Today, we’re looking around America to see what is being done in various cities about the National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. The news is encouraging. Many groups, both secular and faith-based, are taking on the responsibility for doing something useful to alleviate the growing problem of people experiencing homelessness. Here is a small sampling of what folks throughout the land are up to this week.

In Vero Beach, Florida, housed citizens take turns living in a car for 24 hours in a public place, while a local radio show broadcasts their reactions and sends out requests for donations to help the involuntary homeless, whose number in the area is estimated at 2,000. Volunteers staff 10 collection sites around the city to take contributions, and many businesses put on special events where part of the profit is donated.

In Pensacola, Florida, the main organizers for the Week are the Waterfront Rescue Mission and EscaRosa Coalition on the Homeless. Events there include food and clothing drives, a candlelight vigil, a prayer breakfast, a sale of art created by people experiencing homelessness, and the screening of a film called On the Edge.

On the opposite coast, in Portland, Oregon, a group called Human Solutions has opened its 60-bed Family Warming Center (it will be open for 12 hours every night), and also offers help with housing information and help with job hunting. Located at Eastminster Presbyterian Church, the Center is always looking for volunteers to help out in the recreation room with the evening activities leadership, and to mentor the children. Community members volunteer in the kitchen and, as always and everywhere, food donations are gratefully accepted.

In California, Project Homeless Connect holds an event in three towns (Hanford, Porterville, and Visalia), visited this year by close to 800 people in need of help. Actually, this is only a small portion of the activities of PHC. Machael Smith gives the background:

Created in 2004 in San Francisco, Project Homeless Connect is equal parts welcoming homeless neighbors into the life of the community, changing the way resources are accessed and achieving quantifiable results for people experiencing homelessness. The innovation has taken off like wildfire across the country as communities look for solutions to end homelessness. More than 330 events in 220 communities have taken place so far.

Thanks to the efforts of many volunteering agencies and individuals, clients receive an amazing array of services from haircuts and showers to vaccinations for their pets. The State Department of Motor Vehicles is on hand to issue ID cards for those who need them, and many other needs are also met, improving the lives of people of all ages.

In San Francisco, Craig Newmark himself (the founder of Craigslist) takes the time to publish an appeal for the sock drive sponsored by St. Anthony’s. This may sound like a small thing, but, as the article explains, people experiencing homelessness are rarely in a position to be able to do something as simple as take off their shoes, let alone wash any of their clothes. Clean, dry socks are rare, and a brand new pair of socks can seem like a luxury fit for a king.

This is a reminder to all of us that no matter how little we have, and regardless of how close to the edge we ourselves might be, there is still something we can do for a person who is even worse off. A pair of socks is not much to give, but it can be a bounteous gift to receive.

Meanwhile, down in Southern California, STANDUP FOR KIDS (SUFK) hosts a wine-tasting benefit to raise money toward the construction of a drop-in center and transitional housing facility for young people. Orange County, long regarded as a center of affluence, estimates that it contains an astonishing 26,000 homeless youth. And that’s only the kids. The SUFK organization concentrates on helping the young gain a foothold in society before they can slip too far into the hopeless situation of seeing homelessness as their only possible future.

From Evansville, Indiana, Richard Gootee reports that this is one of the many cities participating in the “Totes for Hope,” a program that provides tote bags and backpacks to homeless veterans.

Last but certainly not least, The Statesman carries a report from Andrea Ball on the doings in Austin, Texas, the center of operations of House the Homeless, and the site of the annual Homeless Sunrise Memorial Service.

Reactions?

Source: “HFC joins National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week,” TCPalm.com,10/04/10
Source: “Homeless Families Warming Center Opens…,” Chuck Currie, 11/04/10
Source: “Events urge awareness of hunger, homelessness,” pnj.com, 11/13/10
Source: “A day of hope offered to the homeless,” Visalia Times-Delta, 11/06/10
Source: “St. Anthony’s needs socks for homeless veterans,” San Francisco Chronicle, 11/09/10
Source: “‘STANDUP On The Vine’ To Benefit Local Orange County Homeless Youth,” San Francisco Chronicle, 11/03/10
Source: “‘Totes for Hope’ gives hand to local homeless veterans,” Evansville Courier & Press, 11/12/10
Source: “Who Are the Homeless?,” The Statesman, 11/15/10
Image by Elsie Esq. (Les Chatfield), used under its Creative Commons license.

It’s over for another year. On Sunday, November 14, at Austin’s Homeless Memorial, amid prayers and songs, the list was read out. On the shore of Lady Bird Lake, we noted the passing of this year’s street casualties, as well as the victims of previous years. The roster of those memorialized was a long one, and our dearest wish is that it would not be added to in the coming months.

The Tree of Remembrance grows where it was planted many years ago, and the plaque beneath it is still in place. The words on the memorial plaque have not changed either:

HOMELESSNESS:
It is the Essence of Depression.
It is Immoral.
It is Socially Corrupt.
It is an Act of Violence.

In Looking Up at the Bottom Line, Richard R. Troxell recalls the 1993 Memorial, when the needless death of Diane Breisch Malloy was on everyone’s minds:

I suppose sixty or more people came. We were too sad to advertise it like some kind of event. It just did not seem right. Therefore, we just spread the news by word of mouth. The ones that did come had been drinking and thinking. They were mad. They were mad about what had happened to Diane. They were mad about what had happened to their friends, and they were afraid. They were afraid that what we were really doing was reading their own eulogies.

Of this year’s Memorial, Richard says,

I was very sad to have read the list…but gathering it is always the worst. This involves too much reflection. These folks were not just my clients but also my friends. I hope it is as powerful to others as it is for me. The human cost is unacceptable. At least there were three City Council members and the City Manager (the first one in 18 years.) The saddest thing was that while there were about 125 people there, more origami birds with names of the deceased were present than there were people to place them in the tree.

Now, we are in the midst of the National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. The issues are recognized as being urgent enough to merit the community’s focused attention for a whole week, not just a day. Austin certainly subscribes to that. Among others, the participating organizations are the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition and the Basic Needs Coalition of Central Texas. The website of the city’s Trinity United Methodist Church keeps people abreast of the various happenings, which included the Homeless Resource Fair on Saturday. It says,

Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week is the largest annual event that connects policy makers, local business leaders, service providers, faith-based organizations, and community members to engage in implementing active solutions and prevention methods for hunger and homelessness.

Ongoing, from now until the year’s end, is the annual Thermal Underwear Drive. Yes, it gets cold in Texas, and it would be a beautiful thing to make it through the year without any more illnesses exacerbated by winter weather. The drive officially started at the Memorial Service, and House the Homeless will continue to collect donations of warm underclothes, hats, gloves, scarves, and ponchos for the people experiencing homelessness in Austin, who include not only women and men, but children. At the New Year’s Day Party, all this life-saving clothing will be distributed.

The picture on this page, of a previous year’s Memorial, was taken by a House the Homeless member, and appears in Richard’s book. At Sunday’s Memorial, one of the newest names added was that of Edward Forrest Dutcher, who was stabbed to death during a fight on Halloween Night, October 31.

Witnesses pointed out to the police another homeless man, found to be in possession of a knife, who was immediately arrested. It is theorized that the murder was the result of a territorial dispute, with the issue being who has held the privilege of panhandling at the intersection. Dutcher was pronounced dead at the University Medical Center. The victim was 50 years old, his assailant 60.

By sad coincidence, the biography of Edward Forrest Dutcher, or “Dutch,” was briefly outlined in Looking Up at the Bottom Line, whose publication date was Veterans Day this year. Richard described Dutch as tall and boyish-looking, and his situation as typical of so many people whose life is a constant struggle.

When work was available, he put in as many as 60 hours a week, which was eaten up by the high motel rent. He was never able to get ahead enough to save up the amount needed to move into an apartment, which in most cases means paying the first and last month’s rent, plus a security deposit. That’s a significant amount of money to scrape together, and the fact that anybody can work so many hours without being able to afford decent housing is a good argument for the Universal Living Wage. This is the condition known as economic homelessness.

What Dutch really wanted was to somehow buy a used van and start his own moving business. As Richard says, “He was just a regular person trying to survive.”

Reactions?

Source: “Austin’s 2010 Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week,” Trinity United Methodist Church Blog, 11/04/10
Source: “Police release more details on fatal stabbing Sunday,” The Statesman, 11/02/10
Image of Memorial Service from Looking Up at the Bottom Line, used under Fair Use: Reporting.

It comes as no surprise that churches are on board with the Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. The principle of sharing material goods with the destitute is a prime directive in every major religion, and if it isn’t, it ought to be. The dates are not exactly the same in each municipality, but the observance of such a Week is an idea whose time has come, and all across America, churches are supporting it.

Did you know there is a Muncy in Pennsylvania? Last Friday, the youth groups of several United Methodist churches banded together to host a “Box City” in the parking lot of Clarkstown UMC, so they could learn first-hand how to have empathy with people experiencing homelessness. Of course, the realism of such events is limited. The kids didn’t even have to go out and scrounge their own refrigerator cartons, which were donated by a local business. But the spirit is definitely in the right place.

Chris Warner, one of the youth leaders, supplied the reporter with details. The participants were…

[…] restricted from having any electronic devices and even food, unless friends and family feed them. A garbage can was filled with sandwiches and snacks organized to look like real garbage… Parishioners provided food and to add realism, half empty bottles of water and wrapped morsels of food where hidden among trash in a dumpster.

The kids didn’t have the experience of real panhandling, but throughout the night they collected cash donations for shelters and food banks. They also received “several truckloads” of food, blankets, and coats, to pass on to local distribution points. The youth were allowed to go into the building for warm-up periods, but apparently, toughing it out was a point of pride. The article quotes one of the teens, Carina Dunlap:

When I told my friends I was sleeping in a box, they just looked at me and asked why? It wasn’t bad sleeping in a box; I was one of two from Clarkstown who didn’t take breaks inside the church.

Another youth, Kelly Reed, said,

It was insane trying to sleep in a cramped box in the freezing cold, and then realize the next morning that’s how some people live their life. We had trouble dealing with it for one night.

In the similar-sounding but differently-spelled Muncie, Indiana, the United Methodist youth held their third annual Lockout for the Homeless, with donations going to the Indianapolis Interfaith Hospitality Network. The Christian Center teamed up with an organization called Alternatives Inc. for an event known as “Reality Check: Confronting Homelessness.”

Same state, different city: In Fort Wayne, Indiana, churches sponsored a Knit-In event where free yarn and knitting lessons were provided, and participants knitted hats and scarves for people experiencing homelessness. In Fort Meyers, Florida, at least 24 faith-based and other organizations have collaborated on a Homeless Service Day and Stand Down at Broadway Community Church. And, of course, there were many more variations on the homeless-simulation experiment.

Kids probably have a lot of fun at these things. How could a bunch of kids get together for a sleepover, and have anything but fun? They probably make some tasteless remarks, and even say jokingly that this homeless gig might not be too bad after all. And what does it mean, really, to perform a sanitized ritual of eating from a garbage can? There are probably people who think that the whole idea is utter nonsense.

But it isn’t. You never know what kind of experience will plant a spark of inspiration in a young person’s mind. Some of these kids will have a different perception next time they see a person eating from a real garbage can. Some of these kids think about it later, alone, at night. They make connections and consider alternatives.

It would be great to hear from some young people who have actually participated in events of this kind. Have you done a homeless sleepout? Did it do anything to your head? If so, what?

Source: “Youth prepare for National Homeless Awareness Week by sleeping in boxes,” The Luminary, 11/09/10
Source: “On Your Side Community Calendar,” The IndyChannel.com, 11/10
Image by Franco Folini, used under its Creative Commons license.

Actually, the proper name is “Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week” but that makes a very long title. If we observed truth in labeling rules and went all the way, it would be “Hunger and Homelessness, and Untreated Mental Illness, and People Freezing, and Kids Having No Place to Do Their Homework… Week.” Well, you get the picture. Accurately and comprehensively named, the title of the Week could easily take up an entire page.

If there is a good side to all this, it is that young people are catching on, both becoming more conscious themselves, and making an effort to raise the consciousness of adults who have most of the money and most of the power that is needed to actually effect change. Around the country, the youth are doing what they can. Checking in with the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness, we find a decisive mission statement:

The Campaign is committed to ending hunger and homelessness in America by educating, engaging, and training students to directly meet individuals’ immediate needs while advocating for long-term systemic solutions.

The Campaign offers a 20-page PDF file, the “Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week Fall 2010 Toolkit,” and while it’s a bit late to organize anything for this year, now is an excellent time to start planning for next year. There is no danger that we will arrive at November 2011 and suddenly realize, “Wait a minute, homelessness is no longer a problem — what did we learn all this stuff for?” Ain’t gonna happen. One thing you can be sure of is, your efforts will not be wasted.

This really is an excellent guidebook for activists. It includes advice on which leadership roles need to be filled, and how to reach out to existing campus organizations to get their cooperation. It includes publicity ideas, advice on media relations, and suggestions for events to stage. One useful idea is to host a panel and bring in some actual homeless people to give their perspective.

The action that seems to garner the most press attention is the homelessness simulation event. All across the country, kids are sleeping out, to see what it’s like to go without their accustomed comforts for one night.

From the “affluent village” of Clarendon Hills, Illinois, Chuck Fieldman tells us that, last Saturday night, 1,500 teenagers (as young as 7th grade) and young adults from all over DuPage County took part in such an experiment in empathy, getting a small taste of how it feels to be homeless. Participants in “Sleep Out Saturday Night” spent the night outside in tents, boxes, cars and sleeping bags in parking lots, parks and backyards to raise awareness about family homelessness and raise money for Bridge Communities’ Transitional Housing Program.

Bridge Communities is a local nonprofit group that helps families gain self-sufficiency. This was the event’s seventh year. The average age of a person experiencing homelessness in DuPage County is eight years. Some housed kids have never realized before that children younger than themselves are without homes.

In Indiana, Anderson University hosts an overnight event called “Reality Check: Confronting Homelessness,” which runs 13 hours and costs $10 to participate in. Other sponsors of the event are Ball State University, Ivy Tech, and a number of elementary and high schools. Along with raising funds, they collect blankets and socks. Reporter Aimee Munn says,

Homelessness is a very real issue in Anderson and in the Central Indiana region. According to The Christian Center website, there are ‘663 people experiencing homelessness each night and 183 of them are children.’

In Kansas City, Missouri, Friday night was “One Homeless Night” for hundreds of teenagers who raised money for Synergy Services. This Thursday, students at Coastal Carolina University will spend the night in a “Chanty Town” of cardboard boxes. And so it goes, across the nation, as the young prepare to take on the mantle of responsibility for changing the world they find themselves in.

Reactions?

Source: “Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week Fall 2010 Toolkit” (PDF), StudentsAgainstHunger.org, 2010
Source: “Getting a taste of being homeless,” TheDoings-ClarendonHills.com, 11/09/10
Source: “AU students, alumni to participate in overnight homeless experience,” Anderson.edu, 11/09/10
Image by quinet ( Thomas Quine), used under its Creative Commons license.

This year’s Memorial Service took place on Sunday, November 14th, at 6:58am CT.

City: Austin, TX
Location: At the Homeless Memorial & Tree of Remembrance located on Auditorium Shores at South 1^st Street and Riverside Drive. It is just 75 yards east of the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue and just west of the Fanny Davis Gazebo.

Join us for prayer, song, and fellowship as we remember and pay our respects to the homeless women and men who were lost this year while living on the streets of Austin.

Immediately following the Memorial, we’ll continue with the events of National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week including a book signing of Looking Up at the Bottom Line. All proceeds go to ending homelessness. Coffee, cocoa, orange juice and breakfast tacos (from the Hyatt) will be service.

Every year, this Memorial Service kicks of our annual Thermal Underwear Drive to help prevent future illness and death from exposure to the cold over the coming year. If you’d like to contribute to this effort, please donate to the Thermal Underwear Drive here. All donations will go toward purchasing thermal underwear, hats, gloves, scarves, and ponchos for homeless men, women and children in Austin. The Thermal Underwear Drive concludes at our New Year’s Day Party, when we give out all the thermal underwear, hats, gloves, scarves, and ponchos we’ve collected.

Memorial Service Program

“What if God Was One of Us?” — Sara Hickman
Welcome — Colleen Troxell
Invocation –- City Council Member Sheryl Cole
Keynote Speaker -– City Council Member Laura Morrison
“We are Each Other’s Angels” -– Sara Hickman
Salute to Veterans -– Stanley Poullard
Reading of the Names — Sharon Morrison, William Lamar, Homer Sotelo
“It’s Alright; It’s OK” — Sara Hickman
“Minimum Wager” -– Sara Hickman
Perspective -– Richard R. Troxell
Benediction -– Jacob Vanhorn
Taps —
Closing -– Colleen Troxell
Launch of the Thermal Underwear Drive
“There is Love” — Sara Hickman

Reception to follow at the Fanny Davis Gazebo — food, coffee, cocoa, and friends
ECHO’s Ed McHorse will announce Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week’s activities and Richard R. Troxell will comment on his book, Looking Up at the Bottom Line, with signed copies available. All proceeds go to ending homelessness.

Paying Tribute

For the 18th year, House the Homeless will meet on Lady Bird Lake in Austin Texas and pay tribute to our homeless friends: women, men and children who have lived and died in abject poverty on our streets. May you find peace.

• Charles “Boxer”
• Sheila “Twin”
• John Abiles
• Steven Allen
• Leon Anderson
• Danny Ard
• Donald Baker
• Willie Barnes, Jr.
• John Bendtsen
• James Bibbs
• Bobby Bonner
• Stella Bougainvillaea
• Martin Bradshaw
• Ervin Brown, Jr.
• Tommie Byrd
• Billy Capps
• Lawrence Charles, Sr.
• Dwight Chilcote
• Jerry Chote
• Barbara Clark
• Joe Clark
• Ruby Collins
• Gregory Cooper
• Jose Coronel
• Darlene Cowley
• James Cruse
• Lisa Davis
• Susan de la Garza
• Anthony Dean
• Kenneth Douglas
• Edward Dutcher
• Sheldon Firestone
• Christopher Foley
• Yolanda Fonseca
• Bobby Fountain
• James Fulcher
• Lupe Galvez
• James Garduway
• Herlinda Garza
• Truman Garza
• Duane Gieser
• Hartford Gooden
• Robert Graves, Sr.
• Marilyn Greer
• Michael Grimes, Jr.
• Fernando Guadarana
• Orest Gwodziowsky
• Leslie Hall
• LeAnn Harrington
• Wilbert Hart
• William Helton, Jr.
• Regulo Hernandez
• Sharon Hood
• Terrance Inskeep
• Leslie Jackson
• Mark Johnson
• Carole Johnson
• John Johnson, Sr.
• William Jones
• Donald Jones
• Sam Jones
• Walter Keck
• Joseph Keys
• Richard Klapperich
• Vince Lee
• Carlos Lefebvre
• Wayne Leonard
• James Lewis
• Evelyn Like
• Pedro Luna
• Anthony Lyle
• Diana Mangiocapra
• Joann Martin
• Michael Mayberry
• Armando Mayea-Perez
• Graham McCristall
• Robert McWhorter
• Wilfredo Melgar
• Juan Mendoza-Martinez
• Desi Miller
• Jacque Mitchell
• Harrold Monroe
• Brian Moore
• Elroy Morales
• Jerry Murphy
• Alvin Murray
• Jacobo Navarez
• Joseph Newman
• Steven Okey
• Dario Orona
• Garciela Ortiz
• Robert Parker
• Alcario Pena
• Eliso Perez
• Alvin Proops
• Kenneth Pryor
• Kenneth Quarles
• Jose Rameriz
• Patricia Rangel
• Gordon Reeder
• Arthur Richard
• David Riedel
• Arnold Robers
• Frank Robinson
• Miguel Rodriquez
• Imunique Rogers
• James Rostvold
• Spire Routon
• Daniel Russell
• Denese Rutledge
• Carolina Salguero
• DeAsia Sauls
• Joyce Scott
• John Searcy
• Michael Shannon
• Ian Shell
• Mike Sinclair
• Jess Smith
• Darryl Smith, Jr.
• Leonard Sorrells
• Eva Sorrells
• Amado Soto
• Keith Spain
• Wallace Speegle
• Arthur Spitzenberger
• Virginia Spurell
• Edward Stanford
• Vincent Stanik
• Donald Stubbs, Jr.
• Elizabeth Stull
• Winona Summers
• Diana Swindle
• LaShawn Swist
• Olivia Taylor
• Roy Taylor
• Karen Teague
• John Teague
• Adam Tennant
• Isaiah Thomas
• James Thomas
• Howard Thomas
• Micah Tolle
• Augustus Tzortzakis
• baby girl Vazquez
• Jessica Velasquez
• Mack Warren
• Louise Washington
• Michael Watts
• Bruce Weir
• Lynn White
• Irene White
• Karen Wiedemeier
• Mark Williamson
• Melvin Willian
• Louise Willis
• Jeff Wolfson
• Stanley Young
• Freckles
• Sassy

Coming up next week, November 14-21, is National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, observed throughout the country. In Austin, Texas, the week starts off with the Homeless Memorial Sunrise Service, an opportunity for friends and anyone who cares to pay their respects to those who are no longer with us. At House the Homeless, you can find complete information about this year’s memorial, along with the recollections and photos from last year’s Memorial Sunrise Service.

Yesterday, November 11, was the official publication date of Looking Up at the Bottom Line by Richard R. Troxell. This book tells us why we should all be fighting for the Universal Living Wage, and gives the history of Richard R. Troxell’s commitment to housing the homeless. It includes many stories commemorating members of the homeless community who have been lost.

Some say the most moving story in the book is that of Diane Malloy, who sought a temporary roof over her head at the Salvation Army shelter with her fiancé, Jim Tynan. Diane had suffered from a persistent cough for weeks, but couples weren’t allowed at the facility, so they were turned away. Somebody told them about a dry creek bed that would be a semi-protected place to stay in.

But rain came, bringing a flash flood, during which Diane had disappeared. Jim looked for her all over town, and, by the time he met Richard, the sick woman had been missing for three days. Richard got his kayak and the two men searched the creek, and found Diane’s drowned body. Then followed some unpleasant hours with the police. Richard says,

Apparently, Jim Tynan had made yet another judgment error. When he had reported Diane’s disappearance, he had been honest and told the detective that they were homeless — big mistake. Had he left that one detail out, the police would have been looking for her. We would have heard that the boy scouts, the girl scouts, the water rescue team, and the police had been searching for a young woman who may have become a drowning victim… Instead, they never looked.

Diane Breisch Malloy had been an employed citizen, working for 10 years with the phone company, but after using up all her sick leave she was let go. Two months later, she was dead.

Richard writes that since his tour of duty in Vietnam, he had been concentrating more on life than on death. But Diane’s death was a “wake up and smell the coffee” moment. Thinking back, he realized that in the last three years, he knew of 23 people experiencing homelessness who had died. And that was the beginning of the Homeless Memorial Sunrise Service, first held in 1992. This is its 18th year, with more names added every year to the roll of the deceased.

This was told to me as an example of homeless humor. It’s a joke a with a real punchline:

‘What does the street person do when he gets sick?’
‘He dies.’

In an effort to prevent as much needless death as possible, House the Homeless carries out an annual health survey in Austin. The 2010 survey was filled out by 85 females, 408 males, and 8 transgender persons. The results were not good. In this group of people experiencing homelessness, over 200 had high blood pressure, more than 120 had diabetes, more than 100 suffered from arthritis, and nearly 50 were subject to seizures. More than 80 had cancer, and more than 80 were brain-injured. Among the respondents, there were 175 diagnosed cases of mental illness. That is a lot of care needed, in just one city. And a lot of human misery.

If the National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week is an unfamiliar concept, maybe you will feel inspired to start preparing for next year’s Week in your town. The National Coalition for the Homeless and National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness offer a downloadable 31-page PDF file called “Resolve to Fight Poverty.”

Reactions?

Source: “Looking Up at the Bottom Line,” Amazon.com
Source: “HTH Health Survey Results 2010 for Austin, Texas,” HousetheHomeless.org
Image by jurvetson, used under its Creative Commons license.

This is the official publication day for Looking Up at the Bottom Line: The Struggle for the Living Wage! by Richard R. Troxell, from Plain View Press. Troxell is in Philadelphia, visiting at the University of Pennsylvania, where the School of Social Policy & Practice is hosting a lecture and booksigning today only. If you’re in the area, it’s at 3601 Walnut St., University Sq., and the event is from 2:30 to 4 PM.

Looking Up at the Bottom Line is largely about veterans. How could it not be, when one-third of the people experiencing homelessness are veterans? Among the unhoused population, the military, as a profession, is woefully over-represented. The homeless vets are the lucky ones. The unlucky ones are dead.

Aaron Glantz, an investigative journalist, studied veterans in the state of California and reported in The Bay Citizen on an appalling situation. He says,

An analysis of official death certificates on file at the State Department of Public Health reveals that more than 1,000 California veterans under 35 died between 2005 and 2008. That figure is three times higher than the number of California service members who were killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts over the same period.

To make a broad generalization, it looks like the after-effects of having been in the war are killing more service members than the actual war. To make another broad generalization, the government really needs to pay attention to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and take it seriously.

These guys come back from combat and just jump the track, becoming the poster children for self-destructiveness. Some die in motorcycle wrecks and car crashes, others OD or commit suicide in a variety of more direct ways. Glantz says,

Suicides represented approximately one in five deaths of young veterans, the data showed. Many other deaths resulted from risky behaviors that psychologists say are common symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

Glantz is the author of three books, including The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans. His recent report is replete with both cold, factual graphs dealing with statistics, and several human-interest stories of individual veterans.

Apparently, the government is not doing a good job on any level, from intervention all the way down to mere record-keeping. Glantz interviewed the director of Veterans for Common Sense, Paul Sullivan, who deplores the attitude shown by the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense. He told the reporter,

V.A. and D.O.D. appear to have a policy for veterans called ‘Don’t look, don’t find.’

The veterans who die of compulsive risk-taking behavior or outright suicide are called “stateside casualties,” and we can expect a lot more of them, partly because of the delayed impact peculiar to PTSD. Often, it takes a few years for the full effects of PTSD to develop. People can even seem fine… for a while.

Of course, this is nothing new. A vet named Daniel G. Dumas has gathered together some statistics on Vietnam veterans that are just as disheartening. Unfortunately, he doesn’t give the sources of his information, but makes such claims as, “The suicide rate for Vietnam vets is 86% higher than the national average of peers of the same age group.”

Probably nobody can really know these numbers, but there is no doubt that Vietnam veterans experienced unemployment, divorce, incarceration and homelessness at statistical rates out of proportion to their numbers. The claims about Vietnam vets have been contested, but the more careful analysis now being done of the fates of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans indicates that even the wildest guesses about their Vietnam war counterparts might not be too far off the mark.

Reactions?

Source: “After Service, Veteran Deaths Surge,” The Bay Citizen, 10/16/10
Source: “What is a Vietnam Veteran?,” CAPVeterans.com
Image by Tony the Misfit, used under its Creative Commons license.
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Today’s interesting person is Maria Foscarinis, Founder and Executive Director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, who says,

[…] I’ve spent the past 20 plus years working for policies to prevent and end homelessness in America. In my experience, neither party has embraced our cause with vigor, but we’ve had strong individual allies and supporters in both major parties.

On the other hand, Foscarinis suggests that “bipartisan” is too often just another word for “compromise that leaves nobody happy.” She has little interest in whether something is or is not bipartisan, and great concern about whether it is or is not sane. Foscarinis says,

Rather than bipartisanship, what we should strive for is rational, sensible policy, supported by the best evidence available, consistent with our fundamental values… In an environment that favors sanity or even just reason and common sense, ending homelessness would be at the top of the agenda.

Being poor and homeless means more than just lacking a living wage and a roof, although those conditions are bad enough in themselves. It also means being without a voice. A person with the same address and phone number for 20 years can run into a hassle trying to register as a voter. Can you imagine how difficult it is for people experiencing homelessness?

Foscarinis brings up some unpleasant truths that few people think about. Some of us think about them. Even for a healthy person, it’s difficult to, for instance, get enough water to stay hydrated, a minimal and inescapable need. (And unfortunately, drinking any kind of liquid leads to another inescapable need, which is often difficult to meet without breaking the law.)

But what if you don’t have a place to live, and you’re on some kind of medication that needs to be refrigerated? What if you have to monitor your insulin levels, or replace your colostomy bag? What if you need daily, costly eye drops to keep from going blind? For people experiencing both homelessness and health problems, life must be hell.

Foscarinis cites a recent poll indicating that 53% of the American people are not sure if they will make their next mortgage payment or rent. It’s official: We are the Nervous Majority. She mentions such societal costs as the astonishing emergency room bills that one homeless person can rack up, and the amount of law enforcement resources wasted on hassling street people. She asks a question that gets down to the nitty-gritty:

Does anyone really believe it’s acceptable for people to be living without a home in the 21st century in the United States of America?

Foscarinis also speaks of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is over 50 years old but doesn’t seem to have caught on as well as its drafters hoped. This document is also very important to Richard R. Troxell, who quoted extensively from it in his 1997 document known as the Protected Homeless Class Resolution. Here is an excerpt:

Whereas, the United States Government has adopted and is party to the United Nations Document referenced as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which ‘confers on every member of society a right to basic economic, social, and cultural entitlements, that every (nation) state should recognize, serve, and protect, of which food, clothing, medical care, and housing are definitive components of the right to a minimum standard of living and dignity’…

The Protected Homeless Class Resolution can be found in its entirety in Looking Up at the Bottom Line. Reactions?

Source: “Sanity, bipartisanship and homelessness: The impact of this week’s elections,” The Huffington Post, 11/05/10
Source: “Looking Up at the Bottom Line,” Amazon.com
Image by garryknight (Garry Knight), used under its Creative Commons license.

When dog bites man, it isn’t news. But when man bites dog, that’s news. Fresh examples of this old saying appear every day.

For instance, if you saw a headline that seemed to mean a sheriff was halting evictions, you would think it was a misprint, right? Evictions are what sheriffs do, sometimes backed up by whole squadrons of armed goons.

And, of course, homelessness follows evictions like night follows day. But let’s pause for a short digression. There is a quaint old American political theory called Posse Comitatus, an extreme form of localism which holds that the county sheriff is the highest law in the land. (Furthermore, if the sheriff doesn’t follow the people’s will, they can take him out and hang him, literally, with rope, in the middle of town, at high noon, and leave the body there until sundown.)

But Sheriff Thomas Dart, who just said “No” to a stack of 1,500 eviction notices on his desk, is not some backwoods lawman with a Posse Comitatus fixation. His jurisdiction includes Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city.

A Bloomberg Businessweek article tells us,

Dart said his office reviewed 350 foreclosure cases and only 17 had complete paperwork to justify an eviction.

The Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois, held a press conference last month to announce his decision to hold off on carrying out the foreclosure evictions until he could be convinced of their legality. The lenders, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC have admitted that there may be “deficiencies” in some of their work product, and Dart is holding out for better documentation. Even more remarkable, he has done this before:

This is the second time since 2008 that Dart has halted Cook County evictions over concerns about foreclosure practices and procedures.

In an interview conducted by Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace Public Radio, Dart talked about the stand he took two years ago, when…

[…] it was absolutely clear that the banks were not notifying people that were physically in the houses that they wanted me to empty out… I’ll never forget the one family… there were three little kids, a mother and a father, and then all of a sudden, here I am, standing next to seven deputies, all dressed in black with battering rams, in their living room. The children are crying, and I’m sitting down with these people, and they’re showing me paperwork after paperwork showing they’ve paid all their bills, they’ve paid everything… the injustice was unbelievable.

The experience caused Dart to hire a social worker to meet with families on the brink of eviction and help them figure out how to get some other kind of housing. In the current situation, Dart is not saying he will never throw anybody out again. But he is telling the banks,

[… A]ll I’m asking is just send me an affidavit that you’re willing to put your name on saying that these foreclosures that you’ve given me, that you’ve done them properly.

For a while there, it looked like he was going to run for mayor of Chicago, but then he decided not to. There is more than one reason why a politician might let such a rumor get started. For instance, just for the fun of throwing a scare into the other contenders. Tom Dart has certainly shown himself a sheriff to be reckoned with.

Note: The originator of the “man bites dog” meme was, according to Wikipedia, either Alfred Harmsworth, John B. Bogart, or Charles Anderson Dana.

Reactions?

Source: “Bank of America, JPMorgan Chicago Evictions on Hold,” Bloomberg Businessweek, 11/04/10
Source: “A sheriff temporarily halts evictions,” Marketplace.PublicRadio.org, 10/20/10
Source: “Man bites dog (journalism),” Wikipedia
Image by Matt C. (Matt Crampton), used under its Creative Commons license.

Here is a news item by reporter Jack Encarnacao, about a body found in Quincy, Massachusetts. The deceased was assumed to be a person experiencing homelessness:

A 47-year-old man thought to be homeless was found dead in a Quincy Center alley. The Norfolk County district attorney’s office is investigating the death of Robert Aldred, who was found on the ground shortly after 9 a.m. Monday behind 1534 Hancock St. Investigators do not suspect foul play. Aldred was known to police, Quincy police Capt. John Dougan said. The state Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the cause of death.

What’s so special about this story? Nothing. It could be a piece of boilerplate. No disrespect is meant to the reporter, who was just doing his job, and passing along as much information as was available at the time. But really, it’s like a form, with the name and age filled in, and the location of the body. They probably all say, “______ was known to the police.” How many similar notices have appeared in American newspapers this year? Like Bob Dylan sang, “He was only a hobo, but one more is gone.”

It’s good to know that no foul play is suspected in the demise of Robert Aldred. Unless, of course, we examine the root causes of homelessness, and detect a whiff of foul play in the policies and practices that force so many Americans into the streets.

All too often, the play is foul. Associated Press reporter Michael Graczyk reports from Houston, Texas, that the police are looking for whoever has been strangling women, and that the Houston police are investigating murders of three women since this summer. They might have all been killed by the same person.

Twenty-four-year-old Raquel Mundy was not homeless herself, but in June her body was found by a homeless man, as the writer relates, in “an overgrown lot on a dead-end street leading to railroad tracks.” Mundy had dropped off her mother and her two kids at the bus station. Then her car was towed from a restaurant parking lot, so she was stranded. There is an additional heart-rending detail:

On Monday, police would not confirm reports from the time of her disappearance that her mother received two text messages from her suggesting she was with [a] Hispanic man and in danger.

We don’t know the facts, but the scenario is easily imagined. People who depend on Greyhound for their transportation are in a low socio-economic group. Bus terminals are usually downtown. Downtown parking lots charge exorbitant rates. This poor woman probably couldn’t afford the fee, and didn’t want to just dump her mom and kids in front of the bus station. No doubt she wanted to do something frivolous and irresponsible, like, for instance, kiss them goodbye and see them safely onto the bus.

So she took a chance, and left her car in a restaurant parking lot bristling with signs threatening to tow away all non-customer cars, and her car was towed. Apparently, Raquel Mundy then accepted “help” from the wrong man. Imagine the grandma, on the bus wending its way out of the urban center, two children in her care, getting text messages from their frightened mother, her imperiled daughter. What a horror.

Was Raquel Mundy’s killer the same man who also strangled two certifiably homeless women, more recently? On September 30, Reita Long, age 52, was found dead not far from the same bus station. Then, a little over a week later, the body of a 62-year-old woman named Carol Elaine Flood was found near the old YMCA, also downtown.

The police department is leaning toward the theory that it’s the same killer in all three cases. They’re advising homeless people not to sleep alone on the streets. It’s not the most helpful advice ever given, but they’re doing their best. The city is asking for help from the public, and there is a $15,000 reward for the right information.

Here is a statistic from the National Association of School Psychologists:

The suicide rate for homeless males between the ages of 18 and 24 is 10.3 times higher than the national average.

There are a lot of statistics to choose from, depending on which part of the U.S. we’re talking about, and it varies according to age group, sex, military status, etc. Let’s just say there is more suicide, proportionately, among the people experiencing homelessness than among the housed. And consider Japan, where suicide is a commonplace cultural tradition. For the same reasons, poverty and homelessness, the numbers there are really grim.

The Homeless Memorial Sunrise Service in Austin, Texas

The week of November 14-20 is designated as National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. In Austin, Texas, there will be prayer, song, and fellowship as we remember the lost friends of the past year and all the years before.

There are huge human costs involved when a society maintains a population of extremely vulnerable and disempowered people. An elected official is always invited to speak at the Homeless Memorial Sunrise Service, insuring that at least one public servant has the opportunity to raise some awareness of those costs. The ones who do are heroes.

Here is the information on the November 14 event, in case you are anywhere in the area and need to plan ahead. The time is 6:30 in the morning — to catch the sunrise. The place is Auditorium Shores at South First Street and Riverside Drive, Austin, TX. The Homeless Memorial & Tree of Remembrance is located on Auditorium Shores at South First Street and Riverside Drive. It is just 75 yards east of the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue and just west of the Fanny Davis Gazebo.

No sad event would be complete without a Call to Action, and the recommended action in this case is the implementation in this country of the Universal Living Wage. The guidebook for this movement is Richard R. Troxell’s new book, Looking Up at the Bottom Line. After the Memorial, Richard will sign copies of the book, whose proceeds all go to ending homelessness. Coffee, cocoa, orange juice, and breakfast tacos will be served.

Come to think of it, why would a person even need to be in the area to take an interest in this event? Why not make a road trip of it? Wouldn’t it be interesting if about 50,000 people showed up for the Homeless Memorial Sunrise Service in Austin, and then the next day, 75,000 people showed up for the homeless memorial service in another city?

Reactions?

Source: “Man found dead in Quincy thought to be homeless,” The Patriot Ledger, 11/02/10
Source: “Houston police investigating murders of 3 women,” Associated Press, 11/01/10
Source: “Helping Homeless Students,” NASP Online
Source: “Memorial,” House the Homeless
Image by Matt From London (Matt Brown), used under its Creative Commons license.