Obama: What's going on with Cairo, Illinois' abandoned hospital?

In his book Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama wrote eloquently about his 2004 visit, with Senator Dick Durbin, to the impoverished town of Cairo (pronounced KAY-roh) Illinois, which had a history of unhappy racial relations.

I will revisit Cairo at the tail-end of my ongoing "My Mississippi Manifest Destiny" series.

Cairo is at the far southern tip of Illinois, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers; it has been steadily losing population since the 1920s.

Obama was in Cairo for a Senate campaign appearance, and a big crowd was there, thanks to the efforts of Ed Smith, a Cairo native who was then the Midwest regional manager of the Laborers' Union.

Obama writes in "Audacity":

We discussed what might be done to restart the area's economy and get more money into the schools; we heard about sons and daughters on their way to Iraq and the need to tear down an old hospital that had become a blight on downtown.

On the next page, Obama recalls a conversation two years later with Robert Stephan, one of the senator's downstate field directors:

I mentioned to Robert the progress we'd made on tearing down the old hospital in Cairo--our office had started with the state health department and local officials--and told him about my first visit to the town.

That's how the hospital, once known as St. Mary's Hospital, looked a week and a half ago. It has been cleaned up, the building was an environmental hazard, and before it could be torn down, the mess had to be dealt with.

Now what? I don't know. Homeless people were living in the building before the clean-up, and to me, it looks like the old hospital would be pretty easy for homeless people to break in move back in.

There's talk of converting the building into a nursing home or assisted-living center, or even apartments for employees of a rumored coal-gasification plant who may be in need of housing.

Interesting. Senator Obama had a chance to advance coal-gasification in 2005, but he voted against the Clear Skies Act, which died in committee, the final vote was 9-9.

The Southern Illinoisan reported on that vote in 2005:

Obama said he could find no evidence the legislation would bring jobs. Obama was one the nine committee members who stalled the measure from moving to the senate floor.

Although Obama bragged to a Montana audience that he's from a coal state, his stance on coal has been anything but clear.

If a coal gasification facility does come to Cairo, in my opinion, it will be in spite of Obama's efforts, not because of them.

Meanwhile, Cairo's old hospital, four years after he first heard about it, is still abandoned, and still has not been torn down. Across the street from the hospital is the former Community Health Services Center.

Related post:

Obama and the Laborers' Union Ed Smith

Technorati tags: democrats elections Barack Obama Obama Politics Senate Illinois mining coal environment Laborers Union Southern Illinois poverty Coal Gasification Durbin