Thumbs up, thumbs down: New effort to help the homeless, silence by key lawmaker on border separations

Thumbs up to Fresno Mayor Lee Brand and county Supervisor Sal Quintero for leading a new effort to help homeless people move from the streets of Fresno to better homes and lives. The mayor announced formation of the Street 2 Home Fresno County program this past week during the chamber of commerce’s 2018 State of the City luncheon. The initiative will work with community organizations to provide services to people without a home. Saint Agnes Medical Center and its CEO, Nancy Hollingsworth, and the Edward & Jeanne Kashian Family Foundation together donated $100,000 to launch the initiative. Quintero said the program will include the Poverello House and Fresno Rescue Mission. It will focus on finding people transitional and permanent housing while connecting them to services. “The important part is the commitment is there from both sides (city and county) to do something about it,” Quintero said.

Last month, the Fresno Madera Continuum of Care reported Fresno County’s number of homeless people increased by nearly 100 people from 2017, with about 1,800 people living without a home. Of those, the unsheltered population consisted of 1,500 people.

Thumbs down to Rep. Devin Nunes, the Tulare Republican whose silence was deafening over U.S. border agents separating undocumented parents from their children and herding them to different detention centers. Of all people, and of all issues, this was one Nunes should have been loudly advising the president on, namely to stop the separations immediately. Nunes, more than most in Congress, can get President Trump’s attention by virtue of their similar world views and the fact Nunes was on Trump’s presidential transition team. Instead, he uttered not one public word about the matter, even as the president finally signaled he’d stop the separations.

Why should Nunes have spoken up? Because removing little children from their parents, in a land foreign to them and where the language is different, is just wrong. Scaring toddlers does not make any part of the border safer.

But with the absence of any sort of comment or call to action, Nunes leaves the impression that he agrees with the president and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Zero tolerance really means zero compassion.

Thumbs up to Rainer Henkel of Clovis, who got a surprise this week when a young Cooper’s hawk fell into his backyard pool. The hawk tried to fly out, but failed two times. That was when Henkel scooped the bird out to prevent its drowning. “He looked at me and I looked at him. It was funny,” Henkel related to Bee staff writer Carmen George. “He was not afraid at all. I did pet him a little bit, and then I got a little towel and dried him off and he liked that.”

Clovis police connected Henkel up with the Fresno Wildlife Rehabilitation Service, which is now caring for the raptor and will return it to the wild soon.

Henkel and his 13-year-old daughter Aimee are left with great memories of their unusual visitor.

Thumbs up to Norma Lopez, the first graduate of the Fresno County Public Library’s career online high school program. Lopez moved to Fresno from Mexico 14 years ago and began going to the Sunnyside branch library. In one of her trips to Sunnyside last year, she noticed a flier for the program and decided to enroll. It worked well for her because she is a mother of a 13-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter. Her husband Omar allowed her to quit working in April and focus all her attention on earning her high school diploma, which she was awarded on June 9. Lopez graduated with a 3.0 GPA. The career online high school program is open to all Fresno County residents – one must be 19 years old, have a computer and dedicate at least two hours a day, five days a week to instruction. For details, call Deborah Bernal at the main library, 559-600-9243.

This story was originally published June 22, 2018 at 7:00 AM.