There was some nice juxtapositioning on Boston.com this morning...

You've got the state budget being balanced on the backs of the poorest of the poor, while the Governor is pushing for almost four times the amount* being cut from Homeless Individuals Assistance to go to building a walking bridge connecting two parking lots owned by billionaire Robert Kraft.  And then you've got the obligatory grinning college prez making ten to twenty times what faculty and staff at his institution do. 

The more things change, the less spare change, apparently.

As for cuts in programs aimed at ending homelessness, my friend Joe Finn at Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance (MHSA) sent out an SOS the other day about those budget cuts that threaten recent progress toward ending homelessness in Massachusetts.  The irony is that the homeless programs being cut have not only been successful in reducing the numbers of homeless people, according to Joe, they've "documented significant reductions in Medicaid costs of these individuals" resulting in "dramatic cost savings."

One of the key tenets of Housing First (see my piece on the program here) is actually to reduce the cost of homelessness.  The irony is that spending less may end up costing us more.  Not just in the long-run, either.  Like, right now.

"Frankly," Joe wrote on the MHSA website, "I’m astonished by the Governor’s actions.”

I'm with you, Joe.  
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*In federal stimulus money, granted, but still.