The Woods Still Stand Witness to Our History

Trail to Freestone Point

Photo: Ileana Johnson, May 2019

Leesylvania’s woods and hills met me with a lush green embrace of solitude and peace and the drifting fragrant smoke of the waterfront barbecue grills. The thick forest lies on a small peninsula overlooking the Potomac and Occoquan Rivers, rich with American history, fauna and flora.

Leesylvania is now a state park with a fishing pier and a picnic area much beloved by Central American residents and their families. The laughter of children bathing in the Potomac River echoes through the thick forest. Some of the mature trees giving us a welcoming cool shade grew first as tiny saplings in the Lee family garden.

The bumpy hill leads up to the Confederate gun battery, the gravesite where Henry Lee II and his wife Lucy Grymes were buried. Closer to the bottom of the hill are the chimney remains of the former home of the Fairfax family.  Henry Fairfax purchased the property from the Lee family in 1825 and lived there until 1910.

Fairfax home chimney  

The Freestone Point, named after the porous quarried rock, juts out over the Potomac River, overlooking the current park’s fishing pier. On rainy days, tree roots ooze out mud below, washed out by a sudden deluge.

Confederate guns were placed here during the Civil War. In the early years of the war, General Robert E. Lee ordered a blockade of the Potomac River in order to cut off the Union’s access to Washington DC. The 32-pound cannons positioned here were part of the blockade that lasted almost six months.

Freestone Point drawing (Park archives)

The well-preserved northernmost battery at Freestone Point was used as a decoy while more effective batteries were placed down river at Possum Point, Cockpit Point and Evansport.

When in September 1861 Freestone Point was fired upon, Sgt. Walter Curry of the Washington Mounted Artillery of Hampton’s Legion wrote in his diary, “… as soon as the eleventh shot was fired, our Guns opened on the Lincolnite men of war which were floating majestically on the Broad Potomac.” The Confederates closed the commercial traffic on the Potomac by December. The blockade did not end until March 9, 1862.  (Leesylvania State Park Archives)

Close to the cemetery there are traces of the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railroad tracks that used to carry necessary supplies to run a large estate growing corn and tobacco.

No trace remains today of the Lee’s ancestral home. Henry Lee II raised eight children here with his wife Lucy Grymes, including Light-Horse Harry Lee—Revolutionary War colonel, Virginia Governor, and father of Robert E. Lee. The Lees have left their imprint in the history of these lands and in the names of our modern landmarks.

Richard Lee, the original immigrant from England, was so determined to succeed in the New World that he became, in less than twenty years, an affluent fur trader, a colonel in the Virginia military, and a planter with prosperous land holdings and slaves. He owned fifteen thousand acres of land, more than any other man in the colony of Virginia. He was the colony’s attorney general and a member of the House of Burgesses.

In his old age, the “original Immigrant” returned to England, but his heirs were to come back to northern Virginia upon his death. Subsequently, generations of Lees made their homes and fortunes in Virginia after 1664.

Henry Lee II received from Henry Lee’s will in 1746 all his plantations and land in Prince William County at Freestone Point and at Neapsco (now called Neabsco, Doeg Indian for Point of Rocks) and Powell’s Creek.

The tobacco growing on the plantation was so lucrative that it was shipped to London from the wharf in Dumfries, three miles down from Freestone Point. Dumfries was the commercial hub in Prince William County. Today it remains the oldest incorporated small town in Virginia.

Henry II married in 1753 a “lowland beauty” named Lucy Grymes who is said to have been so popular with men of marrying age, she even became the object of marital aspirations of a young boy named George Washington.

Henry II cleared the land in Prince William County and built a new estate, Leesylvania (Lee’s Woods) the same year he married Lucy.  Modest by standards set by other plantations in the colony of Virginia, Leesylvania was built of brick on a stone foundation, with “double-tiered porticos wrapped around the front and rear of the building,” with twin chimneys, “two and half stories tall.” The home burned in 1797 and there is no image left of it.

Henry Lee was “the first citizen of Prince William County” in his capacity as its attorney general and militia commander. Washington asked him in 1755 to provide 100 men on horseback from Prince William County and bread provisions to “assist in the protection of our Frontiers.”

Henry Lee III monument

Lucy and Henry Lee lost their first child, a daughter. A year later, in 1756, another child was born of their union, Henry Lee III, a son who eventually became the famous Light Horse Harry (1756-1818). A statue at the foot of the rocky hill commemorates the revolutionary war hero and father of General Robert E. Lee.

View of the Occoquan River from the forested bluff

Photo: Ileana Johnson

Henry Lee III grew up riding horses, raising ponies, fencing, and practicing his marksmanship. Influential Virginians were frequent visitors at Lee’s Woods, dining and lodging there, including George Washington on his frequent trips from Mount Vernon estate to Fredericksburg and Williamsburg. (Ryan Cole, Light-Horse Harry Lee, The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero, 2019)

Henry Lee III was a cavalry commander (1776-1781), was awarded Congressional Medal in 1779, member of the Continental Congress (1786-1788), governor of Virginia (1791-1794), and member of the U.S. Congress (1799-1801).

Walking through the dense forest trails, I am in awe as my steps retrace the long-gone steps of so many famous American men and women who blazed this path through history, instrumental in the shaping of our country today.

Field of Dreams in Leesylvania State Park

Photo: Ileana Johnson

Local Globalist "Visioning"

 

Our county in northern Virginia is probably one of the most compliant with the dictates of U.N. Agenda 2030. They have been so much ahead, counting on citizens not knowing what they are subscribing to.

The District Supervisor urges residents in the New Woodbridge Vision, to “Go Green, Get Your Vision.” The vision, of course, is a smart development plan tailored to local needs but also United Nation’s “vision” of a global social engineering to control every human activity within the parameters they set out of what is and what isn’t sustainable.

Pushing smart development, Frank Principi, who was elected in 2008, describes the Vision of a New Woodbridge as a “mixed use, smart growth development that maximizes existing transit and prepares for new options.” This vision is mirroring the vision of U.N. Agenda 2030.

He describes smart growth as “a mix of residential, commercial, and retail space in close proximity with a range of housing options, utilize compact building design, promote walkability, green space preservation and sustainability,” all for the lofty goal of community collaboration.

Frank Principi supports more “town centers for convenience, to combine live, work, eat, and play space.” A population socially engineered in one small area is much easier to control. Most taking points in this pamphlet are found in the U.N. Agenda 2030 stated goals and “visions.”

All main roads are congested by non-stop traffic that no politician seems to be able to unclog. The county’s population has increased 40 percent by mostly illegal residents according to the last census report. Principi is looking at other venues such as VRE, HOT lanes, and even “the option of commuting to work via a high-speed catamaran, in under an hour into DC, at a price point competitive with rail and less expensive than HOT Lanes.”

Of course a simpler and less expensive economic solution would be to enforce immigration laws in existence and to deport all illegals in the county and to stop bringing in economic refugees from the Middle East and unaccompanied minors from Central America. Most reside in Prince William County because rent is cheaper and their attend public schools at taxpayers’ expense and receive welfare benefits.

It is not coincidental that tiny homes and spaces are being pushed around the country, that suburbia is being vilified by city planners, car use is discouraged, bus and light rail use are encouraged, bike lanes are built everywhere, bike riding is heavily promoted, and the traditional home ownership and one-family residences are frowned upon by local globalist planners.

Roads in the northern Virginia area are narrowed to make driving more inconvenient and countless speed tables are installed on all streets not necessarily just to slow down traffic but to destroy cars over time, necessitating constant repairs and tune-ups thus making it more expensive to own and operate a vehicle. Garage parking is very expensive and street parking spaces are harder and harder to find.

The Planners Network, of which the American Planning Association is a member, states in its principles:

“We believe planning should be a tool for allocating resources… and eliminating the great inequalities of wealth and power in society because the free market has proven incapable of doing this.”

“Imagine an America in which a specific ‘ruling principle’ is created to decide proper societal conduct for every citizen. That principle would be used to consider regulations guiding everything you eat, the size of home you are allowed, the method of transportation to get to work, what kind of work you may have, perhaps even the number of children you may have, as well as the quality and amount of education your children may receive,” said Tom DeWeese, President of the American Policy Center, speaking about property rights and sustainable development, a code word for societal reorganization and the lynchpin of U.N. Agenda 2030.

Principi’s “vision” for Prince William County is but one example of the sustainable development and sustainable communities that have sprung up all over the country and the world.

“Sustainable communities encourage [nudge] people to work together to create healthy communities where natural resources and historic resources are preserved, jobs are available, sprawl [suburbia] is contained, neighborhoods are secure, education is lifelong, transportation and healthcare are accessible, and all citizens have opportunities to improve the quality of their lives.”

The extent of quality of life improvement is most certainly based on what financial resources and services are left and available to Americans after illegals and other economic refugees had been serviced first. The socialized Obamacare has proven a disaster for access to affordable healthcare and actual delivery of timely and adequate care.

As Richard B. Sanders, State Supreme Court Justice, stated, “Property in a thing consists not merely in its ownership and possessions, but in the unrestricted right of use, enjoyment, and disposal. Anything which destroys any of the elements of property, to what extent, destroys the property itself. The substantial value of property lies in its use. If the right of use be denied, the value of the property is annihilated, and ownership is rendered a barren right.”

Globalists blame America’s prosperity as the reason why the rest of the world is in poverty. Their propaganda claims that Americans have become property owners on the backs of the poor and therefore such ill-gotten property and wealth must be re-distributed to the rest of the world by any means necessary.

Additionally, it is the global governance opinion that Americans have raped the planet and have caused global warming Armageddon. There is a never ending chorus of elitists, billionaires, politicians, journalists, actors, community organizers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), race baiters, and even priests who are pushing their “vision” of the planet onto the masses and are forcing billions of people to live in socially engineered smart growth communities, the crowded high-rise, mixed use for the sake of convenience tiny spaces of the 21^st century.

The late Henry Lamb said, “Advocates of global governance are relentless, convinced that their philosophy of social organization is far superior to laissez faire capitalism. They are not deterred by the failure of the Soviet Union, Cuba, and other societies constructed on this government-knows-best philosophy.”

And the “visioning” committee in Prince William County, led by District Supervisor Frank Principi, seems to follow this global governance philosophy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Newly Approved Mega-Mosque in Rural Virginia

Henrico country mosque flood
Photo: www.telegraph.co.uk

 

Prince William County Board of Supervisors voted “yes” to allow a special sewer to be built in the “Rural Crescent “ of Virginia, a small rural community where another mosque will be built on cheap agricultural land, with great possibility of future expansion.

According to Bob and Laura Parks, the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) bought a piece of land three years ago in a part of Virginia that is “zoned agricultural, development is limited to one home per 10 acres and connections to the public sewer line are generally prohibited” and “almost all homes and farms utilize septic systems for waste. Many people have been denied ‘special use’ permits in this area if their requirements failed the zoning rules.” https://www.blackandblondemedia.com/2017/06/28/pr-william-co-board-caves-gives-special-treatment-new-mosque/

But the proposed mega-mosque wants special treatment to tap into the sewer system, while the surrounding residents were told to abide by the zoning rules.

After a nine-hour hearing that lasted until 3 a.m., the Board of Supervisors voted “yes” to the sewer exception. Corey Stewart, who ran for governor of Virginia on the Republican ticket on a platform of America first, voted “yes.” Building mosques in rural communities is not exactly America first. How many more worshippers will be added in the future to the 500 proposed ones today for the Nokesville mosque? What will be the impact on the sparsely populated land in the area?

This property is agricultural and, as one lady testified, people must eat first. If we keep taking land out of agricultural use and change zoning regulations in order to accommodate a special religion because we are afraid of expensive lawsuits from a group awash with money, we will find ourselves exactly where the globalists want us to be, dependent on a few huge farms who import our food from abroad because it is no longer produced here.

Accusations of Islamophobia, bigotry, and racism flew from Muslims and their liberal friends who testified in support of their expansion of the ADAMS mosque to Nokesville. Appealing to our Judeo-Christian faith and tolerance, and to “what would Jesus do,” one Muslim speaker said that Jesus would vote “yes” to allow the building of this mosque because Muslims are just like any other religion, they want to get along with their neighbors and live in peace. But it seems that Henrico County people may have a different story to tell:

-          parking jihad

http://gatesofvienna.net/2013/07/the-parking-jihad-comes-to-henrico-county/ -

 

-          sewer flooding https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=henrico+co.+mosque+sewer+flooding&qpvt=Henrico+co.+mosque+sewer+flooding&qpvt=Henrico+co.+mosque+sewer+flooding&qpvt=Henrico+co.+mosque+sewer+flooding&FORM=IGRE

             -          overall eco-havoc.  https://virginiafreecitizen.com/2016/08/21/mosque-reaps-eco-havoc-on-surrounding-communities/

The hearing and the public present was heavily loaded with mosque supporters and many of the anti-permit locals who showed up to speak did not get a chance to do so. According to Bob and Laura Parks, “The 1,000 or so Muslims and liberal allies who showed up at the hearing could have easily watched it on cable access television. They showed up in person to bully, intimidate, and it worked. At the end of the night (morning), the mosque will be built and allowed a sewage infrastructure no other resident could acquire because it was never about equal treatment; it was about special treatment.” https://www.blackandblondemedia.com/2017/06/28/pr-william-co-board-caves-gives-special-treatment-new-mosque/

Jim Lafferty, had he been given the chance to speak, would have explained why the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force, which he leads,  was opposed to a special caption permit for the ADAMS mosque.

1.       “Contrary to what Muslims have testified, nobody is depriving them from the right to worship. If the application conformed to the Prince William County land-use regulation, no special exception would be needed. As it stands, the ADAMS mosque is a very big building on a lot which typically would be appropriate for a single family dwelling… On that issue alone, this application should be rejected.

2.       You will also hear that the county cannot sustain the cost of a suit by the Department of Justice and the Religious Land use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and a threatened suit by ADAMS and CAIR. The Board has a responsibility to enforce county laws and regulations even if the violator threatens to sue. The Board owes to the law-abiding citizens of Prince William County to enforce the law.

3.       The Obama administration distorted RLUIPA for its own political objectives. RLUIPA was passed by Congress to ensure that religious buildings could not be treated differently than other uses, such as movie theaters. Nowhere in the law does it require local authorities to waive local regulations or laws for applicants who self-identify as a religious institution.

4.       Shariah code is incompatible in a country of free people. In America, we are ‘endowed by our creator’ with certain rights. Each citizen has the same identical set of rights. Under Shariah, rights vary by gender, religion, age, etc. Three minutes are insufficient to describe all the rights which Americans would lose should we become subject to Shariah.

5.       This mega-mosque will dominate the free men, women, and children in this rural community.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Immigrants Should Make America Better, Not Worse

Corey Stewart, PWC Chairman
Wikipedia photo

Prince William County Chairman, Corey Stewart, Republican candidate for Governor of Virginia, said during a press conference, “On behalf of the Board of Supervisors of Prince William County, I’m requesting the Trump administration to identify, detain and remove the 7,500 criminal illegal aliens that we have handed over to ICE over the past 10 years.” According to Stewart, the criminal aliens were handed over by local law enforcement to ICE under a program called 287g. “Of the 7,500, 1,000 have been rearrested.”

A mob of protesters stormed the board meeting on Tuesday, carrying signs in Spanish and English that it did not matter where or how you came from, we are all immigrants and we are all Americans. Speakers who advocate open borders argued that those arrested had not committed a crime and should not have been detained. http://wjla.com/news/local/prince-william-county-residents-speak-out-against-immigration-proposal

The fact that illegal aliens crossed into our country without visas and proper documentation is a crime. The last U.S. Census attributed the large population increase in Prince William County mostly to the illegal alien migration to the county.

Fredy Burgos, a Republican Party activist, posts regularly on Facebook examples of crimes committed daily by illegal aliens in Prince William County. Despite the protesters’ claims that illegals do not commit crimes, reality and police records speak otherwise.

In addition to illegals, counties in Virginia have to deal with the middle of the night surprise of forced resettlement of refugees in small communities that are ill-prepared to handle the influx of uneducated, illiterate, third world individuals who have no skills, do not speak our language, are often unwilling to learn it, do not understand our culture, do not accept it, do not share our religious values, and do not respect nor recognize our Constitution.

Legal immigrants throughout history have made America better by assimilating into one culture, the American culture. Back then there was no welfare state and no welfare generosity and dependency. But today’s immigrants are often here for economic benefits, welfare, and social security thanks to the leftist Open Borders policy. There is no economic boom to struggling communities who are forced to accept such refugees or close their eyes at the massive influx of illegals. In their media-driven narrative, leftists conveniently leave out the cost of welfare use, education of their children, and criminal justice system costs that counties incur in dealing with illegal aliens and refugees.

Looking at just one program, SNAP (food stamps), of the refugees who arrived in 2015, 92.5 percent received food stamps and, of those admitted in 2011, a whopping 60 percent are still receiving SNAP today. Take a trip in northern Virginia to Walmart on the days that SNAP benefits are distributed, and you will see a mass of illegal humanity, speaking languages other than English and wearing burkas and other ethnic costumes. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/orr/arc_15_final_508.pdf

Our great-grandfathers had arrived here for the opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families or future families. They had to go through Ellis Island, weeks of quarantine for infectious diseases, and some were even turned away because we wanted to keep the American public safe. And those immigrants, who cleared Ellis Island, worked very hard, built railroads, ports, tunnels, bridges, dams, roads, parks, highways, interstates, skyscrapers, and entire cities. As my good and patriotic Virginian friend had suggested, there should be “no immigration without verification and assimilation.”

Repealing the Open Borders mentality is essential. Becoming a U.S. citizen is a privilege, not a given right. Immigrants should benefit America in some way by bringing in skills and trades that are helpful in strengthening America. Immigrants must be an asset to our country, not a liability. Nobody should become a burden by drawing from our welfare system and from our social security funds built up by American workers who contributed with every paycheck into these funds. Taking social security funds without contributing to them is theft from the American people.

Given all the violent Islamist attacks on American citizens in the last years, we cannot afford to trust blindly, we must verify immigrants’ ulterior motives. “Can they prove that they are who they say they are? Can they prove that they are not criminal? What is their intent in becoming an American?”

Even though leftists claim that the demand to assimilate is “fascistic,” assimilation is necessary for numerous reasons:

1.       Do the potential immigrants’ world views match the views of our founding documents?

2.       Do potential immigrants intend to become Americans, or are they just drawing financial benefits, taking advantage of our American compassionate nature and generosity?

3.       Will they protect and defend the Constitution and support American independence and sovereignty?

4.       As Dr. Savage says, will they support our “language, borders, and culture?”

5.       Are they interested in subverting America’s power, authority, and institutions with the intent of dividing our great nation?

6.       Do they understand what it takes to be an American?

7.       Do they want to be productive citizens?

We stand with legal immigrants who came before us and with those millions who are still awaiting the disposition of their backlogged files, immigrants who want to come to the United States legally, but live too far away. To now skip them and instead allow law breakers, border jumpers, and fence climbers to become American citizens is a slap in the face of every formerly legal resident alien who became naturalized American citizens after waiting years and years, meandering through legal hoops, learning history and civics, passing citizenship readiness tests, proving that they have what it takes to become an American, a privilege earned, not a right.

America welcomes legal immigrants with open arms and generosity but, if there is ever any doubt, after proper and thorough vetting, then, as my Virginian friend had suggested, “when in doubt, leave them out,” they don’t have what it takes to become an American.

 

The Chronically Homeless in America

Photo: Wikipedia Commons

The mark of a civilized society is how well the most helpless are treated --animals, children, the elderly, and those who are homeless. There is always room for improvement. We are plenty generous with people from other countries, but we miss the mark when it comes to helping our own chronic homeless, the veterans, babies in the womb, the elderly, and others who cannot protect themselves.

It is in plain view that we have failed the homeless. We all pass by people who look healthy, able-bodied, and well-fed, asking for help on a street corner, professional panhandlers who have a nice car and a home to go to – they make a living panhandling.  But then there are those sleeping in the streets, in the cold, in the rain, too dirty and too exhausted to beg; they’ve become so invisible and ignored, nobody speaks to them anymore.

How did they get this way? Homeless people live in unimaginable places. How can a society as rich as ours allow this to happen? Why do we care about the downtrodden of the world but not our own citizens?

The Department of Housing and Human Development (HUD) told us in 2014 that there were 84,000 chronically homeless, down from 120,000 in 2007 thanks to a 2002 program aimed at ending chronic homelessness in ten years. As any government program, the goal failed and the program was extended through 2017. HUD used the Homeless Assistance Grants, the Veterans Affairs Supported Housing Program and other demonstration programs to achieve this goal.

The government had decided to end chronic homelessness because it cost the taxpayers too much money to care for individuals who “use many expensive services often paid through public sources, including emergency room visits, inpatient hospitalizations, and law enforcement and jail time.” Citing the fact that putting the homeless in shelters is also costly, bureaucrats admit that there are also ethical reasons to help our fellow man and end chronic homelessness.

The previous model did not work so a new strategy was deployed – “allowing chronically homeless individuals to move into permanent supportive housing without preconditions. Permanent supportive housing (PSH) is not time-limited and makes services available to residents.” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44302.pdf

One such PSH is Housing First, supported by both HUD and the Department of Veteran Affairs, chosen because the homeless people can select the type and “intensity of services and does not require abstinence or medication compliance.”

PSH increases days spent in housing and reduces days spent homeless. “The outcomes in other areas are not as clear.” In other words, they either don’t know or are not saying if costs are reduced in use and service, if substance use and abuse are diminished, and if mental health improvements are present.

Medicaid funds are used for housing-related services; lobbyists and housing advocates prefer that states use “their own shares of Medicaid funds to finance permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals” since funding through HUD programs is limited for new units. Another source of funding could be Pay for Success Initiatives; private investment in PSH would be paid back if “certain outcomes are attained.”

The term “chronic homelessness” has been used in research since the 1980s, referring to people who have spent more than a year in the streets while suffering from one or two disabling conditions, substance abuse and/or mental illness.

Randall Kuhn and Dennis Culhane categorized homelessness in three groups of people:

-          Transitional (short periods of time in shelters who do not return)

-          Episodic (more frequent users of shelters, not exceeding a few months)

-          Chronic (stay in shelters for long periods of time)*

According to Libby Perl and Erin Bagalman, the federal standards to be deemed chronically homeless are as follows:

-          Individuals and families can be chronically homeless even though in the Hearth Act only unaccompanied individuals were included in the definition

-          One unaccompanied individual or adult head of household must have a disabling condition such as “substance use disorder, serious mental illness, developmental disability, post-traumatic stress disorder, cognitive impairments resulting from a brain injury, or chronic physical illness or disability, including the co-occurrence or two or more of those conditions”

-          Duration requirement (continuously homeless for a year or more or at least four occasions in the past three years)

-          Where someone sleeps (a place that is not meant for human habitation such as a park, street, abandoned building, sewer, emergency shelter, or safe haven)**

In 2015 HUD reported the total number of homeless individuals to be 564,708. Mental illness and substance use disorders (drugs and alcohol) seemed to be prevalent among the homeless.

The permanent supportive housing (PSH) is not time-limited and services are available to residents. HUD provides much of the funding and thus requires certain criteria such as basing it in a community, not an institution; time of stay cannot be limited; residents can have a renewable lease; and helping residents with disability to live independently.

PSH may rent units in a condominium or apartment complex; subsidies are provided through housing vouchers; single-site multi-family rental property with affordable housing designation; residents pay 30% of their income towards rent and the rest is subsidized. Such units exist around the D.C. area. Some of the units are reported by the other residents as sources of bed bugs infestation and other pests.

Not all PSH providers require their residents in permanent housing to “abstain from drugs and alcohol” in order to remain eligible for housing. Housing First, developed in New York in 1990s under the name Pathways to Housing, does not require residents to abstain from drugs and alcohol or to take their meds, but services are available 24 hours a day to help them if they ask – nurses, caseworkers, and psychiatrists.

Prince William County in Virginia is considering placing its 409 homeless people in 8X12 tiny prototype homes at a cost of $3,000 per unit.  Woodbridge HUGS, a non-profit formed last year to “assist the county’s homeless population” and to provide the homeless with essential goods and housing, said through its representative, “We found what we want as our prototype… we want to put in a composting toilet, a skylight, a generator, a door that locks, [and] windows for cross-ventilation.” http://whatsupwoodbridge.com/2016/01/15/tiny-houses-homeless-prince-william/

I cannot imagine what these tiny slum units would do to the surrounding landscape and the property values of the adjacent properties. Is this the best way to help the homeless in one of the richest counties in the nation?

Instead of sheltering the homeless in proper and stable housing, why are we moving them essentially into shanty areas? Why must we relegate the homeless, the unemployed, and the poor to ePodments, to tiny homes, to mini-homes, to dwellings made of junkyard scrap and other cheap materials, to dwellings the size of closets?

Are we doing this because the economy is in such dire-straights thanks to this administration’s disastrous economic policies? Or is there another reprehensible Agenda and plan in place to crowd people into stack-and-pack tiny apartments and temporary units the size of a dog house in order to return the suburbia to its original wilderness?

In spite of HUD Homeless Assistance Grants, as a primary tool of the federal government of funding housing for homeless people, HUD-VA Supported Housing program, which was started in 1992, and other social programs, homelessness is far from being addressed properly and will continue to exist.

 

____________________________

*Randall Kuhn and Dennis P. Culhane, “Applying Cluster Analysis to Test a Typology of Homelessness by Pattern of Shelter Utilization: Results from the Analysis of Administrative Data,” American Journal of Community Psychology, vol. 26, no. 2 (April 1998), pp. 207-232.

**CRS Report 44302, December 8, 2015, pp. 3-4.

 

 

Voting in Prince William County, Northern Virginia

Photo: Ileana Johnson in Prince William Co.

Voters who showed up at 6 a.m. on November 3, 2015 to vote in Prince William County, northern Virginia, were greeted at the Leesylvania Elementary School Precinct by a closed door with the sign, “Polls Closed, (sic) at the moment until computer problems are solved! Sorry!”

When they asked for paper ballots, voters were told that they would not be available as it was impossible to verify online if the people were actually registered to vote.

A certain number of the would-be voters left for work, but a few decided to wait. Most were not sure if they would be able to return before the 7 p.m. poll closing time since they worked in the district and the commute is absolutely atrocious on any day but especially on Tuesdays. I decided to go back around 1 p.m. to try and vote again. This time, the polls were open. I asked the precinct captain what happened.  

“We had connection issues, we could not get our computers up and running. That affected one third of the precincts in the county. It wasn’t just us. We couldn’t open or allow people to vote until we had the issue solved.”

What kind of connection problem you experienced, I asked.  

“The computers would not talk to each other  within the whole county. Because when someone signs in, the county is aware of it. Without that, we could not ask people to vote.” He continued, “at the time, we did not know it was a county-wide issue, but we found out later on.”

He went outside and told the crowd, “Folks we are having connection issues, we are working on the problem as fast as we can and as soon as we can solve it, we would let you know. About 15 people left.  I could not turn anybody away, they just left;  they had to go to work. Some people stayed, most of them left. We could not tell how long it would last because we did not know. We got up and running at 6:30 a.m. and we’ve been up and running ever since.”

When asked if the voting polls would close 30 minutes later to make up for the shortage of time, the precinct captain answered that he did not know.

I showed my I.D., stated my full name and address, and voted by filling in blocks with a pen by candidates’ name on a paper ballot. I was then directed to feed the double-sided sheet myself into a scanner and an attendant let me know from the other side of the machine when my vote was electronically cast. I was a bit puzzled that the scanner could read both sides of the sheet at the same time. And this is how we voted or not in northern Virginia in a predominantly Democrat county.