Philip Mangano's name rolled off Malcolm Gladwell's tongue the other day and I had to learn why.
He was a Bush appointee and has been working to fight homelessness in the US. It's funny he shares his name with a mafia don.
Some stats: 34 m Americans live below poverty, estimated 3 m homeless.
Mangano has been traveling the US holding press conferences on homelessness. This issue has not been a Bush admin hot button but it has been impacted. Large Section 8 housing cuts needed counter-spin by an investment in helping the homeless without families get back in the workforce. Mangano has been shuffling around federal funding from one homeless program to another. Either he's hoping to get his agenda across with a radical shakeup or he's demanding more accountability and not finding it. Either way, I am not sure why Gladwell thinks he's so great.
This may just be one more instance where government passes off social programs to the non-profit sector. In Costa Rica, rural schools grow crops to pay for amenities like books and paper. He has been working closely with churches and local groups to solve the problems. Though Mangano has been working with California heavily, the evidence of his impact may lie in New Orleans. Keep your ears open to see if he's worth the hype.
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Mangano has been praised for local programs, and one is this pilot housing first program in Phili called New Keys: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9852738
Instead of treating people for drugs and diseases and craziness, their emphasis was to get them indoors. It's helped keep some of them healthier and get a good start, and reduced strain on other services, but it may have other consequences (withdrawl, slum spreading, slum creation).
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