fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
I can see through the mist.
By: Veil Pierce
Tags: Insights, Poetry, Struggle, Homelessness, Veterans

The Fog

I can see through the mist,

I have been here before,

The life I used to live was just a moral facade.

Your mouths are shooting bullets,

Your words are a fatal grenade,

I left the war I’m told,

I thought I was going home,

But my eyes are now open,

I can see through the mist.

Home has become a battlefield,

I did not volunteer for this,

Old friends become new enemies,

People don’t understand,

The life I used to live,

Is a shadow disappearing through the sand.

I have become a stranger,

Amongst the people that I love,

My mind is filled with terrors

Only few can comprehend.

Is it a surprise I find solace

At the bottom of this bottle?

The only comfort I have found,

Is the fire that warms me,

When I drink this liquor down.

I can see through the mist.

It’s all becoming clear,

The only solution,

Is far far from here,

There are voices I can not silence,

My hands cover my ears,

They say I am wicked,

Just a cog in the gears,

I can see through the mist.

The fog of war is fading,

I am your forgotten,

The veterans of war.

I live in your streets,

Plagued by infidelity,

Betrayed by love,

Misunderstood by society,

I have thrown down my gloves.

I’ve been running for so long,

The throws of death are waiting,

Freedom is in its wings.

Welcome me now brother,

This battle I can not win.

Let your judgement be swift,

So I can find solace in the end.

I can see through the mist.
My kids go to daycare a short distance from the navigation center proposed for Seawall Lot 330. I support it.
By: Laura Fingal-Surma
Tags: Homeless, Yimby, Homelessness, San Francisco

My kids go to daycare a short distance from the navigation center proposed for Seawall Lot 330. I support it.

In the absence of available shelter, the waiting rooms for people experiencing homelessness are on our streets. My young children used to go to a daycare served by Van Ness Station. They would encounter someone sleeping in the Muni elevator almost every morning. The reality is that people are suffering, and our children are watching. I can’t think of anything more inefficient and ineffective than sheltering people in the elevators that our disabled neighbors and children in strollers rely upon for access to transit.

We must do better, and the Mayor is admirably leading the charge, doing what San Franciscans elected her to do. The expansion of navigation center capacity will improve the experience of children and literally everyone else all over our city who encounter troubling street behavior on a daily basis.

It is shameful that Embarcadero NIMBYs are openly planning legal action intended to drain our collective resources and kill the center entirely or decrease its capacity and effectiveness. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the site. In fact, it is superior to the existing sites in many ways including its size and excellent transit access.

The best investment of our tax dollars is in demonstrating that efforts to undermine the navigation center program and similar necessities for the greater good will not succeed. That wealthier neighborhoods, including my own (Noe Valley), will not get a pass in addressing homelessness. That neighborhoods may shape the details of new navigation centers but not threaten their existence or capacity.

HOW CAN YOU SAY YES TO SHELTER?

Public comment is happening at the Ferry Building TODAY, April 23! If you are unable to attend, take 15 seconds to send an email of support. And sign the petition! If you want to see shelters built all across San Francisco, become a supporting member of YIMBY Action.

On any given night in San Francisco, approximately 4,400 people have no place they can stay indoors. There are less than 2000 beds available in the City’s shelters and navigation centers — an enormous shortfall with huge costs in human suffering. Learn more at nav.yimbyaction.org.
March on Mass ave
Tags: Harm Reduction, Drugs, Protest, Boston, Homelessness

Protest to #STOPOperationCleanSweep begun Saturday, September 28

Boston | Boston Users Union and activists gathered on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Albany Street to protest Operation Clean Sweep, a Boston Police action begun in August 2019 to clear homeless from a stretch of a South End street known as “methadone mile.”

“I was tackled in a McDonald's parking lot [and arrested] because they said I had drugs and they found one pill on me that was my own medication in my pocket, give us harm reduction, give us more programs,” shouted a protestor that spoke.

Harm Reduction is a public health model that operates to minimize negative health effects and the legal and social implications associated with drug use. It’s the opposite of an abstinence approach and which means trying to eliminate drug use entirely.

“[Harm Reduction] makes people the captain of their own ship” states Sarah, another protestor. “Six people die every day due to an opiate-related overdose and nothing has been done about this? That’s insane. I appreciate the easy access to syringe exchange, Narcan, and naloxone in this state, but it’s not good enough. To me, the start of safe consumption sites is like the beginning of that acknowledgment for people that use drugs that their life matters, and just because they use drugs doesn’t mean that they deserve to die.”

Safe Consumption sites are facilities where people can use pre-obtained drugs under the supervision of medical professionals. Trained staff can test drugs for contamination, sterile consumption instruments, and prevent the spread of blood-borne pathogens.

Activists, Doctors, Attorneys, and Social Workers in Boston are advocating for bill 1712 that will sponsor a pilot program for safe injection sites. Co-sponsoring the bill are State Reps Dylan Fernandes (D-Falmouth) and Tami Gouveia (D-14th Middlesex).

Another woman who spoke, now homeless, talked about being a construction

worker in the city of Boston. Contributing to the build of bridges, roads, and

highways. She helped build this city and now she’s being forced out of it.

“If you’re gonna clean; pick up everything, so I used to do that, along the

highway state troopers used to give me money they’d say ‘you’re doing this by

yourself?” stated Wendell, a protestor who received his housing very recently.

Wendell has his own thoughts on how to help the people affected by Operation Clean Sweep, “There need to be more resources, more housing, more programs, more places for people to go. You can’t get better on the street I didn’t start getting better until I had a roof over my head. How are you going to get better living on the street? Where are you going to put your belongings? How are you going to keep your stuff safe?”
What does a homeless person look like to you?
By: Jayson Conner
Tags: Helping Others, Homeless, Homeless Youth, New York, Homelessness

What does a homeless person look like to you? Is it the person sitting in a cardboard box under a bridge, possibly with a dog, usually with a sleeping bag and little else to protect them from the elements? Someone with their worldly possessions in a shopping cart? Sure, that’s what a homeless person in the most extreme of situations can look like.

But homelessness does not have a face. There are no representing characteristics that we can look and to easily define what homelessness looks like or determine a person is homeless according to their appearance. We can assume, and sometimes we could even be correct, but often you’d be surprised to see what homelessness really looks like.

Homelessness can look like a person with shabby clothing and dirt under their nails. Homelessness can look like a person sleeping under a bridge in a cardboard box tent. Homelessness can also look like you. Homelessness can be a well-dressed professional who drives an expensive car, who just so happens to sleep in that car at night as well. Homelessness can be your average Joe with a blue-collar job that stays at a motel every night with no place to call home. Homelessness could be a construction worker who hurt his back on the job and is no longer able to work and not eligible for disability or unemployment. Most people don’t plan to be homeless.

Many individuals who find themselves homeless had a plan for their life; that plan probably included a big house, a successful career, and a nice retirement package. Things change. For many, hardships will come and destroy exactly what they had worked so hard to build.

We shouldn’t be quick to judge a person by their appearance.
Criminals Hide behind the Homeless
By: Raul Guerrero
Tags: Letters To The Editor, Downtown Miami, Homeless, Vagrant, Homelessness

Commentary

Criminals Hide behind the Homeless

We must have compassion for those in need and help those who have fallen through the cracks. However, calling everyone out on the streets homeless is a disservice to those truly in need.

Homeless man. Photo by award-winning street photographer Marc Schmidt.

We have a limited pool of resources available. Organizations like Camillus House, Chapman Partnership and the Homeless Trust have combined annual budgets of well over $75 million dollars, and they work hard to help the homeless off the street. But providing more beds and shelters alone, unfortunately, will not fix the current situation. Providing free food at 15 corners around Downtown in the middle of the night or providing a half million dollar toilet in front of the Government Center will not solve the problem.

An important step toward solving this problem is differentiating the truly homeless from criminals, drug users and the mentally ill. Every day we see around the neighborhood very aggressive panhandlers and witness crimes against residents, workers, and tourists, some of the crimes are quite violent, and drug/alcohol overdoses. Also, a significant number of individuals with mental illness wander around causing property damage or attacking people. Criminality and vagrancy sometimes seem out of control.

There are over 50 community-based organizations that currently support the Downtown street population, and not much of an effort is made to differentiate who they are supporting. Let’s help the elderly woman who is losing her home, let’s help a single woman with a child on the street, a battered spouse, and let’s help the wounded veteran. But, why enable people using meth/flaka/heroin? Why do we enable sexual predators to hide near downtown residents? Why do we support opportunistic panhandlers that drive to downtown in their cars and then get into a fake wheelchair for panhandling?

Downtown Miami is a magnet for all types of people, including those pretending to be homeless, and those who are given a one-way ticket from up north to come winter in our streets. Vagrants and criminals take advantage of people’s kindness, the generosity of tourists, students, office workers, residents, and support organizations, and take resources away from people really in need. The police should not be encouraged to look the other way while vagrants and criminals destroy Downtown.

We could help improve the quality of life for more homeless people if we openly discussed separating the criminal element from people in need. Political correctness has a price, and paying it are those who must need help. Jorge Sanchez is a member of the HOA Board at Loft 2.
Criminals Hide behind the Homeless
By: Downtown News
Tags: Homeless, Vagrant, Crime, Homelessness, Miami

Letter to the Editor

Criminals Hide behind the Homeless

We must have compassion for those in need and help those who have fallen through the cracks. However, calling everyone out on the streets homeless is a disservice to those truly in need.

Homeless man. Photo by award-winning street photographer Marc Schmidt.

We have a limited pool of resources available. Organizations like Camillus House, Chapman Partnership and the Homeless Trust have combined annual budgets of well over $75 million dollars, and they work hard to help the homeless off the street. But providing more beds and shelters alone, unfortunately, will not fix the current situation. Providing free food at 15 corners around Downtown in the middle of the night or providing a half million dollar toilet in front of the Government Center will not solve the problem.

An important step toward solving this problem is differentiating the truly homeless from criminals, drug users and the mentally ill. Every day we see around the neighborhood very aggressive panhandlers and witness crimes against residents, workers, and tourists, some of the crimes are quite violent, and drug/alcohol overdoses. Also, a significant number of individuals with mental illness wander around causing property damage or attacking people. Criminality and vagrancy sometimes seem out of control.

There are over 50 community-based organizations that currently support the Downtown street population, and not much of an effort is made to differentiate who they are supporting. Let’s help the elderly woman who is losing her home, let’s help a single woman with a child on the street, a battered spouse, and let’s help the wounded veteran. But, why enable people using meth/flaka/heroin? Why do we enable sexual predators to hide near downtown residents? Why do we support opportunistic panhandlers that drive to downtown in their cars and then get into a fake wheelchair for panhandling?

Downtown Miami is a magnet for all types of people, including those pretending to be homeless, and those who are given a one-way ticket from up north to come winter in our streets. Vagrants and criminals take advantage of people’s kindness, the generosity of tourists, students, office workers, residents, and support organizations, and take resources away from people really in need. The police should not be encouraged to look the other way while vagrants and criminals destroy Downtown.

We could help improve the quality of life for more homeless people if we openly discussed separating the criminal element from people in need. Political correctness has a price, and paying it are those who must need help.

Jorge Sanchez is a member of the HOA Board at the Loft 2.

If you like what you just read, please hit the “share icon” below so others might read this essay. For more stories on Downtown Miami, scroll down and hit the Downtown News Button.

Downtown News on Facebook.
How family reunification plays a key role in breaking the homelessness cycle
By: Hope Atlanta
Tags: Give Hope, Family Reunification, Homelessness, Atlanta

How family reunification plays a key role in breaking the homelessness cycle HOPE Atlanta Apr 27·2 min read

Ending homelessness, one homecoming story at a time

Program Manager Al Harrison and client Melissa

What if the only thing standing between you and a place to call home was the cost of a bus ticket? For many of the people who come to HOPE Atlanta for help, it isn’t just a bus ticket. It’s their ticket out of homelessness.

They want to get back to where they know they’ll be safe and welcome — in their home communities or with loved ones. They simply lack the means to get there. Others have been separated from children due to unforeseen circumstances and need our assistance to build a stable home environment so they can get them back.

This type of assistance, which we call reunification, has been a core service of HOPE Atlanta since the beginning. Originally founded in 1900 to assist travelers passing through Atlanta, we’re the only nonprofit providing reunification services in the City of Atlanta; last year, we facilitated 1,074 reunifications.

But the numbers don’t excite us nearly as much as stories like these:

After ending an unhealthy marriage, Melissa spent three years living from place to place, including outdoors, struggling to find employment. With no money for housing, she came to HOPE Atlanta in October of 2020 for help getting back to her son, Jerry, in Nashville. Jerry told us he would gladly welcome his mother, and when Program Manager Al Harrison gave Melissa a one-way Greyhound bus ticket, she was moved to tears.

Here’s how the reunification process works.

We get to know each client as an individual — the unique challenges they face, their history, and what support systems might be available. If someone is interested in returning to their family or home community, we work to get in touch with their loved ones. After verifying that someone will be there to meet them at their destination, we cover travel accommodations. These can include bus fare or gas cards. We follow up with our clients at regular intervals to ensure they remain stably housed.

With 84% of people remaining housed after 30 days after reunification, it’s proven to be an extremely effective approach to breaking the homelessness cycle. In fact, less than 3% become homeless again after reunification.

Are you feeling moved by these homecoming stories? Want to help reunite families like these? We rely on private donations to help make this service possible. Give today and be someone’s ticket out of homelessness.
Andrea
By: Elyse Notarianni
Tags: Family, Abuse, Parenting, Homelessness, Growing Up

My mom picked me up from school one day, packed my brother, my dog and I in the car and left. I was confused. I was supposed to go to the skating rink — my skates were still in the car from my practice earlier that morning, piled next to my brother’s Lego’s. She had finally had enough. I was in eighth grade, and now, I was homeless.

I had wanted to leave for a while, we all did. I knew I shouldn’t have to come home every day wondering if he was going to kill me, or maybe himself. It became a habit to check the closets to make sure he didn’t hang himself. Every night, I slept with 911 pre-dialed on my phone.

We slept in the den of a family’s friend house for about six weeks. The three of us and our dog shared one room and a bathroom. The couple that owned the house switched off every night to make sure that my dad didn’t show up.

We thought that depending on other people would be our short-term situation, but at 12 years old I learned that finding housing is difficult and expensive. He had control of all the family’s money, so my mom didn’t have anything of her own. Someone at our church offered us their fancy back house, so we stayed there for about six to eight months. I dropped out of middle school because I was being bullied so badly.

Sometimes we slept in my mom’s office, sometimes in a friend’s home. We were never really living on the streets. We always made it work, but there is something about being considered homeless by the government that was, and still is, hard for me to accept.

He wasn’t always that bad. For most of my childhood, he was practically normal. But 5th grade, when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, it flipped a switch in him, something I guess he’s always been capable of, and the abuse started. I’ve blocked out so many memories, even the good parts of my childhood. I don’t remember waking up on Christmas or my birthdays. I remember searching every cabinet and sock drawer in my house, worried he had hidden a gun.

It was an adjustment going from an upper middle-class family to a teenager who had to work to help my mom pay for groceries, but it was more difficult to cope with the realization that I lived in an abusive household. I never thought my life would change so suddenly. I never thought I’d lose a parent like that. He texted me the night we left, telling me that my mom had brainwashed me. I blocked his number. He emailed me on my 13th birthday, but I didn’t respond.

When I turned 18, I saved up enough money to change my last name. If you google my name now, you won’t find any association with my father. It set me free. It gave me control back.

Up Next: Nikki

“But the better I see them doing, the more I feel like I don’t have my life together.”
Suppose for a moment we stop thinking of homeless people as objects of pity and contempt and start thinking of them as a voting block
By: Alice Marshall
Tags: Homeless, Homelessness, Voter Registration

Suppose for a moment we stop thinking of homeless people as objects of pity and contempt and start thinking of them as a voting block Alice Marshall Feb 18, 2019·2 min read

Yeah, changes one’s perspective mighty quick. This is a perfect example of why I devoted so much of my book to voter registration.

It would be really nice if Food Not Bombs and other groups that feed homeless people put a note like this their lunch bags:

Homeless people have the right to vote If you are staying at a shelter, you can use the shelter’s address as your home address. Alternatively you may denote a street corner or park as your residence. You may register at the [address of the voter registrar].

You could put a mail in voter registration application in their lunch bag, but the problem with that is that these days state’s want citizens to send them a copy of their ID and homeless people do not have access to a copier.

However, homeless daycare centers DO have copiers and computers. They can and must encourage their clients to register to vote. In all the online voter registration systems with which I am familiar, you go through the whole process and then you are asked to print out the form and sign it. Clearly you need access to a printer to do this. Homeless daycare centers can accommodate this. If you are not encouraging your clients to exercise their right to vote, you are no advocate for the homeless.

Another barrier to voting is lack of proper ID. Homeless daycare centers and shelters should assist clients with obtaining birth certificates and any other documents necessary to secure proper ID. If you are not doing this, you are no advocate for the homeless. True it is expensive, you will have to develop a special fundraising campaign to explain to your donors why this is an essential service to the homeless.

The sickening fact is that the burden of lifting oppression always falls on the shoulders of the oppressed. In a voting booth there is no distinction between a billionaire and a homeless citizen. If they all vote we can change the priorities of our country.

Give a person a fish, and they will eat for one day, give them the ballot and they will vote themselves a job.
Christopher Rufo Is An Idiot And If You Take Him Seriously Then You Are Also An Idiot
By: Matt, Spek
Tags: Seattle, Safe Seattle, Homelessness, Rufo, CSS

Christopher Rufo Is An Idiot And If You Take Him Seriously Then You Are Also An Idiot Matt “Spek” Watson Mar 19, 2019·3 min read

After being legitimized in a softball interview on KUOW last week, anti-homeless “activist” Christopher Rufo is back on scene with more hard-hitting statistical analysis that proves he isn’t even qualified to teach an elementary school math class. It’s sunny and my kids want to play outside so I don’t have time to refute everything in his ridiculous post, so I’ll just focus on this one funny piece that proves he shouldn’t be taken seriously (you can read the rest of his nonsense over on his facebook page, complete with a comment section full of fawning morons).

In the screenshot above, The Seattle Times establishes that while addiction and mental health are significant issues, the one thing in common between all homelessness people is poverty. This runs contrary to the story Rufo has been trying to push for years, that in fact we don’t need more resources to address homelessness, we just need to re-establish the bonds between families, churches, and communities (Rufo is a fellow at Discovery Institute, a creationist think-tank, in case you’re curious where this all stems from). So in an attempt to salvage his absurd claims, he decides to apply his amazing skills as a statistical analyst and prove to us once and for all that we can solve the homelessness crisis without addressing poverty.

He starts off strong but it devolves pretty rapidly. First he claims that over a million people in King County earn less than the median income. This is TRUE because there are 2.18 million people in King County, and “median” literally means that half the people earn below that number and half the people make above that number. The only problem is that it doesn’t tell us anything more than the population of King County, not a single thing about poverty or anything else. If everyone in King County was a millionaire, there would still be over a million people earning below the median income. If everyone in King County lived in deep poverty, over a million people would still earn less than the median income. Because that is the definition of “median.” None of the subsequent conclusions he draws from this has any relevance whatsoever.

That Rufo doesn’t understand this very basic definition, or its inadequacy here in explaining the link between poverty and homelessness, is disqualifying and shows not just that Rufo shouldn’t be taken seriously, but that he shouldn’t be taking part in the conversation at all. This is a pattern for Rufo, who trotted out similarly ridiculous statistics on KUOW last week without being challenged, and who published a faux-academic paper on homelessness that is laughably sourced from start to finish. In short, Christopher Rufo is an idiot and if you take him seriously then you are also an idiot.
5 Things To Do Instead of Hating Tents
Tags: Affordable Housing, Harm Reduction, Eviction Moratorium, Homelessness, Mutual Aid

There has been an alarming rise of “anti-tent” petitions, social media campaigns, and organizing around the City in response to the rise of visible homelessness due to the pandemic. Here at CVHA, we like to refer to this sentiment as Anti-Tent Energy or ATE.

Let’s be very clear here: Focusing on tents does absolutely nothing to address our homelessness crisis besides unfairly (1) blame and vilify unhoused people; (2) prioritize the concerns of housed people over the needs of the people most impacted by homelessness; (3) lead to the disproportionate criminalization and police harassment of unhoused people; and (4) direct city resources to reducing the visibility of homelessness rather than the real harms. The fact of the matter is that there are a lot more people on the streets due to COVID-19. Many people can no longer crash on couches and SF’s shelter bed capacity was reduced by 76%. During the day, people cannot hang out at libraries, on public transportation, or other places where they typically go. Tents provide a little extra safety and stability during these awful and frightening circumstances. Targeting tents without acknowledging these realities and without fighting for both immediate and long term solutions is just blatant (and unproductive) animosity towards unhoused people. Remember, you can’t spell hate without ATE.

Below is a list of five tangible things you can do to redirect your Anti-Tent Energy to actually address the homelessness crisis.

For more information about CVHA, please visit our website at www.colevalleyhaightallies.com.
Experiences from Homelessness in Preston
By: Angel Zheng
Tags: Preston, Homeless, Homelessness, Emmaus, Experience

Reporter: Angel Zheng

What would you do if you met a homeless person on the street? Would you stay and listen to their experience? You can see there are many homeless people curled up on the streets of Preston, wrapping themselves in old coats and blankets because this year is the coldest year in Britain. Three homeless people in Preston shared their different experiences.

Carl Anthony Mason curled up on the street / Angel Zheng

Carl Anthony Mason was a chef before he became a homeless people, he always sat in front of Tessco and said: “I had been here for nine months and I am here every day from March 6. I lost my job because I became my mom’s carer when she got cancer, and when I went to look after her and she got me off.”

Homelessness has been a problem in British society and has been on the rise in recent years. According to Statutory Homelessness, January to March (Q1) 2019: England, “Between January to March 2019, 70,430 households were initially assessed as threatened with homelessness or homeless. This is up 10.7% from 63,620 households in the previous quarter.”

As the group grows, there are more and more charity centres specialized in helping them. Some of them are getting their lives on track because of helping and their own efforts.

Lewis Holdsworth was a homeless people last year, now he sells magazine to earn money, he said: “I do not have a job and I have memory problem. If I make claim benefits, they make me lots of appointments to remember. And I cannot remember all of them. So I do not ask them for benefits, I sell the magazine instead.”

Lewis Holdsworth’s dog was looking at him / Angel Zheng

And now he lived with his wife and dog, he said: “I got this dog before I was homeless. When I got homeless, she kept me warm every night. So she was my hot water battle, best friend and saleswoman.”

Emmaus Preston store was a second-hand store and people could buy something here cheaper than other shop. All the money generated at it was used to support their community of 26 formerly homeless people.

Bechie O’nell is a volunteer at Emmaus who was a homeless person, she said that they hold events like someone raising money for this community to help them and they would give homeless meals at Christmas.
Miracle Messages: our response to COVID-19
By: Kevin F. Adler
Tags: Homeless, Nonprofit, Homelessness, Coronavirus, Covid 19

[sharing this publicly in the hope that it is helpful to others]

Dear members of the Miracle Messages community,

We hope that all of you are staying safe and healthy, as we all navigate the challenges of COVID-19.

With 14 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in San Francisco (105 in the Bay Area, and many, many more unconfirmed) city officials have urged community members to “take action to protect vulnerable populations and the public at large.” Out of an abundance of caution, Miracle Messages has cancelled volunteer outreach events until further notice. Our two formerly homeless community ambassadors, Brian and Beverly, are on paid leave until we are better able to assess the risks of outreach activities. This paid leave will allow them to maintain their health and safety without incurring economic hardship.

We encourage members of our community to take safety precautions as advised by your local officials. For San Francisco residents, we have included the link to SPDPH’s recommendations to reduce the spread of coronavirus, as well as a bulletin from SFDPH outlining steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among people experiencing homelessness. For residents of other cities, please refer to your local guidelines.

Wherever you are, we encourage you to review and follow the “advice for the public” guidelines published by the World Health Organization. In taking these precautions, you are not only protecting yourself and your loved ones, but you are also protecting some of our most vulnerable neighbors — those who don’t have homes to retreat to — from community spread.

Though we have chosen to suspend outreach in the San Francisco Bay Area for the time being, our work is still ongoing. The Miracle Messages Case Solving Community will continue to meet virtually every Wednesday evening, to deliver messages and facilitate reconnections. We are all thinking of our loved ones during this health scare — in times like these, the work of keeping people connected is more essential than ever.

With many people now practicing social distancing, it may feel challenging to stay engaged with your community. If you are looking for a way to engage (and to support your homeless neighbors while working from home) we invite you to join our Case Solving Community call on Wednesday nights. You can learn more by accessing this link.

We are all in this together.

Be well,

Jessica and Kevin
Help us help others, says Vision for Life.
By: Tanmay Ahluwalia
Tags: Vancouver, Homeless Families, V4l, Homelessness, Vision For Life

More than 2,000 residents in Metro Vancouver were identified as homeless, with around a quarter living on the street and rest in shelters, according to the data collected by the city of Vancouver. This data is for 2020 only as the officials decided not to count for 2021 due to COVID-19.

Gandhi said, “The future depends on what we do in the present,” and such numbers indeed have encouraged Vision for Life (V4L) to take the initiative in the present to make a slight difference in the lives of people living without a home. Through their ‘helping hands’ program, V4L also aims to engage the community during these restrictive times while also following the COVID-19 restrictions and regulations.

We know you are now curious to learn how you can ‘help us help others.’

You can volunteer to create care packages from the safety of your homes. A member of the V4L team will then pick up these packages before finally delivering them to the marginalized communities of Metro Vancouver on June 30th. Don’t forget to contact the V4L team by emailing them at visionforlifeorg@gmail.com to confirm your participation and schedule a pickup. We are accepting care packages that contain the following items:

+Socks

+Band-aids

+Soaps

+Hand wipes

+Gift cards (Tim Hortons, Starbucks, places that are easily accessible)

Make sure you do not include any food or perishables. Items should be bagged carefully so that they stay intact but, at the same time, can be opened easily. V4L members would be creating care packages as well with the donations they receive from local businesses. Volunteers have until June 20th to confirm their participation by emailing the V4L team.

The team believes this project will allow them to continue to make a difference in the lives of those who are vulnerable or marginalized.
Homeless Kids Need Our Mental Health Support Now
By: Rev. Mark Niznik
Tags: Mental Health, Hope, Homeless Youth, Homeless Families, Homelessness

With such limited access to health care, homeless kids and their families have more significant health challenges than kids with a home.

Homeless children also may deal with mental health problems that go untreated due to homeless student isolation. We have seen what COVID isolation had done to non-homeless students across the country. Now take that, add low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and lack of bare essentials in the homeless kid’s life. There is an increased risk for drug use, crime, jail, and even death(including suicide).

We typically feel powerless other than a donation now and again. Supporting the Clean Kids Backpack Program is an excellent place for your contribution. We bring so much more than just a personal care product to the homeless student — we bring hope! While it is vital to revive the hope of students who have been homeless for a while, it’s also essential to get to students at the beginning stages of their transitions to homelessness. Hope leads to action. We would love for you to join us on this vital mission!

People devalue hope as just a personal choice, but it is a key indicator of overall mental illness. When hope is delivered, it reduces substance abuse and especially suicide. According to the National Health Care For The Homeless Council, homeless children who attempt suicide are over three times higher than students in households. Twenty percent of homeless kids attempt suicide.

When a guidance counselor sends a homeless student to their evening location with soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, washcloths and towels, fresh socks, and underwear (including feminine hygiene pads) that we provide, we are giving hope. A homeless child who goes to school clean, with fresh breath, and no smell can now focus more at school. And with improved personal hygiene and better grades, hope increases, and self-destruction diminishes.

We need more and stronger voices and action supporting Mental Health. Please consider contacting your local government representatives with your concerns and demands for this. It’s ok to demand they do something about it because it’s their job. Let them know how important it is and that when you vote, you first look to see who has supported mental health and who hasn’t. We have the power to help. Sometimes people think that one person can’t make a difference. Everyone can make a difference! Just imagine how good you will feel if you supported our work and if you made that phone call or sent that email or even better, hand wrote a letter to your representatives! Now you are providing hope! Please contact us and share your experience with us to encourage others to choose to do the same. I appreciate your considerations. Blessings. Father Mark

For more info: https://cleankidsbackpack.com/

Discover more at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_zaWeKGNHN9zLMKroZ8BOA
The Death of Another Young Man in Belfast
By: Ben Dench
Tags: Drugs, Vulnerability, Homelessness, Health

The Death of Another Young Man in Belfast

September 2017

There was a funeral today for a young man. Seventeen people attended, fourteen were professional support workers. He died from a heroin overdose but the naked truth is that he was close to dying from liver failure too. And he was close to dying by his own hand. And he was close to dying by being murdered by someone else. And he was close to dying from a blood clot caused by his reckless injecting technique.

Even in the womb he was at a disadvantage- he came from a murky gene pool and had a high likelihood of inheriting many serious and life-threatening diseases. His young childhood was empty of parental love and, later on, empty of any parents at all. His teenage years were spent angry at the persistent rejection from everyone around him. He became addicted to alcohol at eight, cannabis, cocaine and other drugs by twelve, heroin by seventeen. There was still no love in his life except for that of nihilism. His life, all life, had no value.

Then he developed bipolar disorder and spent many months deluded, paranoid, utterly secure in the knowledge that not only drug-dealers and the police but everyone else too wanted him dead. Through his twenties he dealt and abused legal and illegal drugs, he spent more time in prison, more time in hospital. His life was one of almost persistent detention.

He never had the chance to develop a personality disorder or a psychopathic carapace to protect himself. He was always open.

He never had a home of his own, never had the security of stability in any form. He lived wildly and was barely tamed by the institutions that surrounded him- he became institutionalised to the streets, trusting no-one, caring about no-one. He wore a sneer, on his face and in his heart.

We all liked him. Everyone liked him. He was uncomfortably honest and upsettingly open about his life and his mind and his character. But he knew he had no chance and so did all the rest of us. We knew where he was from and how he lived. We all guessed correctly where he was going.

Hundreds of professionals had contact with him over the years, me included, and we delude ourselves into believing we made minor differences here and there- I helped get a temporary roof over his head (until he attacked someone and had to leave), I gave him a few hours of my time as a listening ear (until he became abusive and rejected me).

He died off the streets in a bed of his own. He hadn’t taken his medication for weeks and had replaced it with vodka. He was twenty eight.

What chances did he have? In 2017, in Nothern Europe, in a rich, major world city he had hundreds of chances. Some he took voluntarily, some were enforced, most he rejected. But the foundations were never set, his character waned and faltered and he slowly crumbled to death.

We didn’t save him we just cushioned his descent, the death of another young man.
“Aim high, Kenny”
By: Kenny Tilton
Tags: Homelessness, Photography, Street Photography, Fort Lauderdale, South Florida

Standing on the balcony of Fort Lauderdale’s Elbo Room with Andy, a member of my engineering team, I looked across Route A1A North to the seawall separating us from the Atlantic.

That seawall, I would learn too late, was known simply and unaffectionately as “The Wall”, to those who could not escape it.

Along the wall I saw gathered in the fading light a scruffy group of men of several races and ages, some standing, some sitting on the wall, mostly older, doing nothing, going nowhere, several with questionable bicycles, some drinking from cans in brown paper bags, none looking very well off.

From their easy interaction and steady conversation it was clear they were a community, with nothing more in common than that they gathered there.

“Someday, Andy” I said. “I want to be mayor of that group.”

“Aim high, Kenny,” Andy said supportively. “Aim high.”

Little did we know.

This post introduces an on-line street photography studio featuring the work of Robert “Mitch” Mitchell, the sheriff of the wall. Here’s Mitch, below.

I think he goes by Robert, now. We begin fittingly with a shot from the wall, and a singularity: out of the many thousands of shots Robert has passed along, this is the only one he directly asked me to include in my curations of his work. Sunrise.

More soon.

All work copyright 2012–2019, Robert Mitchell. All Medium proceeds go to Robert.
The Only Solution to Homelessness is…….
By: Elizabeth Nickson
Tags: Homelessness

How the mega mega-wealthy in LA and San Francisco put up with the plague on the streets is beyond me. The cruelty in their hearts must be as impressive as their bank accounts. Up here in the demented Dominion, we just buy the homeless hotels and serve them 24/7. So far, the province has bought three hotels and is in the process of planning for another 40 rooms. The cost is nasty, but Malcom Gladwell in an extensive New Yorker essay a few years ago, estimated the lifetime cost of caring for someone on the streets as just over $1,000,000.

“If you don’t do anything, they’ll cost you a hundred grand a year. If you do something, give them an apartment and a caseworker, they’ll cost you $25,000 year.” Malcom Gladwell, NPR, February 2006

Capital Daily reports today that the province has spent $1.8 million from its supportive housing fund to buy a former rooming house shuttered for 17 years. The new facility to be constructed on the Yates site would include 40 units and provide meals and 24/7 supportive services. Construction will not begin until December 2021.

“This project is the next step in our ongoing work to make sure vulnerable people in Victoria have a place to call home, with wraparound supports to help them build a better future,” said Carole James, MLA for Victoria-Beacon Hill.

No civilized society should have people living on the streets, no matter how depraved, addicted, and degraded they may be
Homelessness in Burbank
By: Linda Bessin
Tags: Burbank, Homelessness

June 15, 2020

We here in Burbank, and across Los Angeles, have experienced the results of a crisis of homelessness for many years. Just this month, it was made clear that throwing money at the problem is not a solution: “Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent to curb homelessness, the number of people without a home in Los Angeles grew last year for the fifth time in the last six years, officials announced Friday. And that was before the pandemic.”[1]

Rampant homelessness does not have one cause and one solution. We are seeing the outcome of the deterioration of the middle class, income inequity, real estate speculators and developers driving the market, lack of support and treatment for mental illness, and other causes. Up to 40% of women are homeless due to domestic violence.[2] The current percentage of homeless veterans has increased due to the pandemic.[3]

Our current state is the result of a deterioration of socio-economic structures that has happened through the layers of our community. However, we can take steps towards solutions; this is not a problem that we can say belongs to someone else.

Our City government created a three-year (2018–2021) plan to address homelessness. (https://www.burbankca.gov/home/showdocument?id=42879) The focus is on the homeless in our city and providing the resources and support they need. It utilizes service agencies that specialize in this area, such as Ascencia.

With the current economic and health crisis, the community needs to hear an update on the status of the goals of the plan. We need current information as to the number of homeless, what services are continuing to be provided, and how this plan will continue to be funded in light of the anticipated budget deficit.

What is most important is that we do not criminalize homelessness. “Criminalization measures waste limited state and local resources. … it creates a costly revolving door that circulates individuals experiencing homelessness from the street to the criminal justice system and back.”[4] It costs less to house people than incarcerate them. This philosophy must be understood by our entire community and put in practice by ourselves, our government and our law enforcement officers.

[1] https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2020-06-12/la-homelessness-jumped-before-coronavirus-hit

[2] https://www.axios.com/homeless-women-domestic-violence-02646cf1-fa84-4ad9-8fcf-104e260bfa73.html

[3] https://www.stripes.com/news/veterans/advocates-predict-a-long-road-to-recovery-for-homeless-veterans-affected-by-pandemic-1.627738

[4] https://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/No_Safe_Place.pdf
AYS Weekend Digest 13–14/06/2020 — Greek Coast Guard Ignores Boat in Distress for Over 15 Hours
By: Are You Syrious
Tags: Digest, Greece, Refugees, Homelessness, Migrants

Deadly Shipwreck Off Of Libyan Coast///People Evicted From Camps Sleeping Rough in Athens///Bosnian Law Against Distribution of Food///& More

Cartoonist: Emanuele Del Rosso, via Cartoon Movement

FEATURE

Greek Coast Guard Ignores Boat in Distress for Over 15 Hours

A dramatic but all-too-familiar story unfolded over the weekend, when a boat carrying 32 people in distress spent over 15 hours adrift at sea before the Greek government bothered to rescue them.

Several people on board were injured and one pregnant woman was in severe pain. Although some sources reported that she went into labor on the boat, that turned out to be untrue, although the woman did need attention at the local hospital. Regardless, it’s clear that the woman along with several other passengers had been in severe medical distress that was only made worse by spending 15 hours adrift in the Mediterranean.

This callous act unfortunately follows an established pattern in the Mediterranean. Greek and Turkish coast guards were at the scene but both refused to conduct a rescue, saying that the boat was in waters belonging to the other country. The Greek coastguard had removed the boat’s engine and set them adrift early Saturday morning, in the hopes that they would drift back to Turkey. It has become routine for the Greek coastguard to sabotage people’s vessels or set them adrift in flimsy rafts. Not only does this show that the excuse that the vessel was never in Greek waters was a lie, it shows how Greek coastguard official policy seems to be based on brutal racism and cruelty.

The people on board this particular ship were rescued by the Greek coastguard, after over fifteen hours of international outcry. They were taken to Petra, where they will be tested for coronavirus before quarantining in Megala Therma. A large group of locals was waiting for them in the port, expressing their disapproval of the rescue and of more people on the move landing on the island.

This particular story ended somewhat happily, with all people on board rescued and given clean bills of health by the hospital on Lesvos. But what will happen to these people now, dropped into a filthy camp environment, with many people on the island opposing their presence there? What about the countless others who’ve been subjected to illegal, violent pushbacks, with tactics that are designed to kill?