Homelessness for Berger is a combination of personal circumstances and government policy. As the story unfolds, we see the Berger struggling with the day to day realities of both homelessness and poverty. The family is able to get by because they are supported by state and federal programs:

They live mostly on Bessie's $375 monthly Social Security check, Charlie's $637 disability payments, Larry's $300 food stamp allocation and cash from bottles and cans they collect and recycle.

However, the meager amounts are not enough to provide stability. I wondered what the deal was with Berger's two grown sons - why were they all in the same position as their mother? The article explains that both sons have their own issues:

Charlie worked in construction and as a painter before becoming disabled by degenerative arthritis. Larry was a cook before compressed discs in the back and a damaged neck nerve put an end to it. Twenty-six years ago, he began working as a full-time caregiver for his mother through the state's In-Home Supportive Services program.

That ended about four years ago, when the owner of a Palm Springs home where they lived had to sell the place. At the same time, the state dropped Larry and his mother from the support program, he said.

The three have tried at various times since to get government-subsidized housing. But they have failed, in part because they insist on living together.

They say they have driven the Suburban around the state looking for a housing program that will accommodate them. They have been in Los Angeles about eight months, following a stint in the Concord area.

The story hints at other personal issues that are not covered. After all, if Larry is a home health aide, why is he not able to find employment in that sector to help with expenses? And what about Berger's other six children?

Bessie spent her young adulthood in Northern California and worked as a packer for the National Biscuit Co. until she was in her 60s. She gave birth to 11 children, eight of whom are still living. She remains in contact only with Charlie and Larry, who were both born in San Francisco, grew up in Santa Rosa and have high school educations.

Questions aside, this article is new take on policy issues of state support and how it is applied. For example, take the issue with receiving Section 8 housing:

They thought Bessie had finally qualified for federal Section 8 housing — she had been promised a rental voucher, they say. But then she needed surgery to replace a pacemaker and spent three months in a recovery center. Housing authorities in Northern California awarded the voucher to someone else during her absence, according to her sons.

Living in the front seat is miserable, she said. Still, she is glad to at least have that.

The Berger's have a complicated story. Clearly, there where times in which the state has dropped the ball on providing needed services. The Bergers may be entitled to more benefits than they currently receive, and it was the closure of another state program that thrust them into homelessness.

However, there are many parts of the story that still remain a mystery. What happened between Bessie Mae and her other six children? Why are they no longer in contact? And why would her sons not want their mother to at least have a place to rest, even if they cannot share the space with her?

Unfortunately, in situations like this, there are no easy answers.

Woman, 97, Has A Front Seat To Homelessness [LA Times]

[Los Angeles, March 15. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

However: we did find one review from the LA Times which reads like a memorized run-down of a typical episode from a fan, with a reference to a contestant's shorts thrown in to up the legitimacy factor. Anyway, we'll all be watching tonight, with a wrap-up (courtesy of Dodai) to come tomorrow.

UPDATE: As some of you noted, there was another review in the Washington Post! So Bravo execs got around to sending screeners to two newspapers, great job. But! The Washington Post reviewer, Robin Givhan, will be discussing the episode tomorrow and the public can submit questions for her to answer about Project Runway! Maybe you could ask why she got a screener but other newspapers didn't? Or what the new catchphrase will be.

How Bravo Is Sabotaging Project Runway [Jossip]
Why All The Mystery, Project Runway? [Boston Herald]
Project Runway Fifth Season Premiere [LA Times]
Project Runway Returns With Gently Worn Concept [WaPo]

The thing is, by all reports and video I've seen, Chelsea's actually kicking ass and connecting on a personal level with voters in a way that her mother and many other more senior surrogates aren't. She's 28, she's smart as hell and she possesses the ability to speak off-the-cuff (and well) on a variety of wonky policy issues — and she very, very pretty, which doesn't hurt. What she doesn't have is the ability to see that she probably ought to stop shunning reporters, because if she does stop, they'll give her more flattering coverage. Just like they already do the McCain ladies.

Cindy McCain's Life Away From The Campaign [LA Times]
Campaign Trail Gets Bumpy For Chelsea Clinton [LA Times]
Top Clinton Hand Shields Chelsea [Politico]

Well, other people are saying something. Yesterday, McNamara wrote a follow-up to her article, claiming that "E-mails have been pouring in from frustrated television viewers grateful for the chance to talk about this 'elephant in the living room.'"

When we see bad things happen to good faces, when cosmetic decisions interfere with performances, I think we need to speak out. Otherwise the younger generation will think that a fish-mouth smile and those shiny cheeks are normal and that the Posh Beckham look is something to aspire to ... I wish everyone would stop not only because the sight of some ill-advised surgery or injection can wreck a perfectly OK television show, but also because I am afraid we will forget what normal looks like.

On TV: Botox. Face-Lifts. Reconstructive Surgery., Cosmetic Surgery Freaks Out L.A. Times Readers Too, Critic Finds [LA Times]
Happy Birthday Botox [Daily Mail]
A New Reason to Frown [Newsweek]

Boston Globe:

Lohan's performance, by contrast, is so superficial that you hate Rachel more at the end of the movie than you did at the start, and that can't be right....It takes real time and effort to trivialize incest. "Georgia Rule" does it in just 113 minutes.

Village Voice:

Georgia Rule might profitably be retitled The Lindsay Lohan Story, but peeking out from all the strutting and preening is a strong, decent person in the making. With luck that same person may yet rise up to deliver Lohan—whose well-documented freak-out occurred on the set of Georgia Rule—from her off-screen antics.

Salon:

[T]here's something unsavory about the way it uses a character's emotional and psychological scars as a gimmick, a way for us both to enjoy the vision of Lohan in a series of skimpy baby-doll mini-dresses even as we're ultimately supposed to murmur, "Poor little thing, no wonder she's so sexually precocious!..."Georgia Rule" made me, a full-fledged, life-in-the-slow-lane grown-up, feel like acting out; maybe it had the same effect on Lohan.

Washington Post:

Lohan..[is] 20 and looks about 35. With her fully developed woman's body, her potty mouth, her makeup-slathered eyes and a wardrobe of frilly, feathery things that just keep slipping off, she looks like she's just in from a night of drunken clubbing. You wonder: What is this adult doing in this child's role? She should be running a brothel in Nevada, not working in a vet's office.

God, we love Fridays.