February 25, 1998

WET BLANKETS

My mind was on what I had seen in downtown Washington, D.C. There were not too many homeless people camping out on the steam gratings in the Mall area. What disturbed me was the boxes of army blankets that I had seen on some of the street corners. A lot of the boxes were soaked from the past couple day's rains and they were split inside. Inside you could see that the blankets were soaked.

This might have been some governmental agency's attempt to help the homeless. My question was that how many blankets had been given out and why these left-over blankets had not been taken to an agency or church where they can be distributed to the needy. I did see a couple of homeless who had made bundles out of the blankets to carry their meager possessions.