Morning Upper: Henrietta Hughes

TNG Founder Ben submitted this post.

Mornings Suck. So every morning TNG brings you a video to ease the pain.

Henrietta Hughes is being hailed as the "face of the economic crisis," and is becoming a media star since reaching out to President Obama at a town hall rally in Fort Myers, Florida.

"I have an urgent need, unemployment and homelessness, a very small vehicle for my family and I to live in. The housing authority has two years waiting lists, and we need something more than the vehicle and the parks to go to. We need our own kitchen and our own bathroom. Please help."

Hughes said she's homeless after her son lost his job in computer programming and, subsequently, their home. She is on disability due to cancer, and although her son has been looking for work, he hasn't found any. This video isn't much of an upper, but the response has been. Apparently, the offers to help have been pouring in.

It takes a lot to make a single-mother crack because they know others rely on them to be more than mortal. I went to sleep on Tuesday night thinking of Henrietta. When I see poor women hurting I can't shake the dead feeling in my chest, because in them I see my mom and the struggle she went through working herself ragged by sewing fabric, ironing clothes, and cleaing piss off the toilet seats of suburban families so I could be clothed and fed. Sometimes I think this financial crisis might be just the wake-up call we need to reorient our priorities, but for the thousands of Henriettas out there whose priorities have always been quite clear, it only means more suffering.