SHORT TAKE#2

IT'S hard sometimes to throw the truth into a conversation, especially if it's not sugarcoated or sprinkled with blinding glitter. However, recently as I listened to people complain about the local DC government and the plight of poor people, I have been compelled to ask out loud, what exactly are elected officials doing to help low-income and working-class residents rise to the middle-class? What have they done that has resulted in a measurable difference?

That used to be a prime directive of government--national and local. Now not so much.

Elected officials seem satisfied with marginal missions and mediocre pursuits when it comes to fragile families or vulnerable residents. They are satisfied providing vouchers for rental properties or giving grants to prevent evictions.

I wonder, who among them believes poor people, working-class residents should have a place of their own--not just some rental apartment that is enriching mostly corporate landowners? Why, I wondered, isn't there a homeownership program, replete with a funding stream that could enable those who qualify and who wish to own their homes to do just that?

I know DC has the Home Purchase Assistance Program. However, it is poorly administered, with mostly benefits and protections for developers, not for low-income residents or even senior citizens.

It's not like elected officials aren't aware of the ineffectiveness of DC's HPAP, the inefficiencies of its management. They know. Nothing changes, however.

The lesson of the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, of the March on Washington, of anti-ICE red-whistles and camera campaigns in Minneapolis is that citizens organized with intention and determination can alter the course of events, can change public policy, can improve their government ensuring it serves them.

Elections are this year in DC and across the country. Low-income residents should reject the same warmed over pablum, which has done nothing to nourish them, nothing to fuel their dreams, nothing to move them up the economic leader.

Change starts with an honest and truthful conversation, followed by organized action.