Comments on: Tasty Morning Bytes – Disconnected Utilities, Denying the Homeless, Longer School Days http://dcentric.wamu.org/roundup/tasty-morning-bytes-disconnected-utilities-denying-the-homeless-longer-school-days/ Race, Class, The District. Mon, 16 Jul 2012 03:01:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Saheli Datta http://dcentric.wamu.org/roundup/tasty-morning-bytes-disconnected-utilities-denying-the-homeless-longer-school-days/#comment-110 Saheli Datta Mon, 08 Nov 2010 18:10:00 +0000 http://dcentric.wamu.org/?post_type=roundup&p=1905#comment-110 That article about the non-resident families needing shelter during hypothermia season is so sad. As someone who routinely bundles up and keeps the heating off in my rickety Berkeley house, I'm used to spending a lot of time with an ambient temperature of 60 degrees, and am acutely aware of how quickly additional clothing doesn't help when the temperature drops below 55. Many homeless families won't even have adaquate clothing--heat robbing cotton instead of the synthetic fleeces and down jackets of the skiing classes. And that's not even taking into account wind chill and precipitation. Humans evolved in much warmer climes and their physiology changed with the taming of fire. The bureaucratic problem speaks to a wider issue. Our system of municipal governments and jurisdictions evolved when there were real rural gaps separating towns and there were no such things as 'Greater metropolitan areas.' Governments really need to come up with better standards and tools for enabling--and requiring--'greater metropolitan area' cooperation. This is obviously not just a DC problem, but a problem with origins in Virginia and Maryland municipalities. They should be part of the solution. (The same can be said of our own Bay Area, of course.) That article about the non-resident families needing shelter during hypothermia season is so sad. As someone who routinely bundles up and keeps the heating off in my rickety Berkeley house, I’m used to spending a lot of time with an ambient temperature of 60 degrees, and am acutely aware of how quickly additional clothing doesn’t help when the temperature drops below 55. Many homeless families won’t even have adaquate clothing–heat robbing cotton instead of the synthetic fleeces and down jackets of the skiing classes. And that’s not even taking into account wind chill and precipitation. Humans evolved in much warmer climes and their physiology changed with the taming of fire.

The bureaucratic problem speaks to a wider issue. Our system of municipal governments and jurisdictions evolved when there were real rural gaps separating towns and there were no such things as ‘Greater metropolitan areas.’ Governments really need to come up with better standards and tools for enabling–and requiring–’greater metropolitan area’ cooperation. This is obviously not just a DC problem, but a problem with origins in Virginia and Maryland municipalities. They should be part of the solution. (The same can be said of our own Bay Area, of course.)

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