The White House Correspondence office receives thousands of letters from Americans who have taken the time to sit down and write to their president. Obviously, not all of them find their way to the President. But which ones really do and why?

This particular letter to President Obama came from a woman in Arizona whose husband lost his job. He was able to find work, but with one-third the pay and the family is struggling to make their mortgage payments.

“She said they had made all their mortgage payments, but were running out of money,” recalled senior adviser David Axelrod said. “And they were told they could not renegotiate unless they were delinquent in their payments.” As this letter illustrated a policy challenge, President Obama read it, absorbed the lesson, made copies of his letter and “sent it to his financial team and said, ‘This is the kind of person our housing plan should help,”.

On Obama’s request in his first week in office, every day he is handed a special purple folder containing ten letters “representative of people’s concerns”. While most letters have been on the stimulus package and the economy, a smaller number address other issues, such as the environment, health care, education, foreign affairs, or nuclear proliferation. Some letters simply have a supportive message or inspirational story to tell. Maybe two or three letters each day, the President responds to in his own hand.

It is heartening to note that this President refuses to be isolated in the White House or get trapped in the DC bubble and still remains in touch with real people and their real problems.

Via : ABC News