Press Action ::: 'We Can’t Ride the Bus to the Revolution'

Saturday, October 30, 2004

'We Can’t Ride the Bus to the Revolution'

Press Action has received a large amount of correspondence in response to the “Outside the Ballot Box: Election 2004 and Beyond” event that aired on C-Span’s Book-TV on October 23. Below is the text of a letter Press Action received in the mail.

Dear Mr. Hand:

I live in a building with three other mentally ill men in western Pennsylvania, along the Allegheny River northeast of Pittsburgh. I am writing in response to “Press Action’s” C-Span appearance of 23 October 2004 from the Lyon Park Community Center. The guests were Mickey Z., Elaine Cassel and Mark Andersen.

In the late 1990s, all mentally ill Pennsylvanians lost our rent and utility subsidies, an economic attack with roots in former President Bill Clinton’s welfare “reform” idea.

I paid my share of our water authority deposit from money I had saved, with my mental health payee, for school books and uniforms at a two-year state approved massage therapy course. I had funding form the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR). I, then, resigned from the school.

A few weeks later, our landlord raised the rent because of new property tax assessments in the state. I was wise to resign from the massage therapy school?

One of the mentally ill men living on the first floor takes a shower once a week to save money on his water bill. My roommate with schizophrenia takes a shower every other day for the same economic reason. And I conserve water during my showers, too, because we all live on fixed incomes.

During Senator Kerry’s stump speeches, he sometimes brags about his role in welfare “reform” as an appeal to the middle class.

Our last three-month water bill was $234, so we must conserve water just to survive month to month. The conservative social experiment is occurring among the poor and the disabled while liberals do NOTHING!

Several years ago, the mentally ill used to ride, as a group, to the grocery store in state-owned vans. One day we were told that we needed to become more “independent.” And I was told that I could buy a wire basket on wheels for grocery shopping.

Under the independence program for the mentally ill, we were instructed to study the Port Authority Transit (PAT) bus system based in Pittsburgh.

Under Pennsylvania State Act 47, the city of Pittsburgh is now in bankruptcy, and the PAT bus system is $30 million in the red. The PAT authorities are discussing a 75-cent rate increase as well as bus route eliminations to New Kensington, the distant part of PAT’s service area.

Many of us ride the PAT buses to our dental and medical appointments, and blue collar people ride the buses to and from work.

It is public policy for the mentally ill of Pennsylvania to walk the streets of poor neighborhoods during every color code change in the terrorist alert system. A few years ago, I was mugged by a young white man with a knife while walking home from the grocery store.

We have a friend with schizophrenia who was sent to a state mental hospital for smoking crack that he bought in our neighborhood.

Family services of western Pennsylvania—the umbrella agency for the poor and the mentally ill—is now $33 million in the red and nobody cares about it.

We have second friend with schizophrenia whose rent was increased by $75 a month. He continues to visit a psychiatrist and is unable to work. (And a part-time job would require a reliable PAT bus system.)

Mark Andersen expects the poor and the disabled to join his revolution when the “Press Action” discussion was about middle-class concerns. We’re invisible!

Sincerely yours,

W.K.

P.S. Please keep fighting but without PAT bus service we can’t ride the bus to the revolution.