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Bill Quigley: 10 Things the U.S. Can and Should Do for Haiti

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Bill Quigley

1. Allow all Haitians in the U.S. to work. The number-one source of money for poor people in Haiti is the money sent from family and workers in the U.S. back home. Haitians will continue to help themselves if given a chance. Haitians in the U.S. will continue to help when the world community moves on to other problems.

2. Do not allow U.S. military in Haiti to point their guns at Haitians. Hungry Haitians are not the enemy. Decisions have already been made that will militarize the humanitarian relief -- but do not allow the victims to be cast as criminals. Do not demonize the people.

3. Give Haiti grants as help, not loans. Haiti does not need any more debt. Make sure the relief given helps Haiti rebuild its public sector so the country can provide its own citizens with basic public services.

4. Prioritize humanitarian aid to help women, children, and the elderly. They are always moved to the back of the line. If they are moved to the back of the line, start at the back.

5. President Obama can enact Temporary Protected Status for Haitians with the stroke of a pen. Do it. The U.S. has already done it for El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Sudan, and Somalia. President Obama should do it on Martin Luther King Day.

6. Respect Human Rights from Day One. The UN has enacted Guiding Principles for Internally Displaced People. Make them required reading for every official and non-governmental person and organization. Non governmental organizations such as charities and international aid groups are extremely powerful in Haiti -- they too must respect the human dignity and human rights of all people.

7. Apologize to the Haitian people everywhere for Pat Roberts and Rush Limbaugh.

8. Release all Haitians in U.S. jails who are not accused of any crimes: 30,000 people are facing deportations. No one will be deported to Haiti for years to come. Release them on Martin Luther King Day.

9. Require that all non-governmental organizations that raise money in the U.S. be transparent about what they raise, where the money goes, and insist they be legally accountable to the people of Haiti.

10. Treat all Haitians as we ourselves would want to be treated.

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

Bill Quigley is Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He is a Katrina survivor and has been active in human rights in Haiti for years with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.




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The Earthquake Within our own Borders

When a tragic event like the earthquake in Haiti occurs, we rush to help the hundreds of thousands left homeless and in need. Everything is made easy for us. Our news programs flash the telephone and text numbers while bombarding us with devastating images. I just received my umpteenth e-mail alert.

While I applaud these efforts; the heartfelt generosity I see outpouring from my countrymen and women to strangers across the globe makes me wonder; how can many of these same people literally step over the homeless on our own streets? We divert our glances and quicken our pace. Sure, some of us give money to charities, but the homeless remain.

An earthquake occurred within our own borders a long time ago and we have been feeling the aftershocks for decades. The US homeless population rivals the numbers of people afflicted by the Earthquake in Haiti and up to a third have a severe form of mental illness. We have become so accustomed to it that we don’t even see the victims on the street anymore.

What happened? Well a large part of what happened was that, beginning in the 1960’s, an explosion of former state hospital patients were released into our communities. The premise was that community mental health services were not only more humane, but less costly.

The whole process was coordinated poorly; housing could not be secured to keep pace with the number of patients being released and remains a problem today. This started the homeless problem and since housing continues to be a problem, so does homelessness. On top of that, the sickest of the sick were also released; those who, through no fault of their own, would never recover enough to participate in their own care. My brother Paul was one of them.

The flow of patients released into the community continued, unabated, over decades, and the homeless population continued to grow. So did our prison population. The sickest of the sick, not only do not understand they are sick, they do not have the life skills required to maintain their physical, let alone mental health.

Yes, the community system can work for many people with severe forms of mental illness, but not all.   The sickest of the sick cannot manage the maze of rules and regulations they run into on the “outside”. They don’t even know how to cook their own food and buy their own groceries, yet they are expected to do just that. Adult homes are the last resort for people like my brother and now they will be closed due to the latest Supreme Court ruling that they are unconstitutional.

Virtually no long-term care facilities are available to people who are so sick due to a mental illness that they are made incapable of living on their own – to the point where they could die – unless of course, they also have a debilitating illness in some other organ of their body, or the person is over 64 or under 21. I know, it’s confusing isn’t it? But that’s the way it is. This is discrimination pure and simple.

Think about the hundreds of thousands of homeless people in our own country; a large portion of them are just plain sick and need our help. Many wind up in prison because of incidents that occurred while they were having a psychotic episode. They are all someone's son or daughter, sister or brother, yet we still just step over them or look the other way. It's time we had a telethon or two to help our own victims of a devastation that continues.

For more on why there are no long-term care facilities available for people with severe mental illness and what you can do to change it, please read my post, End Discrimination Against the Severely Mentally Ill.

Flan

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