthy with tax cuts (the Tax Parity Act). The Control Board regime closed DC General Hospital, privatized municipal functions, cut the so-called safety net, and increased our income gap to record levels, while setting the course for Mayor Fenty’s agenda that brought this assault on our working and middle class majority to a new level. And Mayor Gray has not unexpectedly continued along the same road.

While our mayor and council deserve credit for their liberal policies regarding sexual orientation and immigrants rights, their economic and public education policies should brand them as Republicans posing as Democrats. For example, our mayor just endorsed new DCPS school closings based on an IFF study funded by the Walton Foundation (Walmart), opening up new opportunities for the semi-privatization of public education. Colbert King just characterized conservative Democrats one hundred years ago as favoring “the wealthy, to whom much has been given, have no stake in anybody else’s success,” http://tinyurl.com/6twrwpf, an apt description of most of our local Democratic elected officials, and of course the Republican posing as an Independent, David Catania. When will these Democrats follow President Obama’s example by at least claiming to go on an “Offense Over Taxes on the Wealthy,” a headline from the New York Times?

Now to address the DC budget process. For FY 2013, Mayor Gray has proposed even more hurtful budget cuts in low income programs, amounting to roughly seventy million dollars, which include programs involving health care coverage for low income residents, affordable housing, homeless services. and cash assistance for families with children (for details go to http://www.dcfpi.org). This proposal comes on top of $239 million already cut from low income programs since 2008, according to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s budget data. And while the mayor and the council squabble about where to spend the $79 million surplus, specifically whether to pay back city employees for their four-day furlough taken at the beginning of 2011, the elephant sitting in the Wilson Building remains unnoticed, the under-taxed, now growing income of the top 5 . . . → Read More: Another DC Budget Balanced on the Backs of the Poor?