Bikes for the homeless

Two Chattanooga, Tennessee organizations, The Chattanooga Community Kitchen and Outdoor Chattanooga, have teamed up to help homeless people get back on their feet by getting off their feet-- on bicycles. They'll operate by taking in donated bikes, fixing them up, then providing training, a helmet and a bike lock to homeless people.

A nice program in Tampa, Florida repairs bikes brought to them by homeless people. You can read more at Creative Loafing.

Photo from Daniel Y. Go's photostream at Flick.

22 points of view: Homeless bloggers speak out

Once a year, at Christmastime, housed people give homeless people a little more thought-- and a little more charity-- than usual.

As appreciated as that charity is, the end of December and the beginning of the New Year is sometimes bitter and sometimes sweet for homeless people and their closest allies.

On or near the longest night of the year, cities and towns around the country commemorate the lives of homeless people who have died. The Nashville Homeless Power Project lost one of their own leaders this year so their memorial on Dec. 13 was especially poignant. The New Hampshire Under the Bridge Project has a list of people who have died in New Hampshire every year since 1994. This year's list has 36 names.

Many homeless groups are organizing and fighting back against community antipathy. In Sacramento CA, the People Project reports on a Deccmber 23rd march organized by the homeless themselves against discriminatory laws that make their lives miserable. Take Back the Land in Miami, FL is reveling in some good publicity about their movement, has been liberating public and foreclosed land and homes since 2006. The 13th Juror reports on a lawsuit filed in Laguna Beach CA charging the city with a campaign of harassment against homeless people. Ordinances prohibit homeless people from sleeping out anywhere within the city yet Laguna Beach only provides an overnight shelter between december and March. Save Feral Human Habitat is supporting an effort by the homeless and advocates to seek an extension to the city's planned January 23rd ordinance forbidding the city's homeless from sleeping out on the grounds they have nowhere else to go. Victoria BC,'s A Room of My Own is posting the minutes of organizing meetings to get a tent city established. But in the tradition of "One step forward, one step back," Chosen Fast lambasts Des Moines IO's destruction of wooden huts built by Hope Builders and the homeless themselves, because one of the huts was slightly damaged by fire.

Again, this time of year, homeless blogs pull their thoughts together to think about the policy-- and lack of policy-- that affects homelessness. Diane Nelin at Invisible Homeless Kids discusses a new report on the increase in child and youth homelessness. Wandering Vets has the 2nd part of an in-depth look at homeless veterans. SLO Homeless has a painful look at increasing family homelessness. The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty analyzes how Ontario's government "has led the way in the deterioration of income adequacy for people on assistance. "

Is passing out $13,000 in $10 bills to residents of LA's Skid Row doing people any good? Joel John Roberts at LA's Homeless Blog doesn't think so, and he explains why. Tim Harris at Apesma's Lament remarks on how policymakers just have to stay positive about the progress being made to end homelessness, even when they have to stretch the truth, and the Homeless Family's Blog isn't buying the line that homelessness is decreasing, either.

Last but not least, this is at least one time of the year when homeless people allow themselves to wax philosophical about the ending of the old and the beginning of the new. At The Adventures of Homeless Girl, the author thinks about the pursuit of happiness and what it takes to catch it. Kevin Barbieux at The Homeless Guy is not feeling too good about his life these days. Jamie's Big Voice from London has a poem to share, as does an anonymous author at Stone Soup Station. Ryan Garou at On Homelessness in America looks at an article about how to democratize powerwhile Homeless in Abbotsford BC explores the idea of generosity. Finally, the author of Homeless Man Speaks posts the plain words of his homeless friends and paints a picture with them.
Please take the time to learn something directly from homeless people by visiting these incredible blogs. Remember that thoughtful comments are always appreciated. It means somebody is listening.

Photos: Tony shoveling snow from Homeless Man Speaks; mourners from Nashville Homeless Power.

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.

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

Late March round-up of news from the homeless blogs

First from the straight news: The Muskogen Chronicle, Michigan, reported last week on the death of 48 year old Lonnie Gordon, a homeless man who died of hypothermia in a February stowstorm. Mr. Gordon was made to leave the Rescue Mission, where he'd been staying for several days, because he had been drinking on premises.
"We don't want to point fingers or make anyone take the blame (for Gordon's death). We just want to know why," said Judith Kell, who chairs the Continuum of Care Network. "What went wrong? How'd he fall through the cracks?"
Wait a minute-- he didn't fall through the cracks, he was pushed!
"We don't turn anyone away, and that is so important, especially in bad weather when so many (homeless people) have nowhere else to turn," Skoglund (director of Rescue Mission) said. "We exist to demonstrate and proclaim God's love to the less fortunate and homeless people of West Michigan, but there are certain rules people in the shelters have to follow for everyone's safety. We don't allow chaos. We can't allow chaos."
Heavens, No! Death before chaos! This could so easily happen in Springfield, MA-- if it hasn't already.

At Just Another Blog from L.A., M. Bouffant comments on Helen and Olga, currently on trial for murdering homeless men for the insurance they took out on them. In Nashville, Kevin Barbieux at The Homeless Guy reports on the death of a homeless woman hit by a pick-up truck.

Oldtimer Speaks Out reports on the bureaucratic snafu that almost prevented his friend Al, who'd been living in the woods for some time, from accessing transitional housing through the VA. WanderingVets comments on the people of Guerneville, CA, good patriots all, who are organizing in opposition to the construction of a Home for War Veterans. they might be dangerous!

On the organizing front, Tim Harris at Apesma's Lament says the city of Tacoma, Washington's failure to make progress on it's ten year plan to end homelessness is finally getting some media attention. Humanity for Homeless in Santa Cruz CA says the city has issued its first citation for violating the Parking Lots and Garages Trespass Law MC 9.64, which became law to prevent homeles people from using parking lots and whose enforcement has already reached ridiculous proportions-- folks were cited and dispersed for showing a silent move against the wall of a building in a non-residential district. There's a lot of information on this blog about the people's struggles. The Anti-Poverty blog in Chicago has a great analysis of the truly creepy Oprah's Big Give.

Last but not least, stop by Homeless Man Speaks for the real words of real people without a home.

Photo: Our Friend Al from Oldtimer Speaks Out.

News roundup from homeless and poverty blogs

New Orleans: The 13th Juror reports that Phil Mangano, executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, is not happy with Mayor Nagle's plan relocating homeless people from under a bridge into a large, barracks-like tent, and would prefer him to focus on long-term solutions...wonder why he was so quiet when the decision was made to tear down hundred of units of public housing. Tulane students are tracking new in New Orleans at their blog, Homeless of New Orleans. I got an email this week from the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. Their national coordinator Cheri Honkala (I should say "our" national coordinator, seeing as Arise is a part of PPEHRC) had charges of impersonating an officer dismissed in court this week; fellow PPEHRC organizer JR Fleming, Chicago Coalition to Protect Public Housing, still has charges pending.

Nashvillian Kevin Barbieux' site The Homeless Guy is running a survey on whether liquor stores should sell alcohol to alcoholics. Stop in and vote. At Humanity for Homeless, you can sign a petition protesting the City of Santa Cruz CA's new 15 minute parking lot law. Lots of good organizing going on in Santa Cruz.Text from the petition:

• Anyone who remains in a Public Santa Cruz parking lot for longer than fifteen minutes, regardless if you have a car or bike on premises is in violation of the new Parking Lot Trespass law and is guilty of trespassing, punishable as an infraction with a fine ranging from $100-$200.
• This means no napping or reading in your car, no resting while your other half shops, no sleeping off too much to drink. No associating with others on land we all collectively own. This stifles free speech and assembly rights and is unconstitutional in nature.
• These types of laws lead to "No speech zones" with small inadequate "Free Speech Zones" nearby -- in a Country where Free Speech is supposed to be a basic right human right we all equally share.

Over at Chosen Fast, Guilford County North Carolina's Point in Time Count shows the homeless population was 981, a drop of 33 people over last year's 1014-- but a real decrease in the number of people going unsheltered.
Cleveland Homeless reports homeless folks not faring too well: "The FAA and Department of Homeland Security closed Aviation High School as the Overflow Shelter for homeless men in Cleveland on February 1, 2008. With the snow and the cold this week, how have homeless people faired since this decision was implemented? 2100 Lakeside shelter is bursting at the seams, and on Thursday February 21, 2008, 25 guys waited throughout the night for a bed to open."

I'll save more news for another post, but there's a blog really worth checking out and reading regularly: Save Feral Human Habitat. This blog from British Columbia is " about what’s happening, what we’re doing and what we could be doing. It’s about freedom of speech and the decriminalization of dissent. It’s about our right to eat and our right to sleep. It’s about the struggles right here in our communities to protect the land we live on and to protect the basic human rights of the people in our community. among other things " Treesitter photo from their site.
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