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Homelessness on unsteady ground
Apr 24, 2024
Makeshift beds under the highway in the north end of Hartford.
Jose Vega
Occasionally, and perhaps even more frequently nowadays, we are forced to see the big picture. This happened a week or so ago, when the ground shook beneath us, sending many straight to Google, updating our knowledge of tectonic plates, the Richter scale and appropriate earthquake crisis response. It re-centered us, understanding that our day-to-day always relies on a greater stability, one which we are often denied.
I find the same to be true in our housing crisis. Currently, at a time in which homelessness has increased by 14% since 2021 in Connecticut and nearly 1,000 people are sleeping outside because our homeless response system does not have a bed, a chair or even standing room in a warming center or shelter to offer them, a case currently before the Supreme Court has the ability to set us back decades in the work to eradicate unsheltered homelessness and solve all forms of homelessness.
On Monday, April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, the most significant Supreme Court case about the rights of people experiencing homelessness in decades.
In this case, the Supreme Court will determine whether a local government can arrest or fine people for sleeping outside when adequate shelter is not available. The rights of people experiencing homelessness have been protected under the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment (Martin v. Boise) since 2009. Our hope is that the Supreme Court will uphold the decision of lower courts and retain the rights of unhoused Americans.
However, if the alternative happens and the decision of the lower court is overturned, the case has the potential to make homelessness worse in our local communities.
To be clear, we all should be held accountable for any known and intentional violation of the law; however, expanding the definition of criminal activity to include deep poverty and homelessness does more damage to a community at-large than good.
Last year, the number of people that became homeless for the first time rose by 25% nationally. This is directly attributable to the lack of housing options for households at all income levels.
State research on just how many homes are needed in Connecticut to match the demand tallies the affordable housing shortage at 169,400 units for low-income residents and 101,600 homes for middle-income residents. Are the two out of three households who cannot live in a unit they can afford criminals? Certainly not.
Criminalization is not a solution to homelessness. Arrests, fines, jail time and criminal records make it more difficult for individuals experiencing homelessness to access the affordable housing, health services, and employment necessary to exit homelessness. To solve homelessness in our communities, we must invest in proven solutions, like affordable housing and supportive services, at the scale necessary. Decades of research have proven this — and it is my obligation as a homeless response provider to ensure that our community-wide interventions and tax-payer investments are data-driven and solution-oriented.
With oral arguments next week and an expected ruling by the end of June, we have time to support the outcomes we want to see for our state and local communities. Until then, you can also support bills currently in the Connecticut General Assembly that drive us closer to solving homelessness, including H.B. 5178: An Act Concerning Temporary Shelter Units for Persons Experiencing Homelessness Located on Real Property Owned by Religious Organizations and HB 5332: An Act Establishing The Interagency Council on Homelessness. Also, please continue to ask your elected officials on all levels to respond to the homeless and housing needs of our communities with robust and sustained funding.
Although disasters such as earthquakes are unpreventable, homelessness is anything but.
Jennifer Paradis is the Executive Director of Beth-El Center, Inc. in Milford.
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Measles Again! But Why?
Apr 24, 2024
A case of measles with spots appearing on the face.
Provided
The measles vaccine was licensed in 1963. It is a live attenuated virus vaccine that provides lifelong protection with few side effects. It does not cause autism. The virus is extraordinarily contagious. The measles vaccine is usually given with mumps and rubella vaccines, and often with the chicken pox vaccine. With earlier vaccines for whooping cough, tetanus, and diphtheria, and in the 1950’s, polio, life for children and parents became less fearful.
But let’s go back to 1963, when every child in the United States and across the world got measles. It caused them true misery. There were about 600,000 cases in children in 1963.
People my age (old) will sometimes say, “I had measles, and it was no big deal, it was uncomfortable, and I had a fever, and all those spots scared my Mom, but I got over it.” This sort of extrapolation is dangerous because humans are not genetically identical, and our immune systems vary—for 20% children and their parents, measles was a very big deal; they had complications, usually encephalitis, an infection of the brain, pneumonia, or ear infections.
In 1963, about 120,000 children were hospitalized in the U.S., and about 400 died. Other estimates are higher.
Measles is a respiratory disease; we inhale virus particles, and they infect cells of the trachea and upper lung. They go on to infect immune cells, which carry the virus to all parts of the body, including the skin where the spots appear. Usually, the spots start in the scalp and then appear on the face, the trunk, and extremities in that order. It has an incubation period of weeks and takes some time to get over. Measles is common in other parts of the world; it is still a killer in Africa and Asia.
The measles virus is made of RNA, which differs slightly from DNA. Many other nasty viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, Ebola, and polio are made of RNA. Measles virus is about half the size of SARS-CoV-2, and only has six genes. The human genome is 3.2 billion nucleotides, a million times more that this virus. The virus is small, but potent. One of its powers is to defeat the defenses of an unvaccinated host.
We have two immune systems: innate and adaptive. The much older innate system is the first point of contact with a virus, and it has many tools to slow an infection, but only if it recognizes the virus RNA, its genetic material. The measles virus has incorporated into its tiny genome instructions to make an enzyme, or catalyst, called adenosine deaminase, which removes a nitrogen atom and a couple of hydrogens from adenosine components of the virus. That makes the virus invisible to the innate immune system but does not affect the ability of the virus to make thousands of copies of itself. The innate immune system has many tools to fight infections, but with measles the virus hides in plain sight.
Imagine an unvaccinated child with a case of measles. The child survives, but how long does impairment of the innate immune system last? Several years, it seems. The measles virus affects the antibodies that react against other diseases that the child has already survived.
Without that protection, old but latent infections—say hepatitis, can be reawakened and new virus infections become more dangerous. What measles research tells us goes beyond measles.
The measles virus evolved (perhaps a thousand years ago) from a cattle virus called Rinderpest, to which it remains similar. Rinderpest virus has been eliminated from cattle through vaccination. (The only other virus to be eliminated was smallpox). In 2000, the United States was sufficiently vaccinated that no cases of measles were recorded. The excellence of the vaccine and experience with Rinderpest led to the idea of eliminating the measles virus, but a decline in vaccine acceptance after a false autism scare, ended that hope. We now have periodic outbreaks of measles, usually from isolated communities. These cases are indicators that the public health system has deteriorated, often for ideological reasons, as is now the case in Florida. Think of measles infections as a harbinger, or to use a cliché, a canary in a coal mine.
The Florida health authorities are deluded. If for measles, what else? Perhaps mumps, rubella, and chickenpox.
Richard Kessin, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Email: Richard.Kessin@gmail.com.
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Letters to the Editor - 4-25-24
Apr 24, 2024
Applauding government responsiveness to citizen concernsThis is a shout-out to our local legislators, Representative Maria Horn and Stephen Harding. The Housatonic Herbicide Working Group has been expressing concerns about the use of certain herbicides that can reach nearby waterways, wetlands, and aquifers to control vegetation along the Housatonic Railroad’s right-of-way for several years now.
The Lakeville Journal has also covered this topic, most recently in an article by Riley Klein.
Representative Horn and Senator Harding arranged a Zoom meeting that included the railroad’s attorney, Parker Rodriguez, and several staff from the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, including Harrison Nantz, Emma Cimino (Deputy Commissioner for Environmental Quality), and Jennifer Perry. It was an honor to be able to share our concerns with them and to discuss potential compromises.
In the meantime, the legislators have sponsored an amendment to the current statute governing railroad rights-of-way management. Surely, this is an example of government responsiveness to its citizens at its best!
Bruce Bennett, Heidi Cunick, Kent Fletcher, Ellery Sinclair, Anna Timell
Housatonic Herbicide Working Group
The Bike Path (aka, Rail Trail)
On Feb. 20, 2015, a Special Town Meeting was held in the Salisbury Central School gym, to consider and vote upon the grant of a right of way on the Town’s bike path for an affordable housing development in the abutting woods. The majority vote was to not allow the bike path to be used for this access.
On July 28, 2022, a second Special Town Meeting was held in the Salisbury Congregational Church, to consider and vote upon the grant of a right of way on the Town’s bike path for an affordable housing development in the abutting woods. The majority vote was to allow the bike path to be used for this access.
I would feel better about this access and project if: (1) more people had voted; (2) the majority of those who organized the second vote and/or voted for it (a) lived in the direct vicinity of the project, (b) did not own ten plus acres of their own and/or multiple homes (while claiming they cannot think of other locations for the project) and/or (c) regularly walked that portion of the bike path; (3) the project did not require paving or lighting up any part of the bike path, cutting woods, and disturbing forever the night sky there (there are vernal pools, clearly visible to all, and, I understand, Cooper Hawks who nest in those woods). This does not feel like a process of the people for the people, so to speak.
In early April 2024, a petition was submitted to Town officials, requesting another vote. If there was a second vote, why not a third, seems a valid point. Petitioners were told a third vote will not occur.
Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if every Town voter/landowner/resident could have written in their vote—thus, inclusive of those who could not attend in person, and allowing for issue clarification, including on why there was a second vote. Prior to such in the second meeting, there was a call-to-vote by a project leader. Minimum legal notice was provided for both meetings.
How I wish no portion of the bike path would be forever changed, a treasure—at least to some. I wish there had been better process. It may have been legal, but that does not make it right. I feel this is particularly so because when receiving the bike path for Town residents, Town officials promised to consider the interests of the “abutting property owners.” Moreover, when accepting a financial gift that contributed to the Town’s purchase ability, Town officials expressly acknowledged, even in 1968, “the need for this kind of open space to be owned by the town for all its people.” With “sincere thanks,” the Town accepted the gift for that purpose.
An accessible, rural ‘green space’ will turn suburban, with pavement and manufactured imaging. Those who say merely minimal footage is changing ignore its public value, prior promises, and the exponential impact of cars.
Eugenie L. Warner
Lakeville
A tale of two leashes
This story is ‘a tale of two leashes’. And yes, like in the times of Dickens — it is the best of times and the worst of times. The good old U.S.of A. is a country founded on, built on and flourishing on — immigration. It is also a place where you will find daily, all over the media, such unchained xenophobic language being used against it — by some.
Where do the two leashes come in? What do they have to do with immigration? I’ll tell you.
This morning I was walking our dog, Jasper, in the local state park. He was on his normal 25 foot rope leash [I gather the leash up and let it out depending on if any other people, with or without dogs, are around].
We were walking along the only road to the park interior. Nobody was around. The leash was all the way out. All of a sudden a big pick-up truck came up over the rise from behind. As quickly as I could, I started gathering the leash up to gain full protective control of Jasper. The truck slowed up a bit but was still coming ahead too fast. I walked to the side of the pavement as I worked on gathering the last half length of the leash and Jasper up. The driver of the truck, a young caucasian man, with his windows rolled up, just continued on through. I was appalled that, by not slowing further or stopping, he simply ‘expected’ me to get out of his way.
A bit later on our walk in the park, as we traversed in the woods, we came upon a young man, unknown to me, walking his dog on a long leash. The two dogs immediately ‘checked each other out’ with the sniff and scoot dance dogs do. This, of course caused the leashes to become tangled up but good. Both of us dog owners laughed and instead of trying to untangle them we looked each other straight in the eye and each extended to shake hands and introduce ourselves. From his name, his darker olive skin and obvious accent, I could tell he was from Latin America. We chatted a bit as we then focused our attention to disentangling the dogs. His english was broken but earnest. Both he and his dog were warm, friendly and helpful.
Given a choice — I’ll take the tangle any day.
Michael Moschen
Cornwall Bridge
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