How Much?

Quick, how much more did the federal government spend on the Iraq war last year than it spent to end homelessness?

2x more 20x more 30x more 40x more 50x more.

In 2006, the feds allocated $1.9 billion for programs dedicated to end homelessness (National Alliance to End Homelessness) and about $100 billion to Iraq (zfacts).

World Without Bees? Amen

Don't know if folks are aware (I wasn't, until recently) that there's a whole industry built around transporting colonies of bees thousands of miles to pollinate cherries, pears, apples, almonds and more. Seeing as life as we know it depends on bees, as I've heard about the massive die-offs, I've wondered: is this true around the world? What about in non-commercial hives? Well, here's part of the answer.

CATASTROPHIC BEE COLONY COLLAPSE IS NOT AFFECTING ORGANIC HIVES
As previously reported in Organic Bytes (Issue #104), beekeepers in 24 states are experiencing record losses of honeybees. Some states have reported up to 70% disappearances of commercial bee populations. Researchers are struggling to find the causes of this mysterious collapse. A crucial element of this story, missing from reports in the mainstream media, is the fact that organic beekeepers across North America are not experiencing colony collapses. The millions of dying bees are hyper-bred varieties whose hives are regularly fumigated with toxic pesticides by conventional beekeepers attempting to ward off mites. In contrast, organic beekeepers avoid pesticides and toxic chemicals and strive to use techniques that closely emulate the ecology of bees in the wild. Researchers are beginning to link the mass deaths of non-organic bees to pesticide exposure, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and the common practice of moving conventional bee hives over long distances.
Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/bees.cfm

War

Touching Tent City Story from Toronto

Missing Tent City

Quacking ducks and sharing warm pots of Beefaroni made it home – better than sleeping on a park bench

Excerpted from Dying For A Home: Homeless Activists Speak Out (Between the Lines Press), by street nurse and Toronto Disaster Relief Committee co-founder Cathy Crowe. Photo by David Maltby

My dad was a truck driver. he did long hauls and was away for long periods. I was the oldest of eight. I only went to grade 7.
My dad drank a lot. When he was home there was usually arguing, fighting, drinking. I ran away all the time. Once I was put in a group home until I went to court for being a runaway.
[When] I was almost 14, I ran off with the man who ended up being my husband. I got pregnant, and we were married just before my 15th birthday.
When I was pregnant, he threw me down three flights of stairs. I left. My baby, a girl was born December 13, 1974, and I lived with my mom. But then I ended up back together with my ex and we had another baby girl two years later, but the marriage didn't last long.
I was pretty much on my own. My mom helped raise my youngest.
My experiences with abuse prepared me to work in a pilot project at Regent Park Community Health Centre. I was an outreach worker for six months. I would meet with women and help them to find shelter or a safe house.
I lost my apartment. I stayed at just about every women's shelter, many times. It was very stressful. I was attacked in a woman's shelter. I know that the woman who attacked me was ill, so rather than have the shelter kick her out, I said I'd leave.
Once in a while I would rent a hotel room for one or two nights at the Gladstone or the Budget just to get out of the shelter system. Lots of people do that, just to get a rest. It used to cost $20 to $25 a night.
Sometimes I slept outside, like on a grate (I still have a steam burn), or sometimes on cardboard laid out on a park bench or in the gazebo at St. James Park. We could stay dry if it rained.
When the police began harassing us, a friend said to me, "There's a place, a vacant lot on the water. You can build a hut there." I went down, and that's where I stayed for five years – Tent City. There were three others already there. I was the first girl.
I felt very comfortable. I stayed in a gutted-out van. It was stripped, no windows, and it had no floor. I installed styrofoam where the empty windows were. I draped sleeping bags over it for insulation.
While I was living outside, I was receiving about $485 – the "living allowance" from ODSP [the Ontario Disability Support Program], because I have some long-term health problems.
But after you buy your heavy clothing, you still need more. So over the years I have nearly always "panned" at Bay and Dundas. I started panning because some food banks didn't want to give us food because we "didn't have an address."
A few more people came, including my friend Marty. Marty and I moved into a camper donated to us by a guy from Calgary. He just showed up one day and asked if anyone would like his old camper on the back of his truck, and we lifted it off.
The camper was a little crowded for two. But we managed. We had extra blankets, and we sealed off and winterized it. We bought glue, duct tape and tarps, and did the windows.
Other people then were living in makeshift shacks or tents. We all kind of pitched in to help each other. We started getting propane and used it to fuel small heaters. One year, Toronto Disaster Relief Committee helped us get a generator that ran on diesel.
We had our routines. The ducks we called Donald and Daisy would quack at us and we would wake up early. Then we would gather kindling for the fire barrel, put the kettle on, make coffee, sit around the fire barrel, collect water, boil it, do dishes and laundry.
We did our laundry by hand in five-gallon pails and hung it on a clothesline. During the day, most people left for errands, appointments, to see friends. In bad weather we would all go up to the drop-ins at All Saints Church.
We all shared stuff down there, even food. Someone would make a big pot of Beefaroni. It was home. Better than a park bench. I felt hopeful, but then the police would warn us we were going to be kicked off. "Don't make yourself comfortable," they'd snarl.
The day of the eviction was pretty discouraging, actually. I was on my way uptown when I ran into my friend Penny, who said, "You'd better get down to Tent City. They're evicting everybody.'' I never got back in. I ended up losing everything. All my clothes. A lot of things I can't replace. Pictures of my kids. But the most precious thing I lost was my freedom.
Then I got into the Tent City rent supplement program. I've got a one-bedroom apartment now. I'm still not used to being on my own, but Marty lives in the same building. I'm on ODSP and get $863 a month. The average rent for a one-bedroom in Toronto is $800. The average waiting list for a subsidized unit is 12 years.
In this program I pay $139 and my rent is topped up by the supplement. Someday I'd like a balcony. After living at Tent City I hate being closed in.

Cathy Crowe on Nancy Baker

Nancy Baker has earned just about every line on her face. Perhaps more than anybody else who has witnessed the extent of the deaths over the years, Nancy has really allowed herself to fold into the grief and the loss. She knows most of the names on the Homeless Memorial Board. Yet in her own way, she continues to come out fighting. She is considered feisty on the streets, rebellious at City Hall and she's been fighting on the homeless front for many years.

news@nowtoronto.com

Wasn't this a Law & Order episode? & other homeless news

LAW & ORDER: Insurance agent Richard James and a co-defendant are on trial for felony murder in NYC for taking out life insurance policies on at least three homeless people and then killing them.

CAN'T SEE THIS HAPPENING HERE: Mayors in Nevada rallied for $20 million in funding for transitional housing for the homeless. Apparently they were inspired to action after lawmakers and homeless advocates spent a snowy night in tents back in February on the lawn of the Nevada Legislature.

ON THE OTHER HAND, THIS SEEMS LIKELY: The Democratic National Convention is coming to Denver next summer, so the city plans to keep its winter-only shelters open through the summer and for 24 hours instead of just overnight. Black Star News

NO DUMPING HERE..JUST BACK AND FORTH FROM HOSPITAL TO SHELTER: LOS ANGELES -

LOS ANGELES - A paraplegic man with a broken colostomy bag was found crawling in the gutter. An elderly woman, wearing only a hospital gown and slippers, was dumped on the street by a taxi called by the hospital.
For years, few people took seriously reports that Los Angeles hospitals were taking sick, confused and homeless patients by ambulance to the city's notorious "Skid Row" and leaving them there.
Today, Los Angeles city officials and a major hospital group announced a deal they hoped marks the beginning of the end to the dumping of vulnerable people in an area thought to have the highest concentration of homeless in the country.
Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the nation's largest non-profit health-care provider, agreed to find shelter places for all homeless patients it discharges in Los Angeles.

It will also contribute US$500,000 to homeless services on Skid Row including a free legal clinic, a shelter bed database and extra beds for recovering patients. More at New Zealand Herald.

Homeless Countdown

The Springfield Rescue Mission's Taylor St. shelter will be closing in thirteen days.

The Springfield Housing Authority is ready to start taking applications for some of the subsidies to place the "chronically homeless" into apartments-- but the guy who's in charge of taking the applications is on vacation for two weeks!

The wrecking balls hangs over the old York St. jail, where the Warming Place shelter currently operates, and so far there's been no extension of the June 30th deadline to get out.

Meanwhile, Friends of the Homeless has decided to compete with the Open Pantry (who currently has the contract) for the Department of Transitional Assistance funding to shelter 85 people. Seeing as the Friends would use some of that funding to pay for beds they already provide but are not reimbursed for, that would mean a net increase of only 50 beds when about 130 people are soon to be without shelter.

If anyone has extra tents, tarps, sleeping bags, etc., hold on to them, we may need them to get through this summer.

Bracketed between two wars

I went to Jon Weissman’s retirement party at the end of April. Jon was the contract manager for the National Association of Letter Carriers 46 and is now “retiring” to devote more time to Jobs with Justice.

Jon is one of the most idealistic and down-to-earth people I know. After his colleagues, daughter and wife celebrated him, Jon spoke and tried to sum up some of his conclusions about working for social justice for the past 40+ years. I’m still thinking about much that he said, but one of his comments struck me particularly—that in some sense, his life has been bracketed by two wars—Vietnam and Iraq. Of course, that’s true for me and for most people born in the fifteen years following World War Two.

The Vietnam and Iraq wars have a lot of similarities (don’t get me started) but one key difference is that we had a long lead-up to the Iraq war in which we had (we thought) an opportunity to stop the war before it began.

Another difference is that in the Vietnam war, we were spared the mea culpas of elected officials for a good thirty years. (I think Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, one of the war’s most hated policy-makers, started worrying about getting into heaven.)

(By the way, isn’t it interesting that war architect McNamara became president of the World Bank during the Vietnam war, and war architect Wolfowitz during the Iraq war?)

It drives me wild with rage and contempt to hear John Kerry, John Edwards and their Congressional counterparts apologize for their vote to authorize war in Iraq.

“We were deceived!” they whimper, leaving us to decide if they are lying now or were just that stupid then.

I never bought this damn war from before Day One, and personally knew hundreds of people who felt the same way. Through my listserves I knew thousands more, and hundreds of thousands who protested prior to March 20, 2003.

We all knew we were headed to war within hours of the terrorists’ destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11.

We also knew that Iraq was not behind the 9/11 attacks, that the war was a cover for the neo-con agenda, and doubted greatly that there were weapons of mass destruction left in the country.

We knew that the war would alienate international support, that the war would increase, not decrease, terrorism, and that military and civilian casualties would not be reported accurately.

We also knew that the war would be used an excuse to take away our civil liberties, that secret prisons, torture and prisoner abuse were bound to exist, and that war profiteering would reach new heights.

How come WE knew all this, and Congress and the media didn’t?

Well, the answer, of course, is that many of them did know, but kept their mouths shut and their courage locked away for reasons of political expediency.

I am not the kind of populist who thinks that the “wisdom of the common people” is pure and correct—not with the onslaught of propaganda coming across the airwaves and printed in our newspapers.

I have, however, found that many truly poor people were skeptical of the war from the beginning—furious at the attacks against our country, but so used to being lied to on a daily basis that they take nothing at face value.

The older I get, the less doctrinaire I become. I have no definite answer as to how our government can move into the hands of a well-informed citizenry, or even how a well-informed citizenry can be nurtured under the current circumstances. But I will keep trying to play my part. As Gramschi said, “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”

But today, as our military casualties stand at 3,444, and civilian casualties approach half a million, just for once, I want to say, “We told you so.”

Seattle: Poetry on the Bus

King County Metro Online

Hurst, Burke and Ward Representation

So Joe Burke is being offered another two-year contract as school superindendent—with raises along the way—by the Springfield School Committee. The fact that he so clearly wants out of Springfield (applications all over Florida) and has brought absolutely nothing positive to the Springfield school system didn’t matter when the votes were counted.

Antoinette Pepe, Marjorie Hurst and Mayo Ryan voted against offering Burke a contract.

I wonder if Marge Hurst would like to rethink her opposition to ward representation for the school committee?

During the city council debate about ward representation this past Monday, Councilor Domenic Sarno read a letter from Hurst into the record, where she complained that the school committee had never been asked their opinion about ward representation. This was just a day prior to the school committee’s vote on Burke.

The particular “8 & 5” version of ward representation being promoted by city council is entirely their version, and not the one that a coalition of community groups, including Arise, has been promoting for years.

However, I know that Marjorie Hurst and her husband Fred, two people I admire very much, were invited into our coalition years ago. They stayed true to their conservative philosophy, however, and declined.

Compare the Hursts’ opposition to ward representation to Bud Williams. I am still flabbergasted that Williams dared to say that ward rep was a good idea fifteen years ago, but not now. Then why did he oppose that good idea fifteen years ago?

Williams is now saying that, based on sheer numbers in the population, people of colors’ day has finally come, and that ward representation is no longer needed to get people of color elected to city council and school committee.

If his theory is true, then based on the numbers, women should have been holding fifty percent of the elected seats just about forever ago. Being the majority—or close to it—has not been enough to overcome institutionalized sexism and racism, or we’d be seeing the effects in who holds elected office.

Williams and Hurst should check out this morning’s Boston Globe, where McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies report gives the dismal numbers for people of colors’ presence on boards of directors.

“At corporations, 95 percent of board members are white, and 87 percent are men. At hospitals, boards of directors are 94 percent white, and 75 percent are men; in higher education, boards are 86 percent white, and 64 percent are men. Boards at cultural institutions are 79 percent white and 50 percent male.”

BTW, I sat in a meeting with Burke not long after he was hired; the guy talked for fifteen minutes and said absolutely nothing!—quite a skill.

Is the “Housing First” model being used to clear out the homeless?

From around the country:

New York City is finishing “cleaning up” 70 sites where homeless people are encamped. Of 300 people, 68 were placed in temporary housing; the rest have moved on, possibly to living underground in the subways.

Birmingham, Ala is also “clearing out”: the homeless from area encampments, at the same time as the city is trying to figure out how to give the homeless a “virtual” address and phone number to help them look for work.

“Quite honestly, we've taken them from one spot to the next, and we realize that. We've gotten some off the street. We've been successful in some cases. We've offered services to every one of them,” said Don Lupo of the City of Birmingham.

In Tacoma, Washington, 42 people out of an unknown number have been placed in permanent housing after the city used some of its “Housing First” money to clear out 13 homeless encampments.

On the other hand: In Oakland, CA, city officials plan to open a temporary encampment and step up outreach to the more than 60 semi-permanent camps across the city, currently sheltering 600 to 900 people. They want to place 20 people a month from the temporary encampments into stable housing. About 6,000 people in Oakland are homeless at any given point in time.

Oakland has a fifteen-year plan to provide 7,380 affordable housing units with supportive services by 2020.

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Two homeless people I couldn’t do much for: A 17 yr old girl I’ve known for three years and who has been homeless for most of them called me…she’s homeless again but not eligible for shelter because she’s under eighteen, even though her mom and dad are in a shelter right now. So far she’s managed to avoid addiction, disease and pregnancy. Last night, I got a phone call from a guy who described himself as “62 and unexpectedly homeless.” When he became homeless he had two dogs; one was quite elderly and he had her put down earlier this week. He has his small dog still with him, but shelters don’t accept animals. He’s been sleeping in his car….

Ward Representation and Bud Williams— Forget what I did before…just buy what I’m saying now….

Last night City Council approved a small change in the ward representation legislation it sent to the Legislature in October so that the question of “8 wards, 5 at-large” can be on the ballot this November.

Of course, ward rep opponents on the council took the opportunity to reiterate reasons against changing the current system. None of them mentioned one driving force behind their opposition: they might not be able to be re-elected under a mixed, ward and at-large system.

I did get a chance to see for myself what will be the two pillars of opposition to ward representation this fall.

Tom Rooke reiterated his belief that anybody can get elected to City Council if they just work hard enough, and that a seat on the council shouldn’t be “handed” to anyone. This message will certainly appeal to those white people who share his belief and fear what would happen if people of color start getting elected to City Council in numbers that reflect their percentage in the population.

Bus Williams, though, says that the idea of ward rep is 10 to 15 years too late—that passing ward rep now, when our population is becoming “browner and browner,” is a disservice to people of color, who, apparently, (and now we switch back to Rooke’s line) could now get elected to the City Council simply on the basis of their increasing numbers in the population if they tried hard enough.

What he forgot to say was that he has opposed ward representation for those entire 15 years!

More later.

Domenic Sarno: the man who would be mayor

Ah, Domenic Sarno…God loves him, his family loves him, he would have the city love him (at least enough to vote him in as mayor) but when I think about him, my mouth twists to the side.

I asked in an earlier post: how is Dom Sarno like President Bush? One answer: he can’t admit a mistake.

Now, poor people, including poor activists, can’t ever get very close to the seat of power in this city, so other people might have even better examples of Dom’s inability to own up—or maybe even examples that contradict my own experience—but here’s how he looks from the Arise side.

On August 17, 2006, Arise members and a number of homeless people attended a Civil Rights subcommittee of Springfield City Council, chaired by Domenic Sarno; the topic was homelessness. We thought that the meeting was about the civil rights of homeless people; it turned out to be about the civil rights of our housed citizens who don't like to be asked for money by poor people, or see them sleeping in doorways, etc.

At the end of Sarno's opening remarks, he said (I’m paraphrasing, seeing as the City Council does not keep verbatim transcripts) "Lastly, I have heard some disturbing information, if it is true-- that Arise is getting people from Northampton to come to Springfield, pretend they are homeless, and take pictures of the police."

I protested that this was untrue-- we have our own members who are really homeless, we don't need to get people to pretend. Sarno cut me off and said that his info was credible and that he’d gotten it from Police Commissioner, Edward Flynn (also present at the meeting).

Attempts to hold Flynn’s office accountable for this misinformation were fruitless (another post).

In October, I met with Bernie Glassman of the Zen Peacemakers, who was interested in doing “something” for the homeless. He mentioned that a dozen people from his organization had slept on the streets for a week over the summer, so they could find out what homelessness in Springfield was all about. I’d actually already heard about this from my sister Liz, who works at the Warming Place, because some homeless people had had to sleep on the floor the night that the Peacemakers, in disguise as homeless people, had turned up at the shelter. Suddenly it hit me, and I told the story of Sarno’s remarks to Glassman.

“I’ll bet it was you and your crew that Flynn reported as Arise members to Councilor Sarno,” I said.

“I’ll bet it was,” he said with a smile.

The following month, on November 17, Dom held a special subcommittee meeting to introduce the Zen Peacemakers to the Springfield community—they seem to have really hit it off. I attended the meeting, and before it actually began I thought, What a perfect time for Dom to acknowledge that it wasn’t Arise members out on the street, it was the Peacemakers, and to offer us a public apology for his misinformation. I put my thoughts in a quick note and went up to the rail to hand it to him. He was taken aback by my handing him a note—he was already pumping my hand and thanking me for coming when I slipped it to him—and I saw him read it as a video presentation about the Peacemaker’s work in Brooklyn was being prepared.

Dom stood up to open the meeting, and began by saying, “Before we actually begin, there’s something I’d like to tell you…”

Here it comes! I thought.

Well, what he actually said eludes me now, but as you might guess, it was not an acknowledgement of his error. I think the twist in my mouth that occurs whenever Dom Sarno is mentioned began at that moment.

A small affront, to be sure, in the grand scheme of things, but one that tells me much.

I have had many differences with Mayor Ryan about how he is working to solve the homeless problem in Springfield, but at least he’s trying.

Sarno’s solutions, on the other hand, range from wanting to put skunk-scented spray in empty buildings to discourage the homeless from sleeping in them to criminalizing shopping carts and panhandling.

It’s going to be an interesting mayoral campaign.

Tough all over

The Homeless Services Center in Santa Cruz, CA is running a deficit so they’ve decided to cut the meals they serve to homeless people from seven meals a week to five…A homeless teen in Michigan died when the dumpster he was sleeping in was picked up by the recycling truck and he was crushed to death…Osaka, Japan is getting ready to evict 3,500 squatters in Nishinari Ward because it won’t look good when the city hosts the International Association of Athletics Federations 2007 World Championships this summer.

Self-Taught

Yesterday I had to go to Boston by bus and back. Early in the morning I saw:

• Four hawks
  Geese and ducks
  spring water falling from rocks
  A coyote moving like ginger
  through a yellow marsh

On the way home I started the Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra for the third time and found it much easier going. Guess my consumption of popular physics is paying off. I finally understood that it is my mass, curving the space/time continuum, which is responsible for cats falling into my lap and draping themselves in an orbit around my desk.

Tent City News

Arcata, CA police arrested homeless advocates April 25, in an attempt to break up their People Project tent city encampment.

In Oregon, Thurston County officials visited Dignity Village, considered to be the only government-sponsored tent city in the country, to see if it was a potential model for a tent city that sprang up in downtown Olympia and which is currently housed-- at least till May 19-- at the Unitarian-Universalist church.

Thomas Friedman is an idiot/ Dom Sarno

In today's NY Times, Friedman speaks in the voice of a repentant George Bush addressing Middle East leaders, owning up to his "mistakes" about Iraq but saying we absolutely have to stay the course to fight terrorism.

Besides the fact that Bush will never own up to anything, Friedman chooses to remain clueless about one of the main reasons terrorism is flourishing-- up 29% last year, according to a State Department report. The war itself has created fertile ground for terrorism-- just as many of us predicted even before the war began.

What is one way in which City Councilor Dom Sarno, the man who would be Springfield's mayor, is like George Bush? Stay tuned.