I think this is particularly good thread for this
forum.
I often walk south on LaSalle out of downtown. Near
Franklin, just behind African American Family Services
is a nursing home that has stood vacant for quite some
time.
Tell me how this comes to me in the middle of a
housing crisis?
The StarTribune wrote an editorial last Spring
decrying the absence of any great leaders today. The
examples they used were Hubert Humphrey and Curt
Carlson. i'm not sure they would have been my first
choices but nevertheless the quality they spoke of in
each of those men was the ability to pick up a phone,
make some calls, mobilize support and get something
done.
Now i don't know who owns this property and what their
plans are for that building but it seems as though it
might be used in a crisis for emergency housing if
that is what is needed and it seems to me that someone
in authority could or would have explored such a
possibility. I mean what good is having power if you
do not utilize it; not in a heavy-handed way but in an
appeal to humanity. Seems to me that is what Humphrey
was best at.
Which makes me recall the Zoning and Planning meeting
I watched today on the monitors in a hallway at City
Hall. The chair is not Humphrey-esque by any means. My
jaw nearly dropped to the ground when she said to her
fellow committee members who disagreed with her on one
motion/amendment something like 'When this sort of
thing comes up again only you want it, don't expect my
support'. mind you that is not a direct quote.
And as for Fran's comment about $10/hr not being a
livable wage, I'll repeat what Shada Buyobe-Hammond
said at the 6th ward DFL convention: "$9.02 is only
$16k/yr which is below the poverty line. We're talking
about $19/hr."
This dovetails with the story a new voice to this
forum brought to our attention about Lake County
Industries in Jonathan looking for workers in Ireland
and pittsburgh. Speaks volumes about our scattered
site affordable housing and transit situations.
Tim Connolly
Ward 7
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