Free Republic

GUESS WHICH CANDIDATE WILL WIN THE HOMELESS VOTE Apparently Barack Obama can count on a newly empowered class of voter: the homeless. Michael Stoops, the executive director of the National Coalition of the Homeless says, "Low income and homeless people are more energized than I have ever seen before." Well ... they're that damned energized, tell them to go out and get a job! The mentality from those in the homeless industry is that if you are homeless you care more about who gets elected because your life depends on your ability to live the life of a parasite. A...

(SNIP) Among those following the campaign is Shera Greenwich, a mother of two living at a shelter run by the Henry St. Settlement in New York City. As she waits to move into a subsidized apartment, she says issues including economic security and obtaining quality healthcare are her focus, and she plans to vote Democratic. "I see so much change in the future if Obama is elected President," she said. "I think he can get America back on track." OBSTACLES TO VOTING Advocacy groups campaign each election season to get the homeless to register to vote, noting they often face...

As the military prepares to close Fort Lawton, an Army Reserve base nestled in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood, a city proposal to develop a 200-home subdivision that includes housing for the homeless angers some residents. ___ A newly released city plan to redevelop the soon-to-be-closed Fort Lawton in Seattle calls for building a 200-home subdivision of market-rate and affordable housing on about 18 acres. At a final community meeting Saturday at Fort Lawton, those living near the Army Reserve base said they didn't oppose housing for the homeless, but they worried that the total number of homes proposed and the percentage...

On July 6, SFPD Officer Lisa Frazer responded to several calls about a homeless man named George Miley, who has a long history of terrorizing neighbors at 18th and Diamond in the Castro. But when Frazer tried to serve Miley with a citation for loitering, he became obstreperous and then violent. Frazer only had time to call for backup before he charged her. "He came at me," she said. "He grabbed my microphone and severed the cord so I couldn't call. He ripped my shirt, he scratched me with his fingernails." Luckily, support arrived quickly. It took three officers to...

It's 6 a.m. in Rittenhouse Square, one of Philadelphia's most elegant parks. As the sun rises, its overnight summer residents - more than two dozen homeless men and women - are asleep on benches. --snip-- And while homeless people say they like the comforts of the high-end neighborhood, the Rittenhouse Square residents, managers of nearby businesses, and Fairmount Park Commission employees who maintain the grounds complain that the resulting problems have gotten worse this summer, making their jobs and neighborhood life more difficult

Liberalism in action, California style: The mayor and others are now admitting what the grand jury reported - that a majority of those on the streets are not homeless. The head of the city's homeless program, Dariush Kayhan, estimates that 50 to 75 percent of street people live in supportive housing. "We just warehouse addicts," said the grand jury's Stuart Smith. "Granted, it is a nicer place for them, but it doesn't address the problem." Almost three out of four people on the street live in supportive housing. The article explains that people who live in or move to San...

DENVER'S HIGH-CLASS HOMELESSLast updated: 5:17 am July 20, 2008 That must be some classy set of street people out in Denver. Officials in most places with vagrancy problems must wrestle with issues like drug abuse and mental illness. Apparently not so in Denver - which next month hosts the Democratic National Convention. The area around the convention center where Democrats will gather is home to many of the city's 5,000 or so vagrants, so city officials have hatched a plan to, er, get them out of the way. For their own good, of course. But rest assured that Denver isn't...

JOHNSON: Homeless say DNC diversions not for themBy Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact) Thursday, July 17, 2008 Debbie - and this is merely a hunch - will probably be going to jail next month. Unless they are giving away free booze and marijuana at the movies, the zoo or the Nature & Science museum - along with the free tickets to those venues they plan on giving the homeless during Democratic National Convention week - I can't see Debbie budging from the dirt beneath the Speer Boulevard bridge she has called home the past 26 years. She and scores...

"Hundreds of Denver's homeless could be cooling their heels in a movie theater or museum while the Democratic National Convention is in town next month. The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless plans to get 500 movie tickets as well as passes to the Denver Zoo, Denver Museum of Nature and Science and other cultural facilities for the people it helps. Bus tickets will be provided for events beyond walking distance, said John Parvensky, the non-profit's president."

A long overdue civil grand jury report released Wednesday says that the city should be proud of getting over 4,000 homeless people into housing since 2004 but distressed at the scene on the streets. Panhandling, public drunkenness and street loitering are still an unpleasant reality downtown. The mayor and others are now admitting what the grand jury reported - that a majority of those on the streets are not homeless. The head of the city's homeless program, Dariush Kayhan, estimates that 50 to 75 percent of street people live in supportive housing. "We just warehouse addicts," said the grand jury's...

Hundreds of Denver's homeless could be cooling their heels in a movie theater or museum while the Democratic National Convention is in town next month. The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless plans to get 500 movie tickets as well as passes to the Denver Zoo, Denver Museum of Nature and Science and other cultural facilities for the people it helps. Many day shelters will have expanded hours during the convention, and big screen TVs are being donated to some shelters so patrons can watch convention goings-on without being caught up in the mayhem. A two-day voter registration drive is also...

Do you think Denver is trying to hide the homeless during the Democratic National Convention? Yes No

You are welcome here. That's the message that Denver officials say they hope to convey to its homeless community as the Democratic National Convention approaches. No one will be swept or bused out of the city in an effort to "clean up" Denver during the event. But some homeless advocates say that a city program makes the homeless feel particularly unwelcome in public parks, and that the city plans to empty parks of the homeless before the convention. Called Come On In, the program, which was launched in 2006, urges charities that serve outdoor meals to the homeless to move...

Bean-thin and sallow, George tugged on a cigarette in the blistering parking lot of a Camden men's shelter. Standing on the pavement, his foot on a picnic bench, he recalled how he took his first drink at 13. The hard living shows in the lines of George's face -- and in his medical history. When he gets sick, which is often, the 55-year-old has no place to go except one of the city's emergency rooms. George is a "super user," a new name coined to describe people who turn to the ER with astonishing frequency and at an astonishing cost...

The $300 billion mortgage bill received a vote of approval in the U.S. Senate, but the rescue may not come to starving homeowners soon, largely because the House wants to change the legislation, and Bush has threatened to veto it, leaving thousands of children without a home. “When you wake up in the morning with a foreclosure,” cried Dodd, “you have to face your children and your spouse. How much longer do we need to debate? I guess long enough for people to start jumping off buildings!”

Drug dens, homeless shantytowns and prostitution are rampant in New York City's parks, a Post investigation found. Comparing the manicured lawns of Manhattan's Central Park to the barren, rat-infested eyesore of Spring Creek Park in Brooklyn, the disparity is shocking. While the Bloomberg administration boasts that parks are in better shape than they've been in four decades, an investigation of 70 parks over the last nine months found: * Clusters of homeless living in tents and small shantytowns in 10 parks, including Riverside Park near 148th Street in Manhattan. * Hookers brazenly plying their 24-hour trade, including at Printers Park...

Power to the street people during DNCThe city says it has no plan to hide the homeless during all the hoopla. Some officials hope they'll be part of the dialogue. By Allison Sherry The Denver Post Article Last Updated: 07/01/2008 06:20:24 AM MDT Denver police Cmdr. Deborah Dilley has a message to the 3,900 homeless people who live in the city: You can stay where you are between Aug. 25 and 28. Responding to rumors that Denver's homeless would be bused to Pueblo or hauled out of the hip Lower Downtown area during the Democratic National Convention, city officials say...

Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland By Matthew Day in Warsaw Last Updated: 11:17PM BST 02/07/2008 Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus. The medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, are being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus. Authorities claim that the alleged victims received £1-2 to be tested with what they thought...

Aren't all of those tech gadgets great? PDA's, cell phones, laptops and so on have all had a beneficial impact on our lives. However, not ALL innovations have this effect! See for yourself in this latest installment of "Geeks On Caffeine!"

The recent flooding in Wisconsin is a teachable moment on how a change in circumstances can make people homeless, says Greta Hanson, executive director of the Community Action Coalition for South Central Wisconsin. "So much angst and empathy is flowing to people who have lost everything," Hanson said. "We work with people who have lost everything every day. What's the difference?"CAC is a member of the Dane County Coalition to Fight Homelessness and End Poverty, a group formed in May to educate the community on homelessness and work towards ending poverty in the wake of a recent backlash in Madison...

Mayor C. Ray Nagin recently suggested a way to reduce this city’s post-Katrina homeless population: give them one-way bus tickets out of town. Mr. Nagin later insisted the off-the-cuff proposal was just a joke. But he has portrayed the dozens of people camped in a tent city under a freeway overpass near Canal Street as recalcitrant drug and alcohol abusers who refuse shelter, give passers-by the finger and, worst of all, hail from somewhere else. While many of the homeless do have addiction problems or mental illness, a survey by advocacy groups in February showed that 86 percent were from...

House prices force Americans to sleep in cars By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles Last Updated: 12:58AM BST 22/05/2008 Increasing numbers of women and elderly people are taking advantage of a scheme in one of America's wealthiest cities that enables the homeless to sleep safely in their cars at night. Organisers of the programme say they are seeing ever more unlikely people living out of their cars in the exclusive beachfront city of Santa Barbara, where the average house costs more than $1 million(£500,000). Many hold down part-time jobs while bedding down for the night in their vehicles. Barbara Harvey,...

At first the gash of freshly turned earth looks like one of the hundreds of landslides triggered by China's massive earthquake. But the incense sticks and half-burnt candles along the road hint at a hidden purpose. The scar on the hillside has become a mass grave for the victims of the disaster. A line of young soldiers, their faces covered by blue masks against the stench of decomposing bodies, stand guard. More troops, their uniforms protected by blue plastic coats, squat at the foot of the slope, waiting for the next grim delivery. “The authorities asked us to bury them...

Ottawa’s Panhandlers’ Union has filed a $1 million lawsuit against the City for blocking access to a highway underpass where a youth was murdered. “The area in question is dark, dank and rank,” explained City Attorney Alfred Throckmorton. “Closing it off enhances public health and safety.” The suit describes the underpass as a “critical ‘dumping’ ground for the homeless community.” “These people have nowhere else to go,” said Union lawyer Amos Arrant. “So, one person was murdered. Unfortunate as this may be, putting up with an occasional murder is the price we may have to pay for preserving a traditional...

(05-12) 19:45 PDT -- Rather than tossing loose change into a panhandler's empty cup, San Francisco officials want you instead to slide your spare quarters and nickels into a homeless meter. The city's latest attempt to deal with one of its most vexing problems will be announced in coming weeks in the form of 10 old parking meters installed in some of the most heavily panhandled areas, The Chronicle has learned. Money deposited in the meters would go directly to charities that help the homeless. The goal, officials say, is to reduce panhandling and to educate tourists and residents about...

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A 23-year-old Bloomington, Illinois, hotel employee accused of letting a number of people stay in rooms without paying has told police she let them stay only because some of them were homeless. Jeannie Roberts was charged yesterday with theft of labor, services or property. The general manager of the Clarion Hotel called police after discovering that five rooms were being used even though they were not checked out. Some of the unpaid guests were found in a hot tub, and police said the five rooms had been occupied by about 20 people. Police said the unpaid guests may have damaged...

NEW YORK - A homeless man has come forward with two sets of confidential ground zero blueprints that he says were dumped in a Lower Manhattan trash can. The man brought the Freedom Tower plans to the New York Post, which says the 150-page schematic is marked: "Secure Document - Confidential." The documents are dated Oct. 5, 2007. They contain plans for each floor, the thickness of the concrete-core wall, and the location of air ducts, elevators, electrical systems and support columns. The agency that owns the World Trade Center site, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,...

Taxmares in Bushvilles UrbanSurvival is unfortunately a nonfiction writing operation. But, every once in a while an idea slams me across the right hemisphere that brings tears to my eyes because of what a fine nonfictional fiction plot it would make. [...] The plot of this [prospective novel] takes place in the many Bushvilles which I asked people to send in notes on in yesterday's column. These emergent new features of "Shruburbia" are popping up all over the country, although they seem to weight toward the Midwest and West. The author of Taxmares can set it almost anywhere in the...

SEATTLE -- He was kicked while he was down, but he eventually found way to build a new life. But now, David Csaky is on the brink of another fall. Two years ago Csaky found himself homeless, surrounded by dead-ends. "I was divorced, I had bad credit, I have animals with me," he said. "I have two walls against me. I can't hurdle either one."But then he found three sturdy trees under the Ship Canal Bridge in the Eastlake neighborhood and decided to build himself a tree house. While earning a very modest living by rescuing animals, Csaky kept plugging...

Seek to raise awareness of homelessness Stang students set up their cardboard-box shelters Saturday for a chilly night under the stars to raise awareness of homelessness.DAVID W. OLIVEIRA/Standard-Times special DARTMOUTH — It's 6 p.m. on a Saturday night. The temperature is hovering in the 30s, and the wind whips across the unprotected athletic fields at Bishop Stang High School. There are no sporting events going on, save some pickup football and a game that involves throwing washers into a hole. But more than 100 students, dressed in bulky layers, have congregated on the field, amid rows of cardboard boxes covered...

I am having a hard time believing this is true. On second thought it is California.

When a homeless man named James Allen Hill overdosed and died in the restroom of the San Francisco library last Friday afternoon, it was a shocker. A drug overdose in the public library? Really? "It was an unfortunate and tragic incident for everyone," said library spokeswoman Marcia Schneider. "Especially for the security staff that handled it." There will be those who will see Hill's death as a failure of the system, another example of how the city neglects its poorest residents. That's not the story here. The city did anything but neglect Hill. But his case does show a flaw,...

EDMONTON -- Students at universities across Canada may come across a surprise when they show up for class this morning -- groups of fellow students huddled against the cold, asking if they could spare something to eat for breakfast. Dozens of students are camping out on the campuses of 10 universities from last night to Friday night to raise awareness and money for a variety of charities aimed at helping homeless youth. The students will have no money or access to food, drinks or showers. They will have to survive on donations and must sleep outside unless temperatures plunge low...

Google gives homeless free voicemail By staff writers February 29, 2008 11:42am Article from: NEWS.com.au EVERY homeless person living in San Francisco will be given a phone number and voicemail to help them get back on their feet, Google says. The internet giant has promised to provide the life-long services to the city's entire homeless population in order to help them get a job and build self-esteem. Senior project manager at Google Craig Walker said the free services could one day be rolled out across the US, allowing every homeless person to list their own number on job applications. “We're...

Conclusions From Vatican Meeting on Care of Homeless "No One Can Claim to Be Exempt From the Risk of Becoming Poor" VATICAN CITY, FEB. 22, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is the final document of the International Meeting for the Pastoral Care of the Homeless on the theme "In Christ and With the Church at the Service of the Homeless," held Nov. 26-27 in the Vatican. The meeting was organized by the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers, and the document was released this week by the dicastery. * * *I. The Event The III° International Meeting on the Pastoral Care of...

Foreclosed Homes Occupied by HomelessBy THOMAS J. SHEERAN – 1 day ago A sign hangs above a row of beds at a shelter, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2008, in Cleveland. The nation's foreclosure crisis has led to a painful irony for homeless people: they are outnumbered in some cities by vacant houses, and some street people are taking advantage of the opportunity. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak) CLEVELAND (AP) — The nation's foreclosure crisis has led to a painful irony for homeless people: On any given night they are outnumbered in some cities by vacant houses, and some street people are taking advantage...

Reporter Peter Smith talks with author Adam Shepard.Alone on a dark gritty street, Adam Shepard searched for a homeless shelter. He had a gym bag, $25, and little else. A former college athlete with a bachelor's degree, Mr. Shepard had left a comfortable life with supportive parents in Raleigh, N.C. Now he was an outsider on the wrong side of the tracks in Charles­ton, S.C. But Shepard's descent into poverty in the summer of 2006 was no accident. Shortly after graduating from Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., he intentionally left his parents' home to test the vivacity of the...

With only some luggage, stage props and one-way tickets to Dallas, 18 Chinese acrobats and coaches found themselves at a homeless shelter Tuesday. Members of the Guanhua Acrobatic team from Shanghai, China, had just started a nine-month performance tour of the United States when they arrived in Dallas on Monday evening. But they were stranded, with no one to meet them at the airport, no transportation and no shelter. Bill Thompson, executive director of the Union Gospel Mission homeless shelter, stepped in to help Monday. "We got a call from Wisconsin from a guy named Gary. He said they were...

MIAMI (Reuters) - Alejandro Ruiz and his neighbors served their time for sex crimes but found themselves sleeping under a Miami highway bridge because laws meant to keep them away from children leave them nowhere else to live. Their dismal tent camp, tucked under an overpass on a causeway linking Miami and Miami Beach, reeks of human waste and garbage. But it is the official home of a group of sex offenders caught in a dilemma echoed across the United States. "Where are we supposed to go? The way they label you, sex offender, nobody wants you around," Ruiz said....

COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) - A police survey says panhandlers outside a Wal-Mart here can make $300 a day. Inside, it takes a clerk a week to make that much. Police say people who have a problem with that needn't look to the law--asking for money is considered protected free speech. "We are not going to target panhandlers," said Coos Bay Police Capt. Rodger Craddock, who spoke a recent gathering of business owners about panhandling. "We can't do that. But if they aren't getting money from us, they aren't going to stand on that corner." He said most panhandlers are...

The day James Anthony Williams allegedly stabbed to death a stranger on Capitol Hill, the homeless, mentally ill ex-convict showed up at his probation officer's office agitated, defensive and, the officer wrote, "barely able to hold himself together." Despite intense concerns about Williams' paranoid schizophrenia and violent behavior, the probation officer gave Williams a pair of Metro bus tickets and told him to come back in three days.

Petaluma, Calif. (AP) -- A month after spending his nights on San Francisco's streets, penniless and addicted to speed, James Jennison tenderly petted a calf that he'd helped deliver about an hour earlier. The calf wobbled as it nuzzled Jennison, who was grinning from his morning's work at this drug rehabilitation dairy farm in the rolling hills about 40 miles north of San Francisco. "It was, I'd have to say, one of the most amazing things I've ever seen," said Jennison, 29, a former AOL computer technician. Jennison, like some 22 million Americans, has struggled to lead a life while...

Man who stole from Salvation Army ordered to spend a night homelessBy AP Friday, January 25, 2008 1:44 PM CST PAINESVILLE, Ohio (AP) — A judge on Thursday ordered a Salvation Army worker who stole a holiday kettle containing about $250 to spend the night homeless. Nathen Smith, 28, was to spend the night anywhere but a house, said Municipal Judge Michael Cicconetti. Smith was fitted with a GPS device to track his moves. “My initial reaction was, ’Wow.’ But I don’t think the sentence is too harsh,” said Smith, who expected to spend Thursday night in a homeless shelter....

LEEDS, Mass. (AP) - Peter Mohan traces the path from the Iraqi battlefield to this lifeless conference room, where he sits in a kilt and a Camp Kill Yourself T-shirt and calmly describes how he became a sad cliche: a homeless veteran. There was a happy homecoming, but then an accident—car crash, broken collarbone. And then a move east, close to his wife's new job but away from his best friends. And then self-destruction: He would gun his motorcycle to 100 mph and try to stand on the seat. He would wait for his wife to leave in the morning,...

More proof that compassion isn't just good for the soul, but also good for one's pocketbook: Seattle and King County's housing projects targeting the chronically homeless work, and they save us $3.2 million each year. The Housing First projects are fiscally prudent, and, indeed, the very thing that made them controversial also makes them effective by seriously lowering the number of homeless patients needing emergency medical care. Critics blasted one project's approach -- the 1811 Eastlake building -- to dealing with homeless alcoholics. The housing project, which attracted national attention for allowing its residents to drink, was seen by some...

11-Year-Old's Idea May Become Law Boy's Initiative May Be Passed as Law to Help Feed Homeless Jan. 11, 2008— Adults usually initiate the laws, but there's no law that says kids can't too. Jack Davis is only 11, but he had a pretty grown-up idea: He was disturbed to learn that Florida restaurants throw out food that could be given to the hungry and the homeless -- because the restaurant owners could be sued if anyone who ate the food became ill or developed food poisoning. "I thought it pretty disturbing to see pounds, pretty much, of food being thrown...

They sleep in mosques. Or on the streets. Or in Christian-oriented shelters that might hold prayer meetings or services at odds with their own religious beliefs. For Muslim women without a place to live, particularly those who have been battered or are immigrants, being homeless can test their faith at the time they need it most. When Muslim women are sent to shelters that serve the general population, they are often exposed to lifestyles that challenge their faith, such as drinking, abusing drugs, eating pork and undressing or bathing in front of others, says Imam Faizul Khan of the Islamic...

ONTARIO, California (Reuters) - Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing planes sits "tent city," a terminus for homeless people. It is not, as might be expected, in a blighted city center, but in the once-booming suburbia of Southern California. The noisy, dusty camp sprang up in July with 20 residents and now numbers 200 people, including several children, growing as this region east of Los Angeles has been hit by the U.S. housing crisis.

Homeless Men Adopt Needy FamiliesPOSTED: 3:40 pm EST December 14, 2007 UPDATED: 4:43 pm EST December 14, 2007 DETROIT -- Homeless men at the Mariners Inn shelter and treatment center for the homeless in Detroit have launched a campaign to help needy families for the holidays. The campaign is called Holidays At Mariners Inn-Saving Families One Father At A Time. The homeless men and the shelter will be raising money and collecting donations for four families in need. The homeless men will collect money from friends or donate money they've earned from their own jobs. In addition, the Mariners Inn...