Recently, the homeless problem in Austin, TX got a lot more heated and troubling, when a homeless man allegedly began a large wildfire that destroyed or damaged almost 20 homes in a southwest Austin suburb. The homeless man reportedly had started a campfire to cook his breakfast and then had abandoned it for a while to go get beer. It was at this point that coals from his smoldering campfire allegedly caught the surrounding brush.
The reaction of the community has ranged from occasionally sympathetic for the plight of people forced to camp out in the Texas heat, to outright, vicious hatred of the homeless. Many people on the statesman.com website expressed hopes that the homeless would be removed or otherwise have their "problem" finally solved.
In addition to this, the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, decided to jump on the accused homeless man as an easy target to promote getting tough on the crime of arson, the conviction for which only carries 20 years in prison presently. Perry remarked that he didn't care whether the accused was homeless, because "arson" is a serious crime.
Now, adding to the increasing war of words between Rick Perry and President Obama over federal aid to Texas, statesman.com ran a peculiar double headline: "Texas gets $12 million for homeless programs; still no presidential declaration for wildfires". This appeared to suggest that President Obama was preferring to aid the homeless in Texas over providing approval of Governor Perry's latest disaster declaration for the state of Texas.
Perry has indicated he thinks Obama may be holding out on Texas, and complained he thought the President was inclined to help Alabama and other storm-sticken states before Texas.