Where is Tony? and other conundrums of homeless bloggers

Maintaining a blog when you're homeless is not easy. You might not be welcome at the internet cafe, or have the money to buy time somewhere else, and if you have a little notebook, you have to guard it with your life. (The blogger at 21st Century Homeless just prevented the theft of his laptop at McDonald's with his multi-purpose pocket tool!) Still, feeling that sense of connection with mostly unknown readers keeps many homeless bloggers online. But sometimes bloggers just disappear, and you don't know if it's because their life got better, or worse, or even if they're still alive at all.

Tony has been a frequent, wry voice at Homeless Man Speaks, but for a couple of weeks, no one could find him. "Where is Tony?" the unknown author of the blog kept writing. Well, Tony turned up at a local hospital and the news is not good-- the Big C, as the author says, on top of all his other health problems. Tony is out of the hospital now, back on the street, and thanking God for socialized medicine (he's in Canada), so he can get some of what he needs to stay alive a little longer.

The woman who writes Adventures of Homeless Girl recently had the sad experience of seeing the house that used to be her home being renovated by a new owner. She's closing in on three years of homelessness.

Things are still looking up for Brianna Karp at  Girl's Guide to Homelessness.  Thanks to public pressure created through her blog, Walmart returned her impounded trailer (quite a story, read about it) and she got a job. But she's feeling like a lot of her good fortune is sheer, dumb luck-- and how much luck is there to go around for homeless people?


Tom Armstrong at Homeless Tom is grateful that his blog, which is mostly about Buddhism and the search for enlightenment, has been acknowledged and honored by the Buddhist community. He's survived a recent stint in jail and is still writing. But over on his other blog, Sacramento Homeless, he's writing about how now, no one is allowed to camp in the city at the same site for more than 24 hours. The director of a local social service agency is putting out the call for anyone in the community who has property they'd be willing to let homeless people stay on for that 24 hour period. There aren't enough shelter beds in the city and Tom himself spent two nights completely "out on the streets" and remarks that he probably was breaking the law.

The Welcome to Nickelsville Seattle blog hasn't had an entry since the day after their tent city was closed down by the city on October 4. The tent city is up again, 90 residents allowed to stay for three weeks at University Christian Church's parking lot, but no one knows what the future holds, and winter is coming.

On the advocacy side of the homeless conundrum, Diane Nilan at Invisible Homeless Kids is appalled by the living conditions of homeless families and children. She says thatin one of the most affluent counties in the country, homeless families and adults are given less attention than homeless pets.

Mark Horvath of Invisible People TV is back from a weeks-long road trip documenting the lives and the options of our nation's homeless. He has a fascinating and poignant slide show of some of the people he met at his Flickr site. You owe it to yourself to take a look.

Nickelsville residents facing eviction

Just about now, homeless people in Seattle, Washington should be setting up tents on the sidewalk in front of Seattle Mayor Gregs Nickel's house. The tent city that they've been living for exactly one year as of September 22 will be closed down by the Port of Seattle on Wednesday. No one will have anywhere to go.

In spite of talks between Nickelsville residents and city officials, the city has not come up with any alternative place for people to go if they leave their tent city-- and the shelters are full.

If you live in the area and can help with some short-term needs-- and maybe longer-term political ones-- you can contact the Real Change Organizing Project at (206)441.3247 x 206.

Photo from Beyond Neon's photostream at Flickr.

Nickelsville residents given 72 hours to vacate

34 homeless people died living outside in Seattle last year, and there are NOT enough shelter beds in Seattle to house everyone-- at least 2,600 people went unsheltered last year because of the shelter shortage.

In spite of that, on Monday, the state gave residents of Nickelsville, a small, well-run homeless encampment, 72 hours to clear out. King5.

You can read Nickelville's story at their website, Welcome to Nickelsville

Close a shelter and what do you get?

How about a homeless encampment? The Sacramento Bee is reporting that after a homeless shelter closed on July 1, displacing more than 200 men, women and children, former residents have been moving from encampment to encampment. A group formed a "Council of Elders" and they spent a week researching land at the tax assessor's office, finding a plot of land that had actually been designated as a shelter. And there they have settled-- for now, anyway; the police came on Tuesday and gave them three days to move.

Photo from the Sacramento Bee

Tent city "more like homesteading," Marysville Councilor says

Police and city council in Marysville, CA are trying to figure out what to do about a growing homeless encampment in the Thorntree area of the city, but, unlike so many other communities, they seem to have some understanding and sympathy for the camp's residents.

The people living there are "working class folks just looking for a place to sleep at night," (Police Captain Mike) Wilson told the City Council on Tuesday night.
What had once been a violent population of transients living along the trees and heavy brush is now a clear product of the current downturn in the economy, he said.
The occupants — perhaps 40 or more at night, Wilson said — have a series of neatly kept campers, some of them fenced.
Appeal-Democrat.

City Councilor Michael Selvidge, who's seen the encampment, said it was less like a transient camp and more like homesteading.
Some U.S. cities are reporting a decline in the numbers of "chronically" homeless people. But how many people are homeless right now? The federally-sponsored Point-in-Time Count, done this past January, haven't been released yet for the country as a whole. Then there's the question of definition. Homeless activist Diane Nilan at Invisible Homeless Kids, wants to know why H.U.D. is still refusing to expand the definition of homeless "to include families and teens in motels, doubled-up with others, or outside the sparse HUD-funded shelter system." She could use signatures on a petition in support of HR 29, The Homeless Children and Youth Act of 2009.
When does a person's untenable living situation reach the level of definition of being "without a home?" I spent a few hours at Arise for Social Justice this week, and here are some of the stories I've heard of people's living situations: A man applying for food stamps who is "tenting out" rather than stay at the local shelter; a mom with one kid who is being evicted but isn't eligible for shelter for another month because almost a year ago she was also in need of a shelter; a man going to a local beauty academy who said he is "renting a room' in somebody's house but they don't want him there any longer; a mentally ill grandmother just dropped at her granddaughter's doorstep by her son.

Who is without a home?

Some tent city news

"If it were left to George Taylor, homeless veterans living in wooded areas around Brevard County would be in one large "tent city," where they would tend vegetable crops until they could move into a home of their own." So begins a story at Florida Today about a former vet who is now president and founder of Veterans Homeless Support, reaching out to some of the estimated 600 veterans camping out in Brevard County, Florida.

Mr. Taylor was homeless himself, and rootless for a number of years until he tackled the PTSD that had plagued him since Vietnam. For the last fifteen years his mission has been to help homeless vets. Read more about him to see what good intentions can accomplish.

Good intentions haven't been enough to keep the River United Methodist Communities Church in Woonsocket, RI from being cited by city officials after the church put up four tents for homeless people in their courtyard. The six homeless men who had been staying in the tents are staying elsewhere for the moment, but the tents remain while the church decides what to do. Providence Journal.

Not quite sure to make of this next piece of news, but the Housing Predictor, which does real estate market forecasts, did a survey (sample number unknown) about whether or not the government should, because of the current housing crisis, close down tent cities and more residents into housing. 58% say the government shouldn't do this, 42% say the government should.

What do people's answers really mean? And what odd phrasing! For example, I'd disagree that the government shut shut down tent cities and agree that the government should have housing available for homeless people. Of course most of the time the government does one but not the other.

Photo: Amanda Stratford, Florida Today.

Shipping containers for Tent City?

Stone Soup Station is reporting that a donor may be bringing ten shipping containers to Nashville's tent city to Nashville's Tent City. I've been trying to keep up on some of the great re-use ideas for shipping containers, which would otherwise sit in rail and shipyards, rusting away. Check it out.

Internally displaced: refugees abound in rich and poor countries

You can hide the homeless and internally displaced for a while, but not forever.

Four years ago the government forcibly removed 36,000 families living in a slum in New Delhi, India and promised them land and a fresh start in a "model resettlement community" in Bawana, 40 kilometers away. But the government counts only 9,000 families in need of help; 27,000 additional families were evicted and no one seems to know where most of them they are.Most of the internally displaced relocated to Bawana still don't have running water or electricity.

Barbados has divided its country into residential and non-residential areas in an effort to reduce the risk of water pollution in water catchment areas. But squatters continue to live in water catchment area; five of their communities have been bulldozed but hundreds of people find their way back to the area because they have nowhere else to go.

In the U.S., a tent city in Ontario, CA was set up as a temporary refuge for the area's homeless, but grew so quickly that in May, public officials removed anyone who could not prove they were originally from the area. In Seattle, WA an intentionally-designed tent city called "Nickelsville" after the city's Mayor Nickels is on its third home, currently in the parking lot of the University Christian Church, and housing 90 people.

In the UK, a website called the Advisory Service for Squatters post listings of vacant property in the UK and helps match British people as well as Eastern Europeans and others with the properties.

Nearly one-sixth of the world's population live in squatter communities or otherwise unorganized townships and parking lots. As long as the economic disparity between the world's weathiest and poorest citizens continues to grow, the numbers of internally displaced persons will grow also.

Today, November 10, hundreds of bloggers at Bloggers Unite, a project of BlogCatalogue, are writing about the dilemma of refugees around the world. I'm encouraging everyone to take a look in our own backyards: refugees are not just in faraway countries but everywhere among us. Figure out what you can do to help and then-- take action. Go to Refugees Unite to learn more, and check out the posts at Bloggers Unite.

Photo: A squatters' flag from the International Institute of Social History

Nickelsville rises again

70 tents destroyed, 23 people arrested....but Seattle's Nickelsville is NOT down and out. You can follow their story at Nickelsville Seattle.

This photo reminds me so much of Springfield's Sanctuary City.

My sister was cleaning out a little-used closet and found a three room tent. Ira, if you're reading this, know anybody up there who could use it?

Nickelsville tent city ready to house 1,000

King County, WA, which includes Seattle, may seem above average in affluence, but you couldn't prove that to the 8,439 homeless people documented in the annual homeless count last January. More than 2,500 of those people were unsheltered, living on the streets. Back in April, Seattle's Mayor Nickels passed an ordinance pretty much forbidding homeless people to sleep anywhere on public property. I've been following homeless people's struggle in Seattle here and here. Meanwhile, 34 people have died this year while living on the streets. Homeless organizers and their advocates have come up with an alternative to the endless sweeps of homeless encampments. They asked Mayor Nickels to give them a piece of city hand for a more permanent encampment. When no city hall solution was forthcoming, homeless people took the matter into their own hands. This Monday, a 100 tent encampment called Nickelsville opened at 7115 W. Marginal Way SW. (The site, one of four considered, was not revealed until the very last minute to prevent city intervention.)

Today is the day Mayor Nickels has said he will send in the troops to evict everyone. Of course, he has no alternative for them. Perhaps, like Springfield MA's administration and so many other cities, he thinks they can just "go elsewhere." Well, just where is Elsewhere? And how many homeless people already live there?

Tent cities are springing up everywhere. Seattle's mayor should be grateful that people are organizing on their own behalf to find some way to meet some of their needs through the coming winter. You can call him and tell him to leave Nickelsville alone at 206-684-CITY (206-684-2489) or send him an email at City of Seattle. You can follow homeless peoples' organizing in Seattle at Real Change, Seattle's homeless newspaper, at Nickelsville's home page, or at Apesma's Lament, the blog of Tim Harris, ED of Real Change.

Getting a bit chilly for tenting out

As I was pulling into my driveway after the Vote No on Question One last night, I saw a friend of mine who's been sleeping out in a tent in a local park. He asked if he could come over and take a shower to clean up for work the next day, and I said yes, so we had a bit of time to chat.

My friend is actually working under the table for a local property owner, helping him with drywall, carpentry, etc. (He has a criminal record for drugs and getting a straight job has proved difficult.) He's making about $65 a day and is able to save a little-- not a lot, because he still has to eat and wash his clothes, and this week had to purchase a tarp to prepare for the weekend's predicted rainy weather.

"I think I could afford to rent a room," he said, "maybe $75, $100 bucks a week."

Problem is, I haven't seen a room for rent for that price for at least five years. If you live in the Springfield, MA area and know of a room at that priice, let me know.

I've been collecting the latest information on tent cities for a post. Meanwhile, Ira from Northampton has told me that many people in the Northampton area are tenting out, and my friend is scarcely the only person I know in Springfield who's also in a tent.

What will this winter bring? Springfield will open another overflow shelter (not the Warming Place, however) and no ground has been broken yet at Friends of the Homeless' Worthington St. shelter renovation, which means yet another winter without a place for people to go in the daytime.

Meanwhile there are boarded-up houses on just about every street in Springfield that I drive down.

Seattle homeless, advocates camp out in protest

OK, it's bad enough that since April, when Mayor Nichols signed the order, homeless encampments can be broken up with 72 hours' notice. Homeless people are offered "help" and their belongings are stored for 60 days. BUT if you are kicked out of one camp and move to another, no 72 hour grace period for you, and this time your belongings go in the trash.

That's just one of the reasons why 150 homeless people and their allies camped out at the City Hall Plaza last night. Seattle may have 1,000 beds for homeless single people, but another 100-300 homeless people are camped out in the city and its surroundings. The Mayor says he plans to provide another 20 beds-- better than nothing, but far from enough.

Last night, Women in Black read the names of 283 homeless people who have died outside since 2000.

This morning, fifteen people were arrested for pitching a tent in the middle of Cherry St., demanding an end to business as usual.

You can go to Real Change, a community newspaper which also played a big role in organizing the camp-out, and check out what's happening in Seattle.

From an email I received this morning from Real Change:

Right now, dedicated supporters are flooding the mayor's office with calls, urging him to halt all non-emergency sweeps, and open real negotiations with Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless to fix his immoral and woefully inadequate policy. It's vital that the mayor yield to public pressure, stop punishing people for surviving outside, and work to create a policy that involves the people affected and provides for real accountability.

Please call the mayor at 206-684-4000. Tell him to halt all non-emergency sweeps immediately, and tell him to negotiate with Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless for a policy that really protects the rights of those on the streets. Add your voice to the community's, and stop the sweeps!

Thank you for your support! And a huge thank-you to Women in Black, the Interfaith Task Force On Homelessness, Operation Sack Lunch, Food Not Bombs, Heroes for the Homeless, and everyone else who provided food, blankets, and moral support last night and this morning!

Photo from Gurldoggie.

LA's Homeless Blog has a new look

Joel John Robert's LA Homeless Blog is always full of good information, but with its new look has seemed to come a loosening of provider mentality and a tightening of anger at the ridiculousness of homelessness in the world's wealthiest country. His recent stories include a post about multimillionaire Ed McMahon's brush with foreclosure compared to the hundreds of thousands already homeless, the destruction of one squatter community in Seattle and the growth of another squatter community in Reno, Nevada. Check it out.

Court rules Fresno violated homeless rights

Yesterday was the day that BlogCatalogue promoted as Bloggers United for Human Rights! I'm not sure yet how many bloggers participated, but I suspect a fair number of us did. Not me, though! A sick cat occupied my spare time in the early part of the week, and then a sick dog got the latter part of the week. If I'd just thought about it, I could have saved Saturday's post on International Tent City Day or Tuesday's post on the Topfree movement for Wednesday....but I didn't. Or I could have taken yesterday's post on excessive police force and made an explicit link to Bloggers Unite...seems, in fact, that about 80% of what I write is related to human rights in some way. I want to thank BlogCatalogue for recognizing and encouraging blogs' role in social change.

This Monday, a federal court ruled that destroying the property of homeless people is a violation of the 4th and 14th Amendments to the U.S.l Constitution, and that the city of Fresno, CA had violated those rights in a series of raid of homeless encampments. Specifically, the city violated homeless peoples' right to due process and the right to protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

One would like to think that the word would spread quickly to other municipalities but too many of these cities believe they are nations unto themselves; more court battles are sure to come.
Photos: Fresno encampment from Humanity for Homeless; homelessness activists, StreetSpirit.

International Tent City Day to be commemorated May 15

Last night I got an unexpected phone call from a former resident of Springfield's 2004 Tent City. He's in Tennessee now and considering whether or not his city's homeless are ready to organize a tent city. Lots of homelessness but not much leadership, he said-- a not uncommon scenario. Organizing takes time.

Four years ago, on May 15, fifteen tent cities around the country held our nation's first commemoration of International Tent City and Housing Alternatives Day. We here in Springfield, MA didn't know anything about it, though, because we were too busy organizing our city's first tent city!

My organization, Arise for Social Justice, had been working intensively with the homeless community for more than a year. Homeless people had come to events we'd hosted at Arise with the Poor people's Economic Human Rights Campaign and half a dozen had become members. We'd demonstrated outside the Friends of the Homeless Shelter, calling for the resignation of then-director Frank Keough. (Frank is in prison, now, along with many of the other heads of city agencies from that era.) We'd been petitioning Mayor Ryan to give an empty building to homeless people to fix up, and had compiled a list of people and skills. We'd even done a clean-up of the building we wanted, and had met a few times about taking the building over.

Then the Warming Place shelter for single men and women closed on May 9, and circumstances forced our hand in a totally unexpected way.

May 10, ten people slept in our office. May 11, those ten plus fifteen more staked tents on the lawn of St. Michael's cathedral. The next day, 45 people. The next day, most of the 76 who'd been displaced from the shelter plus some who'd come in from the woods. 400 different people over the next six months stayed at Sanctuary City.

What happened from that point four years ago to the present day is a long and bittersweet story, not without its successes but to be told another day. But the picture I want to paint is that in order for desperation and anger to have the chance to become social change, homeless people and organizers (often but not always the same people) have to take small steps together before that quantum leap.

Dignity Village in Portland, OR, established 2000, is getting ready to celebrate International Tent City Day. I imagine Share/WHEEL's Tent City 4 in Seattle, WA will be doing the same-- they've been operating non-stop since 2002. Most tent cities have a considerably shorter lifespan.

What poor people in New Orleans have experienced has provided them with a political education that no one deserves to learn in that way. I've written about some of the housing organizing going on in New Orleans here. but it's hard to know how demoralized the community may be: a tent city set up across from city hall, partly in protest and partly from need, was cleared earlier this year and about 100 tents are now set up under the Claiborne Avenue underpass. Moast have lived there more than a year. In January, Mayor Nagle said he'd be moving everyone into one big tent where they could get help, but it hasn't happened yet.

There's been a tent city in Ontario, CA since last July, which reached a high point of 400 in March. Then the city took control of the tent city, refurbished it, provided sanitation and other amenities, and required everyone to prove they were from Ontario if they wanted to stay in what has now become known as the "Homeless Services Area." More than fifty people were forced to leave. Some people left because of the No Pets policy. Smaller encampments have been set up around the city but are quickly cleared only to be reestablished elsewhere.

Somewhere in these tent cities and in others across the country are leaders. Maybe those men and women lead in a very laid-back way, providing a touchstone of humanity; maybe they lead more explicitly and organize others in the encampments to provide some security . It's a hard way to get experience and people can burn out very quickly, but more leaders spring up. As long as people's incomes can't meet their basic need for shelter and food,as long as people lack power at the top, they will continue to find their power at the base.

Next Thursday, May 15, spare a thought for homeless people in encampments around the world. Wish them unity and power.


intersection of race and poverty

Ontario, CA tent city bulldozed

AP news is reporting that Ontario CA officials decided a tent city had grown too big-- some 400 people-- and are bulldozing it. Homeless people who can "prove" they're from Ontario can return after the land is leveled and the trash removed.

The blog News Raw - Morning was on hand for the evictions to dig a little deeper into what's happening at SoCal,, the name of the tent city.

Just found a picture of Bushville, the tent city in New York city set up by the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. About twelve Arise members, most of whom had left their own very real Sanctuary City in Springfield, MA to help protest at the Republican National Convention. We'll be back in 2008 at the John McCain annointment in Minneapolis in September.

In order of importance: strawberries, fish, utilities, homeless

I was just reading an article in Tampa Bay Online about how the region was faring during its recent overnight freeze.

• Strawberries and other produce: first twenty paragraphs. Produce is fairing well except for the strawberries.
• Tropical fish: next five paragraphs. 95% are expected to survive
• Utility demand: next three paragraphs. No problems expected.
• Homeless: final three paragraphs. Blankets, mattresses, coffee and hot chocolate were passed out to the 230 residents at a local tent city.

I was doing research on tent cities when I found this article. A few weeks ago I set out to write a three part article on tent cities (now probably to be four parts)-- what they're like, why they're growing, and how they are a part of an international movement. I thought I'd have the second part last weekend but didn't, and spent much of this weekend doing more research. But soon.

Looks like residents of this city won't be going much of anywhere tomorrow: six to twelve inches of snow starting after midnight, heaviest during morning traffic hours. Well, I have plenty of work I can do from home if we really are temporarily snowed in.

During last week's thaw, I found myself forgetting that winter is not a third over yet-- seemed like spring was just around the corner.

Winter is the longest season for homeless people.

Number of homeless encampments is increasing: crisis and opportunity Part One

Tent Cities: What they're like, why they're growing, and how they're a part of the burgeoning international movement for housing..

I've been tracking the growth of homeless encampments and tent cities across the country ever since 2004, when homeless people and Arise for Social Justice organized our own "Sanctuary City" in Springfield, MA. Our tent city, which came about to meet the crisis of a shelter closing, lasted six months and sheltered 70-80 people a night-- some 400+ people over the course of the encampment's lifetime.

On a disorder to order scale of one to ten, Sanctuary City ranked about 7.5. Run by homeless people themselves with training and material support from Arise and others, it was visible, political, and absolutely essential to people's wellbeing. Sanctuary City closed when the Warming Place shelter was able to reopen in November.

The intent of my research, initially, was to look for existing models of organization that could be used to help Sanctuary City residents self-manage and survive. I couldn't find much but I did find Dignity Village in Portland, OR and ShareWheel in Seattle, WA. ShareWheel had put up a page at Anitraweb.org about tent cities that was particularly helpful.

How things have changed in the last three years! Like other social issues, I know that increased reporting may account for some of my perception that tent cities are becoming more common. On the other hand, the forces that create homelessness certainly haven't diminished. In any case, there is never a day that I can't find a new mention of tent cities and encampments.
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Unless you live in a gated community, or an extremely affluent town surrounded by other affluent towns (and maybe not even then), you have people without homes sleeping rough all around you.

• Sometimes people throw up a tent or a tarp or two in public parks, riverbanks or behind abandoned stores. Survival there depends on remaining absolutely unnoticed, or noticed by only a few people who, for whatever reason, leave them alone.
• Larger, more visible communities often spring up in semi-public places-- under a bridge, in a field, in the parking lot of a deserted mall. People wind up there because they've seen or heard about it. Some people have been kicked out of a shelter while others wouldn't be caught dead in one. Mostly these encampments operate with no structure, little structure or with a set of standards that are hard to enforce.
• Other, more structured tent city communities often are started by homeless people with some political awareness or who work in conjunction with a sympathetic, organized group or church. These communities, like the recent New Orleans tent city, often have political goals as well as meeting the immediate shelter needs of their residents.

But whether residents have political goals or not, I have never seen an encampment of homeless people develop solely for political purposes.
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At yesterday's Arise meeting, I heard about a woman who was kicked out of the Friends of the Homeless shelter for three days because she allegedly was turning tricks behind the building. She was banned from the overnight shelter too, because that shelter is also run by the Friends. So that's it for homeless women in Springfield-- nowhere else to go, now that the Warming Place has closed. The next two closest shelters that take women are fifteen and twenty miles away and may or may not have room, and whatever you may or may not think about her behavior, being unsheltered is especially dangerous for women. If she knew any of the people tenting out last night, that's probably where she went.

The State of Tent Cities in August

NEW ORLEANS: Homeless people and advocates have been camped out in a pavilion across from City Hall since July 4th to protest the lack of housing in the post-Katrina city. Blogging New Orleans. For a more in-depth look at the New Orleans housing crisis, check out the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Committee.

In King County, WA, homeless advocates from ShareWheel took over some apartment buildings to protest their demolition. KNDO TV. ShareWheel runs one of the nation's longest-operating tent cities.

Edmonton, Alberta's homeless encampment is being fenced in by the city and residents are not happy. Not only will residents now have to have official ID cards, no one new is being allowed in. Edmonton Sun.

San Francisco's Mayor Newsom is determined to clean up all the homeless encampments in the city. For the story of one clean-up, see SFGate. Here's one man's story of how he became homeless and what it took for him to get out.

Edmonton photo by Tim Smith, Sun Media.

Meanwhile, the city of Lacey, WA is drawing up plans for an approved homeless encampment.Lacey is one of two Washington cities that recently decided to make homeless encampments legal. The Olympian.

Friends in Tents - home is where the heart is

Earlier this week I went downtown for an Arise meeting. I arrived a bit early so I was hanging out in front of the building, having a smoke, when I heard someone call my name. I turned and saw five friends that I haven't seen since the Warming Place closed.

"Where are you guys, now?" I asked.

"We bought a six man tent and we're staying in it." I'm not going to say where they are-- it's not the riverbank-- but they seemed to be OK for the moment. They were waiting for one more of their friends to show up before they headed home for the night.

Of the six people, four of them are couples. That's one problem with the current sheltering system-- couples can't stay together. At the Warming Place, men and women slept in the same room, separated by dividers, but until it was time for Lights Out, the couples could spend time together. At The Friends of the Homeless shelter, like most other shelters that house both men and women (and there are few) , the sexes are completely separated.

I have actually known two of the guys, Jerry and Jack, since they were pre-teens.

Their dad used to be the custodian in a building we shared with a social service agency. His wife, a meek little woman who always reminded me of a Russian nesting doll, would come into Arise with the three kids and wait for dad to get out of work and we would chat. When the agency took some budget cuts, Dad got laid off. It was all downhill from there. Unemployment ran out, Dad couldn't find another job, they lost their apartment.

For a couple of years they all lived in an unregistered and immovable camper on a friends' property. During that time, Mom died of cancer. The daughter got pregnant and married her boyfriend (I hear they're doing well). Dad's diabetes got worse and he had a foot amputated. A few years after that, he passed away. The boys were sixteen and eighteen.

Jerry and Jack gave me a hug, which I felt I scarcely deserved, because all I have been able to do for them through the years is try to be someone who treated them with respect.

I read a study somewhere-- can't find it now-- that said nearly half of all homeless adults had experienced homelessness as children. One might think, reading the study, that we are talking about a sociological phenomenon, and indeed there are some elements of that, but I think of it primarily in economic terms-- Mom and Dad had absolutely NO material wealth to leave their children to get a foot up in this world.

Jerry and Jack have not completely lost their youthful optimism and their open hearts. Their smiles are still wide and not yet wary. l wish them well.