Wow, I said Soglin has gone nuts – now is he just lying? This Mayoral hatred of the homeless is getting really bizarre.
He’s now claiming that less than 25% of the homeless people in Dane County are from Madison. I have to ask, what does that mean?
It got me thinking, am I from Madison? I was born here. I lived here for the first 4 years of my life. Lived in Waunakee for about a year when I was 5. Then moved to Wisconsin Dells til 5th grade, then Saukville, then Wisconsin Dells, then Portage for Jr. High and High School, then Platteville for college, then back to Madison for law school and I just stayed – where at the age of 44, I have lived here almost half my life (21 years). If I lost my job or got sick and lost my house, would I be worthy of homeless services?
But am I from Madison, what is the criteria? Cuz, as Parisi points out the statistics that Soglin handed out at a press conference earlier this year:
Parisi’s office sent WISC-TV data from the mayor’s office that indicate 59 percent of single men, 56 percent of single women and 48 percent of homeless families list Madison as their most recent permanent address.
So is he redefining what it means to be from Madison? Is he lying? He grew up in Chicago, so is he really from Madison?
I think the real statistics we need to look at regarding the homeless are:
Number of People Served in 2011 – 3,079
Number of People Turned Away (not counting those who no longer try) – 2,003
And I just have to point out, the story says that homeless people have places to stay at night, which really isn’t true because there are 60 day limits for single men and women (with cold weather exceptions) and a 180 day lifetime limit for families with no cold weather exceptions.
And, these days, even if people have income, finding housing is near impossible if you have any blemishes on your record due to the vacancy rates and high rents.
I’m tired of the fighting, could we all just meet and try to figure this out? There’s a homeless services consortium meeting today, I bet we don’t even talk about this because we haven’t so far.
