When I was in a Masters Program at LIU (Long Island University) in Brooklyn, we had to do a MA paper which involved original research. My partner and I were assigned the topic of "The role of the NY City welfare system in combatting poverty. This was in the "dark" ages and the scene is so much more complicated now than then. However, some things have not changed.
Having just finished rewatching the HBO program, "The Wite", it is almost impossible to read an investigative report like the NY Times' on "Three Quarters Houses" and not relate it, to "The Wire." the Wire dealt mostly with drugs as the overall culprit. This "Report" is mostly about the unscrupulous people involved with the "homeless, drug addicts, the miriad of problems, too much to even come up with solutions. It is almost impossible to comprihend. The principles of the story and of the "Wire" are pretty much the same.
The vast majority of Americans are not only uninvolved but uninformed. Not our fault but we keep looking for those political saviors which don't exist. In the "NY Times" story, there are unscrupulous landlords, lawyers, doctors, all praying on the worst of the marginalized. The main culprit rides around in a "$100,000" leased Mercedes. He continues to rip off tenants and the government mainly because like in "The Wire" the police, housing inspectors, bureaucrats designed to keep the abuse from happening, are so overwhelmed, they do nothing
The situation is so muddled and riddled with the "crooked that it simply continues. The survival of all those caught up in the morass of problems, falls on the individual themselves, it seems. If you dare, read the "Report" in the Sunday "Times."
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