Motor City's woes extend beyond auto industry

[inanna]

Source: AP

DETROIT (AP) -- One measure of how tough times are in the Motor City: Some of the offenders in jail don't want to be released; some who do get out promptly re-offend to head back where there's heat, health care and three meals a day.

"For the first time, I'm seeing guys make a conscious decision they'll be better off in prison than in the community, homeless and hungry," said Joseph Williams of New Creations Community Outreach, which assists ex-offenders. "In prison they've got three hots and a cot, so they commit a crime to go back in and come out when times are better."

<snip>

Among the worried is 81-year-old Warlena McDuell, a retired surgical technician who shares a home with her cancer-stricken daughter. On a recent weekday, she was among hundreds of Detroiters, most of them elderly, filling orange-plastic grocery carts at a food bank run by Focus:HOPE, a local nonprofit.

"It's a depression - not a recession," McDuell said, with the authority of someone who has lived through both. "It will get worse before it gets better."



Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MOTOWN_BLUES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-12-20-16-47-01

[brentspeak]

1. Unbelievably terrible. And this is going on right here in the USA.

[Blue_Tires]

2. that is the republican dream

make life so hard on the outside, prison seems like a good alternative...as far as they are concerned, the ghetto trash is off the streets, and the private-run for-profit prisons stay full

[Fire1]

3. A sign of the times.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Reminds me of the plot for The Cop and The Anthem by O. Henry.

Soapy, the protagonist, tries his damnedest to get arrested as the temperatures drop (to spend the winter in jail), but fails each time. He get discouraged, has an epiphany that maybe he's going about this all wrong, he'll reform, and start over. That's when a cop arrests him for loitering.

[riverdeep]

5. Detroit has been in a death sprial for a long time.

The combination of terrible schools, politicians that make Blago seem like a cub scout, and now the economy really going south, is putting the final nail in what once was the main economic engine of the US.

[antimatter98]

6. Notice how the MSM is not reporting these stories?

Including Rachel and Keith? Including NPR?

There's a 'poverty curtain' that has been pulled down by the MSM to
hide America's low income, unemployment, and poverty issues.

No need to report this what with plenty of shoe throwing, Blogojevich,
Rick Warren stuff to mug on camera about.

Maybe if a few more tens of millions of Americans get a taste of
no food, cold with no heat, no health care, we will see some energy
from the people put into getting Congress and our MSM to pay attention?
Probably not.

Go to any country and you will find this kind of poverty, while the
governments---local and national---look the other way. Read
the book "Planet of Slums," by Rick Davis to get a hint of what
is out there ---really out there now, and what is to come.

This may not be the America we thought it was, but actually, it is.

We just never cared.

[girl gone mad]

8. Detroits present, our future..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8dz40AOOmA&feature=PlayList&p=6C29F798F4D237B2&playnext=1&index=3

[sarcasmo]

9. These stories will surface when Obama takes office. We have been hurting for a few

Years here in Michigan, Flint has been hurting for a couple of decades.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. Notice how this is an Associated Press article?

How is that not the MSM?

[Bozita]

7. Commentary: Southeastern Michigan braces for safety net to break

Monday, December 15, 2008
Amber Arellano
Commentary: Southeastern Michigan braces for safety net to break
Will Washington fund jobs or welfare?


The social levies are breaking in my city, my metropolitan region, my home, my heart.

An economic Katrina is hitting metro Detroit, devastating dozens of square miles and tens of thousands of families.

-snip-

Tent cities are sprouting up like winter grass in public parks here. Suburbanites in Oakland County flock to shelters overwhelmed by the influx of new refugees.

Doctors say they're seeing suicide and depression skyrocket.Local food banks are going dry for the first time in history. Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan reports a 70 percent increase in need this fall compared to fall 2007.

"The suburbs are really where you're seeing the need grow, as jobs disappear," says Gerry Brisson, Gleaners' senior vice president.

In Plymouth recently, Trinity Evangelical Presbyterian Church heard of growing hunger in its community and recently hosted an event with Gleaners.

They prepared for 250 families to come for food donations, and 700 families showed up. "And that's in Plymouth! Plymouth!" Brisson said of the upscale suburb. "That is far removed from the really poor folks in the city and older suburbs."

Days later, a Warren church invited Gleaners to come and distribute food to 150 families -- and 1,700 families showed up.

-snip-

more...

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081...

[lonestarnot]

10. We have a need for a soup line and there is apparently not any soup.

:cry:

[sarcasmo]

11. Main stream link on yahoo tonight around 9pm

tp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081221/ap_on_re_us/motown_blues

[sarcasmo]

13. Kick!