In the Free Press yesterday, Mitch Albom proposed a follow-up plan to the three-day Super Bowl party being organized for Detroit's homless population. Fearing its clientele being squeezed in the city's efforts to clean up the streets for visiting Bowl fans, the Detroit Rescue Mission will be staying open round the clock during Bowl weekend offering food, shelter, and the Game itself on big-screen TV. Revelers will be able to careen from Foxtown to Greektown to Corktown without someone asking for a handout which they would probably spend on alcohol, and the homeless are not consigned to the tender mercies of the DPD.
It sounds like the typical shameless effort to sweep urban problems under the rug when potentially free-spending visitors arrive for a game, or a political convention, though it's not the worst way such a plan could go down. An established poverty services agency is running the show. And at the very least, it will give some vulnerable people a few more hours of security.
Following a visit to the Mission, Mitch Albom thought this project ought to extend not only through Super Bowl weekend, but indefinitely. So he launched a fund drive he's calling Super All Year, which aims to raise $60,000 before kickoff time. And here we get to the astonishing part. That $60K will allow the Mission to:
*Stay open 24 hours.
*Add 30 new beds.
*Get a 24-hour-a-day van with a trained staff member to respond to any phone call and pick up a needy individual.
*Add a mental health worker to the staff.
...through April 1st. Two months of critical services for Detroit's downtrodden for the cost of a Lexus. Or of a score of tickets to some of the VIP parties taking place around town on game day. Or of 45 seconds of pacifying Iraq.
We--you, me, and all us Americans--could be getting a lot more for our money than we do as we currently spend it.
Kristine and I will send a little of ours to S.A.Y. Should you feel so inclined, you can find contribution information in Albom's article.
Super Bowl
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