Most Popular Homelessness Posts
Homelessness Cannot Happen to Just Anyone
Published February 09, 2010 @ 08:46AM PT
As homeless advocates, we have to be driven by facts. It is a fact that an estimated 3.5 million Americans experience homelessness every year. It is a fact that military veterans account for an estimated 26 percent of the homeless population while comprising only 11 percent of the general population. People who experience homelessness are more likely to be minorities, more likely to have disabilities and less likely to complete high school. So why then do we perpetuate the myth that homelessness can happen to anyone anytime? If we are all at risk of homelessness, why do the people who actually become homeless have such drastically different demographic characteristics than the general population?
Households that spend 50 percent or more of their incomes on rent or mortgage payments are considered at risk of homelessness. There are an estimated 12 million households, or four percent of the population, that fall into this dangerous category. So how can we argue that homelessness could happen to anyone when 94 percent of us are, by definition, not at immediate risk?
Homelessness cannot happen to me. Not right now. That is exactly why I believe homelessness is so important. Homelessness is an injustice because it cannot happen to everyone, not because it can happen to anyone.
My point is not to argue that homelessness is unimportant. Indeed, 3.5 million people homeless and 12 million at risk are alarming statistics, not to mention that our methods for counting the homeless likely undercount the actual number of people who experience homelessness. However, the argument that homelessness can happen to anyone anytime undermines the inherent injustice of homelessness by feigning social equality where none exists. I do not need to wrongly believe that homelessness is imminent for me in order to care about the issue. It is the fact that I don't have an equal chance of becoming homeless that makes homelessness an issue of injustice.
Photo credit: St Stev
"Poverty Olympics" Spotlight Cost of Vancouver Games
Published February 08, 2010 @ 05:44PM PT
Yesterday athletes took to the picturesque surroundings of Vancouver. But wait, the Olympics start next weekend. It was the "Poverty Olympics," a protest led by people who feel that the city's leaders haven't delivered on promises that hosting the Games would benefit all residents, even the homeless.
Hundreds of activists watched as the "Olympians" competed in three events in the downtrodden neighborhood called Downtown Eastside: the housing hurdles, the broken promise slalom and a wrestling match that pitted locals against an "evil developer." The event even had mascots: Itchy the bedbug and Chewy the rat. "If the money that was spent on the Olympics had been spent to end poverty and homelessness it could have been done by now," organizer Jean Swanson told the Vancouver Sun. Numbers are not public, but the Olympic pricetag for taxpayers is expected to be in the billions. 
According to an article last week in the New York Times, Downtown Eastside is the poorest postal code in Canada -- and just five blocks from Friday's opening ceremony location. While beautiful venues have been built all around it over the last several years, the notorious neighborhood, which houses the first supervised heroin injection site in North America, is as dilapidated as ever. But hey, at least it wasn't bulldozed like Beijing's slums in advance of the 2008 Olympics, right? "We've been there and tried to help in every way we can," Vancouver Organizing Committee chairman Rusty Goepel told Reuters this week. "The Olympics are not designed to solve all of the problems of the world."
When Vancouver was facing off with other cities in an effort to become the host city, it drew up a plan for the construction of affordable housing and pledged not to displace the homeless. Based on stories we've reported on, those promises have not been kept. There have been reports of busing homeless people out of town as well as a new regulation that allows police to haul in people found sleeping outdoors. In addition to the groups behind the Poverty Olympics, others are trying to raise awareness of Vancouver's homeless population. One organization hopes to draw attention to Vancouver's homeless by distributing red pop-up tents during the Games. Another is facilitating home rentals for tourists while raising money for the city's needy. Keep them in mind during Friday's amazing, opulent opening ceremonies.
Photo credit: nofutureface.blogspot.com
Students Shouldn't Be Punished for Being Homeless
Published February 08, 2010 @ 08:57AM PT
Rosa Bracero should have graduated from high school this week. Instead, she was forced to make an impossible decision between fulfilling her educational aspirations and helping her homeless family gain admittance to a shelter for the night.
Rosa was supposed to take the Regents exam at her Brooklyn high school last week -- a requirement for graduation in New York. But on the day she was scheduled to take the test, her family was evicted from their apartment. When the family went to a homeless intake center, staffers said they would be denied shelter if the entire family was not present for the seven-hour process -- even if it meant Rosa would have to miss her graduation exam.
According to the New York Daily News, the entire family was stunned at the cold, heartless lack of flexibility of the school and the New York shelter system. Rosa herself summed it up best: "I'm homeless so I have to be set back in my goals for my life? Isn't it enough that I'm homeless?"
This year, schools across the U.S. have been dealing with an unprecedented surge of homeless students. The National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth says that in the past two years, the number of homeless students has increased 100 percent. Though the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act provides a number of guaranteed protections for homeless students, it can be extremely difficult for these kids to keep up (nevermind excel) when they are without a stable home.
When Will We Take Care Of Our Own?
Published February 07, 2010 @ 12:24PM PT
I want you feel a little bit of what I am feeling so maybe we will all wake up and start taking care of our neighbors.
Last year the most horrifying photo for the homeless community was of a dead homeless man frozen in the ice in an abandoned building in Detroit. Over the summer I happened to be visiting Detroit and drove by that building. I was told that the people who found that man's body decided to play a game of hockey rather than report it.
This year's indelible image might be of the homeless frostbite victim in Flint, Michigan. Yesterday someone posted a link on InvisiblePeople.tv's Facebook page to an article about Stephen Frye, who lost both of his legs and one arm to frostbite after passing out in an abandoned building he called home.
I am about to visit Alaska, where a dozen homeless people died on the streets last year. In Salt Lake City, 58 homeless people died in 2009. Just two weeks ago, three homeless people perished while sleeping outside in Santa Barbara, California. Wherever you live in this great country of ours, people are dying outside.
How many people have to die on the streets before we wake up and start taking care of our own communities?
Photo credit: Ryan Garza/The Flint Journal
What Obama's Budget Says About Homelessness
Published February 06, 2010 @ 01:47PM PT
President Obama released his 2011 budget this week and homeless advocates are giving it the seal of approval. As always, some worthy issues, like housing vouchers, see funding increases while others, like aid for the elderly, lose out. This year, though, people who recognize that the answer to homelessness is homes feel like the budget is a step in the right direction. The National Alliance to End Homelessness points out that the budget -- which is still subject to approval by Congress -- proposes the largest increase in homeless services in 16 years. The NAEH is especially pleased about the extra $190 million allotted to McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants. Sign the petition showing your support!
According to the Washington Post, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) expects to up its spending on rent assistance for low income families by more than $2 billion to keep needy people in their homes. The Department of Veterans Affairs will get double the funding for homeless vets. The VA has the admirable goal of reducing the number of homeless veterans from the current rate of 131,000 to 59,000 by July 2012 (which, according to Changemaker and executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless Neil Donovan, can't be done without assistance for soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan).
Unfortunately, these increases come at the expense of funds for housing for the elderly and disabled. In 2010, housing assistance for people with disabilities was $300 million, according to the Wall Street Journal; in 2011, the budget proposes cutting it to $90 million. Aid to the elderly would see even steeper cuts, from $825 million in 2010 to $274 million in 2011. Native American Housing Block Grants will also be cut by 17 percent if the President gets his way.
For more on President Obama's proposed programs, check out the National Alliance to End Homelessness' budget breakdown.
Photo credit: hoyasmeg
A Homeless Mother and Son
Published February 05, 2010 @ 01:31PM PT
Jody lives in her car, while her 19-year-old son Phillip lives in a shelter in St. Paul, Minnesota. After being unfairly evicted from her apartment, she sold all she had to buy a car to live in.
As I was giving out socks, Phillip approached me. His shoes have holes all the way through, so he is unable to keep his socks from wearing out. That's how I entered into my conversation with these two. Thanks to Hanes I was able to provide much-needed socks.
Their three wishes are simple -- an apartment, a job and car repairs.
We don't often consider that the face of homelessness starts young. I hope to meet Phillip again one day with a story of success and victory rather than perpetual homelessness.
Jody and Phillip from InvisiblePeople.tv on Vimeo.
Be Patient, Respectful and Listen to the Homeless
Published February 05, 2010 @ 08:14AM PT
Recently I was making a trip I've made several dozen times, a 90-minute drive from one city to another on the highway in Australia. I was focused on getting home quickly without going over the speed limit.
Then, not long into my drive, I saw a homeless person pushing a shopping cart on the side of the highway. I pulled over and waited for him to reach my parked van. It was unlikely that he could make such a long journey on foot, let alone pushing a cart. I offered him a ride.
He didn't speak any English and spoke continually in his native tongue hoping I would understand him, but of course I didn't. I showed him the luggage section in the rear of the van and suggested through hand signals that we might be able to fit his shopping cart full of belongings in. Eventually he understood and we lifted the cart into the van, and I walked him around to the side door of the van and helped him into a seat.
He explained things at length to me on the trip (of which I understood nothing). I tried to ask him some questions in basic English. Finally, we developed a system of hand signals to suggest turns and to communicate.
