Cold Hearts: Conservatives Attack Poor Homeless Henrietta Hughes

Posted by Cara, Feministe at 8:58 AM on February 16, 2009.

For those who have not heard of Henrietta Hughes, she is a homeless woman who stood up at a town hall meeting and told Barack Obama that she is unemployed and has been forced her to live in her car.  She further pleaded with the president to do something to ensure that people like her had housing: 

"I have an urgent need, unemployment and homelessness, a very small vehicle for my family and I to live in," she said. "The housing authority has two years' waiting lists, and we need something more than the vehicle and the parks to go to. We need our own kitchen and our own bathroom. Please help."

Now, Michelle Malkin has decided to publicly mock her with taunts like "If she had more time, she probably would have remembered to ask Obama to fill up her gas tank, too."  She then went on to say:

Hughes didn't explain the cause of her financial turmoil. Obama didn't ask. And if we conservatives dare to question the circumstances -- and the underlying assumption that it is government's (that is, taxpayers') role to bail her out -- we'll be lambasted as cruel haters of the downtrodden.

[. . .]

Well, pardon my unbending belief in fairness and personal responsibility, but why should my tax dollars go to feed the housing entitlement beast?

Indeed, why should housing be considered a right?  After all, what does my housing say about my personal class status and how much better I am than other people, if there aren't those other people out there who don't have a place to live at all?

The worst part is that Malkin isn't alone.  From Limbaugh falsely saying that Hughes "ask[ed] for a car" to others claiming that Hughes is "milking the system," there's no shortage of people who want to bring down the woman who had the potential to a far more sympathetic Joe the Plumber -- an everyday American who is actually negatively affected by the economic policies of our government.

And they can get away with it!  I just, honestly, do not understand.  Are people like Malkin really so privileged and entitled themselves that they just do not comprehend the very concept of housing not owned by the person living in it -- and that therefore "I need a place to live" does not equal "buy me a new house, please" -- or do they just really think that no, if you're not as fortunate as the rest of us, you really do deserve to live on the street, and as a neighbor I have absolutely no responsibility for what happens to you?

On second thought, I don't know that I want the answer to that.

Via Womanist Musings

Tagged as: politics, class, economics, obama, rush limbaugh, poverty, michelle malkin, hughes, economic crisis, capitalism & consumption, assholes, crazy conservatives, henrietta hughes, housing is a right

Cara blogs regularly at The Curvature and Feministe.