Forum Calls on Fenty to Remember Needy

Residents, Advocates Discuss Priorities

Some of the city's most vulnerable and needy residents and their advocates gathered yesterday at a community forum to urge that D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty make sure they share in the District's robust financial health.

Among those commenting on how the mayor should spend his proposed $5.4 billion city budget were mothers trying to leave behind abusive partners and drug addiction, homeless men and women sleeping on flea-bitten mattresses in city shelters and parents worried about schools with broken light bulbs and computers that don't work.

About 150 people attended the meeting, held at the Public Welfare Foundation building on U Street NW. The gathering was arranged by the Fair Budget Coalition, a network of community and advocacy groups concerned about poverty, education, illiteracy and health services.

"We can spend millions on a baseball stadium, but yet still our kids don't have computers in their school," said Earnest Crawford, a homeless man who has been living at the emergency shelter at D.C. Village and was among two dozen speakers at the forum. "I can't get tokens to go to an employment training program. And the bulbs are busted in Coolidge High School."

To resounding applause, Crawford continued: "You tell me: Isn't there something wrong with this picture?"

Fenty's budget for fiscal 2008 would increase spending at least 8 percent from this fiscal year. It calls for a slight bump in public school spending, continues funding 300 police officers added last year and invests more heavily in the city's plan for health-care coverage for residents.

Hip-hop poet Nigel Greaves, who performed some of his street poetry at the forum, argued that a slight increase for schools isn't enough:

Poverty, ignorance and hopelessness have kidnapped our future

We hear all the time about No Child Left Behind

But in the meantime, too many of our children aren't getting any education.

Greaves said in an interview later that his advice for Fenty (D) is concise.

"Three words: Fix the schools," he said. "Somebody needs to infuse these schools with life and money, so kids have books to read and air conditioning when it's hot and some hope of learning. It's the long-term solution to all these problems, but it's the right solution. "

The Fair Budget Coalition called on its members last week to contact the mayor to make sure he delivers on promises made during the campaign and at his inauguration to prioritize the delivery of human services. The group specifically urged that he fund the group's priorities, including $7.4 million for the rent supplement program; $3.9 million to expand a mental health program in city schools; and $4.5 million to improve adult literacy programs, which currently serve less than 10 percent of those who need them.

In an open letter to residents in January, Fenty said he also was eager to use the increase in tax revenue from rising property values "to invest more resources in residents' policy priorities."

Fenty and D.C. Council members were invited to hear residents' views, but they did not attend the meeting.

Crawford urged the advocates to keep reminding Fenty of his campaign promises.

"We need to poke him in the rump to keep his attention," Crawford said.