Vice President Biden Responds to 19% Jump in Foreclosures by Serving Fish Sticks to Homeless

by Noah Jennings · 2009-11-14 07:25:00 UTC
Topics:

The Detroit News reported Friday that house foreclosures are up 19% over the previous month, a gut kick aided in part by rising unemployment and  an inadequate federal response to the continued crisis. If you're like me and tend to yawn a bit when you hear percentages, I strained a bit and did the numbers: this is now 8 consecutive months of 300,000 foreclosures per, so let's see now-- 8 times 300,000-ish is about, oh, nearly 2.5 million homes lost. There are now over 2 million people who watched representatives of government bailout bank take away their homes.

This wasn't supposed to happen. The day after President Obama signed into law the Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February, he gave a speech at a high school in Arizona in which he outlined his ambitious plan that promised to significantly reduce foreclosures. His promise for this plan was that it would "give millions of families resigned to financial ruin a chance to rebuild. It will prevent the worst consequences of this crisis from wreaking even greater havoc on the economy." What we now know is that the financial sector was cushioned from the worst of the crisis while everyday homeowners, soon to be over 3 million this year alone, continue to suffer.

If you're worried about all this, don't be. Vice President Biden has a solution: boutique catering. On the day  these dismal foreclosure numbers were released, Biden took time from his hectic itinerary in order to "don gloves and an apron to serve fish sticks," writes the Huffington Post. We're saved! Biden apparently, "wanted to serve [delicious, crispy, hand-held fillets] to remind himself of the grim reality that many D.C. residents face." It apparently took the Vice President's posse approximately 5 minutes to weather the hairy commute back to the White House. Glad he made the effort.

Is it unfair to mock the Vice President for this empty grandstanding in a city of 18,000 homeless? After all, he's done his share of advocating for the poor, not least of which is his part in supporting the public option in health care reform. And yet. This was beyond stupid. If the Obama Administration made homelessness and the housing crisis a meaningful priority, the recent numbers are a good excuse to make a stand. Opportunity lost.

The upside? I hear the fish was delicious.

Image: AP

Noah Jennings is an outreach manager and advocate for the homeless in Colorado.
PREVIOUS STORY:
What Happens and What's Forgotten When Number Crunchers Get Tough
NEXT STORY:
Sallie Mae Blinks!

COMMENTS (8)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.