Evan K. and Granny Dumping

So, tell me, Evan, how you explain the phenomenon of granny dumping (1,*) without dealing with the loyalty and devotion of the "granny"'s relatives and without admitting that the poor are the only known granny dumpers. We know that the rich can afford to "dump" their grannies into nursing homes or to hire care-givers to come to the granny's house, and that while this does not demonstrate that they are "loyal" and "devoted" to their grannies, it certainly does not demonstrate that the rich and the poor are presented with the same ethical choices in what should be essentially the same situation, viz. caring for an elderly relative who cannot care for himself or herself.
Is a devoted family member in the ethical position of Nancy Reagan and her vegetable required to change diapers in order to demonstrate devotion and loyalty, or is it enough that she pays others to change diapers?
How many hours a day does a devoted and loyal relative have to spend giving care and comfort to a family member with Alzheimer's in order to be worthy of the labels "devoted" and "loyal"(2)?

And just what do you mean by "loyalty" and "devotion" in such a situation? I don't care what Cooper might have meant, but because you chose to enter the discussion without an invitation and with a personal judgment, I think you have an obligation to explain yourself and to explain why none of the granny dumpers tracked down by the police were rich or famous.
(1) This was a popular pastime in California some years ago. As I remember it, old people in wheelchairs and usually unable to identify themselves were taken to hospital emergency rooms and just left there. When the police did manage to catch up with the granny dumper, it turned out to be some financially strapped caregiver usually a woman who could no longer afford to give her relative (usually a parent) the time and energy necessary to keep the "granny" healthy. Notice that most grannies were dumped in hospitals, though. I wonder if you'd consider that to be a sign of loyalty and devotion given that it is just as easy to dump a granny in a department-store parking lot at 3 a.m.
(2) I didn't choose these terms; Cooper did, and you bought into them, so please define them and explain how people demonstrate them when there is someone with Alzheimer's at home and there is no money to provide care for the Alzheimer's sufferer or time and energy for anyone in the household to substitute their loyal and devoted caregiving for for unavailable money.
(*)Boston's export of the poor demands investigation now http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/04-98/04-16-98/c04op365.htm

Remember "granny dumping"? That was the practice of taking an elderly relative, the care of whom was beyond the resources of the family, and leaving him or her at the doorstep of a hospital or nursing home and then making an escape, hoping that nobody found out who did it. Hospitals and police officials would go to great lengths to investigate these cases and find out who was responsible, while the whole system was indicted for allowing such individual tragedies to happen in the first place.
The same thing is likely happening now in the welfare system. It is likely happening here in Massachusetts where the dumping grounds would be New Bedford and other struggling cities. The parallels to "granny dumping" are almost perfect until we get to the part about the investigation into who is responsible.Already there are reports that social workers in Boston are directing that city's poor to New Bedford to look for affordable housing, and that the poor are doing exactly that. The numbers are sketchy, but one good estimate comes from Joseph T. Andrade, community organizer for Catholic Social Services in New Bedford. He puts the figure at 40 to 50 families that already have relocated to New Bedford. "But there's no jobs here to help these folks," he told our reporter.

It is bad enough that the coming December cutoff of welfare benefits to some 800 families, like some perverse Christmas gift, will likely throw this city's anti-poverty agency into crisis. People Acting in Community Endeavors already is wondering how far already scarce resources will be able to go when people start falling through the safety net because they couldn't find jobs before the two-year cutoff point for benefits. But now New Bedford has to worry about what to do with dozens of transplanted families, down on their luck, arriving here from Boston when that city failed to meet their needs.

Boston wouldn't be sending families here for the opportunities, not with 10 percent unemployment and an economy still waiting for the incoming tide. It would be sending them for cheap housing, and to be rid of them.
Let us make something quite clear here: New Bedford welcomes everyone who chooses to live here. The people of New Bedford are not about to turn people away. The people of New Bedford are generous and caring and will do their utmost to look after everyone who needs help. The people of New Bedford aren't looking to fob off their problems on an unwitting city somewhere else.
But at some level people in Boston may be doing just that and we would like to have some questions answered.First of all, we would like to know how widespread the practice is and who is making the suggestion. We would be appalled were we to learn that city officials had decided that shuffling the poor to other cities is a sanctioned remedy for Boston housing problems. We would also like to know whether any one at the state level is paying attention. The Department of Transitional Assistance, the optimistically renamed welfare office, trumpets the dramatic decrease in welfare cases.

But is anyone tracking the outcome of these cases? Is anyone in that department aware of a housing shuffle now going on? If so, then what, if anything, is being done about it? It would be wrong but not illogical to suggest New Bedford to a needy family in Boston. If one looks only at housing prices, New Bedford certainly is a much more affordable place to live.But are housing officials not obligated to look beyond their noses and see the whole picture? Is their only mission to ease the caseload, no matter at whose expense?
The issue cries out for immediate inquiry, just as "granny dumping" mobilized the health care sector to patch that hole in the system. If people in Boston are callous enough to export social problems to cities that it looks down upon, then it is up to the state government to step in and end the practice. The Cellucci Administration and the Legislature ought to make sure that one city's problems aren't sloughed off to other cities ill-equipped to deal with them.

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.
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