Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Neediest cases through the eyes of the New York Times
Back in the day, I occasionally gave to the New York Times annual "neediest cases" fund, and maybe will do so again. I have fallen out of the habit not because I no longer support its aims, but because so many other charities now compete for my attention that I am in the almost constant condition of turning down worthy requests. That said, this morning's editorial promoting the Neediest Cases Fund reveals a little something about the definition of "need" in the mind of the chattering class:
In the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Fayner was a physicist and his wife, Aleksandra, an engineer. They are intelligent people, warm and playful. They are also Jewish, and in the Soviet Union, carrying that stamp on your passport meant a lifetime of trouble. By the time the Soviet Union fell, they had long since had enough and were finally free to start a life somewhere new. The United States granted them refugee status, and in 1997 they moved to New York City.
Aleksandra’s brother helped them find an apartment in Washington Heights. Together, the couple, both around 60 at the time, worked odd jobs cleaning houses and taking care of elderly people. But they struggled to cobble together $550 each month for rent.
After years of grappling with that rent, they found a subsidized housing program run by the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, an affiliate of UJA-Federation of New York, which is a beneficiary of The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. The Fayners were invited to live in a housing complex in Brooklyn where rent is fixed at 30 percent of household income. After seven years in this apartment, the Fayners, now both American citizens, were able to save enough money to go back to Ukraine for the first time to visit their grandson, whom they hadn’t seen since he was a baby.
Today, the Fayners are thriving. But at 70 and 69 respectively, Mikhail and Aleksandra still need a little extra help once in a while. The furniture in their apartment was used when they got it seven years ago, and some of it has grown quite shabby. The Neediest Cases Fund is helping them replace some particularly rickety pieces.
Such sentiments, gentle reader, are the beating heart of limousine liberalism in an age of great plenty.
From the sounds of it the Fayners are wonderful people, and all Americans should take great joy that we were able to allow them to build a new life in the land of the free. Our country is stronger for it. But the Fayners are not only able to travel back to the Ukraine to visit their grandson, they have obviously chosen not to live there with the rest of their family because they are better off here, rickety furniture and all. If the Fayners are really a "neediest" case by the standards of the New York Times, may I respectfully suggest that either the "neediest" cases in America's largest city have it pretty damned good by the standards of the world or the editors believe that anybody who is not manifestly middle class is "needy." If either were in fact true we could close the books on American poverty and move on to the next pressing matter.
6 Comments:
By 
SR, at
Tue Nov 13, 09:56:00 AM:
Before Chambers gets here, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, what a heartless conervative.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Nov 13, 10:26:00 AM:
"If either were in fact true we could close the books on American poverty and move on to the next pressing matter."
You may be on to something there... I read an article a year or two ago by an Indian immigrant once who was mocking people who whine about American 'poverty,' saying something to the effect of 'the roads are paper smooth, the power is always on, and poor people are fat. It's like paradise here!'
By Purple Avenger, at
Tue Nov 13, 10:39:00 AM:
I'm pretty sure there someone living in a cardboard box somewhere who wishes they had some rickety furniture.
By GreenmanTim, at
Tue Nov 13, 02:32:00 PM:
"In the land of the limbless, the one-armed man is king."
Can't recall who said it, but it came to mind.
By Consul-At-Arms, at
Tue Nov 13, 02:54:00 PM:
Physicist and engineer.
What do you suppose the odds are that they helped design and build all those wonderful peacekeeping missiles and other weapons aimed at us by the USSR for so many years?
As Amcits, their ability to travel safely back and forth to Ukraine is no longer the issue that it might be if they were still in the country under refugee status.
By Viking Kaj, at
Tue Nov 13, 04:33:00 PM:
I think the average physicist and engineer on pension in the Moscow suburbs would make about $ 200 a month, barely enough to eke out a grim existence in a very grim place. And healthcare, even for vets of the Chechnya conflict, is almost non-existent.
There is still an extremely good reason why people want to come here from all over the world. I'm just glad they are are here and not there, and I bet they are too.
