Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Today at the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Building



The scene at the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Building this morning was dramatically different from yesterday's disorder.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Crowd estimates at the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Building have doubled to about 400 people awaiting help this morning with flood-related food assistance after storms hit the state earlier this month.

Milwaukee police have 11 squads on the scene, including mounted patrol.

The crowd is much smaller today. Still, 11 squads on the scene and mounted patrol amount to a lot of police resources allocated just to monitor what should be an orderly line. Meanwhile, police response time to other areas of the city continues to be terribly slow, but I digress.

Is the crowd smaller because some people now understand that the aid is intended for FLOOD VICTIMS?

Is this because now it's clear that you must apply for assistance and wait for a few days, that it's not an immediate handout?

How would Willie Hines explain the dramatically smaller crowd today? Maybe the magnitude of hunger in Milwaukee isn't quite the problem that Hines made it out to be. Maybe Milwaukee isn't like a Third World country after all.

Maybe yesterday's chaos wasn't about desperation. Maybe it was about greed.

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