The indignity, cruelty and danger of being homeless

Woke to a little snow on the ground this morning.  It reminds me that on my way to Arise for Social Justice, I'll need to stop at the nearby vacant house and leave some cat food from the bag I carry around in my car-- there's at least one cat living there-- abandoned or always feral?  Don't know.  I'll pass another two dozen empty houses before I get to Arise, where a meeting is scheduled for the coalition of people and organizations working on a strategy to stop foreclosures.  Last week I sent an email to the lead organizer: is there any way we can get hold couple of the houses that are already foreclosed?  Five young men (separately, not together) have come into Arise in the last few days, looking for a place to live and a job.  No immediate solutions.  The Rescue Mission hasn't opened its overflow shelter yet, and when I tell folks about Worthington St. Shelter, I always have to warn them first about the bedbugs.  What a choice.

Being homeless is life-threatening but also full of other dangers and indignities.  Two weeks ago a 61 year old  homeless guy in in Dallas, Texas tried to pay for his meal with a credit card not his own.  The owner of the restaurant forced him to strip naked and beat him with a pipe.  When the police arrived, they charged the homeless guy but not the owner.  Later, however, the crimes against persons unit of the police department investigated and charged the owner with misdemeanor assault.  Read more at the Dallas Homeless Network.

In Pheonix, Arizona, a homeless man was run over by a car-- on purpose-- and dragged ten feet.  A few minutes before, he'd been accused of stealing a bicycle, which he denied.  He's in the hospital, expected to survive, and police are looking for a 4-door gray car. 

Two Edmonton, Alberta police officers were disciplined recently for picking up nine homeless people and locking them in the back of the police van for nine hours in sweltering hot weather before dumping them in a residential neighborhood.  A third police officer wasn't disciplined because he was only along for the ride.  Hey, some version of this happens frequently-- remember the Los Angeles homeless dumps?-- and rarely is there accountability.  Mostly Water.

Speaking of  Los Angeles, two doctors were arrested on Friday for using mentally ill, homeless people in a scheme to defraud the government.  Their employees would find homeless people and bring them to the clinic, where they were subjected to unnecessary procedures, then paid $100 a dumped back into the streets.  It's a disgusting story and you can read more at the Los Angeles Times.

If you're a homeless veteran in North Charleston, South Carolina, you may find yourself living in a shelter whose director, Nancy Cook,  has managed to double her salary in the last year until it now equals one-third of the shelter's entire revenue.  Ms. Cook sounds like a real winner.  In 2008, she suggested that "unfit" parents be sterilized.  As for the current situation, someone-- a homeless person?-- tipped off the media about Ms. Cook's salary increase.  Her response?  "We deal with a lot of sick people, and they're just nasty," said Cook, who said she has run Good Neighbor Center for 18 years. "It's par for the course. There is no story here."  Post and Courier. 

Last but not least, if desperate parents in Indiana follow the advice of some workers from the Family and Social Services Administration, they should dump their severely disabled, autistic or mentally handicapped children off at the nearest shelter.  This was the workers' advice in the face of requests for diminishing services.  Associated Press.


We're in for a rough winter.

Motels for homeless families: state trying to do better

I've said before that the only thing worse than housing a homeless family in a motel is leaving them on the street. Decently-run family shelters provide support in many ways. What homeless families learn from each other, however, can be very important. Every situation is different but the road each family travels to homelessness has recognizable forks in the road. Homeless families (like the rest of us) often either place the blame for their situation entirely on themselves and what they see as their mistakes, or take no responsibility at all for their situation. Understanding the combination of poverty, low self-esteem, lack of opportunity and the thin margin for error that combine to make a family homeless is not an experience you can have isolated in a motel.


Nancy Gonter of the Republican reported Monday on the state's efforts to reduce the numbers of families in motels, and there is some progress being made--a decline of about 20% since November, 2009's peak of 1078.  Read her story to get a picture of state strategy.  But a bad economy and continued budget cuts keep these strategies at risk.

Yesterday an old Arise member stopped into the office to check in and share news.  She was dressed to kill--looking for work, out of unemployment benefits and getting a little desperate though still picking up some part-time work through Stavros.  She's taken in two women who are basically homeless, one who's looking for a job and the other who has no income but, from what I heard, may be eligible for disability benefits.  All three of these women are over fifty years old.  And whether the three of them can manage to hang on to their apartment is an open question.

San Antonio, Texas is trying a new strategy-- a 37 acre campus for homeless families and single people which they think can become a model for the rest of the country.  Here's a link to a story about the campus and some CNN coverage.

Photo from Omsel's photostream at Flickr.

Nothing natural about homeless deaths

Last Friday, 50 year-old Arthur D. Polier was found dead in a tent where he'd living with his girlfriend in a swampy section of Northampton. Police are saying he died of natural causes.

What I guess we can say is that it's natural that a 50 year-old man living in a swamp on the edge of society, should die.

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless,

The rates of both chronic and acute health problems are extremely high among the homeless population. With the exception of obesity, strokes, and cancer, homeless people are far more likely to suffer from every category of chronic health problem. Conditions which require regular, uninterrupted treatment, such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, hypertension, addictive disorders, and mental disorders, are extremely difficult to treat or control among those without adequate housing.
Many homeless people have multiple health problems. For example, frostbite, leg ulcers and upper respiratory infections are frequent, often the direct result of homelessness. Homeless people are also at greater risk of trauma resulting from muggings, beatings, and rape. Homelessness precludes good nutrition, good personal hygiene, and basic first aid, adding to the complex health needs of homeless people. In addition, some homeless people with mental disorders may use drugs or alcohol to self-medicate, and those with addictive disorders are also often at risk of HIV and other communicable diseases.

In Anchorage, Alaska, 6 homeless men have been found dead since May.

In Madison, Wisconsin, a 38 year-old man was found dead on a park bench of "natural causes" earlier this month.

A 42-year old homeless, incarcerated man was found dead in his cell on June 12 in the Webb County, Texas jail. he appears to have fallen from his cot but his death is possibly due to complications of heart disease.

Robert "The Lion" Allan, only 41, died suddenly in Camden, UK on Tuesday. Mr,. Allan is being lauded by his friends as a tireless fighter for social justice.

Photo of Robert Allen

Murders and freezing deaths haunt homeless communities

The L.A. Times is reporting that police have arrested Benjamin Mathew Martin in the gruesome burning death of John McGraham last October. Apparently the motive was pure personal dislike. I posted about his death and others last year, but so many homeless deaths have continued to occur, it's impossible to keep up with all of them.

A homeless man was one of two people shot to death last Wednesday in Brockton, Massachusetts by a man looking for "non-white" people to kill. Arlindo Goncalvis, like many homeless people, made a few dollar a day collecting cans, which he was doing when he was killed. Mr. Goncalvis was also a musician who carried a keyboard and played around town, where he was well-known. the Daily News Transcript has more about Mr. Goncalvis' life and death.

A homeless man who lived in and watched over a junkyard in Blue Island, ILL was found shot to death last Thursday. Ryan Briggs was 36. the Chicago Sun Times has a little more information, but there's not much info available so far.

On Christmas Eve, 61 year old Yoshio Nakada was found dead on the George Washington University campus in Washington, D.C. where he was well-known. He'd received a number of severe blows to the head and his skull was fractured. Although Mr. Nakada spoke little English, he liked to sing and had recently been attending Quaker services, where he occasionally spoke in his native language. The student newspaper GW Hatchet has a report on the murder's impact on campus.

Woodstock, ILL police are still searching for a motive in the stabbing death of 28 year old Robin Burton, allegedly killed by Kyle Morgan, who brought Mr. Burton to his apartment and then killed him. Morgan's MySpace page, since taken down, seemed to show an interest in serial murders. The Daily Herald is following the story.

Of course not all homeless deaths are the result of murder. Many die quietly from illnesses exacerbated by being homeless. Other-- too many-- die from exposure, and I expect this winter to take a particularly high toll. Tallahassee.com reports that weather was a factor in the death of 42 year old Stacy Bradish, who was sleeping outside in a campsite and could not be awoken the next morning by his friend. Eric Victor Spence was probably trying to get kerosene for his heater when he couldn't go on anymore. he was found dead with an empty gasoline can nearby in the woods in Taylor, MI, the News Herald reports.

Safety is not guaranteed by seeking shelter, however. In early January, five men died in a swift-moving fire at a men's shelter in Paris, Texas. Earlier this week, a homeless man was stabbed-- fortunately not fatally-- at the Worthington St. Shelter operated by Friends of the Homeless here in Springfield, MA, my home city. Overcrowding often leads to short tempers and Worthington St. is packed to the gills.

While the total of homeless deaths will almost surely be higher for 2008 and 2009 than ever before, our information will remain sketchy and anecdotal, because no agency or governmental body tracks these deaths. Each year, dozens of cities participate in the Homeless Persons Memorial Day on or around December 21st, the longest night of the year, but far more cities let these deaths go unremarked.

Photo from the National Coalition for the Homeless: 2007 D.C. memorial service.

shreveport man gets 15 years for stealing $100.00

ndon Preston tipped me off to this from We Saw That...

A homeless man goes into a bank, pretends he has a gun, and picks a single $100 bill from the stack presented to him. Later, he feels remorse and turns himself into the police. His sentence? Fifteen years.

Bernie Madoff sits at home in luxury awaiting trial. How many people's lives has he ruined? Want to guess what he'll get for a sentence?

Texas school suspends 5 yr old for religious beliefs

The Texas ACLU is suing the Needville Independent School District for refusing to allow a five year old Native American boy openly wear his hair in braids, insisting he hide them in his shirt.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, charges that NISD�s actions violate Betenbaugh's and Arocha's rights to raise Adriel according to their family's religion, heritage and identity, as well as Adriel's constitutional and statutory rights to free exercise of religion and free expression. Courts have held that the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution protect students� rights to dress in conformation with their religious beliefs. Texas' Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) provides additional protections.

�"he Constitution protects the right of all people in this country to express their religious beliefs as they see fit," said Daniel Mach, Director of Litigation for the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. "The same law protects Catholic students who wear a rosary, Christian students who wear a cross, or Jewish students who wear a Star of David. Yet the school board has ignored this basic principle by punishing this young child's expression of his faith and heritage."

You can read more at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.

Winter shelters close, homeless encampments grow

"The Amherst, MA Survival Center is starting to get more calls as emergency shelters are closing. People need tents," the email began. "Do you have one hanging around that a homeless person can use until they get on their feet? Please... we only have 2 left and the phone is ringing off the hook!!!"

Thus begins the annual ritual of closing winter-only shelters, not only in Massachusetts but around the country. For the most part, homeless people won't be moving from the shelters to housing, although Springfield, MA's homeless coordinator says 7 of the 12 people in the overflow shelter do have housing waiting for them. Elsewhere in the state, Northampton's Cot Shelter will close on April 30. There are already 50 to 90 people sleeping out on the Cape, according to Cape Cod Today, in 40 or so small encampments.

In Plano, TX, many of the homeless people that had to be turned away by the Samaritan in this winter have been sleeping in their cars in the parking lot of the local library-- at least up until now. The City Council passed an ordinance on April 14 forbidding any parking in the lot between 11 am. and 5 pm. See if you buy this one: "Joyce Baumbach, the director of libraries, said the ordinance isn't just targeting homeless people. "Some of the neighbors do use the lot for extra parking or if they have company overnight," Baumbach said. "They will also not be allowed to park overnight anymore." NBC5 Dallas/Fort Worth.

Pinellas Hope shelter in St. Petersburg, FL has raised enough money to stay open through the summer, although on a greatly reduced basis-- 75 guests a night rather than the 250 it's housed over the last five months. Turlock, California's winter shelter closed at the end of March, but not quietly:: 150 homeless people and allies protested on the steps of City Hall. Earlier in March, "Vice Mayor Kurt Vander Weide, Councilmen Ted Howze and Kurt Spycher voted against extending the B Street shelter in downtown by 30 days, citing reasons of political ideology and the weather." (!!) Modesto Bee. When Springfield, Illinois closed its SOS shelter, also at the end of March, one option the homeless there used to have is now denied to them: camping on the library grounds. The city made it clear it's not going to be allowed this year.

Sleeping out isn't always very safe. Two homeless men burned to death in Olympia, WA when a canopy strung between two trees caught fire and fell on the men during the night.

Half of Madison, WI's homeless population of 3,400 is unsheltered and walking the streets, but they're not feeling very welcome these days. Two unsolved murders in two months.has put the community on edge and a lot of suspicion is focused on homeless people. Chicago Tribune.

As cities and towns and the people who live in them struggle economically, seems like there's not much left for the people who have theleast.

Some Homeless News

Tasered Homeless Woman Dies: 35 years old, mentally ill, handcuffed. Houston Chronicle

Tent Cities: A dozen homeless people in Edmonton, Alberta stood up to the police and refused to move from their encampment.. Corus Radio

Meanwhile, the city's plans to disrupt a tent city of about 100 people in Gainseville, Florida were brought to a temporary halt when homelessness advocates protested. There are only about 350 beds available for homeless residents in Alachua County on any given night, out of an estimated 950 homeless people in the county. Offtopicz

Now that a federal judge in Fresno, CA has ruled it is unconstitutional for city police to destroy the belongings of homeless people that they roust from encampments, advocates and city officials have to figure out who will store the belongings and how the belongings can be reuinited with their owners. Redding.com

Camp Quixote residents have settled in for a stay at the United Church of Olympia, WA. Olympian Online