Poor have seat in front row for RNC: Will they be seen?

[question everything]

StarTribune.com
Poor have seat in front row for RNC: Will they be seen?

By NICK COLEMAN, Star Tribune

August 25, 2008

The Republican National Convention doesn't start until next Monday, but the first sign that we are living in troubled times went up across from the Xcel Energy Center two weeks ago:

"Our Political Agenda: Food, shelter and dignity." The sign adorns the Dorothy Day Center, a shelter for homeless people in the shadow of the arena where John McCain will accept the presidential nomination and delegates, demonstrators and media will converge in a perfect storm of politics, protest and poverty. Neither party seems able to address the realities of poverty represented by a growing homelessness problem. In Denver, where Democrats are meeting this week, there have been reports that officials offered free movie tickets to the homeless to get them off the streets and free haircuts to make them feel sharp when Obama comes to town.

(snip)

About 200 people use the Dorothy Day shelter every night, and 300 or more eat meals there. They can't hide from the convention. It will be on their doorstep, as will thousands of protesters and police. So the center has tried to prepare for every possible problem, including clouds of tear gas and broken windows. There's even an evacuation plan.

(snip)

Early in the planning process, several homeless service centers in St. Paul thought about relocating temporarily. But in the end, they decided to stay and to keep serving. "It was a delicate issue," says Rosemarie Reger-Rumsey, director of the Listening House, a drop-in center two blocks from Dorothy Day. "We knew some folks would ask why we couldn't make it permanent. So we decided to stay: Our clients may be 'homeless,' but this is their neighborhood, their community and their neck of the woods. Uprooting them would be no more fair than if you did that to any other neighborhood."

(snip)

Reger-Rumsey worries many of the homeless -- those with mental illnesses or traumatic brain injuries -- might feel under siege during the convention, especially "if they're fenced in and surrounded by protests, noise and crowds." Those who choose, she said, can ask for a bus token and move, for the week, to another shelter in Minneapolis. The Dorothy Day Center will extend its hours, remaining open to clients around the clock, and is adding breakfast to its normal meal schedule of lunch and dinner. With virtually nowhere to go outside the center during the convention, the idea is to make the center more accessible during the week. Still, it will be like living next to a foundry. For those who stay, the convention will mean many inconveniences:

New clients will not be accepted at Dorothy Day until the convention ends. Current clients must remove bicycles -- many ride bikes to jobs or to run errands -- from the exclusion zone. Buses will be hard to get to, there will be no sleeping or lingering outside, no belongings left unattended, and any backpack or wheelchair or other item is likely to be searched, using dogs as well as metal detectors, inside the area. Tarps also have been strung inside the fences at Dorothy Day to screen the courtyards from outsiders.

(snip)


http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/conventions/27412959.html?elr=KArks:DCiU1PciU_ck:qK8DMEkDUU