Politics

Obama and Kenya: 1st Trip to Father’s Homeland as President

Published

9 years ago

July 23, 2015

In this Thursday, Feb. 5, 2008 file photo, a photograph of Barack Obama Sr., father of President Barack Obama, hangs on the wall of his step-grandmother Sarah Obama’s house in the village of Kogelo, near the shores of Lake Victoria, in Kenya. On Friday, July 24, 2015 Obama is due to arrive in Kenya, the country of his father’s birth, for the first time since he was a U.S. senator in 2006, and the first stop on his two-nation African tour in which he will also visit Ethiopia. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

JULIE PACE, AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Barack Obama visited Kenya for the first time nearly 30 years ago, he was astonished that an airport worker recognized his last name.

It was a striking experience for a young man — and future American president — struggling to understand how a country he had never seen and a Kenyan family he barely knew had shaped his identity.

“My name belonged and so I belonged, drawn into a web of relationships, alliances, and grudges I did not yet understand,” Obama wrote in his memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” about the airport encounter.

This week, Obama will make his first visit to Kenya as U.S. president, a trip that will bear little resemblance to the 1988 one, when he arrived aboard commercial flight and his luggage got lost. Now, Air Force One will take Obama to a country where children, roads and schools now bear his name, and the world leader is seen as a local son.

Yet traveling with the trappings of the presidency appears likely to diminish the fulfillment of a trip to his father’s homeland.

“I’ll be honest with you, visiting Kenya as a private citizen is probably more meaningful to me than visiting as president because I can actually get outside of a hotel room or a conference center,” he said last week, adding that his trip still would be “symbolically important.”

Security concerns and the logistics of presidential travel will keep Obama at a distance from most Kenyans. He will skip a visit to Kogelo, the rural village in western Kenya where his father was born and buried, and where his stepgrandmother and other family members still live.

Obama’s two days of events will be confined to Nairobi, the capital where he will meet with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, and speak to civil society leaders. On Sunday, he will go to Ethiopia.

Despite the limits on Obama’s movement and interactions with the Kenyan people, his visit is highly anticipated in the East African nation. Even as a U.S. senator, he was greeted by cheering crowds when he made his last visit to Kenya, in 2006.

Ahead of Obama’s arrival Friday, some Kenyans have adopted a rousing segment of an Obama speech as their cellphone ringtone. U.S. and Kenyan flags lined the road leading from Nairobi’s main airport.

Obama’s visit is like “a brother coming back,” said Nelly Ngugu, customer relations manager at a Nairobi cafe.

Before Obama’s travel plans were announced, there had been some disappointment that the U.S. president who has written and spoken emotionally of his Kenyan roots had not returned since taking office. Analysts questioned whether America’s first black president was missing an opportunity to give Africa more prominence in U.S. foreign policy.

Much of Obama’s international focus in his first term was on strengthening ties with Asia and trying to reset U.S. policy in the Middle East. His only visit to sub-Saharan Africa during his first four years in office was a short stop in Ghana.

At the time, there was persistent and inaccurate speculation that he was born in Kenya, not the United States. Some political opponents tried to use the rumors to undercut Obama’s eligibility for president. As late as 2011, a CBS/New York Times poll showed that one-quarter of all Americans believed Obama was not born in the U.S.

Obama’s re-election raised renewed hopes for a visit to Kenya, but the political situation there complicated those plans.

Kenyatta, the son of the country’s first president, was elected president in 2013, but faced charges in the International Criminal Court stemming from his alleged role in stoking ethnic violence following Kenya’s troubled 2007 election.

“The timing was not right for me as the president of the United States to be visiting Kenya when those issues are still being worked on and, hopefully, at some point resolved,” Obama said of his decision to pass over Kenya in favor of South Africa, Tanzania and Senegal during a 2013 trip to Africa.

The charges against Kenyatta were ultimately dropped, clearing the way for Obama to finally visit his father’s home country as president. With his arrival now imminent, the earlier disappointment appears to have faded, overtaken by anticipation and national pride.

In Kogelo, the Obama family’s home village, the family’s aging matriarch said even she would not feel bad if the president did not visit her. Sarah Obama, who Obama referred to as “Granny” in his memoir, said the president was coming to Kenya “to discharge his duty.

“He is a son here,” said the elder Obama, who was the second wife of the president’s grandfather. “I cannot be angered by him not coming to see me.”

___

Associated Press writers Christopher Torchia in Nairobi, Kenya, and Fred Ooko in Kogelo, Kenya, contributed to this report.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

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Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

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April 26, 2024

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MAYOR BREED ANNOUNCES $53 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT FOR SAN FRANCISCO’S HOMELESS PROGRAMS

San Francisco, CA – Mayor London N. Breed today announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded the city a $53.7 million grant to support efforts to renew and expand critical services and housing for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.

Published

1 week ago

April 20, 2024

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Mayor London Breed

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Contact: Mayor’s Office of Communications, mayorspressoffice@sfgov.org

***PRESS RELEASE***

MAYOR BREED ANNOUNCES $53 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT FOR SAN FRANCISCO’S HOMELESS PROGRAMS

HUD’s Continuum of Care grant will support the City’s range of critical services and programs, including permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and improved access to housing for survivors of domestic violence

San Francisco, CA – Mayor London N. Breed today announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded the city a $53.7 million grant to support efforts to renew and expand critical services and housing for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.

HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) program is designed to support local programs with the goal of ending homelessness for individuals, families, and Transitional Age Youth.

This funding supports the city’s ongoing efforts that have helped more than 15,000 people exit homelessness since 2018 through City programs including direct housing placements and relocation assistance. During that time San Francisco has also increased housing slots by 50%. San Francisco has the most permanent supportive housing of any county in the Bay Area, and the second most slots per capita than any city in the country.

“In San Francisco, we have worked aggressively to increase housing, shelter, and services for people experiencing homelessness, and we are building on these efforts every day,” said Mayor London Breed. “Every day our encampment outreach workers are going out to bring people indoors and our City workers are connecting people to housing and shelter. This support from the federal government is critical and will allow us to serve people in need and address encampments in our neighborhoods.”

The funding towards supporting the renewal projects in San Francisco include financial support for a mix of permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and transitional housing projects. In addition, the CoC award will support Coordinated Entry projects to centralize the City’s various efforts to address homelessness. This includes $2.1 million in funding for the Coordinated Entry system to improve access to housing for youth and survivors of domestic violence.

“This is a good day for San Francisco,” said Shireen McSpadden, executive director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “HUD’s Continuum of Care funding provides vital resources to a diversity of programs and projects that have helped people to stabilize in our community. This funding is a testament to our work and the work of our nonprofit partners.”

The 2024 Continuum of Care Renewal Awards Include:

$42.2 million for 29 renewal PSH projects that serve chronically homeless, veterans, and youth
$318,000 for one new PSH project, which will provide 98 affordable homes for low-income seniors in the Richmond District
$445,00 for one Transitional Housing (TH) project serving youth
$6.4 million dedicated to four Rapid Rehousing (RRH) projects that serve families, youth, and survivors of domestic violence
$750,00 for two Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) projects
$2.1 million for three Coordinated Entry projects that serve families, youth, chronically homeless, and survivors of domestic violence

In addition, the 2023 CoC Planning Grant, now increased to $1,500,000 from $1,250,000, was also approved. Planning grants are submitted non-competitively and may be used to carry out the duties of operating a CoC, such as system evaluation and planning, monitoring, project and system performance improvement, providing trainings, partner collaborations, and conducting the PIT Count.

“We are very appreciative of HUD’s support in fulfilling our funding request for these critically important projects for San Francisco that help so many people trying to exit homelessness,” said Del Seymour, co-chair of the Local Homeless Coordinating Board. “This funding will make a real difference to people seeking services and support in their journey out of homelessness.”

In comparison to last year’s competition, this represents a $770,000 increase in funding, due to a new PSH project that was funded, an increase in some unit type Fair Market Rents (FMRs) and the larger CoC Planning Grant. In a year where more projects had to compete nationally against other communities, this represents a significant increase.

Nationally, HUD awarded nearly $3.16 billion for over 7,000 local homeless housing and service programs including new projects and renewals across the United States.