End Homelessness Now! Ask Me How

Well -- since you asked! -- it's really quite simple. Just elect a Democrat to the presidency, and never allow a non-Democrat to be president again. The way I know this works is that, since I believe everything the media tell me, I've noticed that any time we have a Democrat in the White House, you never hear a thing about homelessness, and any time we have a Republican president, homelessness is a huge, critical problem in our society. You know, there's something almost kind of magical about it -- the way John Kerry would have raised Superman up out of his wheelchair if only those dreadful Republicans hadn't stolen the election. We saw this when Bill Clinton took over the White House from George Bush the First. One day, the streets were awash with homeless people. They were everywhere. You stepped on them as you walked from the Metro station to Constitution Hall. At night, they sat bolt upright amid clouds of steam from sidewalk grates, nibbling on cold, limp McDonald's fries (which couldn't have been good for them, you must admit). Then, literally overnight, they were gone. The only difference was, Bill Clinton had been inaugurated. A miracle, truly! Although I must admit -- since I lived in the DC area at the time -- one _might_ have gotten the impression that things hadn't changed all that suddenly. There was one guy in particular who lived in one of the bus stops down near the Mall. You could recognize him by his outfit, which had to be unique even by homeless standards. He wore a kind of fuzzy pink tailcoat and a fuzzy pink top hat to match. He looked like a cross between a minstrel performer and a Hostess Sno Ball. Now, the day after Clinton took office, he was still there. But because I trust the media, I assumed he had been ensconced in some sort of public housing up on North Capitol Street, and was only visiting his former bus-stop haunt for old times' sake. I'm sure that, if I had asked him, he would have told me the same thing. So I wasn't worried about him, nor about all the other guys that our family once passed out blankets to on a cold winter night, from our RV. I was sure that they were all cozy and warm in the firm but loving hands of the Clinton administration. And what a tragic day it was when that administration drew to a close, and homeless people (many of the same ones, no doubt) re-appeared on the streets of the capital. I'm even sure that the Clintons' last-minute requisitioning of White House furniture was merely an attempt to help alleviate the problem that they knew would soon follow. They were undoubtedly planning to furnish a tent city in Lafayette Park. But it all came to naught, due -- again -- to those evil Republicans. (insert sigh of resignation)