When You're Hot You're Hot!

I must be nuts. Days like this convince me of it. But I can’t really complain…

It’s the heat. I live in a humble, but normally comfortable, RV. By choice and for many reasons I don’t use my AC, even on days when outside temps bump 100 and humidity hits near-swamp level. I usually can find a place to go during the worst of the heat, but as I returned this evening the thermometer indicated a balmy 101 inside.

I’d complain more, but this week I was reminded how many people suffer silently, or at least their sufferings go unheard by anyone who can help. Where I park, a few residents in this pleasant permanent supportive housing project—one for homeless persons with multiple disabilities—were chatting in their air conditioned computer room that they generously shared with me.

They have a friend who lives here in DeKalb, a bucolic, low-keyed community 60 miles west of Chicago. She has multiple health issues and lives in an apartment with no AC.

It was so hot there she had to give away her pet bird. She wants to move, if she can find a place she can afford. Maybe she’ll get lucky.

My friend who runs the emergency, transitional shelters here and also this apartment building for disabled homeless persons was telling me about this week’s meeting where the City announced severe cuts to social service programs, including phasing out, 25% at a time, funding for this busy, bare-bones, well-run shelter. And, along with 18 other states, Illinois' budget, the mess that it is, could find Governor Quinn making drastic cuts on July 1 that will further devastate communities’ efforts to assist poor and homeless children and adults. It appears Dems are the biggest roadblock for IL's budget solutions.

Thousands of people in usually inert communities are protesting the cuts. Maybe they’re not as passionate as the Iranians, but this level of draconian budgeting gets attention. Ironically, I feel removed from the policy part of it and I find myself thinking more of the people, like the now bird-less lady, who sits in her tiny room and sweats, wondering how she’ll get through the long Illinois summer.

I dunno, but it seems that the financially poorer a person is, the more they're going to suffer. And the suffering tends to be multi-level, long lasting and usually worsening.

Seems to me that this fast-paced, electronics-addicted, addled world needs an adjustment. Lawmakers need to sit in a hot living/work space for a few hours and remember how the “have-nots” live. Give away your favorite pet because of the heat. Then talk about who gets budget cuts.

photos by the author