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Men who are heavy drinkers and homeless for long periods of time have 400 times the number of head injuries as the general population, according to a new study by researchers who said they were shocked by their findings. These men have 170 times as many severe head injuries as the general population and 300 times as many injuries that cause bleeding in the brain. The study by Dr. Tomislav Svoboda, a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital, appears online in Emergency Medicine Journal. The study also looked at head injuries in the general homeless population and among people...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Homeless people would be allowed to sit, sleep and panhandle in public under a bill that passed a legislative committee on Tuesday, even as some lawmakers cited concerns about its potential effect on local governments. The measure from state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, says every person has a right to use public spaces, regardless of housing status. The bill is partly a reaction to ordinances passed in recent years by several cities concerned about the number of people on the streets. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz and Palo Alto are among the municipalities that...

Homeless people in California would have the right to rest in public spaces, including sidewalks, without the threat of arrest, and local governments would have to provide access to bathrooms and showers, under a bill that passed its first major test Tuesday. The bill, called the Homeless Person's Bill of Rights and Fairness Act, could supersede local laws - including in San Francisco - that bar people from sitting or lying on sidewalks unless those localities meet certain requirements. It was introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, and passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee on a 7-2 party-line vote, with...

US police have arrested a beggar who allegedly set a man on fire outside a convenience store because he didn’t give him money. The 37-year-old beggar reportedly approached his victim as he got out of his car at a California 7-Eleven store and asked him for money, US network ABC reported yesterday. The 63-year-old man refused to give him money and walked into the shop. When the man left the store and got into his car the beggar doused him and the inside of the vehicle with a flammable substance and lit it on fire. "With the door open you...

Did you know that there are thousands upon thousands of homeless people that are living underground beneath the streets of major U.S. cities? It is happening in Las Vegas, it is happening in New York City and it is even happening in Kansas City. As the economy crumbles, poverty in the United States is absolutely exploding and so is homelessness. In addition to the thousands of "tunnel people" living under the streets of America, there are also thousands that are living in tent cities, there are tens of thousands that are living in their vehicles and there are more than...

Madonna's brother Anthony Ciccone stoked a family feud, saying that his famous sister didn't care 'if I'm dead or alive.' Pop queen Madonna has legions of fans. But her estranged brother, Anthony Ciccone, isn't one of them. Ciccone, 56, is a homeless alcoholic who has lived on the freezing streets of Traverse City, Mich. For almost three years. And he's stoking the family feud between him and his famous sister.

SIERRA VISTA — Nearly 20 former members of America’s armed forces will be laid to rest Wednesday at the Southern Arizona Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery as part of the Missing in America Project. The project is designed to honor homeless and indigent veterans to ensure they receive a military funeral, which in this case will be the placement of their cremains in the state-operated veterans’ cemetery columbaria, as has been done in the past. The service for the solders, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsman will be held at 1 p.m. However before that time, the cremains will travel from the...

Scouring for his next meal in a dumpster downtown, a homeless man is ticketed by Houston Police. Now, opponents point to the citation as validation of arguments against the city’s homeless feeding ordinance.

The Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission was ordered to destroy 1,600 pounds of venison by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. It’s not that there was anything wrong with the meat. It had been processed in accord with regulations put out by the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry. It’s just that the Mission hadn’t gone through the appropriate channels to get venison on the approved foods list. “Just because an organization is trying to feed the hungry doesn’t mean they can serve whatever food they want,” Secretary Bruce Greenstein explained. “That the food may be wholesome and nutritious is not...

The Dept. of Health and Hospitals ordered the staff at the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission to throw 1,600 pounds of donated venison in garbage bins – and then ordered then to douse the meat with Clorox – so other animals would not eat the meat. “Deer meat is not permitted to be served in a shelter, restaurant or any other public eating establishment in Louisiana,” said a Health Dept. official in an email to Fox News. “While we applaud the good intentions of the hunters who donated this meat, we must protect the people who eat at the Rescue Mission, and...

SHREVEPORT, La. (CBS Houston) — Louisiana’s State Health Department forced a homeless shelter to destroy $8,000 worth of deer meat because it was donated from a hunter organization. KTBS-TV reports that the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission lost 1,600 pounds of venison because the state’s Health Department doesn’t recognize Hunters for the Hungry, an organization that allows hunters to donate any extra game to charity. “We didn’t find anything wrong with it,” Rev. Henry Martin told KTBS. “It was processed correctly, it was packaged correctly.” The trouble began last month after the Department of Health and Hospitals received a complaint that deer...

A homeless man in Kansas City, Missouri is facing a windfall of more than $100,000 for his kindness after he returned a diamond engagement ring to its rightful owner, which she had accidentally dropped into his donation cup. Billy Ray Harris, who is homeless and often sleeps under a bridge, was shocked to find that a diamond ring had been dropped in his collection cup while begging last Friday. ‘The ring was so big I knew if it was real it had to be expensive,’ he told KCTV. Rather than pawn it, Harris had a hunch that the owner would...

Honolulu (HawaiiNewsNow) - Accorrding to the 2012 Point-in-Time Count, there are nearly 6,300 homeless across the state. A proposed house bill would establish a program that helps those not from Hawaii return to their home state and reconnect with their family. State Representative Rida Cabanilla is proposing House Bill 533, which establishes the 'Return-to-Home' program and is seeking $100,000 in appropriations to fund the endeavor. "It's (the program) only for select individuals that can really benefit from the program, meaning they have support services, they want to go home, but they can't go home," Cabanilla said. "That sort of stuff."...

Killeen's homeless have nowhere to go, and that means dozens, possibly hundreds of our veterans are stuck out in the cold. More than 62 thousand American veterans are living on the streets. Nickie, a 58-yr old Vietnam Marine veteran, is one of them, but the Fort Hood area doesn't have any homeless shelters, turning cold nights into life or death battles that leave Nickie wondering. "Am I going to make it until tomorrow? Am I going to make it, straight up," said Nickie with tears in his eyes. A few warming centers open, but only when temperatures dip below freezing,...

The Bread of Life Mission, which has served the homeless community in Pioneer Square for more than 70 years, said the city has directed them to stop feeding the hungry in downtown parks. On the third Saturday of every month for the past three years, volunteers for the mission have handed out meals at places such as City Hall Park. The offering was in addition to the three meals a day they serve inside their building at 97 South Main Street. "It was a service we were offering free of charge to be a blessing to the homeless," said Executive...

Are you ready for a wild 2013? It should be a very interesting year. When the calendar flips over each January, lots of people make lots of lists. They make lists of “resolutions”, but most people never follow through on them. They make lists of “predictions”, but most of those predictions always seem to end up failing. Well, I have decided to put out my own list of predictions for 2013. I openly admit that I won’t get all of these predictions right, and that is okay. Hopefully I will at least be more accurate than most of the other...

The city streets are teeming with thousands of mentally ill homeless people capable of psychotic acts of random violence if left untreated, experts warned yesterday. As many as 11,000 of the city’s 33,000 homeless adults have some form of mental illness, said D.J. Jaffe, executive director of the Mental Illness Policy Organization. Of that number, about 3,300 are potentially violent, Jaffe said. “When untreated, they’re capable of horrific acts,” said Jaffe. “The danger is that they’re so sick that they don’t know they’re sick, and their brain is incapable of regulating their own behavior.” He urged New Yorkers to be...

SEATTLE — Duane Taylor was studying the humanities in community college and living in his own place when he lost his job in a round of layoffs. Then he found, and lost, a second job. And a third. Now, with what he calls “lowered standards” and a tenuous new position at a Jack in the Box restaurant, Mr. Taylor, 24, does not make enough to rent an apartment or share one. He sleeps on a mat in a homeless shelter, except when his sister lets him crash on her couch. “At any time I could lose my job, my security,”...

Attorneys for sex offenders who claim they’re too poor to register have filed a separate case against the city of Chicago on behalf of homeless sex offenders who say they can’t register because they don’t have permanent addresses. Douglas M. Montgomery, a plaintiff in the new case filed Thursday, says in the lawsuit he’s been in the Cook County Jail since July 2011 when he was arrested for urinating in public. He’s awaiting trial on a charge of failing to register as a sex offender. Montgomery, 57, said he was living under a bridge in January 2011 and police refused...

Assembly member Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) says he will introduce legislation aimed at establishing what he termed “a homeless bill of rights.” “As it stands right now, a homeless person can be prosecuted for breaking into and occupying a vacant house,” Ammiano complained. “This places the property rights of an absentee home owner ahead of the human rights of the poor and impoverished. That's not fair.” While the details of the bill are still sketchy, the gist of the proposed legislation would exempt the deprived from being punished for helping themselves to any unused and inadequately secured private property. In...