A better way to deal with housing issues

Officials in two Long Island counties have been dealing with issues with overcrowding by Mexican immigrants in local housing. However, the approaches taken to deal with housing built for a single family that is housing upwards of sixty people have been decidedly different. In Suffolk, county executive Steve Levy has been accused of racism and creating homelessness. Mr. Levy’s method used to deal with a house that had forty-four beds and up to sixty-four tenants in a single-family house was to raid the house, without warning, displace the residents, and lock the doors the next day. Mr. Levy said his policies rescued the tenants from danger and stopped neighborhood deterioration. He called critics the “lunatic fringe.”

Not all counties in Long Island feel that simply displacing these immigrants is rescuing them. Eleven days after the Suffolk county raid officials in Nassau county dealt with a single family house that had thirty beds, including beds in hallways and under stairs. However, these officials felt that the best way to deal with the situation was not to use the police to raid the house. What was done was to bring in social workers, give a week’s notice, and provide assistance with relocation. Officials in Nassau county explained the different treatment of these immigrants by stating that “[p]eople do not hate people in this community.” They recognized an obligation to enforce the law, but further noted an obligation not to put people on the streets. Hopefully, Mr. Levy can look to the example provided by Nassau county and be more humane in the treatment of the hundreds of other houses that are under investigation for housing violations.

Bruce Lambert, Nassau Officials Try a Different Approach to House Filled With Immigrants, N.Y. Times, July 1, 2005, at B1; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 5.

Now We Know...

Ok - how do we all feel about Judge John Roberts? Comments please!

The Stamp Fiasco

link

The particularly troubling thing to me is the crestfallen response by the activist who works with the Black minority in Mexico: "But we've learned to expect anything from this government, just anything." How can democratic reforms be effective when the people's expectations are so low?

In my own politics, I try not to impose my own cultural bias onto international subjects. However, reading that a Black American professor gets called "Memin Pinguin" by Mexicans does go to show that the charicature is probably a harmful stereotype. Reducing a learned elite to a mere cartoon is hardly an enligthened position. The Mexican government's obligation is to not endorse harmful stereotypes, and should revoke the stamp.

But of course, we could always believe the word of the publisher, who stands to make a lot of money from the government-subsidized marketing of the comic. "It seems nice if Memin can travel all over the world, spreading good news," de la Parra [the publisher] said, calling [Memin Pinguin] "so charming, so affectionate, so wonderful, generous and friendly."

Do you think that is how Professor Vinson felt when he was called Memin Pinguin?

Who Will Be Next?

The Big News - Sandra Day O'Connor has resigned her Supreme Court post. Debate, speculation, and posturing are already rampant. The New York Times has an interactive graphic that discusses 10 potential nominees. This is all vaguely familiar... oh yes, we went through something similar (including the NYT graphic) just before Pope Benedict XVI was elected. Something is troubling about this cookie-cutter kind of news reporting. But I digress.

This is a touchy subject. Although who is chosen seems to have monumental importance for what it will (or won't) mean for our legal system and society in the years to come, perhaps it is worthwhile to reflect on the ways in which it is UNimportant. After all, in one or two years, we are the ones who will be on the front lines waging the legal & social battles that make their way to the Court. The Justices give a final thumbs up or down, but we as attorneys will have much to say in how the initial lines are drawn. It is an exciting responsibility.

So, while the next several weeks will bring a painful dissection of the who's who of, let's face it, conservative-leaning legal minds, one of whom will be O'Connor's successor, we should not let ourselves be sidetracked. Let's keep justice (not the Supreme Court-type) front and center.