The Catholic Church took one more step toward declaring Archbishop Óscar Romero a saint this week. To millions of people, he is already a saint, a hero and — more importantly — a human inspiration to emulate. Saints and superheroes can seem out of reach to ordinary people. Superman can stop a speeding bullet and leap tall buildings with a single bound. Óscar Romero could not, but he remains now and forever presente, here with us as family and friend and challenge. Continue reading →
The Republican-deformed agriculture and environment budget bill attacks Minnesota waters, bees, and the MPCA citizen board. And that’s just the beginning of a long list of problems with the bill. Continue reading →
We actually can solve homelessness. Projects from Utah to Washington, D.C. have shown that an approach called Housing First works. The Washington Post describes the idea as “a model so simple children could grasp it, so cost-effective fiscal hawks loved it, so socially progressive liberals praised it.” Continue reading →
The Dorothy Day Center just launched a campaign to raise $40 million for a new homeless shelter, which should relieve some of the current elbow-to-elbow overcrowding. Ironically, at just about the same time, Como by the Lake apartments announced a move that may make more people homeless.
Ruben Rosario reported recently that the owners of the 99-apartment Como by the Lake complex notified elderly residents that they will end participation in subsidized Section 8 rentals. Residents of 57 of the 99 units currently use the project-based Section 8 federal rent subsidies.
Section 8 benefits both tenants and landlords, making housing affordable to low-income tenants and rentals profitable to landlords. A project-based Section 8 program offers subsidies to developers or owners of multi-family buildings to rent some or all of their units to eligible low-income tenants. These subsidies stay with the apartment. If a tenant leaves, they cannot use the subsidy in another apartment.
A second Section 8 program offers subsidies to tenants, who then have to find a landlord willing to rent to them. These subsidies are portable — they go with the tenant. Unfortunately, the individual Section 8 voucher program has a miles-long waiting list.
In a tight housing market, Como by the Lake can charge higher rents than allowed by Section 8 and make bigger profits. That leaves elderly and disabled tenants facing an expensive housing market, without the assistance they have had until now.
Maybe they can spend more money for higher rents if they eat one meal less per day. Or if they cut pills in half instead of taking the prescribed dosage. If they end up homeless, they can join the people jockeying for floor space at the crowded Dorothy Day Center in downtown St. Paul.
“The campaign comes at a time when agencies across the Twin Cities are scrambling to handle a growing older homeless population. Staff at shelters in Hennepin and Ramsey counties say the age wave has hit and they are not equipped to handle it.”
The first phase of the Dorothy Day Center expansion will offer expanded emergency shelter, but it won’t be ready until some time in 2016. The second phase will include a Connection Center, to provide space for services such as the Veterans Administration, as well as four floors of permanent housing. That phase is planned for 2018. If you want to contribute, here’s the link.
“They had hazmat suits,” the farmer said, “and they sprayed the tires of their truck with disinfectant, too.”
“They” are inspectors checking for avian flu. Coming from all over the United States, the teams travel farm to farm, testing poultry for avian flu. The highly contagious disease has killed more than five million birds — mostly turkeys — in Minnesota and more than 25 million — mostly egg-laying chickens — in Iowa. There is no known treatment or vaccine. Once it hits a flock, the H5N2 virus kills quickly, and kills 90 percent of the birds in those flocks. Continue reading →
This spring, avian flu has killed millions of turkeys and chickens in the Upper Midwest. As the country’s turkey champion, Minnesota produces about 46 million turkeys per year. As of May 12, 85 Minnesota flocks in 21 counties have been hit by this bird flu. More than five million Minnesota birds have been affected. This avian flu outbreak has hit Minnesota particularly hard, with 85 of about 133 affected flocks in the state.
Just a few weeks ago, it looked like this was the year for voting rights for convicted felons in Minnesota. Both Republicans and Democrats backed bills allowing convicted felons to vote after they were released from prison, even if they were still on probation or parole. Now the voting rights bill looks dead. Continue reading →
Republicans in the Minnesota House voted last week to kill MinnesotaCare, the subsidized health insurance program for low-income Minnesotans. That’s one part of their billion dollars in cuts to Minnesota’s health and human services budget. Apparently, under Republican logic, these cuts are necessary because of the state’s two billion dollar budget surplus.
UPDATE 5/6/2015: Senator Tony Lourey (DFL) says that MinnesotaCare is “not up for debate.” How will that affect the conference committee negotiations? We’ll have to wait and see. Continue reading →
With a two billion dollar budget surplus, the Minnesota legislature is poised to pass inadequate budgets that will force schools across the state to cut teachers and programs. In the House, Republicans have passed an education budget that increases per-pupil state aid by six-tenths of one percent. That’s far below the rate of inflation, and comes on top of years of failure to keep up with inflation. The DFL Senate does barely any better, with a one percent increase. Continue reading →
In the debate over universal preschool vs. targeted scholarships, the Minnesota legislature is just saying no. Governor Dayton proposed $348 million to create a free, all-day preschool program in public schools across Minnesota. The money would come from the two billion dollar budget surplus. Republican legislators said no. Instead of funding preschool, they want permanent tax cuts for businesses, permanent elimination of all estate taxes, and temporary tax cuts for individuals. Continue reading →
I printed out flyers and business cards last week and went up and down the street, knocking on doors. The flyers tell people on my street, in my precinct, when and how and where they can vote. The business cards introduce me: Hi, Neighbor! I am Mary Turck. If you want to talk about voting […]
Dolores Huerta, United Farm Workers cofounder: “Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.” When I was ten years old, I wanted to go door-knocking for JFK. My parents vetoed the idea. When I was a few years older, I was allowed to go […]
Will your vote still count in 2026 or in 2028? Trump’s attacks on elections go beyond anything that has been attempted in the United States. He even told Reuters news service in an interview: “When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.” This post has: a list of some of the attacks on voting and […]
This week’s firehose of news threatens to drown us all. I feel like I’m treading water, but even so, a few of the week’s stories stand out: more revelations of massive corruption in the Trump administration, dangerous escalations of electronic surveillance of all of us, a particularly nasty swatting attack on Pete Buttigieg’s family and […]
Seems like every week brings more news of government surveillance. You’d think the right wing would be up in arms about this government overreach and invasion of privacy—but it’s their folks who are taking the photos and setting up the databases of protesters and immigrants and anyone else who happens to get captured on some […]
Mary Turck is a writer, editor, and blogger. She is also the former editor of theTC Daily Planet and of the award-winning Connection to the Americas and AMERICAS.ORG and a recovering attorney.
Mary Turck