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The homeless man who works in the Senate
Charles Gladden, who is homeless, works in the Dirksen Senate Office Building kitchen. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
By Catherine Rampell
Opinion writer
April 22 at 7:45 PM
In the basement of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, 63-year-old Charles Gladden works alongside some of the nations most powerful people. For eight years, he has greeted senators, staffers and lobbyists in the hallways and the cafeteria, at exclusive banquets and special functions. He reflects fondly on some of the warmer colleagues who he says got the boot too soon.
But unbeknown to any of these bigwigs, or even to his employer, Gladden is homeless. He works in the Senate cafeteria, and he has not had a fixed address for the past five years.
The reasons are complicated. He said he has made decisions he regrets not least leaving George Washington University, where hed been studying fine arts on a scholarship. (Truancy and trouble with the law landed him in a juvenile institution as a teenager; he got the scholarship after winning second place in an art show.) After dropping out, he spent years in low-paying jobs: painting houses, laying bricks, delivering food.
Today he gives much of his meager paycheck to his three daughters and their grandchildren, who have also struggled to find steady housing and employment. He says that he needs the money less than they do, that he knows how to brave the elements and make good use of food pantries and free health clinics. He has, after all, been homeless intermittently over two decades. He has always managed.
I want to provide for them, he says of his family, not burden them.
Gladden also, of course, does not make very much money.
For a weeks work at the Senate cafeteria sweeping floors, mopping bathrooms, cleaning dishes, composting leftovers, transporting laundry he says his take-home pay is about $360. And while he takes enormous pride in serving the countrys public servants, he is not sure these public servants are returning the favor.
Our lawmakers, they dont even realize whats going on right beneath their feet, he says. They dont have a clue.
more...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-federal-washington-needs-to-know/2015/04/22/730f2e52-e90f-11e4-aae1-d642717d8afa_story.html
sendit
(58 posts)procon
(15,805 posts)We aren't paying US workers a living wage. We aren't paying them benefits. We aren't giving them an affordable college education. Blame the politicians who constantly block legislation that would uplift the working poor... that would be Republicans, yeah?
sendit
(58 posts)lpbk2713
(42,769 posts)Some RWer will see to it that Mr Gladden will pay for his outspokenness.
sendit
(58 posts)be federal or state employees .
This out sourcing crap by states and the federal government is crap.
I don't mean short term specific jobs where expertize can be better found in the private sector but
people who work for years in jobs
AwakeAtLast
(14,134 posts)With benefits!
reduce the pay for workers and the haul goes to executives.
BobbyBoring
(1,965 posts)when I did construction work in the seventies and eighties in DC, anytime we were on a job that had anything to do with any government, we got paid some government type scale that was way above anything else. I don't know how somebody working in the real government could be paid like that.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)that his name is Gladden, and he's in Washington
but that's just me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Gladden
Omaha Steve
(99,780 posts)progressoid
(50,000 posts)marlakay
(11,514 posts)Now that it is out will anyone on the hill help him out?
valerief
(53,235 posts)is what he wanted.
erronis
(15,382 posts)These @ssholes in congress make snooty little comments about how raising the lower-paid workers wages will stifle the free markets.
I'd like to see some of these pigs in the house/senate spend a week busing tables, swabbing toilets, feeding a family on $10/hour. I bet their mistresses would dump them quick if they didn't bring in at least $100/hour.
valerief
(53,235 posts)don't give a shit. Don't remember if the ribs guy was still homeless, however.
tabasco
(22,974 posts)Fuck this country.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)thought about sharing it here.
democrank
(11,112 posts)Homeless....three toes amputated in the last year and a half....can`t always come up with the co-pay for his insulin. Honestly, I feel like crying. How can this be?
Volaris
(10,275 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Thank you, Ronald Reagan.
This is a wonderful example of what trickles down on much of America.
TNNurse
(6,929 posts)are hard to read, there are some heartless and unrealistic people out there.
Some recommend he read a book and get a better job. He is 63, has had toes amputated because of diabetes. What in Hell do they think he is able to learn to do? What job is waiting for him?