Gimme Shelter
Jon Reisman
“I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.
But it is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern, and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 2nd Inaugural Address, January 20, 1937
Listen: https://historymatters.gmu.edu/audio/9_1_4_d_MSTR.mp3
I don’t think I’ve ever opened a column with an approving quote from our 32nd President, but the increasingly vexing housing problem, rooted in a complex web of failed liberal policies, drugs, mental health, the open Southern border, ennui, debt, disunity, and failed senescent leadership calls for it if only to avoid a doubling down on the flawed leftist policies that have brought us to this disaster.
The disquieting homeless tent encampments in our cities, including the ones I’ve seen in New Orleans, Washington DC, Portland, and Bangor (the Maine encampments are sometimes referred to Millsvilles) are a mark of failure for this wealthy country that won the 45 year Cold War some 30 years ago. We have homeless in Washington County, just not quite as visible- I remember several woods inhabitants who frequented the UMM campus library and outside gazebo shelters. The lack of housing is an impediment to economic growth and community development- a large number of employment searches at UMM and across the County have been scuttled by the lack of housing possibilities for appealing candidates.
In rural Cooper and Cathance Township, I have seen three recent shelter innovations on the west side of Rt. 191 that are clearly responses to the housing conundrum. The highest-end solution was a prefab trailer unit that appeared on cinder blocks next to a marsh just north of the Cathance Twp/Cooper Town line. Going south into Cathance Township, one of those True Value, 150 square foot sheds, sans septic and electric hookup, will apparently house someone this winter. Just south of there, an RV has taken up residence, backed up a couple hundred feet up a trail/dirt road. As a sign of their intent to stay a while, they have installed a mailbox on 191.
Fifteen years ago, I told a group of Maine Policy Scholars that the Great Recession was precipitated by a well-meaning but tragically misguided liberal policy to increase homeownership by extending the principles of affirmative action to the home mortgage market. Pressuring and subsidizing banks to give mortgages to people who could not afford them for racial diversity, equity, and inclusion reasons resulted in a lot of worthless mortgage securities, bailouts, and quantitative easing, where the Fed bought up those worthless securities. The Maine Community Foundation official moderating the meeting chastised me for making that “racist” comment. He later went on to work as an economic analyst for the leftist Maine Center for Economic Policy, which is part of the quasi-Marxist Maine People's Alliance, and is probably advising the Mills administration and the Democratic Party on how to address a problem they had a large part in causing; although, they had plenty of help from Republicans as well.
In October, at the Sunrise County Economic summit, the housing problem received a lot of attention, with the focus on what the government could do. As a small Town Selectman, I told the collection of municipal and non-government organization (NGO) officials that if we waited for solutions from Augusta or Washington DC, we would be waiting a very long time. The solutions will come from local community governments and groups; prescriptive solutions from Augusta or the swamp will not help and will more likely make things worse. The 6-8 million illegal immigrants Joe Biden has invited into the country are exacerbating the problem (note that FDR pledged to help law-abiding American citizens); Governor Mills is determined to welcome some 75,000 asylum seekers to our already stressed housing market. Maine citizens should come first.
Cooper, with a population of 150 or so, has at least half a dozen empty houses in various states of disrepair. I don’t know what the answer is; there probably is not one “right” approach, but if there is any sense of community left in our fraying Republic, citizens will band together with or without government participation and sanction and seek to help their fellow citizens who are ill-housed.
“Ooh, a storm is threatening
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Ooh yeah! I'm gonna fade away”
Gimme Shelter, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
Jon Reisman is an economist and policy analyst who retired from the University of Maine at Machias after 38 years. He resides on Cathance Lake in Cooper, where he is a Selectman and a Statler and Waldorf intern. Mr. Reisman’s views are his own and he welcomes comments as letters to the editor here, or to him directly via email at [email protected].
