"Sleeping on a pillow of solid rock"

"Imagine you just walked into a large bare room with a cement floor and tile walls. It is unbearably hot and a fan hanging twenty feet above just barely stirs the musky air. You feel like you don't belong, and that there is something that you cannot put your finger on that marks you as an outsider."

<snip>

"As state and city budgets strain to the point of breaking, low-level social service positions are being cut to the bone. They are relatively easy to slough off because they don't pay much, they are often filled by people who do not have very vigorous labor representation and less social standing. Politically, they make a lot of sense."

<snip>

"And as distasteful as the condition of homeless shelters can be, the result of choosing not to assist people to transition out of them is far worse. The sort of penny-wise, pound-foolish logic that is used to justify cutting essential social service positions has and will lead to ever more dire conditions and, as we've seen, 21st century Hoovervilles springing up across the country."


http://fourteenpercent.typepad.com/14/2009/08/sleeping-on-a-pillow-of-solid-rock.html