Eric Sheptock, the media-savvy “Homeless Homeless Advocate,” has posted a 14-minute video detailing the events of 2011 in Washington, D.C. He gives a little of the back-story of homeless activism in the nation’s capitol, especially the years-long battle for the Franklin School Shelter which was finally closed. (Recently, an attempt was made to re-occupy it, which is a whole separate story.)

Yes, Washington has initiated a permanent housing program, but when the last count was made (January 2011), the capitol city of the greatest country in the world still contained at least 6,546 people experiencing homelessness.

Sheptock makes a conclusion and offers a solution:

In spite of the programs that are being created, we can’t seem to house people more quickly than they become homeless… We need to figure out how people are becoming homeless, and we need to capture them before they enter shelters

The analogy he makes is a leaky water supply in a house. Sure, you mop the floor — but first, you shut off the water. “You stop the flow into homelessness and then you clean up what you already have,” says Sheptock. Hopes were raised when Washington acquired a mayor who came to the position via the Department of Human Services. Unfortunately, the effect of that coincidence was negligible, because in April the mayor’s budget proposal indicated a $20.5 million shortfall for homeless services because of a reduction in federal funding.

Somehow, D.C. shelters had been managing to operate year-round. But the budget cuts would mean that they would scale back to only being open during the five coldest months of the year, which is the bare minimum required by the city’s law. It looked for a while as if all the shelters in Washington were fated to close in April of 2012, not to reopen again until November.

After the mayor’s announcement, 250 activists showed up at City Hall urging the government to find the money somewhere. A sub-group from Coalition of Housing and Homeless Organizations started meeting even more often at the Community for Creative Non-Violence, where Sheptock lives. The upshot, as described in one of his website reports, was:

After we put enough public pressure on them, they found $17 million for shelter (while taking $18.4 million from the fund that creates affordable housing — an asinine move, to say the least). We thought that the shelters were saved (and lamented the loss of funding for affordable housing).

This same blog entry also critiques a couple of other federal institutions, starting with the president, who visited what is probably the country’s largest shelter without saying anything about what he planned to do about ending homelessness:

It only took him 2 years and 8 months of being in office to ride the 1 mile or so from the White House to the shelter which sits right on the edge of Capitol Hill… Still, that’s more than I can say for the U.S. Department of Labor. Their building is right across the road from this ginormous shelter and they’ve yet to walk over and see what they can do to employ its residents.

Of course, there are more problems. Federal funding for Section 8 housing vouchers in Washington was threatened with a 50% cut, and then the cut was changed to a smaller proportion. That’s the kind of thing that passes for good news these days.

As we know, it takes time for the gathering and collation of statistics to catch up with reality. Sheptock gives the figures from the Washington metro area between January 2008 and January 2009, during which time the number of homeless families grew by 25%. He goes on to say:

All over the country, the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population is families… You see, when individuals become homeless, folks tend to blame that individual for their own missteps, whether it was drug addiction, or alcoholism, or not paying the rent, or some other personal vice. But when families become homeless, people tend to blame the economy. They’re more sympathetic to families that become homeless. But that sympathy doesn’t house people.

But hey — at least we’re not in Hungary! Last month, BBC News reported that Hungary has outlawed homelessness. Not only that, but its capitol city beats Washington, because Budapest has about 10,000 people experiencing homelessness. And the government has decided to solve that by making their very existence illegal, punishable by either a fine (money they obviously don’t have) or jail (which just costs the taxpayers even more money). Way to go, Hungary! The fact that America hasn’t quite reached such a point yet is, again, what passes for good news these days.

Reactions?

Source: “2011 State of Homelessness Address inour Nations Capital,” YouTube.com, 12/24/11
Source: “Obama Fails To Address Homeless Crisis While at Kitchen,” streatstv.blogspot.com/, 09/15/11
Source: “Hungary outlaws homeless in move condemned by charities,” bbc.co.uk, 12/01/11
Image by Daquella Manera (Daniel Lobo), used under its Creative Commons license.

The homeless community and the Occupy movement agree on many points:

— The yawning chasm of wealth disparity is not to be tolerated.
— People need jobs.
— Corporate greed is at fault. (Maybe not all corporations. Greedy ones, definitely.)
— Also guilty is the whole mess with the banks and the foreclosures.
— There needs to be a separation of money from politics, and vice versa.

Still, some cosmically absurd things have been going on. A bunch of protesters take over a private or public space, to bring attention to their oppressed status. They are supported by some and vilified by others, who are even willing to use force to make them leave. The protesters’ cause is just, and all right-thinking people ought to agree with them.

Then… a bunch of people experiencing homelessness comes into that occupied space, and their claim is a legitimate one, of even more oppressed status. They are supported by some, but others would prefer that they stay out. The homeless people’s cause is just, and, to their way of thinking, all good people ought to support it. What a situation!

What happens when Occupy gets occupied? Sometimes, the homeless are treated as intruders and hazardous nuisances. They are said to jeopardize the legitimacy of the Occupy movement. From that standpoint, it’s a public relations nightmare. But the news is not all bad.

From Boston, MA, John Zaremba reports that the city will not act to prevent Occupiers from spending the winter on Dewey Square, as long as rules for public safety are observed, including a ban on open fires and kerosene heaters. The reporter interviewed a logistics and supplies person from the Occupy Boston camp, Kristopher Eric Martin, who said of the homeless members:

These guys are experts at staying warm and staying dry. All these guys are used to living on the streets and sleeping with one eye open.

Among the helpful hints offered by the people experiencing homelessness: Extra protection from the cold can be obtained by stuffing hay or straw between layers of clothing. First off, where do urban street people get hay and straw? Good grief, what story will we see on TV on Christmas Eve? News of a homeless person arrested for taking the straw out of a church’s nativity scene to insulate their clothing?

Remember Otzi the Ice Man, the 5,300-year-old frozen corpse found in the Alps? He wore a cloak of woven grass, and his shoes were stuffed with grass and moss for warmth.

So, here we are in America in 2011, with some citizens teaching other citizens the survival skills of a Neolithic hunter. Now, that’s progress.

From Seattle, WA, Paula Wissel wrote about the ongoing struggle concerning Westlake Park, where protesters continued to stay despite being officially forbidden. The mayor has been ambivalent. He sympathizes with the protesters, but there are local residents and businesses to consider. Apparently, the movement has sparked some hope among the city’s urban indigent people. The reporter sought an opinion from a citizen named Delmar Bryant:

He says he’s lived on streets all over the Northwest. He believes Occupy Seattle is the start of something special.

The situation in Atlanta, GA, seems to be kind of strange. Early last month, Gwynedd Stuart titled a post, “Occupy Atlanta uniquely OK with homeless ‘interlopers.’”

Well first of all, Atlanta is not so unique in being okay, as we have seen. But here’s the unusual slant. Stuart speaks of:

… Occupy Atlanta’s acceptance of the homeless — which is probably best demonstrated by the decision to actually move into a homeless shelter…

Apparently, when demonstrators were ejected from Woodruff Park, about 100 of them moved into the top floors of the Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter, where around 600 homeless people already lived. In other words, Occupy Atlanta occupied the homeless shelter.

The controversial shelter’s future was already precarious. Later in the month, Bob Cramer, who was chairman of Atlanta’s Task Force for the Homeless for 14 years, wrote:

With the loss of so much public housing, low-income Atlantans have few choices and little hope. With the possible loss of the Peachtree-Pine shelter, homeless people may once again need to use Woodruff Park as a refuge, perhaps standing shoulder to shoulder with Occupy Atlanta, perhaps to die once more on our streets.

Eugene, OR, is on the cusp of major change, with an upcoming vote on whether to allow continuing life to a large encampment of people experiencing homelessness. Edward Russo reports:

The council is to vote on whether to let Occupy Eugene continue its camp of mainly homeless people in Washington-Jefferson Park… The protest group wants to remain in the park and work with city officials to find a place to build a permanent camp for the homeless.

The settlement is said to consist of between 150 and 200 people, some protesters and the rest representing a very small fraction of the city’s estimated 4,000 homeless people. The occupiers want to help collect donated materials and build kitchens, showers, and necessities. But opinions differ of the advisability of this. City Councilor Chris Pryor, who works for United Way, told the reporter:

I am part of the human services world that doesn’t think living in a tent is a step to solving homelessness. The long-term solution is to get people into jobs and housing.

On the other hand, St. Vincent de Paul Director Terry McDonald told Russo:

Occupy Eugene has engaged homeless youth. The group’s gatherings and workshops in the campsite are giving the youths something to do other than simply try to survive on the streets… bringing them from a more feral society to one that is more civil…

House the Homeless has communicated with dozens of Occupy groups throughout the nation, encouraging them to get behind the Universal Living Wage. Richard R. Troxell says:

According to the last several U.S. Conference of Mayors reports, no one working at a full-time minimum wage job can afford to get into and keep a one-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, this will result in 3.5 million homeless minimum-wage workers this year alone.

The situation is summed up by a comment from “Kiddo”:

Homeless Americans most directly represent the impact of our exploited brokedown financial system. Their very living situation IS part of the protest. That they lack regular shelter and means, and are (unfortunately) available to protest via occupation is to all our benefit…. We all have a place in this movement.

Reactions?

Source: “Occupiers turn to homeless for tips,” Boston Herald, 10/19/11
Source: “Homeless find home at Occupy Seattle, so is it still a protest?,” KPLU.com, 10/10/11
Source: “Occupy Atlanta uniquely OK with homeless ‘interlopers,’” clatl.com, 11/01/11
Source: “25 years of poverty vs. power,” ajc.com, 11/25/11
Source: “Homeless find ally in Occupy,” RegisterGuard.com, 12/11/11
Image by Kalinago English (Karenne Sylvester), used under its Creative Commons license.

Barbara Ehrenreich published a very significant book called Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. More recently, she pointed out the similarities between the Occupy political protesters and people experiencing homelessness, who both engage in urban camping:

Homeless people confront the same issues every day: how to scrape together meals, keep warm at night by covering themselves with cardboard or tarps, and relieve themselves without committing a crime.

Whoever defined the three basic needs of humans as food, clothing, and shelter, could have been more accurate. For starters, clothing and shelter are both subsets of the same class, coverings to protect the body from the elements. Clothing and shelter have more similarities than differences. There are places where people get along pretty much without clothing, and even places where they can survive without shelter. There are situations where either clothing or shelter will do. So, neither of them can be called an absolute necessity at all times and places.

But nobody survives without going to the bathroom (or the vacant lot or alleyway, if necessary.) It would be much more in alignment with reality to define the three basic needs as food, body covering, and elimination.

Ehrenreich goes on to say:

As the Occupy Wall Streeters are beginning to discover, and homeless people have known all along, many ordinary and biologically necessary activities are illegal when performed in American streets — not just urinating but sitting, lying down and sleeping.

This is what Richard R. Troxell says when inviting members of the various Occupy groups nationwide to consider the Homeless Protected Class Resolution and the Universal Living Wage as issues to coalesce around. Excerpts follow:

We certainly know the pain of homelessness here in Austin. As hard as we are working to end homelessness by getting people mental health care and safe, decent, affordable housing, there are still thousands of folks right here in the Austin area that are sleeping in their cars and living on our streets and in our woods.

While they are experiencing the trauma of losing their homes and being separated from their loved ones, they are getting ticketed, abused, their cars and belongings stolen and arrested… We fixed the No Sit No Lie ordinance… We can fix this as well.

Ehrenreich, in fact, specifically mentions Austin as exemplary, before summing up:

In Portland, Austin and Philadelphia, the Occupy Wall Street movement is taking up the cause of the homeless as its own, which of course it is. Homelessness is not a side issue unconnected to plutocracy and greed. It’s where we all could be headed — the 99%, or at least the 70%, of us, every debt-laden college grad, out-of-work schoolteacher and impoverished senior — unless this revolution succeeds.

There is, in some quarters, debate over whether the homeless qualify as bona fide Occupy protesters. The answer seems obvious: they are certainly not members of the elite, all-possessing 1%. An anonymous commentator asks readers to think deeply about the difference between the homeless and the Occupy protesters, reasoning that what’s good for one is good for the other:

I have entrepreneurial spirit and I’ve decided to start a homeless camp along the river in Harrisburg… I’m going to buy some $99 tents, then charge the homeless, say, ten bucks a night… When the police show up to displace the homeless, I as their spokesperson, will insist that this is merely a protest. And we have the right to occupy as long as we want, just like our bothers and sisters down the street… I do not understand how any city can roust homeless folks when the occupy crew get to do whatever they want. And heaven forbid we should trample on their rights.

This person meant to be sarcastic, but you know what? Heaven forbid we, as a society, should trample on the rights of either the protesters or the people experiencing homelessness.

Reactions?

Source: “Tomgram: Barbara Ehrenreich, Homeless in America,” TomDispatch.com, 10/23/11
Source: “Treating the Homeless the Same As Protesters,” whptv.com, 1/18/11
Image of Invisible Homeless used under Fair Use: Reporting.

The relationship between homelessness and business is multi-faceted. Traditionally, the union and the factory owner in a company town had a certain kind of relationship, and the relationship between an apprentice and his boss, the craftsman, was something else.

In the past, employment often guaranteed a place to live, even if it meant sleeping on a floor. Today, when business and society cause homelessness, one of the results is even more underpayment. Any employer who can offer living quarters can get away with paying peanuts because the fear of homelessness is so pervasive.

Then, when the government gets into it, there is a whole new set of relationships, causes, and effects. Things are complicated because small businesses are different from big businesses. Today, giant corporations can influence the amount of homelessness in any city or state. Then, there are contract workers, independent professionals, and other kinds of workers.

The relationship between homelessness, business, and government shows up in different ways, both obvious and subtle. Obviously, underpaid or unemployed workers are at greater risk for losing their places to live. Some are the “economic homeless,” working full-time or even more, and still unable to afford housing.

The situation in the Antelope Valley is very interesting because it’s a microcosm that displays so many of the things that are wrong nationwide. Wrong how? Wrong in promoting homelessness. Across America, everybody is running around scratching for limited dollars to try and alleviate the ugly consequences of homelessness. This section of California is like a laboratory demonstration of the rapacious and coercive tactics that create homelessness.

Mars Melnicoff blew the lid off the situation in the LA Weekly with a piece called “L.A. County’s Private Property War,” with coverage so comprehensive, there is a major aspect of it we didn’t even mention yet. The thing is, an awful lot of truckers live in the area, independent operators who own their vehicles. Consulting DMV figures, Melnicoff estimates that in this small area, over a thousand people are directly supported by the 266 Class A drivers among its residents.

She interviewed Joe Rajkovacz of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and learned that 96% of the trucking industry is made up of small business owners, with 20 or fewer trucks. One-truck owners account for about half of all the registered motor carriers in the country.

The journalist quotes Rajkovacz:

A person owning one truck is not going to own a terminal … They live in the high desert… There’s a reason they live in rural, downtrodden areas — because that’s all they can afford.

Exactly. And they are mightily angered by the ignorance of the Nuisance Abatement enforcers, who don’t have clue about the trucking industry or the slightest understanding of why the huge, expensive vehicles need to be closely protected from vandalism and theft. Because of ridiculous codes, truckers are forbidden from parking in many places on the land they own out in the middle of nowhere. LA County labels their spare parts, tools, machinery, and construction materials as trash, junk, and debris, and uses that as an excuse to kick them off their own land.

Representatives of the government show up with guns and treat taxpayers like criminals, with no respect for their needs as small business owners or even for their rights as Americans. And every dollar the truckers lose in defending themselves against these incursions is a dollar they can’t spend on something else, so the domino effect rolls on to hit other local businesses.

Seems like the bureaucrats would think twice before messing around with truckers who, in this commercial nation, are responsible for bringing all the products from where they are made or grown to where they are sold. But no. A local resident told Melnicoff that the county government is “almost immune to common sense,” which is readily believable when some of their actions are pondered.

A typical story is of a trucker who has spent his off-season with his sister for years, parking his rig on her land in the midst of the desert nothingness. Which is fine with the sister, but not at all okay with the Nuisance Abatement Teams. The harassment and legal actions appear likely to continue until all the truckers, who are the backbone of everything America holds dear, are forced to abandon their properties and go elsewhere — or maybe nowhere permanent, winding up as just more drifters experiencing homelessness.

Reactions?

Source: “L.A. County’s Private Property War,” LA Weekly, 06/23/11
Image by Jesse Wagstaff, used under its Creative Commons license.

In “Creating Homelessness in the Antelope Valley,” we talked about how the residents of that part of Southern California are being systematically pushed out of their homes for some as-yet-unknown purpose. It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s a conspiracy that has pretty much been successfully accomplished already.

Mars Melnicoff of the LA Weekly did wonderful reporting on the domestic terrorism practiced by Los Angeles County’s Nuisance Abatement Teams. (For a brief introduction, see Reason TV‘s 10-minute video, “Battle for the Desert: Citizens Fight for their Right to Live on Their Land.”) The object is to make these people homeless, and typical language for these complaints says the property is substandard, and a public nuisance. Property itself can be convicted of being injurious to health or offensive to the senses. The big sin is when it “obstructs the free use of neighboring property so as to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life and property.”

A local couple had an old rowboat, destined to become a decorative planter. But the county came around saying a neighbor had registered a complaint about unsightly “debris.” The catch is, the Castanedas have no neighbors. Apparently, the government is wasting resources doing flyovers or beaming pictures from orbiting satellites, or some outrageous thing, to find a reason to make people tear down their homes.

Folks who repair machinery are made to get rid of inoperable cars and parts. It’s insane. People live in rough, inaccessible areas so they can do things like auto repair. That’s what the outback is for. It’s for people who like to “use it up, wear it out, make it do,” as the old saying goes; people who are into things like recycling. There is almost no way to maintain an attractive-looking storage area for objects meant to be recycled. The bins and containers made for the purpose are almost as ugly. But who cares, when the nearest neighbor is half a mile away? The county cares, very much.

One guy’s violation was having two seagoing containers on his property. It’s a very practical storage option, it’s recycling, it’s green… and it’s forbidden. A building at the end of a five-mile private road had to be moved because it wasn’t sufficiently “set back.” The officials make people do ridiculous, difficult, ruinously expensive things to comply, and then demand more and more, and end up throwing them out anyway.

We spoke before of how the authorities forced Kim Fahey and his extended family to leave Phonehenge West and destroy the home they built. Here is Fahey’s description (from a Facebook message) of how the predators descend:

The last time the County came out, just before they bulldozed the place, here’s who they arrived with… The D.A. and five armed bodyguards. Four sheriff N.A.T. Team guys with automatic weapons, three Fire Chiefs, Animal Control, Health and Safety, Regional Planning, Building and Safety… Nineteen in total. I say to them at my front gate, ‘You guys can’t come on my property without my attorney here!’ They walked right past me….

Fahey faces as much as five years in prison and was supposed to be sentenced in November, but the sentencing was put off again until February 10, 2012. Apparently, the reason for the delayed sentencing is that, once sentenced, he can file an appeal to put further demolition orders on hold. Meanwhile, the court can force demolition of other structures to continue. The main building on his property has already been destroyed, and there is a dispute with the demolition contractor who didn’t clean up as agreed, which adds more penalties.

California F.A.C.E.OFF. runs a lively blog full of spirit, whose description is,

A Grassroots Citizens’ Movement Dedicated to Restoring Property Rights by Exposing and Eliminating Abusive, Aggressive, Illegal and UnConstitutional Code Enforcement Practices…

Those practices are, of course, the very ones responsible for creating homelessness. California F.A.C.E.OFF. quotes one of the stories Fahey told about a neighbor on a recent radio show:

One morning a few months ago, he gets a knock at his door. He finds he’s being visited by a… ‘Nuisance Abatement Team’. The old man is informed by seven ‘officers’, each with bullet proof vests, fully-auto assault rifles and real attitudes, that he has to remove all offending trucks and equipment, or go to jail. The old man is then told he has to vacate the premises until he has complied with all of their requests. The old man, now homeless and scared to death, starts sleeping in one of his old trucks with his pets. It hits below thirty degrees. He makes a small fire to stay warm. His truck catches on fire and he burns to death with his pets.

There is even more to that particular ugly tale but you’ll have to go to the website to read it. House the Homeless also elicited more information about the perverse way in which the authorities use the residents’ animals as pawns in their quest to seize property.

A message from Fahey says,

It is so insidious what these County goons are doing, it’s almost beyond comprehension. In our situation, we placed all our animals at friends and family members, long ago, to thwart the N.A.T. Team goons.

Others? Not so lucky. A favorite tactic is to come out with twenty ‘Intimidators’ to run a family off. The first thing they do is have their animal control reps take possession of horses, dogs, goats, etc. ‘For health reasons’! They can say whatever they want.

Next, they red tag the ‘Unsafe home’, putting the people in the street. By the time you get into court, you’re already dead. Most trade their homes to get their animals back. End of story…

Naturally, we can’t leave the subject of homeless pets without recommending the 2012 House the Homeless Pet Calendar, which is a free download, with only the mildest, most subtle suggestion for a donation. And if you can’t donate, may you and your pets enjoy it anyway throughout the upcoming new year.

Reactions?

Source: “L.A. County’s Private Property War,” LA Weekly, 06/23/11
Source: “The Unsolicited Opinion on Code Enforcement!,” californiafaceoffmovement.blogspot.com, 06/29/11
Image by Kevin Lawver, used under its Creative Commons license.

Thanksgiving greetings to all the volunteers and donors who provide holiday dinners for people experiencing homelessness. We also honor those who attend to the nutritional needs of the homeless throughout the year through a variety of programs.

Not long ago, Fox News carried an article written by Rabbi Abraham Cooper about activist Jay Goldinger:

For the last 805 Sundays, he and a small cadre of volunteers have stood on the frontline of Los Angeles’ forgotten jobless and homeless population and delivered change we can truly believe in. Goldinger’s initiative called ‘Food on Foot’ does not merely give out food and clothing to the down and out but has helped turn many of them into productive taxpayers.

The method is described as a tough-love approach. The author relates how Goldinger will give a new participant a mirror and say,

Take a good in the mirror. You are looking at the enemy; the only person holding you back from a bright future.

There’s nothing wrong with telling people that. It’s what plenty of sages have told us, from Gautama Buddha to Sigmund Freud to Werner Erhard. Of course, technically, it’s only true some of the time. There are other things that can hold a person back.

Richard R. Troxell enumerates some of those things:

However, it perpetuates the stereotype that people experiencing homelessness are drug addicts. Let’s just suppose that if it were true, it does not change the fact that after they go about looking into that mirror and ‘turning their lives around,’ they will be returned to a world that pays them ‘slave wages’ that are so little, it prevents their escape from poverty.

And what if we consider for just a moment that it may well have been those ‘slave wages’ that caused them to lose hope, and cause them to turn to drug use, and possibly drug sales as their only escape for their situation? And what is the criminal charge for the Federal Government that created the ‘slave wage’ standard that drove them to using drugs and selling drugs in the first place?

And what about the employer who surrendered his ethical standard to a non-living, non-feeling, non-thinking, non-human institution? What criminal charge is there for the employer who is a real-life human being who hides behind this ‘thing’ and takes a worker’s wage for less an amount that affords him a roof over his head… other than a bridge?

Where is the righteous indignation? How can we expect to change the way the world looks at this if we don’t promote it like a steady drum beat?

At any rate, the purpose of the “Food on Foot” program is to motivate the participants to take responsibility for their actions. Actually, that’s an excellent principle for all of us to follow, and many would approve the fact that the program has never taken any funding derived from taxes.

Cooper goes on to say,

Backsliding is never rewarded. And there is another key component. Jay demands of everyone — random acts of kindness — like sharing some food, guiding a blind person across the street, helping an elderly person with their shopping… These simple acts challenge people clinging to the lowest rung of society to validate their self-worth and to realize that victimhood isn’t a coat that protects you from the elements but a straitjacket that locks you in to a cycle of misery.

Obviously, this is not a program for everyone. But for those who apply and are accepted, the success rate is said to be 89%. If that impressive claim is accurate, it’s a program that needs to be replicated.

In Seattle, Washington, they have FareStart, a nonprofit organization that has been training at-risk kids to work in the food industry, not as counter help but as actual chefs. Thanks to FareStart and the network it inspired, Catalyst Kitchens, a lot of homeless lives have turned around since 1992.

Associated Press reporter Gene Johnson lists the three goals pursued by these entities:

… feeding hungry people, providing housing and other support to those on the margins of society, and giving people the skills they need to lift themselves out of poverty.

Johnson interviewed some of the participants who are trying out new ways of interacting with society, like being on time, and being sober on the job, or at any point during the day. Some have been through anger management therapy and other self-improvement programs, and it appears that the overwhelming majority of students flourish and go on to brighter futures.

He also interviewed a staff chef, Sam Clinton, who was once a successful and well-compensated professional, until he became a homeless addict. And this quotation from Clinton is one of the most profound things ever said:

If you want to be sober, you need to be with people who want to be sober.

Reactions?

Source: “Could LA’s Jay Goldinger Hold the Key to Defeating Homelessness?,” Fox News, 08/20/11
Source: “Seattle program teaches homeless to feed hungry,” The Washington Times, 09/04/11
Image by Vadim Lavrusik, used under its Creative Commons license.

Eric Sheptock once revealed a thing that some people experiencing homelessness have found. On a special day, there can be too much bounty. In certain cities, it would be theoretically possible for a person to have several Thanksgiving dinners at different venues, and the donating organizations would still have food left over.

Earlier this month, journalist Jordan Schatz interviewed Sheptock and elicited what are, in his view, the five leading causes of homelessness:

… a lack of affordable housing, a lack of a living wage, domestic violence, medical bankruptcy and mental illness.

Sheptock is one of 1,350 residents of the Community for Creative Non-Violence, which is a stone’s throw away from the Department of Labor. The reporter quotes him as saying,

In spite of how close they are, the Department of Labor has never walked across the road to enter the shelter and ask the people in there how they can help them get any work. One of the biggest causes of homelessness is the lack of employment and the lack of a living wage. You’d think [the Department of Labor] would walk across the road and say, how can we help you to get employed?

Schatz must be thanked for reminding us of the history of the Community for Creative Non-Violence, which was created by Vietnam veterans as a tangible statement of their renunciation of violence as a solution to anything. Back in the early 1980s, hundreds of people were informally living in the building.

Sheptock is again quoted:

The feds came to remove the homeless and a guy named Mitch Snyder organized the homeless and went on a hunger strike, and they got the building from the Reagan administration. Mitch Snyder and Ronald Reagan signed a restrictive covenant to keep that building a shelter from 1988 to 2018, and it’s actually one of the best shelters in the city.

So, getting back to Thanksgiving, could a person be blamed for taking part in every banquet that extends an invitation? There must be a strong temptation to absorb as much nutrition as possible. Unfortunately, the human body doesn’t function well on a feast-and-famine cycle. Over-nourishment on one day doesn’t really do much long-term good for the system.

If a homeless person owned a nice set of plastic containers, a refrigerator, and electricity to run the refrigerator, holidays would be great. If a person waited until everyone had been served, and then asked the staff of the shelter or church for some leftovers to take away, and had a place to store food, these seasonal gifts would stretch farther, and holiday sharing could get more bang for its buck. But, of course, no refrigerator is available.

If there is a little extra at some holiday meal-sharing events, let no one interpret that as a reason to give less. Even if abundance exists in some places on a few days per year, it might not be that way in your town. Almost everywhere, the current holiday season is bound to be more needful than the last.

Thanksgiving is a day fraught with emotional traps and traumas even for people lucky enough to be housed and/or employed. Imagine how it feels to be homeless on Thanksgiving. Imagine that you want to help, but your own finances are pretty well tapped out, and you may even feel in danger of becoming homeless yourself.

When facing the evidence of homelessness, the housed citizen’s psyche becomes a battleground of warring emotions, as expressed in a poem by Eric Lawson. Out of hopeless frustration, the poet asks,

I am just one man… How do I help others when I cannot even help myself?

Now, imagine that there is a way to help others, and possibly even do one’s own self some good, and it doesn’t even cost a cent. Please become acquainted with the Universal Living Wage and sign the petition.

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Source: “Sheptock: Homeless because of no jobs; jobless because of no home,” DC Spotlight, 11/02/11
Source: “Peripheral Vignettes,” theericlawson.blogspot.com, 04/25/11
Image by dbking, used under its Creative Commons license.

Over the years, our Thermal Underwear Party has grown from a gift of warm clothes, a cup of coffee, and a dessert donated local bakeries to a three hour party with music from P.J Lyles and the South Austin Rockin’ Gospel Project with a hot lunch of ham or turkey, desserts, and coffee and cocoa.

We need your help this year with your donation of $25.00 for the HUGS (Hats, underwear, gloves, socks, and scarves) and if possible a donation to sponsor a honey ham from Texas Honey Ham.

For several years now, Texas Honey Ham has given HTH 3 hams to help with our lunch and HTH has purchased the rest to feed our 400-500 guests. At $6.99/pound, their wonderful hams cost between $49 and $70, feeding 10-22 people.

Sponsor a pound or two of ham today and feed a few people experiencing homelessness at the Thermal Underwear Party on Monday, January 2nd and support this local business.

Click the button below to donate online!

Last time, we looked at some of the bright spots in the homeless veteran situation. For example, by one count, over 2,400 nonprofit groups in America have programs for homeless veterans. Still, despite those and other good programs, the situation is still desperate.

For starters, there are public misconceptions. Some people have known vets who were very well cared for by Uncle Sam. Maybe some still are. But, overall, things are not looking good. People think, “Oh, they can go to the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars,” but there are strict limits to the available benefits. If the person was never awarded a Purple Heart, for instance, or never actually fought overseas, they don’t qualify.

Media-wise, the situation is unclear. Compare these two headlines that appeared within two weeks of each other:

Homeless veteran numbers drop by 55000: VA

Number of homeless veterans explodes

In the first one, Molly O’Toole reports for Reuters:

The number of homeless veterans on any given night has dropped by over 55,000, the Department of Veterans Affairs said on Friday.

The second headline belongs to a USA TODAY article, published only a few days later, in which Gregg Zoroya said,

More than 10,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are homeless or in programs aimed at keeping them off the streets, a number that has doubled three times since 2006, according to figures released by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The rise comes at a time when the total number of homeless veterans has declined from a peak of about 400,000 in 2004 to 135,000 today.

That report was based on the most recent (2009) count, which found 75,609 homeless veterans on a designated night. Slightly less than half of those people were sleeping rough, while slightly more than half were in shelters or transitional living facilities.

Over the year when the information was gathered, a significantly larger number of veterans were homeless for various lengths of time, because the number of those who spent at least one night in a shelter or transitional facility totaled 136,334.

Horror stories show up periodically, like the shooting of Thomas Higginbotham by police in Portland earlier this year. And, of course, there is always corruption. In June, Renee Dudley reported on the legal difficulties of the head of a nonprofit organization for homeless veterans in Charleston, SC:

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is investigating whether the former director of a North Charleston veterans’ homeless shelter broke federal laws by using taxpayer-funded grants to bankroll her own lifestyle… The auditors called Cook’s $130,000 annual salary and additional benefits ‘unreasonable when compared to like positions in the industry.’…

The audit also found that health insurance coverage for the shelter’s two paid employees… was paid entirely by the veterans’ grants… Recently released bank statements show Cook used the account to pay for a hotel stay at Folly Beach, downtown dining and yoga lessons…

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Source: “Homeless veteran numbers drop by 55000: VA,” Reuters, 07/15/11
Source: “Number of homeless veterans explodes,” USATODAY.com, 07/26/11
Source: “Veterans 50 Percent More Likely To Be Homeless, Study Shows,” The Huffington Post, 02/10/11
Source: “Nancy Cook focus of Veterans Affairs inquiry,” PostandCourier.com, 06/17/11Image by Valerie Everett, used under its Creative Commons license.