Toledo Streets Issue #5

$1

suggested donation

Paul McCartney: “I’ll never retire!”pg 8

Your donation directly benefits the vendor.

Please only buy from badged vendors.

Remembering, Releasing

Community says farewell to friend, pg 9

april 2010 Local

Tending our “land”, pg 3 Community, pg 4 Teens discover poverty, pg 5 Because, pg 6

National

Being homeless is illegal, pg 3

Poetry

Epitaph for a friend, pg 7

Reviews

Book: Possum Living, pg 4 Inside Rebekah’s Haven, pg 6

Extra

Living faith, pg 10 Hoboscopes, pg 15 Sodoku, pg 15 We are a 501(c)3 non-profit under fiscal agent

You can find us online:

toledostreets.org

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Toledo Streets - The Paper with a Mission

April 2010

Panhandling or papers?

We’d like to thank you for purchasing this copy of Toledo Streets. We hope you’re enjoying it and discovering a new facet of your community.

Please continue to support our vendors when you get the chance. For other ways to support them and the paper, contact us or visit our website for more details.

Toledo Streets is a monthly publication called a street paper. We are part of a worldwide movement of street papers that seeks to provide simple economic opportunities to homeless individuals and those experiencing poverty.

Our vendors purchase each paper for 25¢, and ask for a dollar donation.

In exchange for their time and effort in selling the paper, they keep the difference. They are asking for a handup, not a hand out. By purchasing this paper, you have helped someone struggling to make it. Not just in terms of money, but also in the dignity of doing something for themselves. Many thanks again!

We are a non-profit organization operating under a 501(c)3 fiscal agent.

This means that any donations made to us c/o 1Matters.org (our fiscal agent) are tax deductible - not to mention greatly appreciated.

Our mission is to empower individuals struggling with extreme poverty to participate on a new level in the community through self-employment, job training, and contributorship.

www.toledostreets.org 419.825.NEWS (6397) facebook.com/toledostreets twitter.com/toledostreets

Just last week, three days in a row, panhandling was first the subject of an email exchange, then confronting me as I came out of the grocery store, and once again a topic of conversation while in the car with friends. In all three situations, I was called on to express my beliefs.

The email conversation brought up the community of Arcata, CA, which is debating the merits of introducing an anti-aggressive panhandling law into its books to supposedly alleviate a problem situation. For those who may be unfamiliar with the term “aggressive panhandling”, it’s any kind of begging in which the person approached for the donation feels threatened or very pressured by the person(s) asking. This may include anything from asking more than once to verbal abuse, following, or threatening someone.

In the email conversation, I stated that there’s a difference between panhandling and aggressive panhandling,

and between panhandling and selling streets papers like the one you, reader, are consuming right now.

In talking with friends, I said what I thought: That while a measure of discernment is needed, it is not my place to judge the honesty of the claim of need someone is making when they’re panhandling. Do I have cash on me? Can I spare any of it? Is there something else I can do for them?

But in the second instance, when I was driving past Mark and his cardboard sign after finishing my shopping last Saturday, I had to decide if I was willing to express my beliefs beyond words.

Here’s what I think the difference is between panhandling and selling Toledo Streets: Community.

When you buy a street paper from a vendor, you are engaging them on the same level you engage any retailer of goods or services, and you are both participating in our local economy (a

Amanda F. Moore, Managing Editor point made clearer on page 3). While some may see purchasing the paper as a charity buy, many street paper consumers are partaking in a community buy-in.

Past the exchange of paper for paper, some kind of relationship is developing.

Vendors and customers get to know each other. This is simply community. And community can change lives (page 4).

As many times as I have passed a panhandler without engaging them, I come more and more to see that, regardless of my ability to help them in the way they ask, I do have something to offer them: my friendship. Fortunately, because of Toledo Streets, I had three things to offer Mark that Saturday - a little cash, some encouragement, and “job” offer selling the paper.

After all...

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SMALL CHANGE. Cover photo courtesy of Robin Charney.

Vendor code of conduct While Toledo Streets is a nonprofit, and paper vendors are considered contracted self-employers, we still have expectations of how vendors should conduct themselves while selling and representing the paper.

The following list is our Vendor Code of Conduct, which every vendor reads through and signs before receiving a badge and papers.

This Code is also printed on the back of each badge. We request that if you discover a vendor violating any tenents of the Code, please contact us and provide as many details as possible. Our paper and our vendors should be positively impacting the city.

All vendors must agree to the following code of conduct: • Toledo Streets will be distributed for a voluntary donation of $1.

I agree not to ask for more than

a dollar or solicit donations for Toledo Streets by any other means.

• I will only purchase the paper from Toledo Streets staff and will not sell papers to other vendors (outside of the office volunteers).

• I agree to treat all others— customers, staff, other vendors— respectfully, and I will not “hard sell,” threaten or pressure customers.

• I agree to stay off private property when selling Toledo Streets.

• I understand I am not a legal employee of Toledo Streets but a contracted worker responsible for my own well-being and income.

• I agree to not sell any additional goods or products when selling

the paper.

• I will not sell Toledo Streets under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

• There are no territories among vendors. I will respect the space of other vendors, particularly the space of vendors who have been at a spot longer.

• I understand my badge is the property of Toledo Streets and will not deface it. I will present my badge when purchasing the papers and display my badge when selling papers.

• I understand Toledo Streets strives to be a paper that covers homelessness and poverty issues while providing a source of income for the homeless. I will try to help in this effort and spread the word.

April 2010

Toledo Streets - The Paper with a Mission

Being homeless is illegal

Economic profiling treats homeless as criminals

Farming in the city: Tending the “land”

Margo Pierce Affluent college students set up tents, cardboard boxes and crates on private property housed in their makeshift “shanty town,” as a protest against the plight of homeless people.

Living outdoors for a night – food, toilets and police protection readily available – this camping offers protection for a night spent in full view of the public.

A ragtag group of people huddles under a highway bridge, cars thundering overhead, setting up tents and a few belongings. They are waiting out a storm. It will likely be a few days before the rain finally stops, so they are grateful for the protection and a measure of privacy in a public place.

The first group will pass the night in relative calm after the TV cameras leave. The second group will be invaded by police issuing citations before forcing them back into the storm to look for some other shelter, possibly leading to more tickets. Both situations describe people creating their own shelter. The reason they are treated so differently is economic profiling. Like other forms of profiling – targeting individuals for suspicion because of their race, faith or nationality – economic profiling uses the appearance of poverty as a basis of suspicion.

Economic profiling is also used to create laws and ordinances that intentionally target economically disadvantaged people, frequently homeless, for the stated reason of improving public safety. The problem is that this profiling doesn’t work, and it sanctions discrimination against people who are different, feeding an irrational fear of “homeless people.”

Beautiful people can be homeless, too If you saw David Letterman or Jim Carey sleeping in a car, wrapped in a sleeping bag against the cold, would you call the police and complain that he made you feel unsafe while walking your dog? Would Halle Berry, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt on a bus-stop bench, prompt you to tell a cop that a prostitute

was soliciting in a place where children gather? Would those people inspire feelings of fear, disgust or self-righteous indignation?

Of course not. You’d look for a piece of paper for an autograph and get your cell phone ready to take a photo. The only difference between Letterman, Berry and other people on the street is that they managed to move beyond homelessness and became rich. When they were homeless, however, a call to the cops would have been a more likely outcome, because we treat homelessness as a crime.

In 2007 approximately 3.6 million people were homeless at some time in North America, according to a number of non-profit organizations. “Homeless” is defined in a variety of ways, so it is impossible to paint a uniform picture of what this reality looks like. But the numbers show that homelessness has reached epidemic proportions. The popular response is punishment.

“It’s illegal to be homeless in this country. We have a form of economic profiling similar to racial profiling,” says Michael Stoops, director of community organizing for the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, D.C. “It’s a major problem, and it’s not going to go away unless citizens demand that their cities do something about it in a positive manner.”

This is true across all of North America.

“During the past 10 years the number of tickets given to the homeless by the police has quadrupled,” says Serge Lareault, publisher of the Canadian street paper L’Itinéraire. “Considered an ‘open city,’ many homeless have moved to Montréal, especially after the situation in Toronto, where the police decided to ‘clean’ the downtown of the homeless through ticketing and harassment.

“From 1994 to 2007 the population of homeless in Montréal has passed from 15,000 to 30,000. The tickets given to the homeless between 2003-05 total $3.3 million, and they will never pay “Criminalization” continued on page 11

Page 3

William James O’Fahey “The self-sufficient all-around farms with which the colonists covered the continent have largely disappeared, at least outside Amish country… but there is an exception to this trend: The quick spread in the last decade of the ‘Community-Supported Agriculture’ or CSA farm, consumers pay farmers a few hundred dollars apiece in midwinter and then are supplied with a weekly bin of incredibly diverse vegetable throughout the growing season and deep into the fall.

Almost every corner of America now has a CSA nearby…”

These words appear in the book, Deep Economy, The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future,

by Bill McKibben (2007). This tome is a veritable manifesto for building local economies, and largely through choices that common folk like us can make.

In McKibben’s words, “You can make a strong economic argument… for more localized economies. Think of a Wal-Mart, taking in a million dollars a day selling you groceries from its network of giant and distant factory farms. When the register finally closes for the night, most of that money is simply sucked back to the corporate headquarters in Arkansas, after the suppliers (those people getting carpel tunnel syndrome cutting the chickens) are paid, and after the company awards its ‘associates’ their poverty-level wages, the profit ends up in the already overstuffed bank accounts of the company heirs or corporate executives (and, of course, with the stockholders, who include average people investing through their pension plans).”

McKibben goes on to contend that if you spent the money with a local farmer (with a CSA farm, for instance), the money could re-circulate in the local community and create exponential growth and sustainable local jobs. Again, in McKibben’s words, “The farmer buys a drink at the local pub; the pub owner gets a car tune-up at the local mechanic; the mechanic brings a shirt to the local tailor; the tailor buys some bread at the local bakery; the baker buys wheat for bread and fruit for muffins from the local farmer.”

Photo: Robin Charney

Another issue of local economy that is a blueprint for creating quick seasonal jobs, might involve enforcing laws regarding ice and snow removal. An informal survey of elderly and physicallychallenged Toledoans would reveal, I believe, that many folks are homebound these days because of the impassibility of sidewalks in our city.

That same survey, if extended to school kids and the unemployed, would also likely reveal that many businesses and homeowners seem unwilling to pay anyone to shovel and salt. The City of Boston, Mass., observed this same phenomena in some of their citizenry, and so changed the rather lax rules and fines applicable to ice and snow shoveling.

The revision is entitled, An Ordinance Regarding the Prompt and Complete Removal of Snow and Ice from Sidewalks Abutting Curb Ramps (2007, City of Boston).

This ordinance reads, “Whereas reportedly, Boston businesses and residences frequently fail to shovel their sidewalks (and abutting curb/ramp cuts) and/or fail to clear sidewalks of snow and ice in a manner that ensures all residents – including wheelchair users, the elderly and others with disabilities – can travel the sidewalk safely…”

“Tending” continued on page 10

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Toledo Streets - The Paper with a Mission

Community

Bonfiles

April 2010

Book Review

Possum Living, by Dolly Freed Hans Ashbaucher

Food For Thought volunteer Mike Schiewer and friend Dewayne. Photo: Robin Charney

Why are we sometimes so uninspired? Why do we fight so hard managing the cage we live in, so as to pay no mind to getting out of the cage?

Why are we still so blinded by the light?

I pose these questions to you because we live so much in an old world – and even while the world is changing, we are not. We’ve been looking out the window, at the world passing us by, and we realize this, but we are powerless, and paralyzed, and cannot move to stop it. We settle for pieces instead of completeness at every turn, and are left to wonder why we have failed so often.

You must realize by now that I am one of you. Certainly you must begin to see, that I have walked in your footprints, and know firsthand of your journey to ‘now’. The questions that I have posed to you are the same ones that I have asked my/self – and of course, I had no answers either.

Not then. . . I have spoken to you candidly on these pages about my own brokenness, and many of you have heard me say that, “I’m having the time of my life!” I am having the time of my life, and there are many, many reasons for this. . .

I am writing about Community, because it has restored my life. I am writing about Community, because it has brought me joy. I am writing about Community, because my Community defines me. I am writing about Community, because it has transformed me. My Community is at the cause of everything positive

that has happened to me. Happened for me. My Community of “like minded”, difference makers. Volunteers, servants, & keepers; people who taught me by example; nurtured me w/ understanding; & cared for me w/ love.

This changed everything.

My Community is my lifeline; My Community has taught me that EVERY one matters; my Community has shown me that I am my brother’s keeper; my Community has not indulged my selfishness, and certainly I am no longer self centered; my community has given me direction to focus my gifts.

It’s not “what’s in it for me”, but “what do I have to offer?” My Community has empowered me, and now, I’m offering my Community to you. Simply put, I am taking responsibility for my own life. It is as rich or as turbulent as I make it. As I live it. A friend and mentor, Steve North, told me the recently, that he might be the richest man in the world. From where I’m sitting, he may be. . .

One thing more: “Sleepy”, “Ray Ray”, “Jamaica”, Jeff Parritt, Bill Hill, and Norman Powell, many thanks for your support. I saw how some of you FELT, sitting in the audience at the board meeting of the Toledo Lucas Homelessness Board. None of you guys were in a hurry to leave. I think you saw something or sensed something and. . . .You felt as though you mattered. And you do, & this was a beginning for you. A first step in taking an active role in your own life. Community, it’s who we are.

“Possum Living” is just as useful today as it was back in 1978 when it was first published. But, a new edition released in January 2010 offers an afterward by author Dolly Freed, including her later-in-life lessons and some reflection on the five years spent possum living in Pennsylvania with her dad in the late 1970’s. Sometimes, time does change things. But, this book holds a lot of truths that can still be applied today, thirty years after its initial release.

With a economy in shambles, unemployment at an all-time high, and people cutting back in order to live, I found parts of this book very helpful and easy to read. I admire the author’s tenacity, simple humor and honesty.

There is a great number of people who would love to live off the land, away from the rat race and urban living.

Sometimes people find there are too many people with too few values and too little respect for others or their property, so the prospect of living away from all this seem appealing.

Dolly Freed and her dad started off their new lives after Dolly’s parents

divorced. There was no longer income from Mom’s candle-making business, but they did have a run down house, “free and clear, and a little money in the bank”, and apparently, that’s all they needed. Some folks don’t have these luxuries, but there are ways around this, especially if you know someone with a little piece of property. Think outside the box, I kept saying to myself as I read this book. Nobody’s story is exactly the same. It’s surprising to realize just how little you need to survive, especially nowadays. For those without any resources, I know it can be even tougher.

If I picked up anything from the book, it was this quote from Ms. Freed: “It’s easier to learn to do without some of the things that money can buy than to earn the money to buy them.” She also states, “If you can’t go the whole route, at least go part way. If you can’t become a non-consumer, aim to be a miniconsumer. Okay?” Just as applicable today - spend less and save more.

Dolly describes in detail their vegetable growing, their do-it-yourself attitude, about second harvesting fruits from nearby, canning and preserving, baiting, catching and preparing fish and turtles and other foods, housing, clothing, and a whole lot more, all with a sense of humor.

I found myself relating to somethings and other topics irrelevant in today’s society.

Dolly gives you something to think about when it comes to believing economists and banks, and we should have some doubt, which in turn makes us look at our needs more closely.

Some say Dolly Freed’s book is a must for the bookshelf of anyone interested in genuine self sufficiency. I say it’s a must for those who want someone they can relate with when they’re going about their daily routine in order to survive these perilous times here in 2010.

April 2010

Toledo Streets - The Paper with a Mission

Area high schoolers confront poverty’s harsh realities

Page 5 Steve North

While most high school need a hand up to their feet. students enjoyed a four-day Every student experienced something new and transforming weekend for Presidents’ Day, through the days of Four Point eight area students faced a Five. One parent commented in challenging confrontation her evaluation of the event: “Our with poverty in the inner city. daughter’s motives for attending Four students from St. Ursula Four Point Five were largely Academy, three from Oregon self-serving originally (service Clay, and another from Toledo hours look good on college apps), Whitmer participated in Four but I believe the experience Point Five, the 4½ day poverty touched her soul and changed immersion experience of the her worldview forever. I only Servant Leadership Center of had to watch her the morning Toledo.

Immediately following after her return, as she watched school on February 11, the snow falling, to realize that she was thinking about her new participating students arrived at Good Shepherd Catholic acquaintances out in the elements, instead of wishing for a snow day.”

Church, bringing only the clothes on their backs. After checking One student, after reflecting on Four Point Five President’s Day 2010 Students and Team, left to right: Deke Ludwig, Steve North, Kayle Bollin, Emilee Ferrer, in to their rooms, the group ate an experience she had with a Tiffany St. John, Gary Bond, Emma Miller, Joe Danyi, Paige Poure, Hollis Dana, Shawn Kellerbauer, Gabi Enrique, Devalin McDermand supper at Toledo Gospel Rescue man at the dining hall and what Mission’s soup kitchen with other she learned from it, wrote: “And Cherry Street Mission’s Madison Avenue Church on Oregon, where they heard guests. After supper, the group travelled to that’s why I know that what we learned dining hall. Unlike “normal” volunteers, about the history and heart of the ministry the LifeBridge Community Center, where here is going to last. And changed me. And however, the Four Point Five students to the homeless in the inner city. they were trained to serve as personal changed the way I look at the world…and didn’t go to fix and serve food. Instead, The second day brought an shoppers for guests during the Clothing helped me realize that doing nothing can they walked individually and alone to the opportunity to engage with hundreds of Your Community event sponsored by be just as evil as doing something wrong, if dining hall, where they took their places people living in poverty and/or homeless Cherry Street Mission, LaSalle Cleaners, not more-so.” like every other guest. They sat with through the ministry of Food for Thought Four Point Five is an initiative of The Anderson’s, Fifth Third Banks, area people they didn’t know, and got to know (FFT) at the main library downtown.

The Servant Leadership Center (SLC), YMCA/JCC’s and the Toledo Area them: to hear their stories, come to know Through the distribution of FFT lunches, 1618 W. Sylvania Ave. in Toledo. The SLC United Way. After training, each member their circumstances, learn about their distributing socks and coats through conducts an extensive small group process of the group shopped for two outfits of families, and more. In this environment LifeLine Ministries, and especially through clothing, which would be the only clothes and corporate seminars training people in the students had the opportunity to the conversations with guests, students each would be permitted to wear for the principles of servant leadership, in order experience what life “on the other side came to know many people living in to engage the justice-related challenges four days that were to follow. This is an of the serving counter” is like, and they circumstances they would otherwise never that face our culture. Four Point Five is experience common to many living in became fast friends with people who most encounter. The remainder of the day was poverty. the first of three new initiatives the SLC often are isolated and neglected by the rest spent with Dennis, a near-homeless man The morning of Friday, the first full is developing to reach and challenge of “normal” society. living in North Toledo. Students helped people while they are still in high school. day of the experience, began with a walk Dennis clear the property on which he is After several hours, the group took a to the Helping Hands of St. Louis soup For more information on The Servant a squatter of snow and brush, starting a tour of the men’s shelter, attended a church Leadership Center and its programs, call kitchen for breakfast and conversation bonfire to help stay worm and cook soup service with the other guests, and finally with daily guests and volunteers, followed the SLC office at 419-476-0941. for supper, and learned about what it takes served the evening meal sit-down style to by tutoring elementary-aged children What happened during the days to survive a winter outside in northwest their new friends. cared for by Kids Unlimited. The group of Four Point Five cannot be bought Ohio. The day ended with the group going On the final day, the students then spent the next 6 hours serving or orchestrated. They can only be dumpster diving at an area grocery store. attended a four hour workshop on Servant families from around the Toledo area, experienced by students who, like these, The group discovered about 20 pounds of Leadership, in which they learned how to shopping for clothing at the Clothing Your are willing to trust themselves into the meat not yet at its sell-by date, about 30 take what they gleaned from their Four Community event. The students helped hands of people who can lead them into pounds of potatoes, lettuce, strawberries Point Five experiences and act upon it in guests navigate the massive departmenta world that is foreign and a little nerveand more, as well as three bouquets of a way that would help change the world. store-like setup, to find clothing, shoes, wracking (especially for their parents!), flowers which graced the group’s breakfast When the workshop ended, the group coats and more, learning about their guests and face the harsh realities from which table the following morning. All but hit the streets of downtown Toledo to and families as they assisted. Many of the most of us are protected. If you or one package of Bob Evans breakfast sell issues of Toledo Streets, a street students were touched by the stories they someone you know is interested in the sausage was given to Dennis for his use; newspaper that focuses content on the heard and people they met throughout next Four Point Five, which will be held the sausage was cooked for the group’s issues that affect those living in poverty the day. Finally, the group visited the Food April 6 – 10 during Spring Break, contact breakfast the next morning. and homelessness, and that provides an for Thought food pantry at New Harvest Steve at the Servant Leadership Center.

Sunday morning brought a trip to enterprise opportunity to people who

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Toledo Streets - The Paper with a Mission

Because 1Matters In regard to the recent press about the Toledo Homelessness Board (TLC) vs. the community, the question here is simple: Is it a conflict of interest to distribute funds and then take a job managing those same funds?

When asked the question, the board leadership’s response was an attempt to remove me rather than even acknowledge the possibility. But they did not have the votes to remove me.

But this is only a symptom of the real problem. The REAL problem is the leadership of the TLC Board by the current executive committee and the part time temporary director Deb Conklin.

This battle began two years ago when we advanced the premise the people who are users or former users of our social service systems would be the experts on those very systems.

(In business we call it “institutional knowledge.”) This premise was rejected and instead labeled a threat to the TLC Board.

I pray now for new board leadership with a policy of openness and inclusion.

Of all of this conflict, here is the coolest part.

At the meeting to remove me there were about 20 supporters of the unhoused and half were actually unhoused. I have to say how much this support meant, how much strength this support gives me personally. It also lends credence to the argument this is not about me, it is about the community.

After the meeting several of our unhoused friends were asking, “What is our next step?” They want to continue

Ken Leslie

to be engaged! How cool is that!

I admit I am not a social-services bureaucrat. I am more like the line judge in a tennis match who knows the rules of the game, watches it attentively, and only calls faults when necessary.

In 20 years, I have never seen so many double-faults by so-called leaders who really don’t care they are doublefaulting.

To be honest, I don’t believe we can ever “end homelessness,” as the general wish is expressed. To do so we would first have to eliminate all mental illness, chemical addiction, job layoffs, home-destroying fires, domestic violence, and poverty. This is impossible.

But it is possible to create a system that would end homelessness for every individual and family that becomes unhoused in our community because of any of these root causes.

But let’s get smart about it. We know mental illness and chemical addiction are primary causes of homelessness for many of the more than 3,000 people in our community who lose domestic autonomy each year.

So why are we decreasing rather than increasing spending for mental-health funding and recovery beds?

Toledo has ever-shrinking resources. We can increase the resources available to our cashstrapped city if we respond with innovation, increased efficiency and accountability.

On the homelessness board I represent the interests of the unhoused, the community, and taxpayers. I believe all three constituencies want us to create an open system that will quickly house those who lose domestic autonomy, not to focus on the issues that divide us.

So onward we will go because … 1 really does Matter.

Having some fun volunteering for Clothing Your Community in February. Photo: Robin Charney

April 2010

Shelter Review Inside Rebekah’s Haven

Bonfiles

Neatly made bunk beds fill a room at Rebekah’s Haven.

This one is a ladies choice, so let’s spend some time at Rebekka’s Haven.

Founded in February of 2003, when the combined energies of the Reverend Tom Clapsaddle, Executive Director of The Toledo Gospel Rescue Mission, and members of The United Methodist Church from Lambertville, MI, determined that a separate shelter was needed for women. Rebekka’s Haven officially opened its doors in February of 2004, under the very capable direction of Ms. Nancy DeWitt, who continues to manage the facility.

Like its stable mate, Toledo Gospel Rescue Mission, Rebekka’s Haven is immaculately clean and intimate. Here again, the shelter is small, (it was likely once a single family home by design), but the shelter is big where it matters most. The living room or day room is spacious and comfortable, as is the dining area.

Check in is at 4pm. Like the men, the women arrive to a clean bed, meticulously made. Sometimes there is a snack between 4 and 5, but you can expect to eat around 5:30pm. There is a Chapel Service from 6 to 7pm, so there is ample time to relax and enjoy what the “Haven” has to offer. Lights are out at 10pm, and you must be in bed by 11pm.

“There is also a floor designated for homeless women with small children,” DeWitt informed. “They have separate sleeping, showering, and eating areas from the women without children.

Making these children feel safe and secure in the midst of a crisis is our goal.”

I have some friends, Michelle Montgomery, and Jerome Ford, who were grinding it out with me last summer. Both Jerome & I ended up at the “Mission”, but Michelle spent nearly 5 months at Rebekah’s Haven, and I trust her judgment. She has had the same husband for 20 years, so I like her style, too. Jerome worked the whole time, so I can report that they have moved on. Living the dream. . .

There is also a “new Life” transient volunteer program as an option for ladies who are sincerely bettering their lives. They receive mentoring and guidance in their spiritual life, work ethics training, basic life skills training, and work therapy. They are also offered mid-day devotions throughout the week.

There are more points to be made, but this one is a “no brainer”. Rebekah’s Haven is a great place to stay if you cannot stay at home. I know a little “Haven” continued on page 11

April 2010

Toledo Streets - The Paper with a Mission

Poetry

Epitaph for a Friend Greg Peters Grim destroyer – you came today; You give no quarter; claiming yet another friend; The boisterous outcry of a bitter north wind.

The brutal cold ear of mortality.

I sit here melancholy and ponder.

Is there nothing I can do?

Dennie, you were just here – this morning I missed you –how could you be gone?

Just yesterday – we sat, talked, and laughed.

Your chiseled smile and grizzled face.

A lasting impression – I still feel your gentle, easy going presence.

Dennie – you weren’t perfect, but you were honest, refreshing and real.

You called me today: speaking to my soul – your words your story- sounding in my Deep – hearts core.

Mind’s eye sit’s motionless and still.

I see - I understand, I hear the song you sing.

You were just at the door – grinning you shook my hand- we spoke for a moment – you turned – Cane in hand and strolled on.

The good soldier- that you are- you stopped, and saluted.

As I close my eyes, and watched you slip away.

A solemn stillness still holds the sight.

Dennie – today you stand before alabasterine gates of unending mercy.

A resounding voice welcomed you’re finally back home.

Cascading hospitality echoes across the valley.

All tumult – foreign and outcast; evaporating-dreary and slavish drudgery; oh serene soul a lavish dream coat of grace.

Looking upon a shimmering sea oaf tranquil glass.

Beholding the redemption of the glowing eyes of the one who shines with the first son’s rising favor.

A brilliant flower unfolding-blushing at the sight of the great unseen.

You long not for earth-nor remember former frailty; no more pain-sadness-no suffering or fear; our daddy dries all tears.

Unbounded diamond skies-overwhelming wholeness, a wellspring of ecstatic joy!

Dennie- you drink from a cup called immortality. As death flees from time.

More than a name- a joint heir to the throne!

For in heaven; you have found your true recompense.

Flush in transcendent spirit; knowing no more worldly servitude; you are held in the promise of eternal certainty; and the love of Christ that is true.

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Toledo Streets - The Paper with a Mission

Paul McCartney: “I’ll never retire!”

Big Issue in Scotland – Paul McCartney, now 67, appears to have put the ageing process on hold. It could be the hair dye he concedes to using, or the meat-free diet. Perhaps it’s some transcendental secret he picked up from the Maharishi in India all those years ago. More likely, his new girlfriend Nancy Shevell has restored his naturally sunny disposition and boyish vigour; the messy end of his relationship with Heather Mills now a distant memory.

Macca is back on the road again, mining rock’s greatest songbook to reimagine unperformed Beatles recordings live.

Of the Fab Four, McCartney has always been the most comfortable carrying the weight of the group’s uncommonly huge achievements. He remains happy to traverse the decades, reliving the days when he and his friends spilled colour across a black-and-white world with their hopeful, effervescent, joyously inventive songs. Adam Forrest caught up with him between rehearsals shortly before December’s European tour kicked off.

P.M.: I don’t really know how much it has changed. It’s been a long time. I was a Liverpool teenager then, with wide-open eyes.

I imagine the Reeperbahn won’t be too different – a tourist strip club sort of area, but I won’t be going down there this time.

Having a new girlfriend, it’d be more than my life’s worth.

A.F.: ‘A Day in the Life’ is now part of the repertoire – not something The Beatles ever performed live. Is it daunting to tackle?

P.M.: It’s such a good song and I have enough reason to do it because I have vivid memories of writing it with John. He brought the first verse, and that made it his song, his inspiration. I remember we sat down in my music room in London and developed it into a second verse, and then ‘I’d love to turn you on’… and my little bit in the middle. Then came the orchestral cacophony…

A.F.: The musical orgasm?...

P.M.: Well thank you very much but it’s a bit early for that! Steady on! Anyway – yes, that was kind of my idea. I’d been listening to a lot of avant-garde music and that was inspired by the composers I was going to see in London at the time.

A.F.: You’re playing ‘Give Peace a Chance’ now too. Does it feel a little strange to take on John’s songs for the first time?

A.F.: I don’t think we have...

P.M.: Don’t give me that! ‘I don’t think we have’ (laughs) .

A.F.: You play George’s great classic ‘Something’ on the ukulele. Is it difficult to revisit memories of him on-stage?

A.F.: I’m sure I would have remembered.

P.M.: It’s very emotional to do these songs. It’s marking losing family, which is terrible. But at the same time it’s great because in a way it puts me in touch with them. It focuses your emotions, so I’m thinking about them more than I might in an average day. Doing ‘Here Today’ (a 1982 song about John Lennon) is very emotional. The version the editors wanted to use in the live DVD is the one where I lose it and I get overwhelmed. If I’d been 18 I wouldn’t have let them use that – I’d have been too ashamed, as a young guy, to be seen crying. But that stuff doesn’t matter anymore.

Paul McCartney: Hello. Now, have we met before?

P.M.: Yeah (laughs) . ‘I don’t think we have’. I like it. Very coy.

A.F.: So, what can the audience expect from the new tour?

P.M.: Well, it’s bringing home the show we did in America earlier this year.

There’ll be a couple of new numbers – because I’ve got a few Beatles and Wings songs I’ve never done live. One guy asked if I’d be doing ‘Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand’ in Germany (laughs) .

Definitely not something I’ll be doing.

Adam Forrest

A.F.: Are you looking forward to playing Hamburg again? It’s not quite the city of sin it was when you and The Beatles were there in the 60s.

P.M.: It’s something I never thought I’d do because John did his songs, I did mine. If I’ve done Beatles songs it’s been ones I did the vocals on and did most of the writing on. I don’t really go with the co-written songs. So, ‘Drive My Car’ – pretty much my thing, as ‘Nowhere Man’ would have been John’s. But it did occur to me one day – why not? It’s always a bit refreshing to look at things differently.

Adam Forrest: Hello Paul.

April 2010

A.F.: There seems to be a blend of all ages at your gigs.

P.M.: Yeah, more than ever. Parents often say to me, ‘My kids really love The Beatles – so we’ve got something in common’. I like the idea that instead of people being alienated by each other’s music, there’s something that brings them together. The music has become like a “McCartney” continued on page 13

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Dennie Estrus Rush Dennie Estrus Rush, son of Dora and Edward Rush, brother of Ron, died on February 24, 2010 at St. Vincent Medical Center. Born on April 1st, 1950, Dennie was a friend to many; a reader of novels; a lover of poetry; a good conversationalist; and an avid volunteer.

He was born and raised in Tiffin, Ohio. He grew up playing guitar and performed in various bands throughout his teenage years.

An army veteran, Dennie served eight months in Vietnam in the early 1970’s before returning home with a battle related injury. Upon his return, he traveled through the south, working in sales. He returned to Ohio, where he lived in Bowling Green and briefly owned and operated his own business before relocating to Toledo.

A resident of the Cherry Street Mission, Dennie lived in the sober living unit. His friends recall his easy going manner and good sense of humor. He was an avid volunteer, working in the kitchen, performing various housekeeping chores and often volunteered at the Historic Church of St. Patrick, serving meals on Christmas and Thanksgiving. He was a familiar face on Saturday mornings at Food For Thought on the lawn of the downtown library in Toledo, where on March 6th, he was remembered with a balloon release as the Rev. Steve North prayed with the many people who were in attendance.

“You were just at the door – grinning you shook my hand- we spoke for a moment – you turned – Cane in hand and strolled on.

The good soldier- that you are- you stopped, and saluted.

As I close my eyes, and watched you slip away.

A solemn stillness still holds the sight.

Dennie – today you stand before alabasterine gates of unending mercy.

A resounding voice welcomed: you’re finally back home.

Cascading hospitality echoes across the valley.”

Excerpt from Epitaph for a Friend by Greg Peters

Norma Leslie finishes writing a message in memory of Dennie. Photo: Robin Charney

Dennie was preceded in death by his parents. He is survived by his brother, Ron, sister-in-law, Anita and nephew, Brian. A Memorial mass is being planned for Dennie at the Historic Church of St. Patrick.

Dennie Rush was a light in our world: Remember his name.

thanks, food for thought,

for coordinating and providing the balloon release in Dennie’s memory.

Get involved & help spread the love...

Food For Thought is a local nonprofit organization serving the Toledo and Oregon communities through multiple avenues. Beginning as a small Saturday morning gathering, Food For Thought now serves sack lunches, including their famous PB&J, to around 350 individuals every Saturday morning in downtown Toledo. Their choice mobile food pantry allows them to serve over 300 families per month by providing a variety of food and resources to those that may not otherwise have access to a pantry. They also serve over 700 families per month in their stationary food pantry in Oregon. For more information, please visit www.freelunchtoledo.com.

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Living Faith Everybody knows someone who has taken a beating as the US economy took its latest nosedive. Someone who had savings in the bank but now has debts piling up. Someone who had a nice home but now faces foreclosure.

Someone who had a good job but now is unemployed.

In fact, an expression has entered our vocabulary – the “new poor” – a term used to describe those who have never been poor before and don’t know how to cope with it. They don’t know that they might be eligible for food stamps, for example, so they don’t apply.

Suddenly these folks find themselves in a position familiar to so many who have struggled with poverty over the long haul. They find themselves characterized by others – stigmatized – solely by the fact that they are broke.

In England, where I grew up, we have a word for someone who characterizes another by a single aspect of that person’s life and then uses that characterization to establish his or her own superiority. The word is “snob”.

The Swiss author and philosopher, Alain de Botton, says it this way, “A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery.”

In his reflections on snobbery, de Botton contends that it results from the very nature of our meritocratic society.

He writes, “A meritocratic society is one in which if you’ve got talent and energy and skill, you will get to the top.

Nothing should hold you back. It’s a beautiful idea.”

He goes on to claim, “… if you

April 2010 Rev. Julian A. Davies

really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication, and in a far more nasty way, believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there. In other words, your position in life comes to seem not accidental, but merited and deserved. And that makes failure seem much more crushing.”

Even our vocabulary is shaped when we buy into the idea of a meritocracy.

Alain de Botton puts it this way, “… in the middle ages, in England, when you met a very poor person, that person would be described as an “unfortunate.”

Literally, somebody who had not been blessed by fortune, an unfortunate.

Nowadays, particularly in the United States, if you meet someone at the bottom of society, they may, unkindly, be described as a “loser.” There is a real difference between an unfortunate and a loser.”

Interestingly enough, the cautions that de Botton lifts up before us about snobbery and how it stems from a broken view of a meritocratic society look a lot like the cautions that appear in

the Hebrew Bible.

The Deuteronomist writes, “When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good.

Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.”

[Deuteronomy 8:12-18] Did you catch the verse that rejects the meritocratic idea? This one: “Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the

might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’” It is the Biblical denial of the association between personal merit and wealth. The Deuteronomist instead proposes a different way of thinking and writes, “But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth…” Instead of resulting from personal merit, the power to get wealth has its source somewhere else.

The presence or absence of wealth has nothing to do with personal merit. That idea is hard for us to accept as television advertisements, magazine articles, movies, and so on, all bombard us with the opposite message: buy this car, you deserve it. Take this vacation trip, you deserve it. In other words, you have merit and good things go along with having merit. The Deuteronomist would say, “sorry, you are mistaken about that.”

I see the problem this way: If you think that your money and resources came about by personal merit, then it will be easy for you to think that those without money and resources are people without merit. But, if you think that money and resources were placed in your hands so you could act as a steward on God’s behalf, then you will see that it is your responsibility to help those without money and resources.

Thinking about money is tough.

Jesus spent much of his time talking about money, material goods and resources. Not because he thought that they have merit in their own right and deserve our attention but because he knew that they are dangerous and can twist our thinking. He summed it up this way,“You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Access Group, Boston].

The ordinance is also very specific in that ice and snow must be completely removed, or “made level and completely covered with sand, sawdust, or other appropriate material to prevent slipping…”

The reason I labor these details is, of course, that within our Great Lakes port city there are elderly and

physically-challenged persons who strive for mobility and independence, and who face greater challenges due to the slothfulness of others; and on the point of our local economy, many folks are willing to work shoveling snow and ice, if only our municipal code would compel compliance, with the result that many folks would be paid to shovel said snow and ice.

“Instead of resulting from personal merit, the power to get wealth has its source somewhere else.

The presence or absence of wealth has nothing to do with personal merit.”

Tending, continued from page 3 And, “Whereas the existing sidewalk ordinance (CBC Chapter 16 – 12.16) contains few specific guidelines concerning clearing of snow or ice…

Therefore…” and then the ordinance spells out the law in which businesses and other non-residential properties cannot allow snow and ice to remain for more than three hours from sunrise to sunset, and residential properties must be

shoveled within six hours.

Fines, which had been rather trivial amounts of $15 for homeowners, and $50 for businesses, were extended to $50 and $150, respectively. Each day a violation exists is considered a separate violation and the penalty for “moving ice and snow from a privately owned property and placing it upon any public sidewalk or street,” is $250 [source: Neighborhood

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Haven, continued from page 6

Criminalization, continued from page 3

something of the Toledo Gospel Rescue Mission, the organization, so I know exactly what to expect. These are good people, and this is a good place.

The Outreach Center, located at 670 Phillips Ave., is another program of the Toledo Gospel Rescue Mission: “Meeting people right where they are and ministering to their physical as well as spiritual needs.” The Outreach Center hosts a number of special free community-wide events such as: Coat and Blanket Giveaway; HOLYween Trunk or Treat; Thanksgiving Dinner on Thanksgiving Day; Christmas Dinner on Christmas Day. The Ambassador Fatherhood Program is a certified re-entry program approved by the State of Ohio Dept. of Rehabilitation and Corrections and has CSB approval.

The Ambassador Fatherhood Program

it, because they have no money. The majority of them say it’s a big reason why they will not be able to reintegrate the society, because they have too much to pay.”

People who live on the street or rely on shelters for temporary housing are on the outside of society because they appear to do things that are inappropriate. The law treats certain necessary behaviors as “anti-social” when they are performed in public.

Criminal citations are often issued to homeless people for activities that everyone else does indoors or on private property: earning income, sleeping, eating, going to the bathroom or sitting down to rest.

Stoops calls these “quality of life” behaviors. Some of the laws barring them are cited in the Homes Not Handcuffs: The Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities, a 2009 report by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. They include: • Bathing in public waters • Urination/defecation in public • Begging/panhandling • Camping in public places • Sitting or lying in public places • Spitting • Failure to disperse from public places • Washing cars or windshields • Being without a shirt

The living room of Rebekah’s Haven.

exists to improve a father’s self image, and relationships with their children & family, by educating and helping them develop new insight and understanding of the role of a father.

This program meets every Tuesday at 6pm, in the fellowship hall. See Ken Rupert.

Finally, the Mission Mall, located at 2123 Ashland Ave., where you’ll find a variety of clothing, linens, household goods, toys and knick knacks. Anyone may shop, and no I.D. is needed.

Donations of clothes and household goods can be dropped off at the Toledo Gospel Rescue Mission, 1917 Jefferson Avenue, at your convenience. A pick up can be arranged for a large donation.

Rebekah’s Haven, Ladies first choice.

Using a toilet is a universal need.

You might think a person could just use the facilities in a public place such as a library or subway or a shelter. But that ignores facts that only become obvious when you are living on the street. Many public places can be too far away to walk to – assuming you can walk) and are locked much of the day. Many shelters have restricted access; not anyone can just wander in when they want. And businesses rarely allow people who are not customers to use their facilities.

Then there’s the challenge of taking a shower.

Olympic Kidnapping While advocates for the homeless recognize the harmful impact of such

laws, most communities are slow to recognize the added burdens they place on people already struggling to overcome significant barriers. A single complaint can result in fines for homeless people even if they are causing no problems. When four police cars pulled up to an area under the Interstate 5 bridge in Sacramento, Calif., and cops started ticketing the people sheltering there, Paula Lomazzi, editor of Homeward, the local street paper, was nearby. Lomazzi also works with the Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee (SHOC).

“Safe Ground Sacramento was having a retreat about a couple blocks away when we received a call about this,” Lomazzi says. “We all took a break from the meeting to support the group under the bridge, including two attorneys. It was raining. The group that was camping/living under the bridge had moved there because their regular place was flooded out by (a) high river.

They had nowhere else to go. Police gave them all citations and told them they had to leave. … We found out later that a lady that lives in the area had complained. This bridge underpass is not located near any residents or business. They were not visible from the street or anywhere else unless you actually walked under the bridge.”

Efforts to rid the streets of evidence of homelessness can increase during highly visible public events. At these times a city wants to look good by “sweeping” unpleasant aspects of the community out of sight. Police in many cities conduct sweeps in which they round up individuals on the street and take them to a specific location or simply dump the people far away from where they were picked up. By the time they make their way back, the event will be over.

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, is an example.

“What we have seen in Vancouver is an escalation in the criminalization of poverty and homelessness in the lead up to the Olympics,” says Sean Condon, executive director of Megaphone.

“Homeless advocates believe this is an “Criminalization” continued on page 12

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Criminalization, continued from page 11

A homeless camp raid in Sacremento, CA. Photo: Libby Fernandez

attempt to sweep the poor away during the games. While that hasn’t been fully actualized, it has led to displacement and further criminalization. The first wave started last winter when the police, taking advantage of transition in the mayor’s chair, started handing out tickets to homeless and low-income people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside – a poor neighborhood that is most well known for having an open drug market – for everything from jaywalking and riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. After a public outcry and the new mayor’s own opposition, the police finally backed off.

“However, this past summer they started another crackdown in the neighborhood on the vendors who sell often found goods on the street.

Homeless/low-income people are unable to pay the $100-$500 tickets that were handed to them.”

A more benevolent label on another law recently enacted in British Columbia is the Assistance to Shelter Act, which authorizes police to “forcibly remove a homeless person and take them to a shelter when there is an extreme weather warning,” Condon says. With approximately 3,000 homeless people in Vancouver and approximately 1,000 shelter beds, plus a few emergency shelters, there are more homeless people than available beds.

“Dubbed the Olympic Kidnapping Act by locals, (the law) is troubling,”

Condon says. “What the police, the shelter and the homeless person are supposed to do when all the shelters are full has not been answered. In fairness, the Vancouver police department has said they will not forcibly take a homeless person to a shelter and will only encourage them to go. But police departments in other municipalities, including other Metro Vancouver cities, have not made the same guarantee.”

As recently as December 2009, the Supreme Court of British Columbia has ruled in favor of the rights of homeless people. The court refused to reverse a decission made in 2008 by Supreme Court Justice Carol Ross, which struck down bylaws in the city of Victoria prohibiting homeless people from camping in public parks. She wrote that the bylaws “violate … the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in that they deprive homeless people of life, liberty and security of the person in a manner not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

Housing is cheaper There are no comprehensive studies proving that the criminalization approach to homelessness improves public safety. Advocates for the homeless, however, cite scientific research and anecdotal evidence to prove that addressing the root causes of homelessness – not the behaviors related to it – can have a positive long-

term impact for the community as well as the individuals.

Homes Not Handcuffs cites a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in which Seattle researchers concluded that it’s “cheaper to provide supportive housing to chronically homeless individuals with severe alcohol problems than to have them live on the streets.

“Researchers designed a study to evaluate the effect of a Housing First intervention for chronically homeless individuals with severe alcohol problems on the use and costs of services,” the report says. “According to the study, the median costs of Housing First participants before the study were $4,066 per person per month.

When participating in the Housing First program, median monthly costs decreased to $1,492 per person per month, after six months and $958 after 12 months.”

Some cities make an effort to balance the criminalization approach with efforts to assist individuals in connecting with service providers.

The uneven application of harsh enforcement is illustrated in Colorado.

Denver’s Road Home – a 10-year plan to end homelessness – includes criminalization ordinances, but the city “adopted a policy of training officers on how to do outreach to the homeless,” says Tim Covi, editor of the Denver VOICE. Law enforcement is expected to direct people to assistance rather than issue tickets right away. While the homeless on the Downtown Business Improvement District say they have been treated with respect, others aren’t so fortunate.

“Particularly along the Platte River and Cherry Creek areas, where the homeless often sleep at night and by law are not permitted to sleep, the Denver VOICE has received accounts of people’s possessions being discarded after they were roused in the morning and told to leave the area,” Covi says.

“We have been told by at least five homeless people that the police make regular stops early in the morning on the Platte River and tell people to leave, and that if they’re found there again, they’ll

be ticketed or arrested.”

Scarce financial resources and public sentiment means advocates for the homeless have the added responsibility of educating the public about the steps necessary to end homelessness. Most large cities have more homeless people than shelter beds and even fewer services to address the root causes of the problem – mental health issues, addiction, job training, high unemployment rates, hiring practices that bar individuals with criminal records. Success stories are hard to come by.

The “A Key Not a Card” campaign in Portland, Ore., allows outreach workers from five different service providers to offer people immediate housing, instead of just a business card.

“From the program’s inception in 2005 through spring 2009, 936 individuals in 451 households have been housed through the program, including 216 households placed directly from the street,” says the Homes Not Handcuffs report.

Another innovative and successful program cited by the report comes from Daytona Beach, Fla. In an effort to reduce the need for panhandling, a coalition of service providers, businesses and the city of Daytona Beach provides homeless people with jobs and housing. The Downtown Street Team program hires homeless people to clean up downtown Daytona Beach. Each is provided with shelter and then transitional housing. Some of the participants have secured other full-time jobs and housing as a result.

Make them wear signs Unfortunately, failed programs tend to get the most attention.

“What happens when a city proposes some new initiative to solve the homeless problem – and this is in a negative way, to criminalize homelessness – it passes,” says Michael Stoops of the National Coalition for the Homeless. “The chamber of commerce, the police department, the business community will say that this new anti-panhandling program is working. And then other cities hear “Criminalization” continued on page 14

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McCartney, continued from page 8 multi-generational glue. It is really cool.

The Beatles story continues to shine. I often say, Churchill’s papers get older and crinklier but our music gets clearer and clearer. With the remastering, you’ve never heard them so good.

A.F.: Are your kids and grandkids Beatles fans?

P.M.: Yeah, absolutely. My youngest is only six and she’s only just getting into it. It’s really cute to see the youngest ones awakening to it.

A.F.: Why is The Beatles’ appeal universal? What makes the music survive changing trends?

P.M.: I think it’s something to do with the structural quality of the songs.

We weren’t actually trying to make stuff that was cool or of the moment, although a lot of it was. We were trying to make stuff that was good enough to stick around, and lo and behold it has.

It’s a finished body of work, and for me it contains a million memories.

A.F.: You and the other Beatles have astronomical objects named after you (4148 McCartney is a small planet in the main asteroid belt). Your songs are among the most covered of all time. It must be hard not to be overwhelmed by the incredible legacy.

P.M.: Yeah, I know what you mean.

There’s a safety valve you have to develop. I think in terms of – him, and me. He’s the guy with the star named after him. You kind of separate your public self from your private self.

Sometimes some people are not able to do that, and they start to believe their own myth. I don’t let myself get taken in by it. I’m pleased and honoured and amazed by it all.

But when I go home I don’t go (sings in a jaunty tone) ‘I’m the guy with the star named after him’. I still think of myself as the guy who rode the buses in Liverpool, which leaves me a sense of wonder about the whole thing.

A.F.: At the end of the ’60s John

described The Beatles as “only a rock group”. Would he have celebrated how revered the band has become?

P.M.: There was that one very cynical period [after the break-up], but he actually got over that once he got to New York. I was very lucky really

P.M.: Every time I pick up a facsimile of a Hofner bass, I try to play bass. It’s no good for me trying to hit red or green buttons. I can’t relate to that. But it’s good fun and the kids cream me on it.

A.F.: Are you a fan of The X Factor?

P.M.: I don’t know about being a fan.

“...real and loving . . . [is] actually harder than cynicism. Cynicism is a cheap shot.

John had a very soft heart but like all of us, you get wounded, and you have to cover it up because you feel too exposed and vulnerable. He had his times when he had to do that.”

- Paul McCartney on John Lennon because we got our relationship back together. Once he died, tragically…

God I was so glad that we had managed to do that. It would have been the worst if we’d still been enemies when that happened. It would have haunted me.

I actually don’t watch it that much but everyone else does, so if it’s on and I’m in the room then I’ll watch it. It’s a helluva big show. No denying that.

Y’know, it’s like, 20 million people can’t all be wrong. I see the attraction.

I tell you man, he wasn’t cynical.

We used to talk about baking bread.

He got very domesticated actually.

Particularly after Sean was born, he was looking after the baby and loving it.

His writing wasn’t cynical. If you think about the Double Fantasy album, with ‘Woman’ and ‘Beautiful Boy’ – it was very domestic, very real and loving.

That’s actually harder than cynicism.

Cynicism is a cheap shot. John had a very soft heart but like all of us, you get wounded, and you have to cover it up because you feel too exposed and vulnerable. He had his times when he had to do that.

My grandkids will watch it and I see it through their eyes. You talk to people in the street and they’ll say, ‘Ooh, what d’you think about Jedward?’ I go, ‘Well it’s a laugh, isn’t it?’ Bless ’em. They’re a couple of young hopeful kids trying to make a buck. It has brought through some very good people. Leona Lewis is a serious talent.

There are loads of things he’d have been having a laugh about. He’d have been quite tickled, I’m sure, about being in a video game. Like me, he’d have been rubbish at it.

A.F.: Have you played The Beatles: Rock Band game much?

A.F.: Are there any bands or acts you’d like to work with now?

P.M.: I liked the idea of working with Take That. It was great fun to do that (at the recent Children in Need concert at The Royal Albert Hall). It was a great cause. Gary did the honour of asking me to finish the show. I was chuffed because he’s a good guy. The most intriguing one is Bob Dylan.

He’s spoken of me very kindly in a couple of interviews and I’m a massive fan of his. But I still can’t get up the nerve to ring him. Y’know,

it’s Bob Dylan man! He’s a great guy and I’ve known him over the years.

So if anything kind of… organically happened, or I suddenly got the courage to ring him, then that would certainly be an intriguing prospect. I’m a great admirer of his and I think he’s a great poet. It would be interesting.

A.F.: A lot of people comment on what great shape you’re in. How long can you keep touring and recording at this kind of pace?

P.M.: As long as the drugs hold out.

The drugs and the Zimmer frame!

Y’know, I’m now doing five times more work than The Beatles did (live) . We used to do half an hour in concert. I don’t want to tempt fate, but I find it easy to play. Some of the American girls I know say to me, (in a high-pitched American accent) ‘You don’t even take a drink of water!’ Well, nobody ever did that where I was from. Nobody drank water on stage. I’m old school.

A.F.: There’s no plan to give it all up and paint in a cottage somewhere? Do you still have the place in Kintyre?

P.M.: Yeah. I’d never give that up. It’s a great place. I love it there. But it’s not a retirement cottage. My idea is that you keep working. A lot of people want to get the hell out of the factory and retire. But I’m doing my hobby, so I don’t want to give it up. I’m mean, I’m going off now and I’ll pick up the electric guitar and play some rock and roll. I still feel the same thrill I used to feel. I’m allowed to play this really cool guitar through a brilliant amp and turn it up as loud as I like. I still love it, and it still seems like a privilege.

McCartney’s Good Evening New York City live CD and DVD is out now.

Reprinted from Big Issue in Scotland © Street News Service: www.streetpapers.org

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Criminalization, continued from page 12 about it. Cities are actually very lazy.

They will copy and pass this same, exact panhandling ordinance that was passed in Cincinnati.”

Indianapolis, Ind., and other municipalities are currently considering the ordinance Stoops refers to.

“In 2003 Cincinnati City Council passed an ordinance requiring panhandlers to obtain licenses from the health department,” says Gregory Flannery, editor of Streetvibes.

“Teachers, nurses, activists and others registered as panhandlers in an expression of solidarity. The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless (parent organization of Streetvibes) filed a civil-rights lawsuit in federal court alleging the ordinance was a violation of the First Amendment, which guarantees the right to free speech. In settling the lawsuit, the city, the Homeless Coalition and Downtown Cincinnati Inc. (DCI) agreed to create an outreach position at DCI, whose job includes connecting panhandlers with social services.”

Politicians in Cincinnati, eager to appear tough on panhandlers, have sometimes tried to ignore the conditions of the settlement, however.

Last summer City Councilman Jeff Berding proposed taxing panhandlers and making them wear signs stating how much the city spends to help homeless people. In response to these conditions and other outrageous claims made in the proposal, Berding bowed to community pressure and retracted the measure but only after a significant amount of grandstanding.

Advocates are working to change the views of lawmakers while simultaneously finding ways to get around the laws until they are removed.

In Sacramento it’s against the law to camp or use “camp paraphernalia” on any public property. Camping is allowed on private property with an owner’s permission as long as it’s not for more than 24 hours, according to Lomazzi.

One unintended consequence of the law is that people who own houses could receive citations for camping violations. If a family wants to have a two-day camp-out in their backyard, they can’t get a permit: The limit is one day. The likelihood of a neighbor calling

the police isn’t great. But the net result is much more severe for homeless people.

Even though Sacramento has more homeless people than shelters beds, people are not allowed to create their own shelter, denying them even minimal protection against the elements.

Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee is trying to adapt.

“We have started a new organization called Safe Ground Sacramento that is trying to establish legal places for people to stay until housing is available,” Lomazzi says. “Campers stay together and sleep illegally most nights. A church has offered sanctuary to the group on freezing cold nights. Currently, the strategy is to go from one private property to the next … in hopes of evading the anti-camping ordinance by taking advantage of the 24-hour private property loophole.

“We set up a Safe Ground community on private property near the central city with the owner’s permission, and that lasted for about a month before the police came in and arrested everyone. The city threatened to fine the owner, so the group vacated the land.”

Support from the community in the form of donations for sleeping cottages and pledges for future financial support is coming, but locations for the rotating sleeping locations are not yet being offered.

‘Everyone has the right’ Although no data proves criminalization efforts deter crime or increase public safety, municipalities continue to pass punitive laws. Research by the National Coalition for the Homeless illustrates how expensive that approach can be: * Los Angeles: $6 million a year to pay for 50 extra police officers to crack down on crime in the Skid Row area while the city budgeted only $5.7 million for homeless services. * Gainesville, Fla.: As part of its 10-year plan to end homelessness, the city commission approved a plan to spend up to $75,000 on a fence to keep people off “Tent City” property, and only $20,000 to address the housing and service needs of those evicted. * Cincinnati, Ohio: A 2007 study

by the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless found that using the criminal justice system to deal with the consequences of street homelessness is an expensive approach, costing $65 per bed per day in the jail, compared to $30 a day for permanent supportive housing.

At a time when millions are being donated by private citizens and government to offer relief to 1.9 million Haitians left homeless by the recent earthquake, North Americans turn a blind eye to the policies that punish almost twice that many people in the same circumstance.

But change is possible.

“After two years of debate in front of the Commission of Human Rights of Québec, a victory has been achieved: On 9 Nov. 2009 the commission condemned strongly the city and the police regarding the social profiling of Montréal’s homeless,” says Serge Lareault, publisher of L’Itinéraire. “The government of Quebec engaged a new lawyer for homeless at the beginning of December 2009. He is charged with the creation of a center for drunk homeless as an alternative to help them and not arresting them or giving tickets. But the fight continues. The police still arrest and give many tickets each day. Many people are asking for programs to help homelessness. Others are asking for an amnesty to the hundreds of homeless who have tickets.”

Both Canada and the United States have signed and ratified and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but both have failed to universally incorporate its principles into their laws.

The non-binding United Nations (U.N.) declaration opens with a preamble recognizing “the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” In 1948 the U.N. General Assembly adopted this declaration as a “common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.”

The recognition that everyone – regardless of any distinction including an “other status,” such as homelessness – is “born free and equal in dignity and rights” of life, liberty and security of

person, is detailed in admonitions to prohibit slavery, torture, arbitrary arrest and a host of other behaviors that the United States and Canada routinely condemn as deplorable in other countries. The problem is that we refuse to do as we say.

Laws that criminalize homelessness routinely violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Restricting the movement of people in specific locations violates article 13: “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.” Confiscating and disposing of personal property because it happens to be on public land violates article 17: “Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of (his/her) property.” Perhaps the most egregious violation of all is the blatant disregard for Article 25: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

Homelessness has become a crime, but homeless people are the victims, not the perpetrators. Laws that worsen their plight aggravate the offense. Just as mental illness, sexual abuse and addiction are conditions that call for help – not prosecution – homelessness deserves a response rooted in compassion, fiscal sense and respect for international law. Helping homeless people is less expensive than jailing them. But more important, helping homeless people is the right thing to do. Jailing them for being homeless is wrong.

April 2010

Toledo Streets - The Paper with a Mission

Hoboscopes Pisces | Recently, satellite images have demonstrated that grazing cattle tend to face magnetic-north (or sometimes directly south) when they eat. Nobody is exactly sure why, how this might benefit the cows, or for that matter, why nobody had noticed this before. Your own internal compass may feel like it’s wavering lately, Pisces. It can be hard to tell which way is which and where you’re headed. Stop and graze awhile, my friend.

Meet your own immediate needs and then rest for a bit. When you wake up, you’ll probably be facing the direction you need to go. If not, ask a cow.

Aries | “The important thing is this,” wrote the French literary critic Charles du Bos “to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” I know it’s a tall order, Aries.

It also happens to be your tall order this month. Transitions can seem full of endings and of loss, but look to what’s ahead and trust that it’s the fullness of your potential.

Taurus | The Stars say that this month’s Taurus hoboscopes are all on backorder. Predictions regarding your immediate future will be shipped as soon as they are available. While you wait, please ponder this quote from Leonardo da Vinci “Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold.

For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.”

Gemini | Since the 1950s, researchers have been recording and listening to the strange subaquatic songs of male blue whales. Only recently have scientists noticed that the songs get lower every year. Worldwide, the pitch of whale song has gone down by as much as 30% over the past six decades and nobody knows why. Nobody knows why your songs are getting bluer either, Gemini. We all hear the pitch get deeper, we know you’ve been down. Maybe its time to let us know what’s got you feeling so low.

Page 15 Mr. Mysterio

Cancer | You should have known when you got your all access pass and met him after the concert and smiled for that staged photo that this was as close as you could ever really get. When we finally meet our idols, it’s hard to know how to react when it turns out they’re just people. I say move right along. Drop the life of fandom and live your own.

my fridge. It’s great to stay safe, Scorpio, but eventually, warning labels or no, something is going to get you. Whether because of your own carelessness or someone else’s mal-intent, you can’t be cautious enough to go on forever.

Take warnings with a grain of salt (May increase risk of high blood pressure) and live sensibly and satisfied.

Leo | It looks like a duck. It quacks like a duck. It eats sopping wet bread crusts right out of the pond. But, believe me, Leo, this is no duck. Did you know that the platypus has poisonous spurs under its hind legs and can find shrimp in the dark using electrolocation? Of course you didn’t. Now, start rethinking that big decision you’ve been so sure about for weeks. And remember, every presumed hedgehog could be an echidna in disguise.

Sagittarius | Do you ever get a song stuck in your head? Like just one verse again and again? You can’t get it out of your mind and it never resolves! The best cure I’ve found is full immersion. Listen to the song ten times beginning to end, sing along as loud as you can, and then go about your day. It’s the same way with the conversation you’ve been avoiding, the paper you can’t seem to finish writing and the dishes you still haven’t done.

Full immersion! Go all in! You’ll be done with it faster than you think and you’ll finally be able to get that guilty song out of your head.

Virgo | Consider the nightlight, Virgo.

Like a little glowing friend it provides you with just enough illumination to find your way from the bed to the bathroom with little to no impact to your toes, knees and face. I know you’d hoped to be a lighthouse, and it can seem like you’re light is so dim, but as dark as things have been out there lately, all people need is enough light to find their way around without tripping over their shoes. Be the nightlight, Virgo.

Libra | The worst case scenario has become your default, Libra. Not just worst-case like “what if I get fired?” more wost-case like “what if there’s a zombie invasion and Bob from the office down the hall tries to eat my brains?” While it is good to have an escape plan for both these scenarios, I have to point out that you can’t possibly expect to know what’s coming. None of us can. Trying to figure out all the worst “what ifs” is a waste of time when you could be dealing with the issue at hand.

Scorpio | It seems like everything has to have a warning label. “Caution.”

“Flammable.” “Keep out of reach of children.” “May contain molten sulfur.”

And those are just from the top shelf of

Capricorn | They say there’s no such thing as bad press, but I don’t think they were including the “For a good time call Capricorn” in the men’s restroom at the Rip Griffin in Muleshoe. It’s starting to feel like your reputation is in the hands of your worst enemies lately and, in a way, it’s true.

But listen, your good name will stay plentygood as long as your actions match up with who you want to be known as. People can scrawl your name in the worst places, but they’ll have to go there to do so.

Aquarius | Just because you’re a paranoid animated leprechaun, doesn’t mean they aren’t always after your lucky charms.

Mr. Mysterio is not a licensed astrologer, registered bail bondsman or ticketed passenger.

His column appears courtesy of The Contributer, Nashville, TN. Want more tidbits of timeless truth? Follow Mr. Mysterio on twitter at: http://twitter.com/ mrmysterio