During today’s Senate Appropriations Committee budget hearing with the Department of Human Services (DHS), Senator Dan Laughlin (R-Erie) expressed his deep frustrations about the lack of action by the state and federal government to address homelessness.
“When I see homeless people in the City of Erie, I find it rather heartbreaking and yet I feel like I am participating in some kind of Groundhog Day when I come here to these Appropriations hearings,” Senator Laughlin told DHS Secretary Teresa Miller. “Every year we talk about the exact same problems, the lack of funding, and nothing seems to change. I don’t care how many programs you come up with, nothing ever changes, and I am really frustrated about that.
“I want to put it in perspective, we have 500,000 homeless people in America and if we bought every single one of them a $50,000 home, that’s $25 billion and that is a drop in the bucket out of $1.9 trillion (the latest round of federal stimulus funding),” Senator Laughlin continued. “I wanted to use this as my bully pulpit today to complain about the lack of action by state and federal government in solving problems. I want everyone to keep that in mind; $1.9 trillion was spent today and $25 billion would buy every homeless person in America a home.”
