amazing night

hello, my friends.

i've been at oxford for three weeks now. enough time to get minimal work done, feel mighty homesick, and lose most of my patience and all of my principals. but tonight my faith in humanity (or maybe just bureaucracy) was renewed. kinda.

instead of going to my one prescribed weekly class (i know, my life is tough), i decided to attend one of the semi-termly "Transatlantic Dialogues in Public Policy" at the american studies institute here. this little dialogue/seminar/lecture was called "housing the homeless".

now, this is all rather run of the mill, i suppose. EXCEPT that it was chaired by a guy called adam sampson, who is the national director of an organisation called shelter, which does all sorts of housing outreach, research, training, campaigning, etc all over the UK. he was joined by terrie alafat, the head of the homelessness and housing support directorate for the UK government, and philip mangano, the director of the US interagency council on homelessness.

now, all this in itself wasn't so amazing. certainly, mr mangano was less than inspiring (he talked a little too much about praying for a solution to homelessness. i zoned out; started thinking about sharks), but terrie was absolutely brilliant. very insightful. the uk is making some very aggressive moves on homelessness and related support services. PLUS...she's a native new englander. an expat. which i thought was fascinating. she did a phd in social policy (or policy generally?) at chicago, and only fell into homelessness stuff after working with local governments in london after she moved here with her husband.

yes. my point: social policy seems like a possibility here, where a strong central government directly controls the funding and service expectations of local governments. with the single-payer healthcare system, people actually get the preventative care they need, and homeless services are handled primarily through local government agencies, making it possible (to a much greater extent than in the US, at least) to measure the incidence and causes of homelessness. the UK woman was very good at describing policies and their effects. the US guy, on the other hand, talked a lot about the importance of the verb "to end" and how bush has pledged to end chronic homelessness by 2013. lots of talking. not much of a plan on how to do it, it seemed. forced to say something nice about him, i will acknowledge that it was in part thanks to him that funding for FQHCs was increased in 2002-03, which in turn made life at old town clinic much easier. but STILL.

anyway, i'm sure i've bored you all to death. i'm really excited, though. it was so nice to talk with people about these things. people don't do that here. which is disappointing. but yeah. ok. weak and confused with hunger. going now. clop clop clop.

love you all,
a.

ps - i'm re-reading biff right now. it's still hilarious.