Homeless 18 yr old girl -- any ideas?

Just got off the phone with an 18 year old girl who is homeless.  She called Worthington St. Shelter for Women, where she has stayed before, but was told there were no beds available.  Now, this is interesting, because the official policy of Friends of the Homeless, who administers both the men's and the women's shelter, is to never turn anyone away.  So I called Worthington St., and sure enough, it's true she was denied because the shelter is full.  The very nice woman I spoke with, when I mentioned that I thought there was a no turn-away policy, said that that policy needs to change.


"We're seeing the same kind of numbers," she said, "that we usually see in the winter."  We commiserated with each other a bit.  I chose to wait to insist they shelter this girl until I tried some other options.


I have a call into the homeless coordinator at the Springfield School Department, because the girl is still in high school.  I also have a call into Sr. Sanga, who runs Annie's House, although she never has an opening.  Last time I talked to her, she told me that the women just weren't turning over, because they couldn't fuind housing they could afford.


I called my girl back to tell her what I was trying, and to ask her a little more about how she became homeless.


"I've been in a foster home since I was 14, and when I was 18, I was stubborn and signed myself out of DCF custody," she said.  "Then I stayed at the Worthington Shelter for six weeks.  Then I went to stay with a friend in Worcester, but it wasn't safe-- the people in his house do drugs and I don't, it was pretty crazy there."


I suggested she try to sign herself back into DCF-- not easy, but not impossible.


Anyone have other ideas?


With what we know is happening to homeless families, all I can do is echo my girl and say, It's pretty crazy out there.


UPDATE: REALLY, REALLY BAD NEWS!  Friends of the Homeless has a NEW policy-- if you've been staying at one of their shelters and leave for what is considered to be a "housed" situation, you are not eligible for shelter for a year!   My girl is technically in that situation, but I spoke to the director, Bill Miller, who is going to call her and who might be willing to make an exception.


But more bad news: Bill says that those in the overnight shelter are going to have to come up with a housing plan, and if the "guests" are considered to be "noncompliant"(a pretty subjective term),  they will have to leave.  He says there are no time limits on shelter-- yet.


You would think the provider world would be more aware of what happens when you put people in a corner and give them no way out.

Stop criminalizing poor people! Rally April 2

End the Criminalization of Homelessness & Poverty!  Join Us!

 Monday,  April 2, 2012

In Solidarity with the

National Day of Action for the Right to Exist

 Court Square, Springfield

Noon: Gather; 12:30: Music, speakers, then MARCH to Governor’s Office, 436 Dwight St. & Mayor’s Office

Why are the shelters full, when everywhere we see empty homes and buildings?

Why is the City of Springfield ignoring the housing needs of half of its people?

OUR DEMANDS:

City: Replace the housing lost in the tornado!

State: Make shelters available to all in need!

Feds: Fund housing, not wars!

For more info, contact: Arise for Social Justice (413)734-4948

Cosponsors so far: Alliance for Peace and Justice, Anti-Racism Ministry Team of the First Congregational Church in Amherst, UCCWM American Friends Service Committee, PV Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Charles Hamilton Houston Inst. For Race & Justice , Community Labor Rebuilding Coalition, Craig’s Place, Fund Our Communities Not War, Grace Church Peace Fellowship, International Alliance of Inhabitants, Mass Alliance of HUD Tenants, Mass Coalition for the Homeless, Mass Law Reform Institute, Move On, Occupy Amherst, Occupy Western MA General Assembly, Out Now, Peace Pagoda, Picture the Homeless, Pioneer Valley Chapter of the Green/Rainbow Party, Springfield Bank Tenants Association, Springfield No One Leaves,Survivors Incorporated, UAW Local 2322, Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst Social Justice Committee, Western Mass Jobs with Justice, WRAP

¡Poner fin a la penalización por falta de vivienda y por pobreza!

Día Nacional de Acción por el Derecho a Existir:

Lunes, 2 de abril en Court Square, Springfield

(fecha en caso de lluvia: 4 de abril)

Mediodía:      inicio de la recolección

12:30:   música, altavoces

Marchar a la Oficina del Gobernador

Marchar a la Oficina del Alcalde

¡Sin vivienda, todos vamos a ser criminales!

Por qué están llenos los refugios para desamparados, cuando en toda parte hay casas y edificios vacíos?

Por qué ignora la ciudade de Springfield las necesidades de la mitad de sus habitantes?

Nuestros exigencias:

La ciudad: Reponga las viviendas perdidas en el tornado!

El estado: Haga que los refugios para desamparados sean disponibles a todos los necesitados!

El gobierno federal: Financie las viviendas, no las guerras!

Contactar Arise for Social Justice (Levántate por la Justicia Social), 413-734-4948

Enforcing the law could have saved their lives

Along the banks of the American River, adjacent to the Highway 160 bridge in Sacramento, reside a few dozen homeless men and drifters. Nylon tents sprawl across the grass. In one of them lived Kevin Moore and Ray Sletto, whose bodies were found on the afternoon of Jan. 17.
The two men were the closest of friends for more than 10 years, taking care of each other and Baby Girl, the pit bull mix they adopted. Kevin Moore, 38, was a jeweler with a goatee and an easy smile and Ray Sletto, 44, sleepy-eyed and mustachioed, was a chef with a bad back. They had been homeless for many years after losing their jobs. Though the weather was mild, they enclosed their tent within another tent for extra warmth and lit a small camp stove. As the fumes quietly filled the air while they slept, they died of carbon monoxide poisoning sometime during the night of Jan. 16.
Just slightly more than a mile away from where Moore and Sletto's tent stood is the state capitol building in Sacramento. Four days before they died, lawmakers from around the state met to discuss the crisis of homelessness in their communities. Over one-fifth of homeless Americans live in the streets, park and shelters of California, which has been hit hard by the lingering effects of the recent recession, from high unemployment to rising foreclosure rates. California's tally in 2011 was estimated at 135,928, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
Across the country, women and children are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population, the alliance says. And shelters across the state have only enough beds for a small fraction of the dispossessed: The St. John's Shelter for Women and Children in Sacramento turns away hundreds of people each night for this reason and leaves them to fend for themselves.
But one of the state's most powerful tools to assist this vulnerable population is hardly being used. Buried within California's legal codes is a 25-year-old statute that allows counties and municipalities to declare a state of emergency when a "significant number" of homeless people exist in a community, allowing them to convert public facilities into shelters and even to change zoning codes to site shelters in most neighborhoods.
Yet since the law was passed in 1987 -- and as the homeless population increased -- few communities have invoked the statute, and when they do, it is almost always just to set up temporary winter shelters. As a result of a lack of political will, neighborhood resistance and budget constraints, this law has rarely been tapped to ease the suffering of the dispossessed.
"It is almost unparalleled in its potential," National Coalition for the Homeless executive director Neil Donovan said about the statute. "But it's a challenge [for California] because of the financial crisis that they're in. Other communities use similar statutes far more effectively. I'm thinking of Boston, which opens up its armories when overcrowding happens."
The reluctance to take action frustrates advocates for homeless people. "It's a very powerful statute in the sense that once a shelter crisis has been declared -- it could be done on a statewide level by the governor or on a county level -- there are just about no restrictions to housing the homeless anywhere," said civil liberties lawyer Mark Merin. "But there are very few instances where it has been invoked. Any mayor or board of supervisors which has not declared a shelter crisis should be asked, Why not?"
Read more at Huffington Post.

Tigers, zombies and homeless families inside my brain.

Ever since I woke up this morning and watched the news on CNN, I've been filled with grim anger and a disgust so deep my soul is twisted.  Some truly insane man believed he had the right to keep lions and tigers, wolves and bears as his personal possessions and last night, he killed himself and let the animals free.  Today most of them are dead, killed by law enforcement because the public was in immediate danger.  Pointless, pointless, should never have happened. 

So it only seemed par for the course later this morning when I got an email about the immediate limiting of shelter access for homeless families.  I wrote about this over on the Arise blog, and we're calling for an emergency membership meeting for next Wednesday at 5:30.  But somehow homeless families and tigers are together in my mind, looking for freedom, looking for security, scared and furious all at the same time.  Some of us will go down fighting and some of us will just go down.  Or maybe, somehow, we can find some safety.  But we are far from home.

I had a zombie dream last night.  They are falling out of closets and vegetable bins, and seem more a nuisance than a danger.  I am in some public banquet hall waiting for President Obama to arrive.  I am hungry and I'm going around to people's leftover plates and eating the pie crust that is left on them.  Finally Obama charmingly takes the stage and starts doing a soft shoe dance.  He asks a young Black girl who is watching to come up on stage and dance with him, but she declines.  I find out that a poet is passing through Springfield and decide to ask him if he'll come to Arise and read a few poems, but his business agent gets involved and it turns into a big deal and I decide to forget it.  End of dream. 

Before I set off for Arise I just had to look up "soft shoe" in the Urban and other slang dictionaries to see what I was trying to tell myself.  Besides the obvious reference to African-American dance, soft shoe can also mean to move surreptitiously, cautiously and quietly.  It's also hobo slang for a railroad detective.  Anyway, Obama is not the one I'm waiting for, and the poet stood me up.

I have to move out of my apartment because my landlord sold the house and I can't find a place to live that I can afford. I'm trying to avoid panic and expect to wind up in Housing Court at some point (but I can't live there.).  Tonight I found myself saying to my cats, in a faux Southern accent, "Wherever shall I go?  Whatever shall I do?"   It is somewhat of a comfort to me to know so many others are in my same position-- limits the amount of self-blame for being poor.  On the other hand, I'm a lot better off-- don't have kids at home anymore, and I only have to worry about me and my cats. 

So I guess it's extra important for me to feel that if there was ever a time when the power of the people could make a difference, this is the time.

Graphic: Abi Cushman.

Occupy Springfield?

Something is happening around the world-- is it ready to happen in Springfield?  We'll find out at least some of the answer  tomorrow.

Thursday I went down to the Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen with Ruben and Christina to pass out flyers.  I haven't been down in about four months, and I've never seen it so crowded.  I had conversations with a lot of people, including folks who volunteer at the kitchen and who told me that people who were homeless were sleeping in doorways and abandoned buildings all over the city.

"They go up to Worthington St. Shelter and they're told there's no room, even though the shelter promosed to always make room for them," one woman said.  This didn't surprise me; I've heard it before,  and made calls to Worthington St. on their behalf where I've been told it was "all a mistake" and to send them back.  But what about the people we don't hear about?

I saw my friend Ahmed come in for lunch.  We nodded to each other. He and his two daughters are refugees from Iraq and had been  living in an apartment in West Springfield before it was destroyed by the June 1 tornado. He's going to Springfield Technical Community College, right across the street from Arise, and a few times a week he comes in with a bag of bread and vegetables that he's scrounged from somewhere, leaves it in our office, and then he or one of his daughters comes back to pick it up later in the afternoon.

The flyers we were passing out were about a rally, this Monday  at 5:30 on city hall steps, called "Take Back Springfield."  Arise, as members of the No One Leaves coalition and as founders of Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield,  is involved in two areas where corporate control in our city is hurting our people: the foreclosure crisis, typified by Bank of America, and the effort to stop a biomass plant being built in our already asthma-plagued city by Palmer Renewable Energy.  Empty houses, polluted air-- if we don't fight back, we don't stand a prayer.

But on the back of the flyer, we let people know that there has been a call to Occupy Springfield on the same day, starting at 8:30 in the morning at Court Sq.!  We don't know any of the people organizing it, and the timing of the event is not what I would have chosen-- but there you go, it's happening.

In some other cities with an Occupy presence, I know there has been great solidarity between college students, the un- or under-employed and the homeless people who have joined them-- sometimes with political understanding and sometimes because it's safer to sleep out with a crowd than under the bridge.  I can't say I see the potential for that kind of solidarity in Springfield, however.  Maybe I'm not dreaming big enough.  But I think the average person in Springfield still sees homeless families and individuals as lazy, stupid or drug-addicted cheaters.  Yup, some people fit that category--just as there are non-homeless people who cheat on their taxes, treat sick days as vacation days, pad their mileage accounts and get over on the system in every way possible.  but that's not most of us, and never has been.

The Occupy movement has a slogan: We are the 99%.  It's true that if you earn less than $1,137,684 a year, you are in the bottom 99%.  But really, it's the top ten percent that hold more than two-thirds of this country's wealth.  The median income in Springfield is $36,235.  So the median income for Springfield puts us in the bottom 20%!!

I remember the days when I could stop at Savers every couple of months and look for clothing bargains.  I remember the days when I could buy an occasional  book without trepidation of its impact on my utility bills..  I remember when I didn't have to take my medication every other day in order to make it last.  A lot of us remember those days, right?  We don't want much, just enough.  And these days, we're not getting it.  Why is that?  Because wealth is being distributed upward at an astounding rate, and it's been going on for thirty years.  Yet many of us continue to think that if we're not making it, it's our own damn fault.  We continue to think as individuals rather than as members of a society whose strings are being pulled by the elite few.  We work harder and longer for less money, and we stand in line at the convenience store for a chance at MegaMillions.

 
So here we are.  People all over the country are starting to get it.  Are we ready in Springfield?  I don't know.  Maybe Occupy Springfield will be small in numbers and easily dismissed or maybe tomorrow will be the opening gambit in a movement that will grow over time until we have built the power we need to make change.  That's up to us-- me, and you, and the guy sleeping in the doorway and our neighbor across the street.  Hope to see you there.

Woodcarver's shooting death video by Seattle officee released

Not long ago I wrote about the death of John T.Williams, a First Nation homeless woodcarver shot and killed by Seattle police officer Ian Birk on August 31.  Now the video from the officer's dashboard cam has been released, over the objections of Birk's lawyer.  While the actual shooting takes place off-camera, keep watching to see Mr. Williams, who was deaf in one ear, saunter across a Seattle crosswalk.  A few seconds later, he is dead.

An inquest will be held soon.  A preliminary police finding has called the shooting unjustified.

Waiting for shelter

This woman with her clothes
too small too short too thin
a decade out of style
holds her coat together
with a safety pin.  She smiles.
No wind no rain
at least two hours of sun remain
before the dark door opens
and she wears her chains.

Photo from Hadassah28's photostream at Flickr.

Homeless woodcarver killed by police

You're a homeless, hard of hearing First Nation woodcarver, somewhat inebriated, walking down Howell Street in Seattle on a sunny August afternoon. You're carrying a stick of wood that your next totem is hidden inside of, and a closed carving knife.  You are completely unaware that you are about to die.

On August 31, John T. Williams was shot by Officer Ian Birk four times in the side. He died at the scene.  An inquest is pending and there are many unanswered questions.  Birk says he saw a man with a knife and shouted three times to drop the knife.  But the knife was found in a closed position and a knifemaker says the knife cannot close by itself.  At first Birk said Williams approached him but later changed his story.  Did Williams ever even hear Birk yelling?  With four shots in the side, Williams certainly wasn't facing Birk.  You can read more at Seattle Times.

Seattle's Street Newspaper, Real Change, has been following William's story and the story of other members of Williams family, who are still being harassed by the Seattle police.  It's a sad and infuriating story you can read here.

Economic Dust Bowl: will we ever recover?

Denoris and Waleska help with the kids

Two of the families we've been advocating with this week have shelter for a while.  They were placed by DHCD and have thirty days to prove they're really "eligible" for shelter. So a call to Gerry McCafferty this week got the ball rolling; HAP helped out; and we got great advice from Mass Law Reform Institute and Western Mass. Legal Services.

Of course it was chaos in the office for three days.  Two young women from the summer jobs program at MCDI really helped out keeping the children amused-- the kids were often tired, hungry and stressed, so it was not an easy job.  Simone, our summer intern from McDuffy, helped out, also.

One problem in getting these families placed was that they both come from out of town.  Turns out that they both also have substantial ties to Springfield-- the dad in one family had been in Springfield for four months, looking for work; meanwhile his family was evicted from their apartment in Buffalo..

Now, as long as I've been doing this work, I've been aware of the urban legends about Massachusetts as a magnet for poor families: signs saying "Come to Massachusetts!" posted in NYC bus terminals and Puerto Rican welfare offices.  No one has ever seen the signs, of course, they've only heard of somebody who heard of somebody who has.

But there's a grain of truth in these stories, although Massachusetts is no more a target than any other state with large urban : poverty breaks the ties a poor family has to its community of origin.  I saw this first right here in Springfield.  Used to be that a family could be pretty close to destitute, renting not owning, and yet stay in the same neighborhood for years, building and maintaining ties with neighbors and local schools and businesses.  The loss of these networks comes at great cost to families that have little in the way of material resources.

We are seeing a migration  similar to the Great Dust Bowl, only now it is not soil that has blown away and farms  taken by the bank, but houses, apartments, jobs, stores, teachers, hospitals, social services-- you name it.  This morning's Boston Globe reports on potentially fatal cuts in day care programs for homeless families.  Mass Home Care says 2,400 low-income elderly will lose services that help them stay in their own home. Just as the widow's mite was so much a larger share of her wealth than what the rich man offered,  so these cuts and others like them are a huge share of what make survival possible.

I really don't know where all this is going-- the economy, the community, the individual lives of the poor.  I do know that  every time we have a "recovery," fewer of us get to recover.

Photo: Liz Bewsee

Tornado of homelessness

Hampden County is on a tornado watch....all I want is a soaking rainstorm and a break from the heat.  OK, that's passed, and now we have a rainbow-- a little like the temporary rainbow for some homeless families today.

Seems like as soon as I wrote that I haven't had much direct contact with homeless people recently, I made a liar out of myself.

Last week we at Arise for Social Justice heard from three different single homeless people about health conditions at Worthington St. shelter.  Dust from the shelter renovations, fans taken out of the shelter space and moved to the basement for the workers (does it have to be a choice?), bedbugs, scabies, and today, a suspected case of MRSA.  I've been trying to cut the shelter some slack, because the Friends of the Homeless corporation is finally getting near to finishing the new construction and renovations that former Mayor Ryan said would be finished two years ago (economic downturn, and all that.)  But this is getting way out of hand. We're trying to figure out what we should do.

Last night I saw a quick TV news story about two families threatening to camp out on the steps of the Liberty St. welfare office because they were homeless and being denied shelter by the Dept of Housing and Community Development homeless unit housed in the building.  Now, this is not a new story; Arise has worked with families in this situation for many years.  Has there been an improvement?  Well, DHCD is in charge of homelessness services instead of the Dept. of Transitional Assistance, but the staffperson is the same.  And I have to believe that the same unwritten rule continues to apply: deny as many as possible to keep the statistics as low as possible.  After all, you can't be counted as homeless if you aren't in a shelter or motel.

This morning I was taking the bicycling Students for a Just and Stable future  over to meet the youth-run Gardening the Community folks (they deserve their own post). I hadn't even had a chance to ask Arise organizer Liz if she'd heard about these two families when a woman from an agency I shall not name stopped at Arise and began to tell Liz there were now three or four other families, also denied shelter, who had joined the first two families.  The woman took our business card and a few flyers back down to  Liberty St.  and most of us left for the garden.  Half an hour later, Liz stopped at the garden, snatched up Dave and Louis, two of our members, and headed down to Welfare.

For the next several hours, Liz advocated, Dave consoled, Louis translated.  The DCHD staffperson came out of her office to tell the families that if they didn't leave right now, she was calling the police and then DCF to come and take their children.  Liz spoke to Western Mass legal Services three times and Gerry McCafferty at the Office for Housing to let her know what was happening.

"I'm calling because you said you would not let any family sleep out on the street," Liz said.

"Let me make some calls," Gerry said.

Liz came back at the office to make more calls, and  I answered the phone when Marsha Crutchfield from HAP called.  She asked how I was and I launched into telling her about the homeless families.  But it turned out she was actually calling to say that HAP would put families up for the night at a motel, and the agency was sending a van to welfare to pick them up!  Liz went back down to welfare to let the families know the good news.  At the end of a long day she went home, only to get a call from the father of one of the families-- the motel wanted a $20 deposit on each room and HAP wouldn't pay.  So she went back down to Welfare and paid the deposit.

At least one poor family was lost in the shuffle.  Yesterday some of our members made contact with a woman who needed help. She come up to the office this morning-- a Puerto Rican woman who may have been only in her fifties was raising her three grandchildren and had become homeless.  She'd already been to Welfare once and been told she wasn't eligible for assistance.I asked if they'd let her fill out an application for Emergency Assistance and she said no.  I told her to go back down to the office and insist she be allowed to apply.  Apparently she did, was denied again, and left in tears before anybody noticed.  I hope she's OK; I hope she comes back.

Six years ago, and for nearly two years, Arise had rented two, three bedroom apartments for families in exactly this predicament.  We ran it until we couldn't afford it anymore, until it broke us, really-- we wound up having to give up our office and operated out of people's houses for a year.  But hey-- we're not service providers, we're organizers.  Other agencies get the big bucks to provide shelter  and it's our job to make sure they do it.

We hear there's a big meeting tomorrow with DCHD, HAP and the City of Springfield.  We had better be invited.  Enough of this baloney.  Enough of the indifference, the threats and the cruelty that had children quaking in fear and parents in despair.  Enough.


Graphic: Banksey, from Chris Dever's photostream at Flickr.

Homeless man drowns in Connecticut River

Not a lot of information right now (and maybe there won't much to come) but a homeless man named Keith Rainville drowned in the Connecticut River in Springfield yesterday and his body was recovered this afternoon.  Apparently he and some friends were trying to cool off when Mr. Rainville slipped away.

Yesterday a homeless man and woman came into Arise to ask for advice, and when I asked where they were staying, they said, "The Riverfront."  They said quite a few others were also camped out there, but that's been true for years, especially in the summer.

On Thursday, a woman I've known for more than 15 years,  who's been an on again, off again member of Arise, stopped into Arise to help with petitioning.  She was on her second day of a three day ban from the Worthington St. Women's Shelter, because she'd been complaining about the bedbugs and scabies infection.

"Where did you sleep last night?" I asked her.

"In the doorway of an apartment on ________ Street.," she said, "with a couple other people.  A few people in the building brought us down water and some food."

The new women's shelter has been built, but the women haven't been moved up the street yet-- the men have been moved into it instead while their quarters are renovated.

"The men have bedbugs too,"  she said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I started this blog three years ago,  Arise was at the tail end of a long fight to have the city to stop ignoring homeless people and help them.  Although there's much still to be done, the city has stepped up through the Office for Housing/Special Homeless Initiative.  Finally, after many, many years of people and organizations asking why you had to become homeless first, to get any help,  preventing homelessness has become a major strategy.  Many homeless policy people think they thought up this strategy all by themselves, but no-- it's simply that they had the power to make it happen.

I've kept homelessness a major focus of this blog, but gradually my day to day contact with homeless people has lessened.  I've felt less comfortable writing about homelessness in general if I couldn't balance that with my own ongoing perceptions.  Meanwhile I've become consumed with the environment assaults against poor people-- against all people, really.  I won't write about this now.  But two months ago I just stopped writing.


Thinking about starting again has felt like starting over. Yet I'm going to try.

Photo from rbglasson's photostream at Flickr.

Chris Asselin doesn't deserve public office

I didn't think I'd be writing about former state rep and convicted felon Christopher Asselin on my blog quite as soon as today, but two events this weekend made me change my mind.

On Friday, a Facebook friend posted a question on his page,  asking if an "honest mistake" is deserving of latitude if an individual's ethics are in question.  I wrote back, aiming for a little humor :Sure, unless it's Chris Asselin!  Later, I noticed my comment had been removed, and when I checked my friend's friends, sure enough, Chris was among them.

Then, yesterday, I was dress-shopping at the Goodwill on Boston Rd. when I heard a voice saying, "OK, guys, that's enough, time to move on."  Something made me look up-- and it was Chris Asselin!  Now, I've met Chris exactly once in my life, when I paid him a legislative visit, and I doubt he knew who I was, but he said "Hello." and I said hello back.  I don't like to be rude to someone in front of children.

But I feel  obliged to say exactly what I think about Chris Asselin's attempt to regain his state representative seat.

He's an idiot!   He's crazy!  What a jerk!  What an asshole!  He's learned NOTHING!  I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him!

There, now that I have that out of my system, let me explain my thinking.

The Asselin family (those who were charged and convicted) stole from every taxpayer in the city, more than $4 million, if you put it all together, but, in particular, they stole from  poor people, from those who suffer the most and have the least to give.  They lived high on the hog, with nice houses in Springfield and a vacation home on Cape Cod.  If anyone needs a reminder, see this history of corruption in Springfield, which includes the indictment of nine members of the Asselin family.

Now Chris may not be responsible for everything other family members did--  Daddy certainly set a poor example-- but this is what he did admit to: 

As part of a plea deal, Christopher Asselin admitted accepting up to $120,000 in bribes from authority contractors funneled through his father – including improvements to his Springfield home and a swimming pool. He also admitted the same contractors made illegal campaign contributions and financed flyers, signs and fund-raisers  (Emphasis mine.)  Masslive.

Folks who know me are aware that I'm not particularly pro-incarceration, and I wish judges were allowed more creativity in sentencing.  I'd have preferred the judge had sentenced Chris to live in a half-way house for 18 months, with his days spent serving the poor (instead of costing the taxpayers even MORE money).  Chris could have worked third shift at the Worthington St. Shelter, served meals at Loaves and Fishes, helped prepare the bodies of the indigent for burial, washed floors at Arise or the Open Pantry-- you get the idea.That's not what happened, of course, but at least he served his time.

I also support ex-felons' right to vote-- it's a way to share in the responsibility of being a member of society-- BUT-- anyone who has ever been convicted of election fraud in any form should never be allowed to seek public office again.  Is there any one of our current state legislators who'd be willing to introduce such a law?

 How pathetic.  I don't like criticizing people personally and don't usually feel the need to do so.  Chris says he wants a second chance and he deserves one-- but not a second chance at political office, especially when illegal campaign contributions helped him win his first state representative seat.  Please, Chris, do yourself, your family and the residents of Springfield a favor and withdraw from the race.  I don't know in what direction your redemption lies, but it is not toward Boston.  Please.

Heroes and villians: homeless tales you're not likely to hear.

Do you know how easy it is to take an online action for the environment?  Every day I get at least half a dozen emails with links to petitions and legislative actions I can take to stop offshore oil drilling, protect a river or speak out for an endangered animal.  Not so for homeless and poor people, though-- there are few national organizations and the local organizations are often disconnected from each other.  That's why I'm putting up with a misbehaving widget on the top right of my blog which would help provide some safety for young people on the streets.  Please sign it.

Last week a homeless man, Alfredo Tale-Yax, intervened in a fight between a man and a woman where the man was threatening the woman with a knife.  Mr. Tale-Yax was then stabbed by the man, and as he lay dying on the sidewalk, people just passed him by.


The New York Post has a little more of his story.

Last week the Cincinnati, Ohio Coalition for the Homeless called for crimes against homeless people to be considered a hate crime-- this after a homeless man, John Johnson, was attacked while he was sleeping by four skinheads, three of whom turned out to be U.S. servicemen stationed at Ft. Bragg.  Mr. Johnson survived the attack with a fractured cheek, a head wound requiring 18 stitches and other injuries.


For two days, former steelworker Danny lived on a billboard to help raise awareness-- and funds-- for homeless people.  Check out his story at MediaLife.

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.

Susan Mullally's "What I Keep"

From Susan Mullally:  This work explores ideas of class, race, ownership, value, cultural identification and faith. I collaborate with members of The Church Under the Bridge in Waco, Texas, a non-denominational, multi-cultural Christian church that has been meeting under Interstate 35 for sixteen years. Many of the people have had significant disruptions in their lives, experienced periods of homelessness or incarceration, addiction to drugs and alcohol, mental illness or profound poverty and hopelessness. Many are working toward a new measure of stability and accomplishment through the programs and opportunities offered through the church. Other members have more stable lives and are drawn to service at the Church Under the Bridge. I ask each person what he or she keeps and why it is valued.

This is a collaborative project that is in the third year (2007-2009) and has produced 60 images. The work is a series of life size portraits (24"x36") with brief statements about the person’s choice.  My portraits are made under Interstate 35 on Sunday mornings. 

Upper photo: 
Virgil Lee Bell, Jr., Apostle

I played this washboard for twenty years. I saw one young lady in church, she was a Spanish young lady, playing the washboard. And then I told her I could play that, I could play that, let me see that! As soon as she let me see it and play it God just blessed me to pick it up and start playing it instantly. I was in another church and I saw another young lady and she had something like a fish, it was a washboard but it looked like a fish, with scales, and it was a washboard. And she played it. And I played it, too.  I sing Gospel songs with this. 

Photo on right: 

Patricia Anne Ragsdill/Martin
Truck Driver, Musician, Beautician, Mother, Grandmother of six, Fork Lift Driver, Cashier for 30 years, Sign Language Teacher, State Champ in Tennis for two years, Former Felon and Addict

I'm here to show that God does work miracles; that ex-cons and pit bulls aren't dangerous. Her name is Indy and she represents the female dogs. This is my pride and joy. She comes from a big breed I started raising them in 1975. I went to prison in 2001. I cashed out 5-5-04. I was a drug addict and found God in prison. I was in three of them: Dallas, Gatesville and Marlin.

The beaded necklace represents the Oklahoma. My mother came from Hugo, Oklahoma and she's got Indian in her. My dad is from Bogotá, TX - makes me an OK Texan!

Thanks for the tip, Mental Floss!

Homeless in the big cities

I suppose some people would say that anything is better than being homeless, but fortunately the New York City City Council doesn't agree. The council announced it intends to bring an end to the practice of sending the city's homeless from shelters to illegal and unsafe boarding houses being run for a profit by unscrupulous owners. This follows two years of pressure from homeless advocacy groups, including Coalition for the Homeless.

Lindsey Davis, a director at the Coalition for the Homeless and the author of the 2008 report, described conditions that she said she had recently observed at overcrowded boarding houses.

In one building, Ms. Davis said, an external wall had collapsed while people were living inside. One room was filled with 12 bunk beds. “There was mold covering the walls, and the floors and ceilings were not structurally sound,” she said, adding that people were sleeping in beds placed within feet of stoves. New York Times.

Another bit of help for New York's homeless comes from singer/songwriter Cyndi Lauper, who is opening a homeless shelter for LGBT youth with funds from her True Colors Fund.  Of the 20,000 young people homeless in New York City, a quarter of them identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered.

In Tampa, FL, it's OK to solicit donations from passing traffic as long as they don't disrupt traffic AND, since a new ordinance was passed in January, they wear reflective vests or risk being cited and fined.  Not everyone who solicits donations is homeless; one mother of two who lost her job is trying to avoid homelessness by alternating her days job-hunting and soliciting donations. Tampa Bay Online.

Now that the risk of dying from hypothermia is diminishing, many homeless people in Washington, D.C. are leaving the shelters, many of which are due to close, and heading back to the streets.  12,000 people are estimated to be homeless in D.C., although that number is expected to climb when the results of the latest homeless census are released.  Washington Post.

Photo of homeless D.C. man from winged photography's photostream at Flickr.

Disorderly conduct arrests faulted by NYC's Picture the Homeless

They're tired of being targeted, ticketed, jailed and fined under the banner of New York City's Disorderly Conduct statute, and they're doing something about it-- launching a civil rights campaign..

Members of Picture the Homeless, a grassroots organization founded and led by homeless people, last week held a civil rights summit with other community groups to discuss how this "overly broad and ill-defined law"  is used as a way of making money for the city.  Meanwhile, the lives of people who can least afford it are disrupted as they accumulate arrest records and default warrants if they can't pay the $150 fine.

PTH members talk about their experiences and why they're involved in this campaign on video.  It's not a slick production but bear with it and you will hear real people, obviously weary, who haven't had it easy, stand up for themselves and each other.

The Indypendent has coverage of this forum, at at PTH's blog, the administrator says, "We appreciate the Center for Constitutional Rights for hosting -- and much appreciate the participation of George Bethos of NYC AIDS Housing Network / VOCAL NY Users Union, Lalit Clarkson of Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and the courageous Juanita Young of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality and Parents Against Police Brutality.  Within PTH, we thank Maria and Salaam for running the show, and Carlos for his always-blazing poetry."
 Photo: Picture the Homeless members

You take my homeless, and I'll take yours. Yeah, sure.

Colorado Springs officials think they can reduce their unsheltered-- that is, camping out-- population of homeless people by about 10 percent by putting them on a bus and sending them home.

The police department’s three-man Homeless Outreach Team will be working with people who have family members or friends in another city willing to take them in, and who just don't have a way to get there.  The team is hoping some 25 to 30 homeless people will take advantage of the offer, which is funded by the Salvation Army through a grant.  Some 300 to 500 people are estimated to be "camping out" in the Colorado Springs area.

Lancaster, California, a small city of 145,000, operated a similar program last year.  The city's mayor felt as if the City of Los Angeles, an hour to the south,  was sending their own homeless to overwhelm Lancaster's homeless.  But most of the homeless people who took advantage of the offer were local people who chose to go somewhere else.

For every touching story of a daughter who discovers her long-lost father in a homeless shelter and welcomes him in to her loving home, there are ten homeless people who can't go home again.  Maybe there is no home to go to, parents and siblings dead, or scattered to the winds.  Maybe families are why a person is homeless in the first place-- shelters have their share of the young, runaway victims of abuse.  Sometimes homeless peoples have slammed the door shut themselves, or had it slammed on them because of their own behavior.

But what if every homeless person went back to the city in which they were born?  Or in which they'd spent most of their lives?  The affluent communities, the small towns, the capital cities: what would you do if all the homeless people came home?

Photo from DavidX Zhang's photostream at Flickr.

From junk to survival gear for the homeless

Social Earth has one of those stories that helps you to realize solutions are out there.  Industrial designer Nate Bastien is turning our so-called disposable items into backpacks and shelter for the homeless.  It's quite a story and until we can figure out how to make our goods more durable, re-use is the next best thing.

Art about the homeless

I came across this short poem on the internet and liked it-- there's a sense of stillness in the middle of its questions and observations.

What do we know about the homeless people
Sleeping in the cracks that we avoid?
Some seem drunk, some lost, some feeble.
What do we know about the homeless people?
One runs, one walks, one seems peaceful.
We turn our backs we’re so annoyed.
What do we know about the homeless people
Sleeping in the cracks that we avoid?

John K. O'Zemko The Poetry Showcase

"Land of Plenty" by Tammy deGruchy 
You can purchase this print to benefit the National Coalition for the Homeless here.