The good, the bad, the ugly-- and the shining moments

 I like being busy but I must say that the last two weeks have really been over the top. Just to get caught up with my readers, I'm tossing out a mix of personal and political in this post, then I can be back on track..

First, it is quite likely that some time within the week, I''ll be posting an apology to Springfield Technical Community College for any information that I incorrectly portrayed in my post about their Rosa Parks Day event.  That post is no longer on my blog, but I'll probably be putting it back up so there is some context to my apology.  I am waiting for a response to my request for a meeting before I apologize, so that I can be sure of just what I got wrong.  Meanwhile, one STCCer called me up to yell at me, and I've received emails from two different STCCers, one challenging my political integrity and the other blasting me for my lack of professionalism.  Well, I've never said I don't make mistakes, so I'll keep you updated on this one.

Second, I'm pretty sure the feral cat I've been feeding is dead.  I was on my way out of town on Sunday and saw a gray cat dead by the side of the road only about a block from the abandoned house where it hangs out.  I was telling my older daughter about this, and she took that opportunity to reiterate her belief that it's bad to feed ferals, that instead, I should have captured the cat and taken it to some place where it could be humanely euthanized.  Once again, I could be wrong and she could be right, but that wasn't the choice that I made.

So that's the bad stuff.

Good stuff: we had an Open House/Holiday Party at Arise this evening, and I give it a 9.5 on a scale of 1 to 10.  Lots of folks came, we had plenty of food, Bill brought a guitar and led kids in a sing-a-long, and we had enough prizes from the dollar store to make just about everyone happy.  One sad thing: almost everyone I talked to tonight had recently lost a job or was looking desperately to find one.  There won't be much under the Christmas tree for most of these kids.  But tonight we were family.

More good stuff: while we were getting ready for the party, Springfield City Councilors Mike Fenton, John Lysak and Melvin Edwards  were holding a press conference with representatives from various neighborhood councils, saying that on Monday, they plan to reconsider Palmer Renewable Energy's permit to build a biomass incinerator in Springfield.  Eighteen months of community organizing may be starting to pay off!  You can read Peter Goonan's story on MassLive.  My favorite quote is Ward Two Mike Fenton saying,
“This is an issue second to none on my agenda.”  I don't know yet if the work of Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield is finished, but I know we're giving it our all.  If you don't want to live in a city with air even more polluted than it already is, get yourself down to City Council Monday night and help get some of these councilors off the fence.

To add to the opposition, the presidents of Springfield, American International and Western New England Colleges have come out against the plant and have let Mayor Sarno and Council President Jose Tosado know so in a letter!

I've been a community organizer for a long time, and my main interest has always been the rights-- and the empowerment-- of poor people. I suppose being poor myself  hasn't hurt my allegiance to the cause.  But the most successful campaigns Arise has been involved in are those that affect everybody-- poor people most of all, but ultinately all of us.  Ward representation is the best example.  The poorest areas of Springfield were never successful in electing a city councilor under the at large system.  And yet, no neighborhood was represented under the old system.  Only ward representation could change that, and everyone in the city has benefited.  And now, it's the ward councilors who are leading the way in protecting this community's health.  Win or lose, I'm proud of them .

The ugly: Four doors down from Arise's storefront is a Christian coffeehouse called Holy Grounds.  A church bought the entire building about a year and a half ago, and they've done a wonderful job turning the ground floor into a coffee house with a little stage, books on the wall, a serving bar, round tables and some comfortable chairs. I've stopped in a few times because we like to know our neighbors, and the minister has been down to our office once or twice. Our conversations have been innocuous because we haven't appeared to have much in common, but nothing in our exchanges have rung any warning bells, either.

This weekend, WMA Jobs with Justice posted the following information on the AriseAction listserve.  Check out the links.

In the latest edition of Intelligence Report, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports that Scott Lively lives in Springfield.  Here’s an intro to him:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Lively.  Abiding Truth Ministries is at 455 State St, Springfield MA 01105; PO Box 2373.Springfield MA 01101; (413) 301-0918; and http://www.defendthefamily.com/.

Lively claims Hitler and his inner circle were gay and that homosexuals helped mastermind the Holocaust. He’s also linked to the murderous Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill.  

Background:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2005/spring/holy-war/making-myths

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2009/summer/anti-gay-propaganda

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/winter/the-hard-liners - which ends:

“In 2008, Lively started the Redemption Gate Mission Society, a church that seeks to ‘re-Christianize’ the city of Springfield, Mass., where he lives.” The specific target is mapped at http://www.redemptiongate.org/images/rzoverhead.jpg.Regarding Redemption Gate Mission Society: http://www.redemptiongate.org/.  Redemption Gate and its Holy Grounds Coffee House are at 455 State Street too, and (413) 250-0984 and info@RedemptionGate.org. 

Take a look at who they have speak: http://www.redemptiongate.org/speakersched.htm. 

Finally, don’t miss this Daily Show segment: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-july-28-2010/gay-reichs?xrs=share_fb.

Shiny moments: my younger daughter and her husband are less than a month away from having a baby.  I'll be a grandmother for the second time in twenty-two years!  They decided not to know the sex of the baby beforehand-- the way it used to be-- so I'm eagerly waiting to know if I have another granddaughter or my first grandson.

My first granddaughter is from my oldest daughter, and I want to take a moment  to say how proud of her.  She does closed captioning for the hearing-impaired, reads non-stop, and is one of the most well-informed and solidly progressive people I know.  This fall, she's given it her best shot to qualify for the Boston women's roller derby team!  She's always loved to skate and had a childhood dream of being on a team that apparently persisted somewhere in the back of her mind.  So when she heard the team was recruiting, she became "fresh meat" and practiced twice a week with other fresh meat and with the "dames."  She made the first cut but not the second, which is almost OK, because she says she's never been so sore and bruised in her life.  (She got a black eye the first week of practice.)  But she's made lots of new friends and will stay involved with the team.  

Talk about going for your dream!  She's inspired me.

Toxic Toys R Us

Jeez, as if our kids aren't under enough assault as it is...Here's an easy action from Friends of the Earth:

In 2008, Toys R Us promised to reduce PVC plastic, phthalates, and lead in children's and infant’s toys. But the fact of the matter is that Toys R Us has not kept its promise. It has failed to label toxics in its toys and has failed to get PVC, the poison plastic, out of the toys it sells. Independent product testing has confirmed that Toys R Us is selling toys made with PVC. Chemicals released in PVC’s lifecycle have been linked to chronic diseases in children, impaired child development and birth defects, cancer, disruption of the endocrine system, reproductive impairment and immune system suppression. There is no safe way to manufacture, use or dispose of PVC products. As the largest specialized toy retailer in America, with more than 800 stores nationwide, Toys R Us has the economic power to eliminate toxics from the toy supply chain entirely. Photo from Alan Cleaver's photostream at Flickr.

Lead linked to ADHD

As Springfield City Council and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts consider the fate of a proposed incinerator , they (and the rest of us) might want to pay attention to two studies released this year and summarized in Science Daily.

The plant, if built, will emit about 600 pounds of lead a year into the atmosphere.

"The first study compared children formally diagnosed with ADHD to controls, and found that the children with the disorder had slightly higher levels of lead in their blood. This study showed a link only between blood lead and hyperactivity/impulsivity symptoms, not inattention. But a second study showed a robust link between blood lead and both parent and teacher ratings of ADHD symptoms, including both hyperactivity and attention problems. In both studies, the connection was independent of IQ, family income, race, or maternal smoking during pregnancy."  Science Daily.

Photo from Got Sarah's photostream at Flickr.

If you intended to murder an infant

If you intended to murder an infant and you had roughly three hours in which to accomplish that deed, what method would you choose?

(I can barely stand to read these words as I write them.)

Would you decide to plunge the infant into cold water, set him naked in front of an air conditioner and then hope for the best?

I'm writing, of course, about the dreadful death of a six week old baby in West Springfield's Clarion Motel in the first hours after midnight on Sunday.

According to MassLive, West Springfield police received a call from the infant's mother, 22 year old Erica Luce, requesting assistance, about 3 am. The baby was taken by ambulance to Baystate Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

The mother told WWLP she had been visiting a next door neighbor while her three year old son and infant son slept, checking on them every fifteen minutes, but then she dropped off to sleep in her friend's room, awakening with a bad feeling. that she found her baby naked, wet and in front of the air conditioner.

So why am I writing this post?  I'm writing this in part because of a conversation my daughter and I had yesterday afternoon about this baby's death..  I'd said that something about the situation just didn't feel right,  but that I probably wouldn't write about it because I didn't know enough.  She'd said, Why not?  It doesn't stop you from writing about the cops when you think that something doesn't seem right.  And she was completely on target.


A few weeks ago, I wrote the following:  I know from experience how hard it can be to criticize one of "your own kind."  You already know there's a set of stereotypes that will instantly kick into play and which will go far beyond the specific person to castigate an entire group.  And you already know too much about how hard life can be for that kind of person, and that very  few people who haven't lived that life will be capable of  taking that into consideration.

Sure enough, much of the comments on the news story about this baby's death-- I don't even know the poor baby's name-- have been drawn from the stereotypes people have about welfare, single mothers and poverty.

So let me say some of what I know-- some from my own experience and some from years of observation-- no, that's not the right word, let's say thirty years of relationships with other poor, single mothers on welfare.

Tolstoy said that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way but I've found there's much that ties us together.  So I will generalize, knowing there are exceptions, and also leaving out whole categories of families on welfare such as those for whom relying on public assistance comes after a long fall from the working or middle class (and yes, there are a lot of them).  I am deliberately writing about the mothers on welfare that seem to most closely fit the stereotypes. 

Almost every girl and young woman who has an unplanned pregnancy, or a pregnancy without a solid plan for the future,  lacks a deep sense of self-worth.  We think we know what we're doing but we don't.  Still, most of us are ready to make the best of the situation, and most of us have grand plans for our children's lives, and how they'll be different from our own.

But it's hard, harder than we'd ever guess.  It shouldn't be impossible to raise children well in a single parent household and mostly the problem comes down to money.  The level of economic insecurity that comes with living on welfare is almost impossible to conceive-- housing always at risk, utility shut-offs looming, the constant and energy-sapping tension that comes from not knowing the face of the next disaster waiting around the corner.

Having more children usually makes things much worse.  But a second pregnancy comes along because we think we've found a relationship that will last until our children are grown up and can fend for themselves.  And nine times out of ten, we're wrong.

So getting a good job and getting off welfare is what makes the most sense, right?  But here's what I've seen in the last thirty years and every reader knows this is true: there are just fewer and fewer good jobs out there.  As a young mother, I worked in two factories; they are long closed.  I worked in two bookstores; now we don't have a single bookstore in the city.  I have aunts that worked at Forbes & Wallace selling gloves and hats and actually retired from there.

Still, the vast majority of mothers on welfare will eventually enter the workforce.  Welfare reform has "worked," if you want to call it that.  In 1997 Massachusetts had a 3.2% unemployment rate and a welfare caseload of  80,000; the monthly cash assistance for a family of three was $579.  Now, in January 2010,  we have an unemployment rate of 9.4% (or 17.2%, if you go by the "underemployment" rate) a welfare caseload of 50,500 families; the monthly cash assistance for a family of three is $618!   (That's less than a 7% increase in 13 years.)  Where is everyone, you might ask, if they're not on welfare and not working?  But maybe you really don't want to know about the kind of life that goes with the poverty they're experiencing.

Some mothers find alternatives to welfare because they have a child with a disability.  The vast majority of these disabilities are real  but there are also those parents will grasp at any straw to find a way to have income.  Maybe they're pushed by their kid's school into complicity with pathologizing their children.  Maybe they willingly and with relief accept some explanation for their children's behavior  because without that explanation, they feel like failures even more than they do already. 

Getting an education can really help a single mom leave welfare-- but childcare is hard to come by, transportation costs money, and a sick kid can throw everything into chaos.  And there still have to be jobs available at the end of the process.  Just how many cosmetologists do we need, anyway?.

There is no room here to make a summary of all the other ills that can affect poor families, and many of those ills, like domestic violence and addiction, cut across all class lines.  It's just if you're a poor single mom, it's like being hit when you're already down.

I can hear the voices now:  Throw them off!  Make them self-reliant!  But we're not exactly talking about the pioneer days, with wagon trains,  homesteading and subsistence farming.  We have to fit into the structure that already exists.

And this is where I feel like throwing up my hands because we are so completely going in the wrong direction.  According to Webster's, a society is " a highly structured system of human organization for large-scale community living that normally furnishes protection, continuity, security, and a national identity for its members."  Society has to work for most of us-- the regular people with regular lives who deserve to be able to get by.  Instead more and more of us are being left behind.

Some will call my attempt to place welfare moms in a larger context the same as making excuses for them. I would never deny the power of an individual to change her whole family's life for the better, because it happens every day.But why do we have to build our lives in the heart of a hurricane?

Photos from Gabba Gabba Hey!'s photostream at Flickr.,House Of Sims' photostream

Mothers and peace

A day late, as usual-- I'm a member of Bloggers Unite and yesterday was the day to blog about the Mothers' Day for Peace event. But I didn't get it together to write Saturday and Sunday I was with my own kids. I've been working on coming to terms with how some things will never change, other things are worth the work, while the rest is too good to mess with.

When I stopped over at Arise for Social Justice today, I asked two of the women who were there that I knew were mothers how their day was yesterday.

"Don't ask," one woman said, and then proceeded to tell me her car adventure. The car needed some repairs, so she brought it to a backyard mechanic. Later that night, he "loaned" it to somebody he owed a favor to. That person drove it through a McDonald's where her brother worked, who recognized the car and then reported it as stolen to the police. The car was left in the lot and she came and got it, and then was promptly stopped by the police for driving a stolen car.

This is the kind of chaos that comes with not having enough money and having to cut corners.

The second woman asked if she could talk to me in the back office. Turned out a longtime friend-- who was not even currently a boyfriend-- had blown up at her and then pummeled her with a pillow from the couch.

"It wasn't a soft pillow, either," she said. "I've got a headache and a stiff neck."

So I worked all the PC options into the conversation-- if he did it once, he'll do it again, you should think about getting a restraining order-- but the truth is, life is much more complicated. Her longtime friend had just behaved in an inexplicable way and she saw the possibility of a ten year friendship going down the drain. Without his friendship, her life would also get harder, because he helps out-- not with money, but picking one of her kids up after school if she's working.

"Well, let me make a really white suggestion", I said.

She laughed.

"You know you have to tell him that that can never happen again," I said. "What about asking him if he'd be willing to see a counselor with you-- or even a mediator, just to work out the terms of what's acceptable in your friendship and what isn't?" I could see her running my suggestion through her mind to see if it could even possibly make sense in her situation.

Later she told me she'd called him-- didn't quite catch what she'd said to him-- but his answer was, "That's not your choice to make."

"Well, that about says it all, right?" I said.

We'll have to talk more later. This is the kind of chaos that comes with....well, the life of a single mother with not enough resources, among other things.

This week the local Springfield, MA forum MassLive burned with cruelty and pettiness-- maybe even envy-- because of a very small state-funded program that gives cars to families on welfare that get a job. The program also pays the cost of insurance and AAA for one year, but those payments cease if the working family member loses her/his job or stops working. They get to keep the car, although, seeing as the car is donated and repaired through a Vermont program called the Good News Garage, they're probably no great shakes. Only 65 cars have been donated so far in the $400,000 a year state budget.

Much of the criticism of this program and others such as cash assistance, childcare subsidies and food stamps (now SNAP) seems to come from a basic misunderstanding of what fairness is.

"It's not fair that someone on welfare should get subsidized childcare when I pay $120 a week!"

Yup, not fair. So why not make it available to both instead of taking it away from one? Or is that too hard to imagine?

I could talk about how successful capitalism has been at creating a great divide between the classes.

But sometimes I just want to send people for a brainwipe. Maybe the second time around some people would learn some compassion.

Anti-Bullying Community Forum and Vigil

In the wake of the recent tragedy that took the life of young Carl Joseph Walker- Hoover a forum is being held to create an opportunity for the community to address the issues affecting all the youth of our city, and build solutions together.

This event brings together a board array of perspectives on bullying to highlight its sever impacts, as well as solutions to this ending this epidemic in our city, state and country.

At this special event the community with have the opportunity to voice their thoughts, ask questions and offer solutions. This event will end with a candlelight vigil remembering all those who have been the affected by bullying.

Special Guest: Sirdeaner L. Walker, mother of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover

Musical Performances: Holyoke High School Madrigal Singers, Shakira L. Hanley

Opening Speaker: Rev. Irene Monroe, Coordinator of the African American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific School of Religion, and a religion columnist.

Panelist(s): Lisa – Perry Woods, Executive Director Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Youth Commission, Jossie Valientie, Senior Bilingual Academic Counselor, Holyoke Community College, Holyoke and Parent, OutNow member and public school student

Come to Listen! Come to make your voice heard! Come to make a difference!

Date:April 29th 6:30pm- 8:30pm; Location: American International College,Griswold Theatre, 1000 State Street,Springfield, Ma 01109 http://www.aic.edu/visitors/directions

Bullies, suicides and suspensions

Massachusetts Rep. Alice Wolf, D-25th Middlesex, has introduced legislation that would rein in the out-of-control rate of school suspensions. A a hearing on the proposed bill will take place this Tuesday, 6 pm., at the Springfield Science and Technology High School, 1250 State St.

The purpose of the hearing, sponsored by the Graduation and Drop-Out Prevention and Recovery Commission, is to solicit information on the effect of school suspensions, and to build support for Wolf's bill, "An Act to help students stay in school."

Some bullets from the hearing fact sheet:

• Many Massachusetts school districts exclude students from school for non-violent misconduct that does not threaten student and school staff safety.
• African-American students are six times more likely to be excluded, often for the same infractions that bring lesser discipline for non-minority kids.
• Last year, 64,000 kids were excluded from school in Massachusetts, with 4,200 exclusions of longer than ten days. Many exclusions go unreported.
• School exclusion is strongly linked to students dropping out of school.

The Stay in School Act would limit school suspensions to 90 school days in most cases, and limit suspensions to 10 days unless students assault staff, bring weapons to school, deal drugs or engage in other felonious behavior. It would also require a written explanation of the suspension, and allow parents the right to appeal.

The timing of this hearing in Springfield couldn't be more ironic. On April 6, Springfield student Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover hung himself in response to bullying in school. He was eleven years old. Ten days later, another eleven year old Georgia boy hung himself for the same reasons. Bullying is serious business and the cruelty that some children endure produces lifelong scars. Yet are suspensions the best answer to this problem?

Charles M. Blow at the NYTImes wrote a sad and chilling column this week about the effect of homophobic bullying on children, with statistics to break your heart. The main focus of bullies seems to be boys who are perceived as "gay"-- that is, kids who enjoy music, like to read, like to dance or who otherwise don't fit the lowest common denominator of masculinity, and kids who are bullied for their appearance.

These realities have not stopped the Massachusetts House, however, from taking away 40% of the funds earmarked for suicide prevention programs for gay and lesbian youth in next year's budget.

Every parent in Springfield needs to have a conversation with their kids about the rights of all children to be who they are and look the way they look. Every school in Springfield needs to have the same conversation. Unless we can find a way to increase tolerance among our children and ourselves, more tragedies are just around the corner.

Hundreds of youth criminal records expunged

Update: Former Pennsylvania Judges Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan are headed for prison-- seven years each and not nearly long enough, if you ask me-- for sentencing young people brought before the bar to a privately-run juvenile facility in return for kick-backs totaling in the millions. I wrote about the case when it first went national here.

Now the New York Times is reporting that the records of hundred of youths will be expunged. 70 of those youths have filed a class action suit against the judges, asking that "all profits that the detention centers earned from the scheme placed in a fund that would compensate the youths for their emotional distress." NYTimes.

If there were no prison, and still the judges could be sentenced, what should they be sentenced to do?

What people will do for money

I'm not much for ranking oppressions but you have to admit that children and mentally disabled adults don't have much institutional power. Those two groups did, however, prove to be quite profitable for two juvenile court judges in Pennsylvania and-- allegedly-- the Texas-based Henry’s Turkey Service.

Until someone used an anonymous hotline to tip off the state of Iowa, 21 mentally disabled men lived in a 106 year old building-- a bunkhouse, you might call it-- that depended on space heaters for heat. During the day they worked at a meatpacking plant for Henry's Turkey Service for the princely sum of about 44 cents an hour the rest going to Henry's Turkey. Their disability checks also went straight to Henry's Turkey, which returned about $60 a month to the men. That means, according to the Houston Chronicle, the men paid $1,124 a month for room and board.

Now it turns out that at least some family members had made complaints to the Dept. of Social Services, although the agency has no record of complaints. In the town of Atalissa, Iowa, with a population of fewer than 300 people and where the men lived and work, people are doing a little soul-searching.

"Maybe we should have looked a little harder," said (City Councilor) Hepker. "We depended on their caretakers. Des Moines Register.

The men, whom one imagines have developed quite a bit of camaraderie, have been placed in a group home.

For three years, Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan moved children through their courtrooms and got rich in the process. The scheme was simple: the judges would sentence the young to a for-profit lockup owned by PA Child Care LLC, and PA Child Care LLC would pay them-- more than $2.6 million.

Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before. Some were imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it.

Many appeared without lawyers, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1967 ruling that children have a constitutional right to counsel. AP.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is considering expunging hundreds, maybe thousands of juvenile records. The judges will be sentenced to seven years in prison. The young people get a little justice and lifelong memories of their experience.

Photo from the National Juvenile Justice Network.

Are more people homeless? "Point in Time" results start to trickle in.

Every year in January communities across the country participate in "Point in Time" counts of homeless people, an initiative of the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It's not as easy as just calling up shelter directors and asking for their census; volunteers take flashlight and sometimes warm coffee and hit the alleys, abandoned buildings and riverbanks to find the unsheltered homeless. I've always wondered why this count doesn't take place in May, where the unsheltered homeless are a bit easier to spot, but it is what it is.

Officials from my home city Springfield, Massachusetts are having a press conference today to announce that the number of homeless single people has gone down but the number for homeless families has risen, leading to an overall increase in homelessness. A random sampling of cities doesn't look good. Elizabeth City, North Carolina found one less person homeless than from the previous year's census, but McHenry County, Illinois found a 36% increase. Billings, Montana found 10% more homeless people than last year. Nineteen of twenty-five cities polled by the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported an average 12% more homeless people in their cities over last year. I can't imagine that figures are going to improve for the year ahead.

Foreclosures are driving up family homelessness in a big way, and it's not just the individual homeowners who are suffering. Many renters keep paying their rent, unaware of the fact that owners are in default. I've known a number of people who moved into an apartment one month, only to be evicted by a bank the very next month! Yes, sadly, there are property owners that unscrupulous.

Children pay the highest price of homelessness. Their nutrition is likely to suffer, especially if they're temporarily housed in motels, the way 673 Massachusetts families are right this moment-- can't cook in a motel room. Homeless kids miss more school days, even though many counties try very hard to help kids get to school. But the problem is outpacing school systems' ability to cope. The largest school district in Arizona has 28% more homeless kids this year than last.

The blog Invisible Homeless Kids is helping to promote a new campaign to pass the H.R. 29, the Homeless Children and Youth Act of 2009, which will make sure that homeless children and also homeless teens not with their families are counted as homeless-- believe it or not, they're often excluded from the count, skewing the number of actual homeless. You can get more information about the bill at the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth. Then take action.

Take action for homeless families

If you live in Massachusetts, you have a chance to stick up for homeless families. Call your legislator and tell him or her to oppose these proposed regulations (below) that would make it harder for homeless families to get into shelter.

You can get a list of your legislators by town here. You can find your legislators' phone numbers here.

For more information, contact Mass. Coalition for the Homeless, 781-595-7570.

SAVE ACCESS TO EMERGENCY SHELTER FOR HOMELESS FAMILIES
The Patrick Administration has proposed to restrict access to emergency shelter for children and
families experiencing homelessness, beginning on April 1. Please take all steps possible to ensure
that these restrictions do not take effect, including calling the Governor and asking him to withdraw
the proposed restrictions and supporting supplemental funding for family shelter (item 4403-2120).
The proposals to restrict shelter access for homeless children are based on a projected budget deficit
of less than $3.4 million in the family shelter account for the current fiscal year. This deficit is directly
related to the skyrocketing number of families facing homelessness due to the poor national economy.
These families are in desperate need for help, and restricting access to shelter in these precarious
times is not the answer. And these punitive proposals wouldn’t even resolve the deficit, since they
would “save” the state less than $520,000 this fiscal year.
The restrictions on access to shelter are unnecessary to close the projected deficit. The state is
expected to receive from the Federal Economic Recovery bill more than $17 million this fiscal year
and another $23 million next year in emergency TANF funds that are specifically intended to help the
state meet the costs of serving more low-income families in need. These funds can be used to
cover the shelter deficit and avoid harm to homeless children. In addition, the Federal Economic
Recovery package is expected to include additional Emergency Shelter Grant funding that can be
used to prevent homelessness in the longer run. Also, the regional coordinating entities established
through the work of the Commission to End Homelessness -- whose mission is to pilot and study
creative ways to prevent homelessness -- are not yet operating but are scheduled to begin operations
in the next few weeks. We should allow the regional entities to do their work, as their efforts should
render these new restrictions unnecessary.
The eight proposed restrictions on shelter access (see over) include denying eligibility for shelter
and services to children and families who have been evicted or voluntarily left subsidized or
public housing in the past three years. This proposal is particularly unfair and unwise because:
• Emergency shelter was created to protect children who have no control over their parents’
conduct. Denying them shelter will punish kids unfairly. Moreover, many families are evicted
from subsidized housing due to issues beyond their control, such as those related to disability,
domestic violence, limited English proficiency, or conduct by someone who is no longer a part
of the household seeking shelter. In some cases, families are evicted from housing because
they never even got the court papers telling them when their eviction hearing was.
• There are inadequate systems in place to prevent evictions. Few public housing authorities
have eviction mediation systems and most tenants in eviction proceedings do not have legal
counsel to represent them (in 2005, only 6% of tenants but 66% of landlords were
represented). Denying emergency shelter to families evicted from subsidized housing will
reduce the incentive the state has to create better eviction prevention systems, and therefore
will not further the Commission's goal of preventing homelessness.
• Without shelter and housing search services, these families will have no safe places to go and
their children may have to enter state custody, causing greater trauma to the children and
greater expenses for the state over time.
ACT NOW TO PROTECT FAMILIES EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS!
For more information, please contact Mass. Law Reform Institute 617-357-0700 (Ruth Bourquin x333,
rbourquin@mlri.org or Deborah Silva x340 dsilva@mlri.org), Mass. Coalition for the Homeless 781-595-7570 (Leslie
Lawrence x16, leslie@mahomeless.org or Kelly Turley x17, kelly@mahomeless.org), Greater Boston Legal Services
(Steve Valero 617-603-1654 svalero@gbls.org), South Coastal County Legal Services (Rick McIntosh 508-775-7020
x114 rmcintosh@sccls.org), Legal Assistance Corporation of Central Mass. (Faye Rachlin 508-752-3718
frachlin@laccm.org), Western Mass. Legal Services (Marion Hohn 413-686-9015 mhohn@wmls.org), Neighborhood
Legal Services (Emily Herzig 781-244-1405 eherzig@nlsma.org), Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services (Ellen
Shachter 617-603-2731 eshachter@gbls.org).
General Description of Proposed Restrictions on Family Shelter Access
(Note: As of February 3, 2009, the Administration has not yet made available to the Legislature
or the public a copy of the actual language of the proposed regulations.)
The Patrick Administration is proposing to:
1. Deny access to shelter to any family who has been evicted or who has voluntarily departed
public or subsidized housing in the past 3 years without good cause. See discussion on page 1.
• No details currently available about what will constitute good cause.
• Existing rules already bar families whose current homelessness is caused by eviction for
criminal activity, destruction of property or nonpayment of rent.
2. Impose a 30-hour per week work requirement on families in shelter and kick them out of
shelter if they cannot comply.
• While details are currently lacking, the requirement reportedly will be imposed even though
there are few jobs and training opportunities in the current economy, without regard to the
age of the youngest child, with no exemptions for families with disability-related barriers
(although DTA has indicated that individualized reasonable modifications will be available).
• In 2004, the Legislature said families in shelter should not be subject to other work
requirements because they need to prioritize housing search obligations.
3. Reduce the period that families who go over the income limit can stay in shelter and try to
find housing from the 6 months set by the Legislature to only 3 months.
• Given the economy and lack of housing subsidies, 3 months is not much time for families
to secure safe, permanent housing; families who run out of time could be forced into
unsustainable housing arrangements.
• The Administration says it believes it can find these families housing within 3 months. If
that is the case, there is no need for the change in the rule.
4. Deny continued access to shelter to families who are absent from a shelter placement for 2
or more consecutive nights or for 1 night on repeated occasions without advance approval.
• No details currently available as to how onerous the requirements for getting approval will
be or whether this will prevent families from temporarily staying with relatives or attending
to crises, even if they have given DTA or their shelter provider advance notice.
5. Deny continued access to shelter for families who reject just one offer of housing.
• No details currently available as to any exceptions that might be allowed or whether the
housing offer must be in a place close to jobs, schools, medical providers, etc.
6. Deny access to shelter to families in which the only child is between the ages of 19 and 21
unless the child is disabled or in high school and expected to graduate by age 19.
• Under this plan, most families with dependents aged 19-21 would be sent to already overburdened
individual shelters, where access is not guaranteed and family members may be
separated from one another.
7. Deny access to shelter to children whose parents have outstanding default or arrest warrants.
• Children would be kept out of shelter even though state statute authorizes denial of
benefits only to the person with the outstanding warrant.
8. Require all families in shelters (but not including motels) to “save” 30% of their income as a
condition of continued eligibility for shelter.

UNICEF photos of 2008

The winning photo for 2008 comes from 21-year-old Belgian photographer Alice Smeets, the youngest person ever to win the competition. The picture comes from a slum in Port au Prince called the "Cité Soleil," or "City of the Sun."
See more the at Spiegel Gallery.

Gaza casualties

Local blogger Bill Dusty challenged info in my last post about 90% of the casualties in Gaza being non-combatants. That figure does seem wrong. I took a look online for some estimates and they follow below, and while I rarely print newspaper articles in their entirety, I must do so for an NYTimes article about the death of three of the daughters of a Palestinian doctor in Gaza.

Just remember: no CHILD voted in any Palestinian election, not for Hamas, not for anyone.

Gaza: UN official reports horrific hospital scenes of casualties

12 January 2009 – Appalled that fighting was still continuing in Gaza despite the Security Council’s ceasefire resolution, senior United Nations officials said today they were horrified at the human costs amid reports that over 40 per cent of the nearly 900 Palestinians killed in the Israeli offensive, and almost half of the 3,860 wounded, were women and children.

“Behind those statistics that we read out every day is really profound human suffering and grave tragedy for all involved and not just for those who are killed and injured but for their families as well,” UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Director of Operations John Ging told a news conference in New York, speaking by video link from Gaza, where he had just visited the main Al Shifa hospital.

“(It) is the place of course where you see the most horrific human consequences of this conflict. Among the tragic cases that I saw were a child, six years of age, little or no brain activity, people don’t have much hope for her survival; multiple amputee – another little girl; and a pregnant woman who’d lost a leg,” he said, as the Israeli offensive went into its 17th day with the stated aim of ending Hamas rocket attacks into Israel.

“The hospital is really full of patients whose lives have been in many instances really destroyed, and they’re alive.”

UNICEF: Number of child casualties still rising in Gaza

Humanitarian situation is desperate

JERUSALEM/NEW YORK, 9 January 2009 - The number of children being killed and injured in the fighting in Gaza continues to climb and the humanitarian situation is becoming more desperate every day.

According to figures cited by OCHA today, there have been 758 Palestinian deaths since December 27 , out of which 257 were children and 56 were women. At least, 3,100 have been injured including 1,080 children and 452 women.

Red Cross accuses Israel over 'shocking' Gaza casualties

Posted Fri Jan 9, 2009 7:10am AEDT

The Red Cross has accused the Israeli army of hindering its rescue teams after saying it found four children lying next to their dead mothers in the wreckage of a shell-battered Gaza City neighbourhoood.

In a scathing statement, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) accused the Israeli army of failing to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded.

The Red Cross said its rescue teams had been refused access to the Zeitun neighbourhood for four days.

January 18, 2009

Gazan Doctor and Peace Advocate Loses 3 Daughters to Israeli Fire and Asks Why

By DINA KRAFT - NYTimes

TEL HASHOMER, Israel — Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Gazan and a doctor who has devoted his life to medicine and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.

But on Saturday, the day after three of his daughters and a niece were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza, Dr. Abuelaish, 53, struggled to hold on to the humane philosophy that has guided his life and work.

As he sat in a waiting room of the Israeli hospital where he works part time, he asked over and over, “Why did they do this?”

Elsewhere in the hospital another daughter and a niece were being treated for their wounds.

“I dedicated my life really for peace, for medicine,” said Dr. Abuelaish, who does joint research projects with Israeli physicians and for years has worked as something of a one-man force to bring injured and ailing Gazans for treatment in Israel.

“This is the path I believed in and what I raised and educated my children to believe,” he said.

Dr. Abuelaish said he wanted the Israeli Army to tell him why his home, which he said harbored no militants, had been fired upon. He said if a mistake had been made and an errant tank shell had hit his home, he expected an apology, not excuses.

The doctor, a recent widower, had not left Gaza since the Israeli assault began last month and was at home in the Jabaliya refugee camp with his eight children and other family members during the attack on Friday.

An army spokesman said that a preliminary investigation had shown that soldiers were returning fire toward the direction of areas from which they had been fired upon.

“The Israeli Defense Forces does not target innocents or civilians, and during the operation the army has been fighting an enemy that does not hesitate to fire from within civilian targets,” said the spokesman, speaking anonymously on behalf of the army.

The Israeli public became witness to the Abuelaish family’s tragedy on Friday night when a conversation that a television journalist was having with Dr. Abuelaish was broadcast live.

In a video now available on YouTube, the doctor implored the journalist, whom he had called, to help send assistance, wailing, “My daughters have been killed.”

Journalists had come to know the doctor, who was already well known in the country’s medical establishment, because he has been providing witness accounts of the Israeli operation for television stations. After the broadcast, an ambulance was sent to a border crossing to pick up the doctor and the two wounded girls. His four other children remain in Gaza and are expected to join him in Israel soon.

At the Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer on Saturday, Dr. Abuelaish was surrounded by Israeli colleagues. Several were crying. Tammie Ronen, a professor of social work at Tel Aviv University, knelt beside the doctor. “You cannot let yourself collapse, you have your living children to take care of,” said Dr. Ronen. Dr. Ronen had worked with him in researching the effects of conflict-related stress on Palestinian children in Gaza and Israeli children in Sderot, a border town that has been the main target of Gazan rocket fire in recent years.

“Tell them who my children were,” said Dr. Abuelaish, spotting Anael Harpaz, an Israeli woman who runs a peace camp in New Mexico for Israeli and Palestinian girls that three of his daughters attended, including his eldest, Bisan, 20, who was killed Friday. The other two daughters who were killed were Mayar, 15, and Aya, 13. The doctor’s niece who died, Nur Abuelaish, was 17.

Dr. Abuelaish recalled that it was Bisan who, after her mother died of leukemia, urged him to continue his work in Israel, saying she would look after the younger children.

In a hospital room, Ms. Harpaz held 17-year-old Shada Abuelaish’s hand as a nurse placed drops of medicine on her tongue. The girl’s forehead was covered in bandages as was her right eye, which had been operated on in hopes of saving it. The niece who was wounded is in critical condition, with shrapnel wounds.

Outside the room, Ms. Harpaz crumpled into a chair, sobbing.

“I hope this is a wake-up call,” she said. “This is such a peace-loving family.”

Dr. Abuelaish is a rarity: a Gazan at home among Israelis. He describes himself as a bridge between the two worlds, one of the few Gazans with a permit to enter Israel because of his work.

“I wanted every Palestinian treated in Israel to go back and say how well the Israelis treated them,” he said. “That is the message I wanted to spread all the time. And this is what I get in return?”

Later, sitting on a plastic chair near his daughter’s hospital room, Dr. Abuelaish spoke with the prayer of so many parents who have buried their children as part of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I hope that my children will be the last price.”

ICE officer accused of child pornography

A Chinese immigrant died in August at the Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island. Seven workers there have now been "punished" for failure to follow policies-- no criminal charges apply.

A top immigration official in Massachusetts was arrested last month for hiring a illegal immigrants to clean her house.

Now, Michael Clifford, an ICE offial from Hull, MA, was indicted on rape of a child and photographing the assault, which allegedly took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. See more at the Boston Globe.

What about THESE children?

I'm sorry John Travolta's son has died.....but what about these children? Hours and hours of coverage of Travolta's son...but what about these children?

Photos by

Tarneem S. Alagha

From The Zero, the website of Andrew Vachss

Got a couple bucks? bad neighbors want to take away disabled boy's pony

Seems like usually when I'm writing about Ontario, it's about homeless people...but BoingBoing turned me on to this....and again, I don't usually suggest to my readers that they send a few bucks here and there, because where do you stop?....but I'm making an exception today.

In Caledon, Ontario, a three year old boy with cerebral palsy who cannot walk or crawl gets a great deal of pleasure-- and rehabilitation, in riding his miniature pony. But, because of complaints by a neighbor of a bad smell, the town is threatening to make the boy's family give up their pony because of its smell. (The neighbor's property, by the way, abuts a cattle farm.)

The boy's single mom needs over $1,000 to make a special appeal to the town. you can read more at the National Post.

Photo of Sam and Antonia Spiteri and their pony Emily by Peter Redman, National Post

Dada in my dreams; chickens and rabbits

OK, so I had major surgery last week and my body is full of all sorts of drugs including the still much loved and needed painkillers, but I must say my dreams for the last several nights have been quite bizarre...and also more hopeful than I'm allowing in my conscious mind, which I am forcing to "be realistic" but in any case, when I find a Dadaesque poem written on the walls of my bedroom, I have to take notice.

Anyone who has had the pleasure to be familiar with Dr. Ann Faraday's books Dream Power and The Dream Game knows that houses are generally oneself and the rooms in them, different part of oneself. Yesterday, naptime, I was living in this wonderful, mostly white, old-fashioned house on a grassy knoll (hmmm...) which I didn't own but was free to alter to suit my needs. I kept finding rooms I didn't know existed, upstairs, downstairs, all around stairs. One very nice feature about the house on the grassy knoll was that the previous owner had had friendships with many dogs, and those dogs still came to visit every day; we got to be friends without my having to be responsible for them.

By my evening dream, I was repainting the bedroom in my old house white, in preparation for taking some of the walls with me. I realized that my nephew had come into the room when I wasn't there and had painted different parts of the walls vivid primary and jewel colors. At first I thought he had "ruined" it, until I took a closer look. A panel on one wall was painted with the words:
zero equals dada
one is dada minus one
two is dada plus dada
three is dada
four is dada
five is dada minus five.

I'm taking that with me, I thought in my dream.

So, to bracket that dream, I found a video on BoingBoing that you simply must see of two chickens breaking up a fight between two rabbits. I don't have sound on my computer, but i think it goes something like this: Stop it, you bad rabbits! What do you think you're doing? Cut it out right now! How dare you waste my time like this? Don't you know you've interrupted my cluckada? Now, I'm going to stand. right. here. until I know you've stopped. Hhmph!
The White Room: Katherine Dutiel

Child shoots self, dog dragged to death, senator takes bribe-- stupid, stupid, stupid

In recounting three incidences of incredible stupidity here in Massachusetts and Connecticut in the last three days, I do not mean to imply that the incidents are in any way equally stupid. Nothing surpasses the unnecessary death of a child.

Sunday, July 26: eight year old Christopher Bizilj is with his father, Dr. Charles Bizilj, at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo held at the Sportsman's Club in Westfield. He holds a 9mm micro Uzi submachine gun in his hand. Moments ago his father has taken his picture, the last of his life. With a firearms instructor at his side, Christopher pulls the trigger of the submachine gun. As the rounds fire, the gun recoils and Christopher loses control. The gun flies upwards, shooting him in the head. where Christopher Bizilj of Ashford, Conn., died after accidentally shooting himself in the head. A few hours later he is pronounced dead.

The Expo was a wholesome, family-oriented event. Children under 16 were admitted free. Come one, come all.

Dr. Bizihj is the medical director of the emergency department at Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford Springs, Conn. Has he never seen a gunshot wound? Just what does one do with an UZI submachine gun, anyway, except shoot it? And why, why, would anyone think it appropriate for an eight year old buy to fire one?

Every parent has thought about what it would be like to be responsible for the death of your child. Just thinking about it is like approaching a the edge of a steep cliff. I know two people who backed over their own children with their vehicles and killed them. They were never whole again. How can they forgive themselves? How can others? My thoughts are with this family that they can understand what has happened to them and come to some kind of peace.

-------------

On Sunday, in Suffield, CT, thirty-five year old Brian J. Moson, smashed out his mind, ties his dog to the back of his pick-up truck. Ten minutes later, having completely forgotten about his dog (and the fact that he was drunk) and decides to drive into town and sets off down the road in his truck. Some horrified person observes what s happening and calls the police. Brian is arrested a few miles later; his dog is taken to the Boston Road Animal Hospital where he is euthanized.

I would not want to be Brian, stopped by the police and stepping out of his truck, and seeing his dog.

------------

Yesterday, Massachusetts Senator Diane Wilkerson, the only African-American woman in the Senate and a longtime champion of the poor and oppressed, is arrested at her home by the F.B.I. on charges she accepted more than $23,000 in bribes from undercover agents posing as businesspeople. She had helped one of them to obtain a liquor license denied once already, and helped another develop property by promoting legislation on his behalf. Today, she is free on bail and keeping a low profile.

The Boston Globe has many articles about Sen. Wilkerson's troubles recently and in the past, including a timeline of her run-ins with ethics probes, her disbarment for income tax evasion, and campaign finance problems.

I remember Sen. Wilkerson at many State House hearings. I went there with others to fight for better health care, a living wage, more affordable housing. She always appeared to be on our side.

i would not want to be Diane Wilkerson, facing the people of her district.

A workhouse tale

Jane was the prettiest girl in the workhouse. Taller than the other seven-year-olds, with clear blue eyes and dark curly hair, she was a bright little thing, full of mischief, who liked playing practical jokes on the other children.

She was punished, of course, in those early years of the 20th century, and sometimes cried herself to sleep, but in the morning, irrepressible, she was laughing again. Who was it who climbed the drainpipe in the playground, or tied Officer Sharp's shoelaces together as she sat darning socks?

If it wasn't Jane, it might as well have been, so she got the punishment. The master of the workhouse vowed to break the 'saucy little madam'.

When Jane owned up to making a sketch of him with a square head, small eyes and an exaggerated stomach, she was taken to the discipline room, a small cell with no windows and no furniture except for a stool. The master took down one of several canes and beat the little girl so severely that she could not sit down for several days.

Read the rest of the story at Mail Online.