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Thousands Stand in Line for Help Paying Bills in Detroit
Chaos Reigns at Detroit Aid Event
Thousands of people swarmed Cobo Hall in chaos this morning trying to get applications for housing and utility payment assistance from the city of Detroit.
Thousands of people swarmed Cobo Hall in chaos this morning trying to get applications for housing and utility payment assistance from the city of Detroit. (MARCIN SZCZEPANSKI/Detroit Free Press) People fainted, others fought as the Detroit Police Gang Unit tried to keep people in line --- some since last night --- and in check.
"It's a disaster here," former assistant Detroit Police chief and city council candidate Gary Brown said, handing out water. "This is dangerous. Very unorganized, very dangerous."
The City of Detroit Planning & Development Department was to pass out 5,000 applications to those standing in line. But a line of people snaking back and forth inside Cobo, down Washington Boulevard and around the corner to the circular parking deck far outnumbered the applications available.
The program is part of the city's Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program. By 11:30 a.m., the Detroit mayor's office was asking people not to head to Cobo.
The assistance is paid from the city on the applicants' behalf directly to agencies like the Coalition on Temporary Shelter, an agency that pays for transitional housing for the homeless.
Robyn Smith, community relations director for COTS, said the tremendous crush of people didn't sadden her.
"I'm happy because there's something available," she said as she collected filled-out applications from a doorway guarded by a Detroit Police officer to keep people from slipping in.
The applicants needed to be homeless or at risk of homelessness, and the assistance is temporary. The applications are due today, handed in at Cobo by 2 p.m. or mailed with an Oct. 7 postmark. The city was directing people with additional questions to call 313-224-0316, but no one was answering before calls to that number were automatically disconnected just before noon today.
Racquel Sawyers, 35, a laid-off engineer who worked for both GM and Chrysler, turned around and went home after seeing the crowd at Cobo. She had left another application distribution site on Detroit's northwest side on Tuesday after seeing the line - which turned out to be much smaller than the one at Cobo.
"Who would have known yesterday would be better?" Sawyers said. Currently on unemployment and looking for help with housing costs, she said she'll stay in Detroit until she's able to land a job - probably outside Michigan. "I'm just trying to do what I can right now."
Inside Cobo, lines led up to the Riverview Ballroom, where Detroit Planning & Development employees were to hand out applications.
But hundreds of people were packed outside the ballroom. At about 10:30, a fight broke out, and many of the people bolted away, scared in the crush of people.
"It's bad. It's bad. It really is," said Kelli Phillips, 42, of Detroit, handing her application in among the crowd. "All you have to do is look around and see it. That's why a lot of people are moving. I love my city. I don't want to move. But I don't know. There's got to be something better."
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Show AllA drop in the bucket.
This administrastion needs to get about its real job.....JOB's. Everything else depends on jobs. That is their only real duty. Instead they are playing games.
635 billion to make war on the world and enrich the few and kill as many of the others as possible so that the few mired in their money and goods can enrich themselves with more of everything.The un-few,the ones who labor for scraps because there is not "enough" to go around.War is more important than any help for "the people" they say they are protecting!!!What bullshit!Everytime I read CD,every day there is a new dagger into the heart of any!any!humanity that this land might have had and this is just one of so many.The tears come and the heart breaks.Tony
In the USSR people used to line in queues to buy food off shelves but there was no food on the shelves. They had the means to purchase the goods but the State could not produce the goods.
In the USA the shelves are full. Houses by the millions remain empty. They have the means to produce the Goods but no one has the means to buy the goods.
the financing of housing, the very concept of housing, must be revised...if not, we will all be picked off, one by one, by the bankers and landlords as we lose our ability to pay...why would we lose such ability? because the source of all economic activity, the living planet, will fail...we must learn to live together, sharing resources...individual purchase of necessities will leave nothing breathing...
"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? If they would rather die, then they better hurry up and do it, and reduce the surplus population."
The Fall of the American Empire...
Today's 10/8/09 on-line World Socialist Web Site -www.wsws.org -has two articles and a video clip about what is happening in Detroit.
Please note the difference between the typical
"progressive" CommonDreams article and the critical analysis of the WSWS articles. The above article deals only with SYMPTOMS, only with a superficial impression of the events in Detroit. "Chaos Reigns at Detroit Aid Event" is the only insight communicated.
The WSWS journalists are writing from a socialist and Marxist perspective that seeks to find out WHY these events are occurring. The progressive perspective on events is never able to "connect the dots" between crises (the horrors of unending war, the destruction of the environment, millions unemployed, the vast social inequalities, the lack of universal health care, the destruction of public education, etc.) or to connect these disparate "news events" with the decline and collapse of the capitalist economic system.
Here is what is happening in Detroit and WHY:
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50,000 line up for housing aid in Detroit
By Jerry White
8 October 2009
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/lead-o08.shtml
An estimated 50,000 residents of Detroit filed into Cobo Hall convention center on Wednesday seeking assistance to pay utility bills and keep from being evicted from their homes. City officials, who expected around 3,000 people to apply for the aid, were overwhelmed by the turnout.
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Detroit residents line up for housing assistance
"Most people out here have been unemployed for months"
By Andre Damon
8 October 2009
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/detr-o08.shtml
Tens of thousands of people waited for hours Wednesday in downtown Detroit to get applications for housing assistance. The turnout overwhelmed the event's planners, who thought no more than several thousand people would attend. Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site spoke to people attending the event at Cobo Hall.
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HERE IS A VIDEO CLIP:
Video: Tens of thousands line up for housing assistance in Detroit
8 October 2009
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/vide-o08.shtml
Tens of thousands of Detroit residents lined up at the city's Cobo complex for a chance to get financial assistance against evictions and utility shutoffs. This was the last day to submit applications for a share of the limited funds made available by the federal government for this purpose. The city was overwhelmed by the number of needy Detroiters who showed up to apply for the program.
One click starts normal playback. For higher quality, then click the HD icon.
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Unfortunately, you are looking at the future of America. To assuage the venality and greed of the wealthy few, we have had our jobs and industries outsourced to places where the people will work eighteen hours a day for a bowl or two of rice.
Our educational system has been trashed and made so expensive that only the Oligarchy can afford it. Remember der Bush saying a few years ago that we were training our youth for the "jobs of the future?" Yeah, "Would you like fries with that?"
Another CD article today tells us how our alleged representatives, shocked at the loan sharks charging 500% interest on loans to distressed people want to limit it to a mere 35%! So, the loan sharks are giving millions (extorted from the distressed poor) to buy the support of key representatives.
Sadly, I fear that before Christmas, there will be over a hundred million people, homeless, hungry, living in the street under cardboard, begging for food to feed their families. The Oligarchy will be nearing its goal, to have ALL the power and money, with a nation of hopeless serfs to do their bidding for whatever crumbs they are willing to disburse.
I read another article recently where banks and loan companies are tearing down foreclosed homes, which they cannot sell, to keep people from living in them.
If you really want to see the future, read Charles Dickens, Jack London, Sinclair Lewis and especially Orwell.
Remember,
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Right on the money!
the final products of earth-bound capitalism?
kisses and kids, crap and corpses...
"I read another article recently where banks and loan companies are tearing down foreclosed homes, which they cannot sell, to keep people from living in them."
For every house torn down, a bank branch office should be burned down. People need to remove any money that they have sitting in banks OUT- go to a credit union, learn how to incorporate local credit unions. Drop the Visa/MC and any other loan payments when you pull out- start screwing back or prepare to just lay down and die.
It's your choice and the time is here and now.
What is most sad is that a vast majority of the folks standing patiently in line in Detroit, their once decent paying jobs are not coming back. It is a scene being played out ALL across this once great country, thanks in part to the wonderful trade agreements NAFTA and CAFTA which continue to benefit a chosen few.
These people in Detroit and throughout the country are destitute, and need help ASAP.
So how much again is being spent each month, killing and maiming the innocent people of the Middle East? Money, most of which has been BORROWED from CHINA, could have been put to a much better use, such as rebuilding AMERICA and it's infrastructure, which is crumbling. Sigh!
80 million dollars.
That money would help out all these people.
Instead, on October 9th, that amount of money is being spent on a stupid, immoral, pyrotechnic show on the moon for stupid people to watch. Science? Bullshit. Google "Project A119 1958"
"I made it clear at the time there would be a huge cost to science of destroying a pristine lunar environment." http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2000/may/14/spaceexploration.theobserver
By the way, for those who believe in international law, the moon-bombing is also a violation of a 1966 UN resolution #2222. But don't worry decent people of America. Obama will address this issue like all the other issues requiring a man of character to address them.
http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/oosa/SpaceLaw/gares/html/gares_21_2222.html
$80,000,000.
The 9/11 commission only got $3,000,000.
Meanwhile Detroit and all the people rot away while stupid white men rape the universe in an orgy of perpetual barbarism in this case under the guise of "cool science!".