We tend to think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as having been a champion of social justice. But he was also a fierce advocate for economic justice, for ending poverty and homelessness.
So on this holiday honoring King’s legacy, the issue of alleviating homelessness was on the front burner in Miami with a visit by the second gentleman. Doug Emhoff, who is Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, paid a visit to the Chapman Partnership homeless facility on Monday.
“One of the reasons I travel so much is to see what’s happening out there and I take it back, you know I live with the Vice President and we talk all the time,” Emhoff said.
Emhoff was escorted by Congresswoman Frederica Wilson and Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust.
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“Compared to where they are in San Francisco or Los Angeles and Houston and Dallas, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, we’re light years ahead of ‘em,” Book said.
“We know that we have a homeless issue across the nation, we know that we have a housing deficit across the nation, but in Miami-Dade County, we have the bull by the horns,” said Wilson.
Book says at this moment, there’s an estimated 1,040 unsheltered homeless people in Miami, which is a fraction of the 8,000-11,000 people Miami once had on the streets and which many urban areas have now. Emhoff seemed impressed with the Chapman Partnership’s efforts.
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“You’ve got these public-private partnerships, you’ve got the federal, local, state government working with the business community to try to work on this problem, and they’re also doing it as a holistic approach," Emhoff said. "It’s one, getting folks off the street, but once they’re here, you saw there’s a triage issue, which leads to training and advice and counseling, all the things folks really need to move forward, and once they leave this place, have housing, have a job, have education."
Book made sure Emhoff took a message back to Washington about a potential problem looming on the immediate horizon.
“One of the things I said to him is a deep concern for what the migrant issue could potentially do to the community and it could totally upend what we’ve got going if we don’t have federal money coming in,” Book said.
The fear, Book said, is that a large influx of new migrants will lead to overcrowded and overtaxed homeless shelters, so the Biden administration should be ready to supply emergency funding to handle the needs.
