Trump Doesn’t Like So Many Anonymous Sources, and Neither Do These Journalism Experts

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Last week, when pressed to answer questions about reports that Jared Kushner set up back-channel communications with the Russian government, White House press secretary Sean Spicer frequently responded by considering the source—or lack thereof.

“I’m not going to dignify partisan accusations of anonymous sources and alleged—unsubstantiated attacks,” Spicer told reporters Tuesday during exchanges that became testy at times when answering questions about President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser.

The use of anonymous sources in stories critical of the president have been under the Trump White House’s skin for some time, though Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute, which studies journalism and the media, wasn’t sure there are more stories based on anonymous sources under Trump than past presidents.

“Anonymous sources are bad in theory, because generally, journalists should try to get people on the record,” Edmonds told The Daily Signal. “But sometimes that is the only way to get ledes and background. If a reporter stands on principle and says, ‘I will not do that,’ they will miss out on information.”

Edmonds said there is typically a different set of rules in Washington than at news outlets in other places.

Most of the anonymously sourced stories have been about alleged ties to Trump and Russia. Other frequent topics are about infighting in the White House.

During his speech in late February, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, Trump went so far as to accuse the media of making up anonymous sources.

“I’m against people that make up stories and make up sources,” Trump said. “They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use the name. ‘A source says Donald Trump is a horrible human being.’ Let them say it to my face. There are some great reporters, honest, talented as the day is long. But also dishonest people doing a disservice to the country.”

The Society of Professional Journalists tightened the organization’s code of ethics in 2014 to dissuade the use of anonymous sources. It calls for journalists to “identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources’ reliability,” and to “always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Clarify conditions attached to any promise made in exchange for information. Keep promises.”

The Associated Press Stylebook lays out the parameters for using anonymous sources. The stylebook says:

Under AP’s rules, material from anonymous sources may be used only if:

The material is information and not opinion or speculation, and is vital to the news report.

The information is not available except under the conditions of anonymity imposed by the source.

The source is reliable, and in a position to have accurate information.

Reporters who intend to use material from anonymous sources must get approval from their news managers.

Explain in the story why the source requested anonymity. And, when it’s relevant, describe the source’s motive for disclosing the information.

The story also must provide attribution that establishes the source’s credibility; simply quoting a source is not allowed. Be as descriptive as possible about the source of information.

“If you have to attribute facts to an anonymous source to nail down the story, that is one matter,” Edmonds said. “What I dislike is opinion, simply pushing negative opinions and using anonymity as cover.”

A major problem with nameless, faceless sources is that the motives of the leakers for the anti-Trump stories “might be pure, or could be poisonous,” wrote Brent Bozell and Tim Graham, of the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group. Regarding recent stories in The Washington Post, they wrote:

Earth to the Post: your new motto is ‘Democracy dies in darkness,’ but anonymous sourcing is darkness. Every source who hides behind a wall as he tries to ruin other people’s careers is a self-serving coward with a personal or political ax to grind. Without knowing an identity, the public has no way of telling … anything. It’s idiotic for the press to demand transparency in government at the exact same time it rewards government officials who refuse to be transparent themselves.

Journalists pat themselves on the back that they would never be ‘stenographers to power,’ but they’re worse than that now. In their zeal to destroy Trump, they’ve become stenographers to anonymous power.

The use of anonymous sources prompted controversy on the left and the right. In 2003, New York Times reporter Jayson Blair was fired for fabricating stories based in part on anonymous sources. Also, New York Times reporter Judith Miller came under heavy scrutiny for reporting—based largely on anonymous government sources—about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the Iraq War.

Paul Steiger, a former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal and founder of ProPublica, noted that leaks are absolutely needed to get to the truth.

“It is not the publishing of these secrets that threatens national security. Publishing these secrets threatens the secret-keepers,” Steiger said. “It protects the public interest by letting us know what powerful people are doing when they think no one is looking … We need more journalists revealing more secrets, not fewer.”

Margaret Sullivan, a media columnist for The Washington Post and a former public editor for The New York Times, noted famous instances of anonymous source usage such as Edward Snowden and surveillance of Americans during the Obama administration, going back to the Pentagon Papers and Watergate during the Nixon years. Sullivan wrote:

In a government increasingly obsessed with secrecy, and guilty of rampant overclassification, leaks are necessary and, largely, a very good thing.

And although there are legitimate national security concerns in some cases, I’d far rather live in a leaky America than one sealed up tight—with whistleblowers and journalists behind bars.

Identifying sources is particularly important today when so many people are throwing around the phrase “fake news,” said Andrew Seaman, the Society of Professional Journalists ethics chairman.

“The public has the right to know as much as possible about a story, including the messenger, who should be identified,” said Seaman, a journalist with Reuters.

He noted that Washington journalists were resistant to the change in 2014, and insisted anonymous sourcing is “the way Washington works.” The Society of Professional Journalists doesn’t have to approve of how Washington works, he added.

“Anonymous sources can be important, but journalists also need to be more aggressive and push a source to go on the record,” he said. “First ask, where else does this exist? It’s very rare that only one person knows about something in government.”

An example of using someone off the record to steer in the right direction would be the most famous anonymous source of all, Deep Throat of Watergate, who turned out to be the former No. 2 at the FBI, Mark Felt. He was never quoted in Washington Post stories by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, but rather guided them on where to look. That said, the Watergate stories still included many other anonymous sources.

Ultimately, government officials at the highest levels have an obligation to be transparent, he said.

“An uptick in anonymous sources often happens as access becomes more scarce with shorter and fewer press briefings,” Seaman said. “If the administration wants to cut back on anonymous sources, they will be more transparent and open.” (For more from the author of “Trump Doesn’t Like So Many Anonymous Sources, and Neither Do These Journalism Experts” please click HERE)

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How to Fully Realize the Potential of Medicare Advantage

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The House Ways and Means subcommittee on health will host a hearing this week on promoting integrated and coordinated care for Medicare beneficiaries. The committee will review how Medicare Advantage, the program of competing private health plans, is providing services for senior and disabled citizens.

This wide-ranging program includes, among other things, Special Needs Plans (SNPs) and other models for improving care delivery for our most vulnerable seniors and people living with disabilities.

The Congress is right to focus on seniors with special needs. In Medicare Advantage, this population is helped by three different types of SNPs: dual-eligible, or D-SNPs (qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid), chronic condition, and institutional.

Access to these plans remains high. Enrollment in these plans grew by 7 percent in 2016 alone and has grown from 0.9 million in May 2007 to 2.2 million in April 2016. The current SNP authority is set to expire at the end of 2018.

A key benefit of many Medicare Advantage plans is the provision of care coordination.

The care coordination helps patients access what they need and, for those senior and disabled citizens who are financed by both Medicare and Medicaid (dual-eligibles), the coordination between Medicare and Medicaid can provide more efficient care delivery at lower costs.

One care model out of Arizona concluded that it kept enrollees out of the hospital and produced fewer readmissions than traditional Medicare coverage.

If more widely adopted, this sort of care coordination could be especially helpful for patients facing multiple chronic conditions. This is significant because chronic illness is the biggest single driver of medical costs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about half of people in the United States had one or more chronic health conditions as of 2012, and that if these conditions were properly managed, the superior care delivery could reduce health care costs for Medicare and Medicaid by up to $125.5 billion.

Not surprisingly, the Senate Finance Committee recently reported out the CHRONIC Care Act, a bipartisan bill that will help Medicare beneficiaries facing chronic illness.

The intensifying congressional scrutiny on the potential of Medicare Advantage is especially well-timed. Medicare Advantage is the senior’s alternative to traditional Medicare, and it has been rapidly growing.

Today, Medicare Advantage accounts for almost one-third of the entire Medicare population. The reason: Medicare Advantage gives seniors better options than traditional Medicare.

Consider the most important. Unlike traditional Medicare, which is a defined-benefit program, Medicare Advantage is a far more flexible defined-contribution program, meaning that the government makes a per capita contribution to the plans that seniors choose.

These competing health plans offer a broader and richer range of medical services than traditional Medicare, including various preventive services, as well as care coordination and case management for persons with chronic illness.

Medicare Advantage, as documented by The Heritage Foundation, has other attractive features as well. It provides a broad range of personal choice. In 2015, for example, 99 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries had access to Medicare Advantage plans, and could typically choose from among 18 health plans.

Unlike traditional Medicare, all Medicare Advantage plans provide protection from the financial devastation of catastrophic illness. Not surprisingly, beneficiary satisfaction is higher than that of enrollees in traditional Medicare.

For beneficiaries and taxpayers alike, Medicare Advantage is economically efficient. According to Heritage analysis reports, Medicare Advantage plans deliver care at costs routinely lower than traditional Medicare costs.

In this context, it is also worth noting that Medicare beneficiaries often pay no more than the regular monthly Medicare Part B premium. In 2017, this will range from $109 to $134.

In fact, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the panel that advises Congress on Medicare reimbursement, a stunning 81 percent of Medicare beneficiaries had access in 2016 to at least one Medicare Advantage plan that included catastrophic coverage, as well as prescription drug coverage, with no additional premium over and above the standard monthly Medicare Part B premium.

By contrast, enrollees in traditional Medicare may have to pay an additional monthly premium for a Medicare prescription drug plan. Nationwide in 2017, the average prescription drug plan monthly premium is $42.17.

Because traditional Medicare has no catastrophic protection, and other gaps in coverage, beneficiaries must buy supplemental private coverage, such as Medigap coverage, and pay another additional premium.

Nationwide in 2017, the average Medigap monthly premium is $183.

Medicare Advantage has demonstrated the capacity of private plans to create innovative products for senior and disabled citizens, including those with chronic and complex medical conditions.

Congress should build upon this progress, expand Medicare Advantage’s platform for new payment and delivery models, and encourage the participation of health plans that hold promise of improving medical outcomes while reducing costs.

The program’s success can be a strong foundation for further reform of the giant Medicare program, especially through the adoption of a premium support model—a model based on Medicare Advantage’s system of defined-contribution financing and market-based competition. (For more from the author of “How to Fully Realize the Potential of Medicare Advantage” please click HERE)

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Meet the People Who Are Grateful for Trump’s ‘America First’ Climate Policy

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On Saturday morning, a diverse collection of people gathered in front of the White House to support President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.

While Washington, D.C., has been frequented by numerous anti-Trump protests since the 2016 presidential election, this event was overwhelmingly positive toward the administration.

Several of those interviewed said they were pro-Trump immigrants who were happy with the president’s “America first” policies.

One woman, Carmen Padilla, who was carrying a “Make America Great Again” sign, told The Daily Signal she was “so grateful that [Trump] had the courage to get out of these bad deals for America.”

While the rally-goers were positive toward Trump, most expressed similar opinions that the media has been unfair to the president and treated him differently than former President Barack Obama.

(For more from the author of “Meet the People Who Are Grateful for Trump’s ‘America First’ Climate Policy” please click HERE)

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‘The President Made It Sound Like…’ Leaked Documents Blow a Hole in Obama’s Russia Narrative

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Leaked NSA documents revealing that Russia engaged in election-related hacking efforts just days before the election directly contradict what former President Barack Obama told the American public.

Speaking at a year-end news conference in December, Obama told the public that Russian interference in the election ceased after he told Russian President Vladimir Putin to “cut it out” in early September. Russia’s cyberattacks stopped after warnings of “serious consequences” if they continued, Obama said.

“What I was concerned about in particular was making sure [the DNC hack] wasn’t compounded by potential hacking that could hamper vote counting, affect the actual election process itself,” Obama said. “So in early September when I saw President Putin in China, I felt that the most effective way to ensure that that didn’t happen was to talk to him directly and tell him to cut it out and there were going to be serious consequences if he didn’t. And in fact we did not see further tampering of the election process.”

“But the leaks through WikiLeaks had already occurred,” Obama said, indicating that any further election interference was the result of emails released by WikiLeaks in the days and weeks leading up to the election.

“The president made it sound like that worked,” The New York Times reported at the time, noting Obama’s claim that “we did not see further tampering of the election process.” (Read more from “‘The President Made It Sound Like…’ Leaked Documents Blow a Hole in Obama’s Russia Narrative” HERE)

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Kathy Griffin Proves She’s a Low-Rent Bully

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One of the enduring life lessons parents used to teach their kids was, “The best way to stop a bully is to fight back.” Time and time again, when you give a bully a taste of their own medicine, they break down and run to their parents. And blame you. Kathy Griffin just proved she is such a bully.

As practically the whole world knows by now, Griffin took part in a video-photo shoot in which she held aloft the severed prop head of Donald Trump. Even after the photos surfaced on TMZ, Griffin stood by her tweets. In a now-deleted tweet, she captioned the photo, “there was blood coming out of his eyes, blood coming out of his … wherever.”

After news coverage of the photos reportedly caused an 11-year-old Barron Trump to scream because he thought someone really hurt his father, his mother, Melania, went on the offense against Griffin, fighting back against her bully tactics. Facing mounting backlash, CNN ­— for whom Griffin has long hosted New Year’s Eve coverage — severed ties with the “D-List” comedienne.

Facing even more backlash from people on both sides of the political spectrum, as well as those in Hollywood, Griffin tried playing the victim card in a bizarre press conference Friday afternoon with her attorney Lisa Bloom.

During the press conference, both Bloom and Griffin tried to paint Griffin as the actual victim here. Griffin cried that “he [Trump] broke me,” with his family’s response to her loathsome behavior. This is a classic bully response. First you attack someone, and when they fight back you run to mommy and daddy – in this case, the press – and blame the person you attacked.

In the end, bullies only win when you let them. (For more from the author of “Kathy Griffin Proves She’s a Low-Rent Bully” please click HERE)

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Russia Probe Counsel Now Has Ex-Trump Campaign Chief in View

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The special counsel investigating possible ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia’s government has taken over a separate criminal probe involving former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and may expand his inquiry to investigate the roles of the attorney general and deputy attorney general in the firing of FBI Director James Comey, The Associated Press has learned.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told the AP in a separate interview that he would step aside from any oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller if he were to become a subject of Mueller’s investigation.

The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Manafort predated the 2016 election and the counterintelligence probe that in July began investigating possible collusion between Moscow and associates of Trump. Manafort was forced to resign as Trump campaign chairman in August amid questions over his business dealings years ago in Ukraine. (Read more from “Russia Probe Counsel Now Has Ex-Trump Campaign Chief in View” HERE)

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Pakistan Freezes Accounts of 5,000 Suspected Militants

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Pakistan has frozen the accounts of 5,000 suspected militants, taking about $3 million out of their pockets, but Islamabad could still come under scrutiny at a crucial June meeting of an international watchdog that tracks terror financing.

Analysts and government officials say political foot-dragging and sympathetic supporters throughout Pakistan makes it difficult to cut off the money supply to banned militant groups.

Next month in Spain, the Financial Action Task Force will update its assessment of “high-risk and non-cooperative jurisdictions,” Alexandra Wijmenga-Daniel of the task force’s communications department said in an email. She did not offer any specifics. (Read more from “Pakistan Freezes Accounts of 5,000 Suspected Militants” HERE)

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Political Correctness Won Trump the Presidency

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It’s been seven months. Still many of us are trying to understand how Trump won the election last fall. I sure didn’t see it coming. All the surveys predicted a Clinton victory. Trump did plenty to make him unattractive to large groups of voters. Racism was a special concern, due to his comments about Hispanic “rapists,” his flirting with white nationalism and his talk of Muslim bans.

Political Correctness: The Underlying Cause?

I have been, and I still am, concerned with the way Trump handles racial issues. So I was not surprised to see The Nation reporting research by Sean McElwee and Jason McDaniel suggesting racism as a major reason explaining support for Trump. But a further look at this claim is not convincing, since I knew there were large numbers of previous Obama supporters who voted for Trump in 2016.

So I thought a better answer could probably be found elsewhere. Looking around, I found this Clearer Thinking analysis of 138 factors that might have influenced voters to choose one candidate over the other. I have questions about the methods, but we’ll bypass those.

The key is that other than belonging to the Republican Party, the best predictor of whether a person voted for Trump was whether he or she hated political correctness (PC). More than half (54 percent) of Trump’s vote came from those who totally agreed that there is too much PC in America. This is in contrast to racial issues, such as immigration, for example. Only 21 percent of Trump’s vote came from those who totally agreed that immigrants threaten American customs and values.

This makes sense to me. The way Trump offended certain groups supported the idea that he would fight PC. I remember talking to Trump supporters who wanted to “burn it down.” I was confused by this at the time, but now I think what they wanted was to burn down PC rules. These were not racists, they were people who hated PC.

Can This Explain the Perceived “Racial Resentment”?

Of course there were still some Trump voters who were attracted to the white nationalist message they believed he was presenting. So I want to be clear: I am not saying racism played no effect in any of Trump’s support. But I fear that some researchers and reports overstate its importance in his election.

Concerns over PC also help to explain research supporting McElwee and McDaniel’s racial resentment argument. They created what they call a “racial resentment” measure, which they describe (rather abrasively) as, “Racial resentment measures dog-whistle or color-blind forms of racism, such as the belief that black people need to simply ‘try harder’ to be successful in America.”

I have my own criticism of colorblindness. I do not think we will advance our race relations by ignoring the effects of racism in our history, or the ways it still impacts people of color today. But when I debate the merits of colorblindness with others, I don’t usually see them as having racial resentment.

Questions about colorblindness may tap into hostility against PC rules, though, since many people think society is fair as it is, and that PC makes it unfair. For people who truly think that we have defeated racism, efforts to keep on addressing it can seem like “PC”. People who voted for Obama five years ago, and Trump last year, did not suddenly turn and start resenting blacks. But they may have grown tired of PC rules over that period of time.

Did Racism Put Trump in the White House?

Now, in the past I have attacked Trump for race-baiting. I’ve argued that Christians were wrong to support him in view of his connection with the alt-right. One may wonder, then, why I criticize the argument about racism. Am I backing down from my own arguments? Not really. I still think Christians are going to pay a price for supporting Trump. It will become more difficult to reach socially conservative people of color. We’ve also badly damaged our witness by tying ourselves to the white nationalism that buttresses Trump. So I have not changed: I have been a critic of Trump in the past and will be one in the future.

But the truth and honesty remain vitally important. The research shows that anti-PC attitudes explain whites’ support for Trump better than racism or anti-black resentment.

I know that many liberals want to tie Trump’s election to racism. I would have no problem doing so if I thought the evidence warranted it. But it does not. (For more from the author of “Political Correctness Won Trump the Presidency” please click HERE)

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Here Come the Drag Queens

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Make no mistake about it. From the moment gay activists came out of the closet in America, their agenda was clear: Society must get over its anti-gay sentiments and embrace everything gay — and I mean everything.

That’s why many of them were so brazen. They chanted, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.”

That’s why gay pride parades were marked by the most offensive elements of the gay community, even if they were not representative of the whole.

That’s why it was drag queens who led the way in the 1969 Stonewall Riots. They were part of the frontline resistance, and they were out, proud and unashamed.

The “Self-Policing Social Code”

To be sure, some gay leaders in the 1980’s realized that this was a self-defeating strategy. If gay activism was to achieve its goals, it would have to put forth a different image, a more family-oriented, less-promiscuous, less-bizarre image.

Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen articulated some of this new strategy in the book After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s (New York: Penguin, 1989, p. 145). They wrote, “The effect of presenting a bigot with an extreme instance of his stereotypic picture/label pair is to augment the strength of the bigotry.”

In other words, we were the bigots, and to present us with the most extreme images of the gay community was to confirm and even heighten our bigotry.

So, Kirk and Madsen called for a “Self-Policing Social Code,” with words of advice like this: “If I’m a Pederast or a Sadomasochist, I’ll Keep It Under Wraps, and Out of Gay Pride Marches.”

They also called for the “conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media” (p. 153).

And what would this propaganda look like?

Rather than exposing “bigots” like us to images of drag queens in their weird outfits or gay men gyrating in their underwear, we’d be bombarded by images of couples like Dan and Don, who’ve been together for 30 years, along with their adopted son Jason, and their pet dog Molly.

Do such gay couples exist? Of course. Are they more common than drag queens? Maybe so.

But statistics weren’t the issue. Image was the issue. And gay strategists fully understood that America would not embrace their goals as long as the most extreme elements of their society were at the forefront.

Transgender activists understood this strategy as well. That’s why they made a clear distinction between themselves and drag queens. “No, we’re not like them, and this has nothing to do with sexual orientation. We’re just normal people trapped in the wrong body, like little Sammy who’s really Sally.”

Americans could embrace that before they could embrace “Little Hot Mess” the drag queen.

But now that so many of the goals of LGBT activism have been realized, there’s no reason to push some of their own to the back of the bus, so to say.

And what does this mean, practically speaking? It means here come the drag queens.

Here Come the Drag Queens

It was drag queens who put pressure on Facebook in 2014 to change one of its fundamental policies, which required that you had to use your real name, not a made-up name. Before this time, drag queen John Doe could not use the name “Big Suzie Q,” which in his mind was his real name. Facebook apologized and changed its policy.

But that was minor compared to what’s happening today.

A concerned parent from Bloomington, Indiana wrote to me, saying, “Our local library always has a summer reading program for children.” Included was a link with this announcement for parents of children ages 2-6: “Learn about someone new! Local drag queens present stories and encourage us all to embrace our uniqueness.” Yes, for children ages 2-6!

This is perverse and outrageous. “Parents, bring your toddlers and little children to the library where local homosexual men who dress up as flamboyant women will read stories to them.” Here come the drag queens!

But it gets even worse. Much worse.

The Gyrating Drag Queen at a Grade School Talent Show

As Todd Starnes reports, “Parents are furious after children as young as 5-years-old were exposed to an erotic drag show performance at what was supposed to be a school district talent show.”

How bad was it? Take a moment to read some excerpts from the article.

“The New York Daily News described the lewd performance as ‘complete with gyrations, tongue gymnastics and a flashed G-string.’” (If this seems vulgar to read – and it is – can you imagine being there with your little kids?)

“The May 25th performance shocked and enraged parents who could not believe the school district would allow a grown man to spread his legs and display his crotch to wide-eyed children.”

One parent “filmed the seven-minute routine on her cell phone and provided me with a copy. It’s jaw-dropping, folks. And when the drag queen dropped to the floor and began writhing in a sexually-suggestive manner, the auditorium erupted.”

Did you get that? This perverse performance was 7 minutes long. In front of 5-year-olds. I’m shocked some parents didn’t walk right up to the stage and shut the whole thing down.

And what happened when this drag queen started writhing on the floor in a sexually-suggestive manor?

“Once he got to that part it was chaos,” parent Raquel Morales said. “People were yelling and leaving. A lot of parents were saying had they known this was going to happen they would have taken their kids out after they had performed.” I would hope so! This is absolute madness.

And how did such a degraded performance take place at all?

“The talent show was emceed by District 4 Superintendent Alexandra Estrella. And the individual who performed in drag was identified as the president of the Public School 96 Parent Association” (my emphasis).

This is sick, and this man needs serious help. (If you’re offended by my saying this, be offended. Truth is sometimes offensive.) The district superintendent needs serious help too. How can these people be trusted with such positions of authority?

The Cat is Out of the Bag

Now, I believe there are gay readers who are also upset as they read this account, saying, “That drag queen does not represent me. What he did is just plain filthy.”

Unfortunately, the cat is now of the bag, and if it’s gay (or trans), it’s got to be good.

That means if a gay couple is monogamish rather than monogamous, we’ve got to embrace it. Gay love is good!

And that means when a boy who identifies as a girl beats the girls at a track meet, we’ve got to celebrate it. You go boy-girl!

And that means when a drag queen wants to read stories to your two-year-old or, better still, gyrate and flash his G-string in front of your 5-year-old, you must show your appreciation.

In other words, our sentiments should be, “You’re here, you’re queer, and we’re used to it. In fact, we love it.”

Count me out of that one, friends. Enough is simply enough. (For more from the author of “Here Come the Drag Queens” please click HERE)

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How Work Requirements, Drug-Free Environment Saved This Single Mom’s Life

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It was two years ago when Amber Gann hit rock bottom.

“My oldest daughter had told me, ‘You’re a drug addict, and I don’t want to be with you,’” Gann told The Daily Signal.

Homeless, and also addicted to drugs and alcohol, Gann knew something had to change.

In May 2016, Gann, 36, enrolled in Solutions for Change, a nonprofit serving homeless families that takes a holistic, family-friendly approach to homelessness.

Unlike the federal government’s Housing First strategy for addressing homelessness, which prioritizes getting people sheltered before going after the root causes of why they’re homeless, Solutions for Change requires parents to work and remain drug-free.

But because of these requirements, the program can’t get federal funding.

Gann, having been through government-funded housing programs before where she was forced to live with current drug users, tells The Daily Signal why it took a drug-free environment to get her back on her feet. Watch in the video above. (For more from the author of “How Work Requirements, Drug-Free Environment Saved This Single Mom’s Life” please click HERE)

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