In the early 90′s as a Budget Director in NYC’s HRA I was called to a meeting to discuss the overwhelming numbers of family’s who were homeless and applying for housing assistance. I was the lowest ranked person in the room, which consisted of Deputy Commissioner’s and a representative from the Mayor. My role was to figure the budget and staffing needed to set up some initiatives. What they wanted to do was ensure every family applying for homeless aid (it had been mandated by a court case) went through a mental health screening and every child tested for lead poisoning.

As a psychotherapist I asked what purpose a mental health screening served? I was greeted with an embarrassed silence that was broken by the Mayor’s representative saying basically “None of your business, work the numbers.” After the meeting I talked to the Deputy Commissioner in charge of the Family Shelters and he explained to me that these initiatives were meant to discourage families from applying in the first place and cautioned me as a friend to keep my mouth shut, for my own good.

I managed to honestly show, with some over assumptions and “ledger”demain, that these two unnecessary programs were going to be extremely expensive to implement. The programs were killed and I had a little to do with it. I was helped by the fact that top HRA officials also viewed this with distaste.

I offer up this anecdote though as a cautionary tale of how local and State governments operate, even in a supposedly liberal City. Having President Obama will palliate the pain, but the tragedy of being unemployed in 2009 America will take its’ toll on parents and childrens lives.