Streetvibes January 2009 Edition

Stickin it Wit the Most High ~ Page 11 Eight Minutes with a ‘Street Walker’ ~ page 3

STREETVIBES

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J a n u a r y 2 0 0 9 • I s s u e 1 5 0 • C i n c i n n a t i ’s A l t e r n a t i v e N e w s S o u r c e

We Will, We Will Not Be Zoned Dinner is equal parts celebration, call to resist

By Gregory Flannery Editor

Clark Montessori Steel Drum Band entertains the guests at the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless’ Annual Dinner and Silent Auction. Photo by Andrew Anderson.

The Year’s Longest Night Remembering those who are at home at last

By Gregory Flannery Editor This is for those who died alone.

This is for those who died unwanted.

This is for those who died

unknown.

This is for those who died on the street, in an alley, on a bench.

This is for those who died in hospital or hospice or a relative’s bed after having lived on the street.

This is for those who died

poor and homeless in 2008.

It is bitterly cold Dec. 21, as it should be. A Channel 9 newsreader says the temperature is 14 degrees Fahrenheit, “which is ironic, because it’s the first day of winter.” She misunderstands the meaning of the word “ironic.”

Friends and advocates gather for Homeless Memorial Day. Photo by Andrew Anderson.

The wind cuts through overcoats, scarves, hats – for those lucky enough to have them. The wind cuts down the tiny flames that are supposed to make this a candlelight vigil. The air is so cold that feet ache from standing on cement. So cold that that the ink in a reporter’s pen freezes and will not write. So cold that no mayor, no city council member, no state legislator, no judge attends. Surely the cruel night chill explains their absence. Or is it a coldness of some other kind?

This is Washington Park, where the homeless often gather. This is Washington Park, across 12th Street from the Drop Inn Center, a place of refuge for them that gots nuthin. This is Washington Park, where official visions of a more upscale green space for a more upscale constituency leave no room for those who have nowhere else to go. This is Washington Park,

See Night, p. 5

A little wry humor can help any good cause, especially one that’s under assault. Thus the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless called its 2008 annual dinner “In the Zone” – a pointed reference to this season’s strategy in city council’s long war on homeless people.

“We chose ‘In the Zone’ as our theme this year because zoning has been such a battle,” said Georgine Getty, executive director of the Homeless Coalition. “My theory is that people don’t talk about zoning unless they’re up to no good.”

Among other initiatives that alarmed churches and charities in 2008, city council passed a resolution calling for limits on the number of human-services agencies in Over-the-Rhine.

The issue is now the subject of a civil-rights lawsuit in federal court.

The annual dinner, held Dec. 4 at Xavier University, featured the music of the Clark Montessori Steel Band, awards for homeless people and those who serve them and a stirring call to continue the struggle.

Getty enumerated some of the lies that have gained currency in discussions about poverty.

“Poor people are ruining our neighborhood. Social services are bad for development. Section 8 is to blame. Get a job. … This is the wrong story, and I’m tired of it,” she said.

“There are only two choices when you’re tired. You can go to

See Dinner, p. 5

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The Vibe

Streetwise

News Briefs Homeless Shelter Closing SEATTLE -- The city’s oldest homeless mission is closing as winter sets in, falling victim to economic difficulties.

CityTeam Ministries houses 55 men, 15 of whom are recovering from drug addiction. Based in California, CityTeam Ministries owes more than $250,000at a time of decreasing donations.

ACLU Fights Harassment LAGUNA BEACH, CALIF. – Civil rights attorneys filed a lawsuit last month in federal court accusing this coastal town and of engaging in a campaign of harassment against disabled homeless people.

The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, alleges that a city ban on sleeping on the street is unconstitutional. Laguna Beach has no year-round city-sponsored shelters. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of mentally and physically disabled homeless people.

The town of about 25,000 is famous for art galleries, festivals, upscale boutiques and luxury hilltop homes overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The median home price is $1.3 million. The city provides $15,000 a year to a 41-bed cold weather shelter run by local churches.

Record Number of Homeless Families NEW YORK – In the past year shelters in New York have seen a 40 percent jump in the number of homeless families with children seeking emergency housing, according to the Department of Homeless Services. Nearly 10,000 homeless families were in municipal shelters in December, the highest number in the 25 years that the city has collected the data. The number of homeless people in the city’s shelters has continued to climb during Mayor Bloomberg’s five-year plan to cut homelessness by twothirds, launched in 2004, “The recession in New York is unfortunately just beginning, but already we have surpassed the alltime record high of family homelessness in New York City,” Mary Brosnahan, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless.

By Gregory Flannery

Shoe City Council What You Think

Just when you thought contemporary journalism had given up the ghost and reporters had lost their sense of civic duty, along comes Muntadar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at president Bush, uttering the best sentence written to date about the U.S. War on Iraq: “This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog!” The Artful Dodger in Chief ducked both the leather missiles and the message, declaring afterward that he didn’t know what the man’s “beef” was.

Let us learn from this.

Times are too hard for most of us to afford the luxury of throwing our shoes at Cincinnati City Councilman Chris Bortz or other deserving politicians. But we can join the spirit of Muntadar al-Zaidi even on a shoestring budget. Let’s all mail a pair of shoestrings to Bortz, with a note saying, “Stop attacking poor people!” That way he’ll know what our beef is. The address is Chris Bortz, Cincinnati City Hall, 800 Plum St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.

Subhead

The generous people of Adath Israel threw something else last month: a holiday party for Streetvibes vendors. Members of the synagogue bought gifts for the vendors, who had been invited to ask for what they’d like. Some of the vendors asked for gifts for their children or grandchildren – being able to give presents at Christmas is one of the many pleasures usually out of reach for homeless people. Not content to have presented beautifully wrapped gifts, Adath Israel also served up a feast for the vendors: chili and cornbread and sacks of oranges and a vegetable tray and cookies and pastries.

Oh, Yes, We Did

Those clear-headed people who staff the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center remind us that, though a long struggle is ahead, 2008 ended with important victories in the movement to secure peace and justice for all people. The center’s newsletter lists many examples of progress, including: Veteran Cold War warriors Sam Nunn, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and George Schultz all have called for the elimination of nuclear weapons. …Veterans groups, churches and peace organizations have collaborated in opposing U.S. military action against Iran. …Norway, Iceland, New Zealand, and Costa Rica signed on to the UN Environmental Program’s Carbon Neutrality network. … The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Guantanamo detainees have the right to challenge their detention in federal courts. … As part of the 2008 Farm Bill, Congress significantly increased funding for federal food assistance programs -- approximately $10.3 billion over 10 years.

Nearly 20,000 Safeway and Giant workers in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore won raises, affordable healthcare and pension security. In Kentucky, Alabama and Tennessee, 9,000 Kroger employees won similar gains. … Pennsylvania became the first state joining the State and Local Sweatfree Consortium with a resolution that prohibits purchasing from sweatshops and promotes vendors and factories that meet standards for labor and human rights. … The Sierra Club effectively shut down 30 proposed coal-fired power plants by winning a victory before the EPA Environmental Appeals Board that would require all coal-fired power plants to use best available control technology for carbon dioxide. … Congress passed the Second Chance Act in March, which provides $362 million for programs of education and job training for prisoners and their families and offers alternatives to prison for parents convicted of nonviolent drug offenses.

Workers at the Cincinnati Rumpke Plant won significant concessions regarding fees and safety conditions. … Ohio voters approved a new payday lending law that cuts the annual percentage rate that lenders can charge to 28 percent. … Over the Rhine Community Housing has received a grant of $987,743 from the Federal Home Loan Bank to transform five buildings on Odeon Street into housing for the chronically homeless.

Oh, yeah, and we the people elected a president committed to ending the war in Iraq and building an economy that prospers all Americans. Quite a year, all in all. candlelight vigil and the reading of the names of the deceased, a simple but civilized act.

Moving on AND Continuing the Struggle

The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, which publishes Streetvibes, is undergoing major staffing changes. Georgine Getty, executive director for the past six years, leaves March 1 to become executive director of the Interfaith Hospitality Network. She’ll succeed Bob Moore, who is retiring. Andy Freeze, who has served as the Homeless Coalition’s education coordinator for the past two years, has moved to Washington, D.C., to become executive director of the North American Street Newspapers Association.

The changes on the staff, however, don’t mean the individuals involved are ending their work on behalf of homeless people. In her new position, Getty will work to help families in Greater Cincinnati to secure housing. Freeze, who coordinated the Streetvibes vendor program, will be expanding his portfolio, assisting street newspapers throughout the continent (see his farewell column on page 4). Moore, though beginning retirement, is still on the board of the Homeless Coalition.

Getty, whom we’ll pressure for a farewell column for next month’s edition, has been a tireless and articulate voice on behalf of homeless people, championing their cause through years of struggle against mean-spirited legislation by city council, including such infamous lowlights as the sweep of homeless camps, an ordinance requiring panhandlers to have licenses, cuts in human-services spending and efforts to use zoning to force human-services agencies out of Overthe-Rhine. Her work in advocacy will be greatly missed -- especially, we’re sure, by City Councilman Chris Bortz.

STREETVIBES January 2009 Streetvibes is a newspaper that provides relevant discussions of homelessness, poverty and other related social justice issues. It is published monthly by the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless.

Address: 117 East 12th Street Cincinnati, OH 45202 Phone: 513.421.7803 x 12 Fax: 513.421.7813 Email: streetvibes2@ yahoo.com Website: www. cincihomeless.org Blog: streetvibes. wordpress.com Streetvibes Staff Editor Gregory Flannery Contributing Writers Margo Pierce, Angela Pancella, Michael Henson, Larry Gross, Alyssa Konermann, Lew Moores, Dede Stoops, Alan Attwood, Brittany Middlebrooks, Terrence Williams, Bill Joiner Photography/Artwork Andrew Anderson, Andrew Freeze, Angela Pancella, Richard Blumberg, DeJong family, Alan Attwood, Berta Lambert, Lynne Ausman, Laura Damasceno Advisory Committee Joe Wessels, Steve Novotni, Andrew Freeze, Georgine Getty, Michael Henson, Stephanie Dunlap, Steve Gibbs The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Programs include Streetvibes, “Voice of the Homeless” Speaker’s Bureau, Cincinnati Urban Experience (CUE), Homeless Curriculum, and Homeless Civil Rights Organizing Project. All donations support these programs and are taxdeductible to the full extent of the law.

We are members of:

STREETVIBES January 2009

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Community News

Eight Minutes with a

‘Street Walker’ His services are of the social variety and strictly for the homeless

By Margo Pierce Contributing Writer

W

hen Chico walks the streets, he’s looking to connect with the people rarely sought out by others -those who sleep in doorways, root through trash cans and push carts full of stuff.

Chico Lockhart goes looking for people who live under bridges and shoot up in alleyways because he wants to help them.

As the outreach specialist for Downtown Cincinnati Inc., Lockhart’s office is the streets; and his hours, when there isn’t a special event in the evening, are from 10 a.m.6:30 p.m. weekdays. He’ll work later on event nights so he doesn’t miss the opportunity to meet and get to know people who might need and want assistance.

“I walk around the downtown city district and engage individuals that are homeless and panhandling in the street and try to find out what their issues are in order to get them engaged with social services and getting them connected to get into housing,” he says.

“It takes persistence. A lot

of the people on the streets know who I am now, and they refer friends to me once I help them, so we’ve had plenty of successes.”

A homeless couple who couldn’t find a shelter willing to take them in together is now in temporary housing, and one of them is about to begin a new job. That’s success story number one. Then there’s “Alex.”

“He’d been homeless for about 23 years because he was a (former) sex offender,” Lockhart says. “He was illiterate and he didn’t know which direction to go. I was able to get him connected to an agency by the name of CILO, which helped him with getting into an apartment. They were paying his rent for three months. He’s been in there for four or five months, so he’s doing well.”

CILO, the Center for In-

get help from social service agencies, they have to get a homeless certification,” Lockhart explains. “It’s a document certifying that this person is actually homeless. Most individuals have to go over to the Drop Inn Center or some kind of shelter and stay there for numerous days in order to get the homeless certification. But as an outreach worker, I’m actually able to certify people by myself, so a lot of individuals come to me first to get certified.

“Say, for instance, someone doesn’t have any medical care or dental care – it’s a way to access those services. They can go to McMicken Dental Clinic and say they have a homeless certification, which is all computerized, and McMicken Dental can pull up their certification and serve them.”

What could be perceived

“We’re trying to focus on helping individuals as opposed to just locking them up. I have no problems with the police, and we’ve been collaborating on trying to help individuals.”

- Chico Lockhart dependent Living Options, is one of the many agencies providing services to Lockhart’s street people. Goodwill Industries, the Salvation Army and the McMicken Dental Clinic are a few of the others. Before the agencies can assist a homeless person, she must be certified.

“Any individual that’s looking to get off the streets and

as yet another attempt by the business community to get rid of the unsightly homeless population milling around the business district is actually a carefully thought out and well constructed program.

Lockhart says people who are worried about someone loitering or being overly aggressive when panhandling will call him before they call

Chico Lockhart, the outreach specialist for Downtown Cincinnati Inc.. Photos by Andrew Anderson

the police.

“We’re trying to focus on helping individuals as opposed to just locking them up,” he says. “I have no problems with the police, and we’ve been collaborating on trying to help individuals. On several occasions police officers have called me as opposed to just taking them to jail to see if we can get them the social services they need.”

The process of getting those services begins with identifying individual needs and offering options.

“I have to decide what issues they have – substance abuse or mental health,” Lockhart says.

“I make sure that I get them connected to the right agency before we place them in housing. That way they have ongoing support. I don’t make the decisions for the individuals. What I like to do is give them options, let them decide which route they want to go, and then that way we can go from there.”

While getting to know the individuals who are sometimes lumped into the homogenous grouping of “homeless,” Lockhart has earned their respect. Friends refer friends because he has helped without judging. He’s not on a mission to save their souls; he just wants to help.

That honest approach offers a bit of protection in what could be potentially dangerous situations.

“When you’re going and engaging people under a bridge or you have a large crowd of homeless individu-

als … you’re going to know one of them,” Lockhart says.

“A lot of people understand what I do down here, that I’ve helped a lot of their friends, so I really don’t have that problem with feeling fearful.

“But you do have to keep your guard up when you go into an alley or engaging people under the influence – whatever the case may be.”

Even though he usually walks the streets downtown, Lockhart isn’t going to turn down a request for help. He occasionally gets calls from people in other communities, and during large events he’ll meet up with homeless people visiting from Kentucky. He’ll do what he can. That’s why he shares his phone number with anyone who wants it.

“If you encounter people who are homeless or in need of some services … give me a call and I can see how I can point them in the right direction to get them the services they need, as opposed to just calling the police and get them locked up,” he says. “These individuals are going through some issues, and they need someone who is going to engage with them and try to help them in any way they need assistance.”

That number? 513-2667135. Use it.

Many people work hard to make a difference for the less privileged in Greater Cincinnati. “Eight Minutes” is an effort to learn who they are and what motivates them.

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Community News

Hitting the Streets

of each paper are the connection between all of the papers across North America.

As I leave Streetvibes, I am confident that the staff will continue to produce a quality newspaper with articles and stories that no one else is covering.

Our vendors will be the consistent factor, working tirelessly to earn their living. They will be standing on street corners and intersections with a smile, looking to provide you with the latest news.

I have had a wonderful opportunity the last two years to work with a very Andy Freeze (Right), executive director of the North American Street Newspaper talented group of Association, with Raynard Jones (Left), Streetvibes vendor. Photo by Georgine Getty. people and am excited about the

By Andy Freeze jobs while work to provide pers were started each year. future of StreetContributing Writer quality publications on home- While many of these papers vibes. It will continue to grow less and other social-justice is- never really took off, some of and will continue to get betI want to take this oppor- sues. The papers ranged from the largest street papers today ter. tunity to thank the Greater weekly publications to four started during the mid-1990s, Thank you to the readers Cincinnati Coalition for the times a year. including L’Itineraire in Mon- for your support, your words Homeless, the staff, StreetThe roots of street newspa- treal and Real Change in Se- of encouragement, your letvibes vendors pers go back attle. ters of disagreement, your Thank you to the and many to the 19th The position I am taking compliments and most of all readers for your supporters century, when is the executive director of your support of our wonderful that I have support, your words the Salvation the North American Street vendors. I look forward to my met along the cre- Newspapers Association. So new job but will always have of encouragement, Army way the past ated the War in some way I will continue to a special place in my heart for your letters of two years.

Cry, a weekly work with Streetvibes and the Streetvibes and the Greater It was two disagreement, your p u b l i c a t i o n staff at the Greater Cincinnati Cincinnati Coalition for the compliments and years ago that in Cleveland. Coalition for the Homeless.

Homeless. most of all your I started as a From 1872 to M y volunteer and the 1920s the n e w support of our soon there- wonderful vendors. Christian-in- j o b after became fluenced paper w i l l the education was sold on w o r k coordinator for the Homeless street corners to help explain to help Coalition. In that position I to the public how they could papers worked closely with more help the needy. Several other across than 40 Streetvibes vendors papers followed the War Cry, N o r t h each month. I worked with but most of them were pub- Amerthe late Jimmy Heath on put- lished by religious organiza- i c a ting together Streetvibes each tions, and few used homeless g r o w month. vendors to sell the papers. a n d Jimmy taught me everyThe first secular street news- p r o thing from working with the papers did not appear until the d u c e vendors to writing stories to 1970s. Portland, Ore., claims b e t t e r taking photographs to lay- to have had the first modern p r o d ing out the paper. My interest street newspaper, the now de- ucts, as peaked, and I wanted to learn funct Homeless Times, which well as as much as possible. was founded in 1972. The old- to start In the spring of 2007 I est existing street paper today s t r e e t signed up to attend the North is Street Sheet in San Fran- n e w s American Street Newspapers cisco, which came out with its papers Association conference in first issue in December 1989. in othPortland, Ore. The conference The modern street newspa- er parts summer provided a wonderful per movement really took off of the opportunity to network and in the 1990s as public policy c o n t i meet people from across North towards the poor changed and nent.

America who were provid- as desktop publishing became T h e Andy Freeze gives a presentation to high school ing homeless and low-income readily available. In the mid- v e n - students about homelessness. Photo courtesy of people with entrepreneurial 1990s, an average of five pa- d o r s GCCH.

Moving on with the street-paper movement

STREETVIBES January 2009

Poetry The Lump?

By Holly Parker

As I sat there and listened I tried to figure it out A lump they said it was Had crept into her breast First off what is a breast?

I don’t understand That’s my aunt they have in there She don’t have breast She’s my aunt A lump?

I get one caught in my throat every time I remember Cancer, I don’t understand They say she did nothing wrong So why did this have to happen to her It got bigger and bigger they say Till one then both her breast they had to take I still don’t understand everyone is all upset I am crying too Because today we laid my aunt to rest As a child I remember her sweet voice Calling me in for a snack She was all flat up top Not like most women Cancer did it they said Why did it have to take my aunt It’s a thief they say She didn’t have the money Or insurance back then She worked hard every day Taking care of my cousin Till Breast Cancer took her slowly away I remember her smile, her strength Never give up she said God has it all in control He knows someone one day Will find strength because of me And you know she was right Because today I write this poem In my aunts honor And all that have won the fight Or in the fight Against Breast Cancer That slips in they call it The lump.........

God used them to teach us Get tested Take care of yourself Don’t suffer alone She said it wasn’t a thief It was a test She won For now with our father she is home.......

STREETVIBES January 2009

Community News

Annual Dinner, continued from page 1 sleep or you can wake up.”

Keynote speaker Peter Block mocked city council for arguing there are too many social-services agencies in Over-the-Rhine.

“They say we have too many social-service agencies in Over-the-Rhine,” Block said. “Someone counted 113.

I say, ‘Good.’ Every small social-service agency is a center of democracy.”

Why, he asked, hasn’t the city regulated the number of shoe stores at shopping malls?

“I think we should get together with city council and decide how many Indian restaurants in Clifton is the right amount,” he said.

Saluting the agencies that work to help homeless people, Block said the city should encourage, not restrict them.

“Everybody that’s vulnerable in this society is my sister or my brother or my parents,” he said.

Block, a best-selling author on management, talked about

his sister, who has been homeless. He described his wish to help her, to “fix her,” he said.

Treatment and medication once stabilized her mental illness, but then she chose to go back to the life she preferred, the one that seemed to need fixing.

“She said, ‘I know I’m better. I know I’m healthier, but I’m not myself,’ ” Block said.

The lesson, he said, is that people are to be accepted, not engineered into a form that makes others comfortable.

“The idea that we can fix people, to me, is part of the problem,” Block said.

Even while offering services, society must accentuate individuals’ talents and gifts, rather than their apparent deficiencies, he said.

“There’s no evidence that the aggregation of people by their deficiencies does anybody any good,” Block said.

“I want to have the conversation of compassion, the conversation of gratitude. I want to start a conversation about people’s gifts and strengths.”

To that end, the Homeless

Coalition honored the people who are already holding that conversation: * Brandon Nelson, Streetvibes Vendor of the Year; * Mike Rogers, recipient of the Jimmy Render Award; * Individual Service Provider of the Year: Vivian Goodwin, operations coordinator at the YWCA Homeless Women’s Shelter; * Agency Service Provider of Georgine Getty, executive director of the Year: Over-the- the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Rhine Community Homeless. Photo by Andrew Anderson.

Housing, whose Store FoodBank, Tom Geiger executive director, Mary Burke, quipped, “Now House, Tender Mercies and that the city knows we’re a other agencies.

“I just did a lot of little service provider, we’ll be things,” Karl said. zoned out”; That’s cause for celebra* Buddy Gray Lifetime tion.

Achievement Award: Sally Karl, who has spent 20 Photos from the Annual years working at the FreeDinner on page 8.

The Longest Night, continued from page 1

Photo by Andrew Anderson.

where the city has banned the those who died of exposure. distribution of food to hungry This is for those who died of people. malnutrition and diabetes and This is the shortest day of other chronic untreated illthe year. This is Homeless nesses. This is for those who Memorial Day. were beaten to death or set This is for aflame because This is the Zachary Hubtheir poverty shortest day of bard. This is evoked hatred for Albert Sumand brutality in the year. This merlin.

This others. This is is Homeless is for Burnett for those who Memorial Day. North. This is killed themfor Doug Meyselves. This is ers. This is for for those who Don Henry. This is for Al- drank themselves to death. fanso Huff. This is for Earlene This is for those who drugged Moreland. This is for Jesse themselves to eternal rest.

Whigham. This is for DemAn advocate for the homeetrius Wood. This is for James less speaks quietly: “This is Broomfield. This is for Ricky the longest night of the year.

Malone. This is for George That’s why it’s Homeless MeHawkins. This is for Doug morial Day. Every year we Meyer. This is for Bob Sayed. hope it will be the last one.”

This is for Candace Mason.

A young woman leads a This is for Floyd. This is for song: “Come and go with me Hammond. This is for Carl to that land, come and go with Vickroy. This is for William. me to that land, come and go This is for Vernon. This is for with me to that land where Barry.

I’m bound.”

This is for the homeless No one is homeless in the who died unnoticed. This is for grave, where we’re bound.

Cleo’s Joke Corner What is Santa Claus’ favorite sandwich? It is peanut butter and jolly.

What kind of dog has a lot of ticks but is a good dog? A watchdog.

5

News Briefs Hunger on the Rise The FreeStore FoodBank saw a 20 percent increase in the number of people in Greater Cincinnati seeking emergency food assistance during the 2008 holiday season.

During the three days prior to Thanksgiving and Christmas, the FreeStore provided food for 18,363 households, serving 49,614 people. The agency distributed 629,752 pounds of food.

Census Bureau is Hiring The U.S. Census Bureau is seeking to fill 1,000 new jobs to conduct the 2010 Census in Greater Cincinnati. The Census is hiring both office staff and field staff. The office positions include office clerk, recruiting assistant, administrative assistant and office operations supervisor. The field positions include enumerator, crew leader, crew leader assistant and field operations supervisor. The pay range for available positions is between $12 and $19 per hour.

The local office of the Census Bureau is currently performing placement testing for new positions at the Census office at 801 Linn St. in the West End. To schedule a testing appointment, call 1-866-861-2010 or 513-766-3040. The test takes about 30 minutes.

Resisting Capital Punishment One day of requests by the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center in Over-the-Rhine led to 770 cards to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, asking him to stop the execution of Brett Hartmann. The state is scheduled to forcibly poison Hartmann on April 7.

The number of death sentences and executions across the United States dropped in 2008, according to CNN. Last year Americans killed 37 prisoners, the lowest amount in 14 years. In addition, the number of new death sentences handed up by courts in the United States totaled 111, the lowest figure since 1976, CNN reported.

The state of Ohio killed two prisoners last year.

6

Community News

STREETVIBES January 2009

Beaten for Being Homeless

Ohio says it’s not a ‘hate crime’ but victims know better Hate crimes are characterBy Alyssa Konermann ized as being motivated by Staff Writer hostility towards a victim on account of membership to a “The homeless living on the group. Based on this definistreet get jumped a lot. People tion, Zack’s attack was a hate won’t help, and hospitals don’t crime: The perpetrators knew help,” says Zack R. nothing of him except his staFor Zack, this statement tus as homeless, and for this, was unfortuthey beat him.

“Four people nately not a “I guess the vague notion, jumped out of the people who but rather a weeds and attacked aren’t homefirsthand exless think they me, beat me,” perience. are better than Originally everyone and from Western Kentucky, Zack can do whatever they want,” was kicked out by his mother Zack says. six months ago and came to The homeless, however, are Cincinnati for his fiancée. not protected under Ohio’s Once here, he found himself hate-crimes laws. The state’s without housing and forced only protection from hate to live by the Ohio River with crimes comes from the Eth- Zack, a homeless youth living on the streets, was attacked at his camp on Freeman Avenue.

Photo by Alyssa Konermann. his brother. nic Intimidation Law, which Several weeks ago Zack requires harsher sentencing some years we don’t have any There was also one man who people in the media is negawas set on fire while he slept. tive and this is exasperated by was attacked at his camp on for crimes motivated by bias reported at all.”

Ohio is ranked the fourth He also died from his injuries. politicians who blame homeFreeman Avenue. against race, color, religion or most dangerous state for the Cleveland had an incident a less people for ‘ruining down“Four people jumped out national origin. homeless. few years ago where young town,’ ” Getty says. “This can of the weeds and attacked me, “Hate crimes “ T h e people were using stun guns lead to a vigilante attitude, esbeat me,” he says. “They all fluctuate in Ohio,” “We’ve had several worst are on homeless people as they pecially in young people, who seemed to be about 16 or 17 says Georgine people who were the years slept.” feel that no one cares about years old. I didn’t know any of Getty, director of beaten and a few we have Perhaps most troubling is their victims and that they are them.” the Greater CinZack’s brother took him to cinnati Coalition who died from their h o m i - that “most of these hate crimes ‘cleaning up’ their city.”

“This has been happening Christ Hospital after the at- for the Homeinjuries. There was c i d e s , ” are committed by groups of G e t t y young men—ages 14 to 18,” to a lot of homeless recently,” tack. less. “The Naone man who was says. “In according to Getty.

Zack says. “There are about “They X-rayed me, but tional Coalition set on fire while he the past To counter this, both the 30 or 40 people living down didn’t do anything else,” for the Homeless slept.

He died from decade in Cincinnati and National by the river — a lot more than Zack says. “They reported it has been tracking his injuries.”

Cincinna- Homeless Coalitions work there used to be. It seems reto the police, but the police them for years; ti, we’ve extensively to educate high lated to the economy. The never came in. It has been and some years - Georgine Getty had sever- school students about home- homeless need a whole lot two weeks and I still have six we’re among al people lessness. more help than people are givcracked ribs, a broken jaw, the worst states “Unfortunately, all you ing.” and I haven’t been able to eat in the country, up there with who were beaten and a few a real meal yet.”

California and Florida, and who died from their injuries. normally see about homeless

Letter to the Editor To the Editor: I have just read the book by Carol Rainey on nuclear sites in our area, and I was glad to see Greg Flannery’s full-page review of it in Streetvibes, a work titled 100 Miles from Home: Nuclear Contamination in the Ohio River Valley.

I believe that in time this book will become well known around the country, as we count up once more the terrible costs of war machines and weapon-making, the damage they do to people and the earth.

Greg Flannery opened his review with a very compelling sentence: “The Ohio River

Valley is a victim of nuclear war -- and the aggressor is our own government.”

That is the absolute truth of the matter. As Greg reports, Rainey describes six sites of nuclear weapon making, and readers may find, as I did, that they had never realized before the vast scale of these operations. Whole communities were left devastated, whole villages wiped out, leaving miles and miles of wasteland where nothing will be fully safe again.

100 Miles seems to me a monumental work involving years of study and research.

It’s most carefully documented. Yet Rainey has taken what

must have been rooms of notecards and photocopies, books and newsletters and newsprint of all kinds and from them extracted a picture of these immense activities that is under 200 pages of clear and logical narration. It is a task that may never need to be repeated.

I have written about radiation injury and death in Cincinnati in a book about cancer patients swept into military experiments in our hospital, and I have a good idea of what the workers and residents at Fernald and other plants have suffered. Was it not known in advance, one might ask, that workers crawling through radioactive pipes for repairs

would suffer multiple tumors of head and neck? That the air we breathe, the water we drink, might be infected?

Cincinnati has been an Atomic City in more ways than one.

We must learn from this tragic past. After all, we did not need all the terrible weapons we concocted at Fernald and Portsmouth and the other nuclear sites up and down river from Cincinnati. Rainey reminds us that during the Cold War we came to possess 40 times more weapons of mass destruction than the Soviet Union. The enemy we met was, as Greg Flannery puts it, simply ourselves.

Carol Rainey is an author whose poetry and other writings have been much admired here. It feels good to support original works like 100 Miles from Home, which can tell us hard truths about ourselves we might otherwise never know.

100 Miles can be ordered for $19 (shipping included) from Cyndell Press, 1497 Beacon St., Cincinnati, OH 45230.

Martha Stephens Martha Stephens is the author of The Treatment: the Story of Those Who Died in the Cincinnati Radiation Tests, Duke University Press 2002.

Want more Streetvibes? Check out the new Streetvibes blog for discussion and coverage of other issues between editions. streetvibes.wordpress.com

STREETVIBES January 2009

7

Local News

Stickin’ it Wit The Most High Homeless by choice, seeking something

with God. These tangents sometimes seem to flow toward the same end, that he has been blessed.

He was destined for this life.

By Paul Kopp He is measured in his speech, Contributing Writer sure of himself and confident aviyD is talking ‘bout yet pious enough that you the most high. If you can tell he is a real genuine. ask him what his life is like, Puffed up in his jacket and he will tell you it’s some real surrounded by his few borlife biblical type shit. What is rowed belongings, which include some books (one of the most high?

“The most high is god -- them called, What is a FamJesus or Muhammad. These ily?), a small portable radio are different names for the and a manila notepad with a same thing,” he says, his freshly drawn sketch of some hands perched upon a small sort. A kind of emblem. It is space heater. He is holding a giant pot leaf with a crown in hand-rolled cigarette over the the center. Circling the leaf is flame of a lighter half-intently an inscription that reads “Dawatching its embers begin to viyD, all blessings to the most glow and not giving any indi- high.”

He is slow to talk about the cation that he will put it to his outlines of his life. He was mouth. born and raised a foster child in Mar“I dove head-in first into ion, Ind. Growing spirituality. Some would say up, DaviyD was Christianity, some would very aware of his say Catholic, some would status as a foster kid. say Jehovah’s Witness.

“I knew I was, Well I just went all out truth. but people in the Homeless, justice.” family would whis-Daviyd per and have little discussions about “Man, I’ve been sitting here it,” he says.

DaviyD doesn’t have any the past couple days thinking ‘bout how I ended up on this recollection of the time he spent in an orphanage from couch,” he says.

DaviyD is homeless and ages 1 to 4. He has, however, currently spending nights in met a family who said he was the basement of an Over-the- abused at the orphanage and Rhine warehouse that has that they took care of him for been turned into a loft-style a short while when he was a apartment building. His eyes baby.

Joining the army at age 17, are big and always seem to be at ease. DaviyD is not used he spent time in Germany and to talking about himself. He then Korea right around the doesn’t necessarily like it, but time Desert Storm was in full is very open and willing to. effect. Upon his return to the In between answering basic states, he was stationed in Calquestions about his life, he ifornia near where his mothconsistently returns to talking ers’ relatives were living.

After his discharge he about the most high, his spirituality and his life long walk worked in the restaurant busi-

D

DaviyD, Photo by Noah Rabinowitz ness but, never being quite satisfied, he drifted around the country from job to job and eventually ended up back in Cincinnati around 1995.

“I don’t know why I came back,” he says. “I was just praying and meditating and I felt I needed to be here.”

Once he was back in the city DaviyD began hustling, selling large amounts of marijuana while attending the University of Cincinnati for nursing administration. He dropped out shortly after the beginning of his sophomore year. During this period of his life he notes that he momentarily had lost touch with the most high. This developed out of a few disagreements with local churches. If he felt the preacher was incorrect in his sermon, would stand up in the middle of congregation and let him know how he felt.

It was soon after these experiences that DaviyD began seriously considering “pulling out of the grid,” as he calls it. He believes the most high was calling him to the streets.

This presence of God calling him is the most important part of his life. After completely

disassociating himself from mainstream society in 2000, DaviyD became completely conscious that he was going on a journey to prove something. When asked what he was trying to prove, he mentions the most high. He talks about ones coming forward and telling him, “This is who you are; this is the walk you gotta walk”. It was like a sort of prophecy for him. He’s a spiritual cat.

Although the circumstances of his life can at times seem a bit muddled, it is easy to tell that these things don’t particularly matter to him.

“I dove head-in first into spirituality,” he says. “Some would say Christianity, some would say Catholic, some would say Jehovah’s Witness.

Well I just went all out truth.

Homeless, justice.”

When the word “homeless” comes up in conversation, it becomes clear that DaviyD took it upon himself. He is a smart man; he does not need to be homeless, and he knows this. He has chosen this path and, in his own words, felt God would always provide him with the things he needs

to survive. He says he has never stayed in a homeless shelter.

A man showed up at the apartment building in late November with orders to clear out all the things from the floor DaviyD is staying on, things that have been left by past tenants, possibly DaviyD’s couch.

With his veterans check due to arrive the first of December, he says he might be ready to stop walking the streets everyday. He believes his pay from the government is his admission to enter back into society.

“I called up my dude, and he says I can stay with him and his girl up in Corryville,” DaviyD says, pacing slowly back and forth, close to the door. “I just found out he lives with his mom!”

It’s true DaviyD might be leaving soon. He speaks so much that he is ready for change. He is trying to find that balance. In the eight years he’s spent on the streets, it’s possible that he wanted to simply lose himself to find out what was really important in life.

Only purchase Streetvibes from BADGED vendors.

Vendors wear their WHITE badges while they sell the paper.

8

STREETVIBES January 2009

Short Story

Hidden Homeless of the Ivory Tower Higher education and lowered expectations

DL, but we were pretty into each other. After nearly a week of unusually long hugs, public handholding and sleeping in the same bed, Ye’s father became suspicious. When his friend left, Ye’s father asked him a simple question: Did you have sex with that young man?

“I’m not into lying,” Ye says, “especially to my parents.”

So he said yes.

“And then I realized — at that moment — that my father

is determined by God, not by who pays rent,” he says.

So, at the age of 17, Ye found himself in search of another place to live.

* * *

Among the privileged elite of Yale, Ye might seem anomalous. But he is, in fact, part of a small percentage of the stu“There was one rule in my dent body who has flirted with father’s apartment: I could not homelessness — a situation have sex with anyone, at all, perhaps unfathomable to the while I lived with him. Sex majority of anywhere else was fine — as Among the privileged elite of Yale, Ye might the student long as he didn’t seem anomalous. But he is, in fact, part of body.

And beknow about it.” a small percentage of the student body who cause of Sitting on his couch in his Yale has flirted with homelessness — a situation the stigma University dorm perhaps unfathomable to the majority of the attached to homelessroom, Qiang student body. ness, few Ye (not his real students name), Class is a fundamentalist Christian,” are eager to share their expeof ’08, continues matter-ofhe recalls five years later. riences, even with their closfactly.

Although he tried, nego- est friends. For this article, all “So I came home with this tiation was fruitless. At one the once-homeless students guy from (boarding) school point, Ye suggested flattening — and the friends and family who I had this huge crush on,” the parent-child structure, as affiliated with them — asked he says, “and we spent, like, he contributed to the payment to remain anonymous; their four days having really inof living expenses. His father, names have been changed so tense sexual encounters … in however, had none of it. Ye that their stories can be told. my father’s home. smiles ruefully.

Some, though, chose to “We tried to keep it on the “The father-son hierarchy write about them in their apBy Sibongile Sithe Contributing Writer

plications to Yale.

“It does come up,” Dean of Admissions Jeffrey Brenzel says in an e-mail, “but only very rarely.”

Like the rest of their classmates, these students deal with the stress of academics, athletics and a perpetually looming p o s t - Ya l e future. But more so than Harkness Tower at Yale University: Academic most, they grandeur can hide homelessness. worry about where they * * * will go when dorms close for the semester.

Caleb Lucas, class of ’10, For Ye and other students like him, leaving Yale there- drives a simple four-door sefore means not just finding a dan. It’s cheaper than an apartway home, but finding home ment and easier to move. Two weeks itself. ago he See Yale p. 15

Photographs from “In the Zone: Redrawing Community”

Brandon Nelson (right), Streetvibes Vendor of the Year, receiving his Streetvibes jacket from Kenny Havens (left), case worker at the Drop Inn Center. Photo by Andrew Anderson

Bren Blaine (left), former executive director of Tender Mercies, presenting Sally Karl (right) with the Buddy Gray Lifetime Achievement Award.

Photo by Andrew Anderson.

Peter Block, keynote speaker, discussed homelessness and community. Photo by Andrew Anderson.

STREETVIBES January 2009

9

Poetry/Photographs

The Woman at the Well

By Mike Henson

I. She shuffles into the park in her big buckety boots, stumble-stupid, sag-eyed, double-damned drunk. She smells of sweat and cheap wine, a muttering haystack in her big, loose coat.

The black flog of a braid falls down her back.

The park is full of people who would rather ignore her,

III. Dawn, and the river mists ghost about the park.

She feels a hand at her shoulder and a voice at her ear.

but she mutters and shuffles

The hand shakes her and the voice says,

into the unavoidable midst of them

“Wake up, babe. You can’t stay here.”

and down to the fountain.

He probably says more,

Mothers steer their children away

but his words are buried beneath her curses.

and a cop in his cruiser

It takes her a moment

watches with a long, suspicious eye,

to curse some clarity into her mind,

but she pays them no nevermind.

and by then, the man has gone to wait near the fountain.

She wants to hear the waters of the fountain cascade and overlap like a mountain stream and when a little wind kicks up, the waters bless her with spray.

The sound and the spray are enough to make a person sing.

And so she sings, one of the old songs of her people.

Her throat has gone coarse with alcohol;

The iron-colored light spikes her eyes and drives through her skull like an axe and she aches ---my God, she aches. She curses and cries and mutters against the stranger whose hand has wakened her to this half-blind, brain-boltered muggleton of a situation,

she croaks like a heron

but she is awake and cursing into the foggy light.

and her voice wobbles up and down the scale.

Her head aches, her body aches,

The children stop their play to listen

and she does not know this place

and the mothers watch sidelong and suspicious,

and she does not know this man

but the woman croaks and warbles without shame.

how she came to be cursing in this bed of needles

She shuffles with her song to a place in the trees at the edge of the park.

and she does not know

and sings as the hour darkens.

The shadows of the children grow long in the grass.

II. The woman cannot now remember the shame that brought her to drink.

She drinks now to relieve the shame of drinking. and it works, so she sings, shameless and free, her heron-croak song in the old words she does not understand.

When she finds an end to the song, the mothers are gone with their safe children and the cop has taken his suspicious eye to some other corner.

Alone, beneath the fir tree, she pulls on the last of her wine.

She watches the mists rise from the river and gather at the fountain.

She mutters another snatch of song, then stretches out to sleep.

Photo by Ben L. Kaufman

Berta’s Art Corner

with her clothes all odorous of sap and sweat.

IV.

She sits in the needle bed beneath a great fir

An encounter in Florence, Italy: Are you a combat casualty?

“No, industrial accident,” he said. Lost both legs and had severe damage to one arm.

His shoes were shined. This is his job.

He doesn’t work Sundays.

That’s his choice.

This man who woke her wears a long black coat and there is about him something terrible and redemptive.

She fears him, but she wants to know Why did he wake her?

What does he want?

He stands in the mist at the curb of the fountain. where the waterfall sound is enough to make a person sing.

But without the wine she cannot sing.

She does not know him, and her head is hammered with hangover but she thinks she knows how this story will turn out -- this whole damn story -and she hopes there will be wine enough to forget it all again.

She reaches for the bottle -- the empty, terrible, traitorous bottle -and her hand begins to tremble.

“Opera at the Bus Stop” Downtown Cincinnati

10

STREETVIBES January 2009

Column

New Year Notes

Michael Henson is author of Ransack, A Small Room with Trouble on My Mind, The Tao of Longing and Crow Call. This column is part of a monthly series on poverty and addiction.

Hope rises in the face of war, heartbreak, and city council

A new year, a new season.

A new hope?

We do not know yet what promise this new year holds, but we know it closes a bitter, wasteful, ugly chapter in human history. Will this new season bring back a sense of balance, community and compassion to our lives? Will it end a time when brute ignorance and full-face greed held sway?

We can only hope. *****

In Cincinnati, where I live, it rains in winter much more than it snows. For a day or more at a time, the rains will range from a drizzle to a downpour, relentless, seemingly endless affairs that chill the body and dampen the soul.

In the midst of the first of these winter rains, at 11:30 in the morning, I saw a man laid out across the stoop of a shut-down corner bar, fully enclosed inside his sleeping bag like a caterpillar inside its cocoon. He had a backpack and a pair of satchels beside him. He did not move at all that I could see. He could have been dead for all I could tell. I paused for just a moment -- I had business to tend to in the coffee shop down the street -but I thought about him for the better part of an hour before I came back.

By then he was sitting up, looking around him in a groggy, half-dazed manner, pretty

much as the rest of us do when we first wake up.

I think of him now as an emblem -- a sign that tells me something about hope. His bed is hard, but he’s alive.

He sleeps a hard sleep, but he rises again. The rest of us have bigger cocoons, but we’re still vulnerable to the storms of life. And yet we rise; we look about us. We’re groggy and unsure of what we’re seeing, where we are, or why we’re here.

My daughter in New York City tells me a story of her friend Hope. Yes, that is her name.

Hope goes every day for several years to a little East Village bodega (we would call it a pony keg) for coffee or a bagel. The bodega is run by a man from Korea and, because she comes in nearly every day for several years, Hope befriends him and they talk.

The bodega stays busy, so she is not surprised to hear that it is successful, that it provides him a living.

But she is surBy Michael Henson prised to hear about his $7 million house in MonBut we’re here. tauk and the property he owns One more day. One more around town. So maybe he year. makes a little money on real estate as well. It could be. ***** Then, on a particular day, as she talks with her Korean In the calendar of the Chris- friend about this and that, in tian faith, the new year is the walks a desperate-looking season that celebrates the time woman who wants the ownwhen the baby Jesus, accord- er’s attention. The woman lays ing to the custom of his peo- down a crumpled bill, and the ple, was taken to be presented man hands her a small enveat the temple. There he is tak- lope. The woman looks in the en as a sign and a wonder, the envelope and says, “No, not being who embodies the hope this one, the other one.” So the of a people. man hands her another and the I would like to think that ev- woman is satisfied. Then she ery child is a sign and a won- asks for a little glass pipe with der. I would like to think that a rose in it. every being embodies some “I’ll get you for it later,” she measure of hope. tells him, and she leaves.

Hope knows by now this is ***** not a coffee and a bagel sort of transaction. She asks the man,

ammered H

“What did you just sell that woman?”

He ignores her at first, but she keeps asking. So he tells her. “Crack.”

“How could you sell that woman crack?”

He rings up her bagel and her coffee and shuts his tiller.

“You,” he says, “are a baby.”

and say, “You are a baby” and keep selling whatever ugly thing they are selling. Hope is not an easy thing.

The story of this season is not an easy story. We like to celebrate around it, but at its core, the story of that baby is a story of exile, hardship, massacre of the innocents, poverty -- the whole heartbreak. And if conditions today are any sign, ***** easy stories will still be hard to come by. Of the children A baby. born this season, far too many A sign and a wonder. will be born to the chatter of A new guns, far year and Of the children born this too many a new under a season, far too many will c h e m i c a l hope. be born to the chatter of B u t haze, far hope has guns, far too many under too many a lot of to will a chemical haze, far too catching never see a many to will never see a up to school, too school, too many will be do. The many will given a weapon before factobe given ries are they are given a book, too a weapon shutting before they many, far too many will down. are given a never sing.

T h e book, too houses many, far are foreclosing. The savings too many will never sing. we counted on are evaporatCan we turn such a situaing. The wars drag on. And tion around? I hope we can. If city council wants to close the we cannot hope we can, then homeless shelters. When that what hope is there? child was brought to the temBut hope always has to walk ple, he was lifted up and seen a stony path. Hope always as a sign and a wonder, a new has the wind against it. And hope for those who were bur- yet hope is like my man on dened and oppressed. People the stoop. It wakes up, looks of hope look around and think: around, and gets up. It pulls its This has to change. This can second-hand coat tighter, and change. People who have cast goes on. And on. aside hope look at the hopeful

Book Review

A Symphony of Memes ‘The Soloist’ wants us to believe in spite of it all

By David Heitfield Contributing Writer One thought seared in my brain from the prologue of this book, borne from a series of columns written by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, when the author beckoned, “I’ll be back” to the homeless man he’d just met, foreshadowing the Hollywood story treatment to come: What in the hell happened to this country?

The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship and the Redemptive Power of Mu-

sic is a good story, and it’s ties get involved, and Lopez told with the yeoman-like ef- at least comes out as a much ficiency you would expect of richer man for having known a professional journalist, with Ayers. The movie, starring the proper tugs of the heart Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie strings at the right “human in- Foxx, was due to come out in November, but has since been terest” moments.

Nathaniel Anthony Ayers pushed forward several times to what is currentis a homeless schizophrenic, How could we, ly an April 2009 originally from as a society, al- release.

Given the subCleveland, who low a man with ject of this story was a classmate such commer- – homeless man of cellist Yo-Yo Ma at Juilliard. cial potential to with mental illness Lopez “dissimply whither treated indifferentcovers” him in away? Attention ly (and worse) by society – I cannot Skid Row in must be paid. help but think of L.A., writes a the popular work few columns, and his readers respond with that brought light to the “proban outpouring of meaning- lem” of the mentally ill when less gestures, such as donat- I was younger, which also ing old musical instruments. eventually got a Hollywood Not everything goes well, but treatment: Ken Kesey’s One Lopez tries hard, some good Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

It wouldn’t be fair to comtimes are had, some celebri-

pare the works directly, of course, but my interest is one of memes, since The Soloist is nothing if not a contemporary American meme-fest (heck, you have “dreams,” “friendship,” “redemption” and “music,” and that’s just in the subtitle). R.P. McMurphy was not mentally ill – in that generation, we apparently locked up too many people as mentally ill, rather than dumped them in the street as incurably uninsurable – but his message couldn’t have been more clear: You have worth and dignity as a human life, as a sentient being, and don’t let the Nurse Ratcheds of the world take it away from you.

As a protagonist, McMurphy could hardly have been less sympathetic. Convicted of statutory rape, there was nothing to admire about the man – except as a catalyst to

return a little dignity to the voluntary inmates of the asylum. Ignore the political ties to McCarthyism, and you still have what used to be the most powerful American meme of all: You have value and worth as an individual, no matter how messed up, nonconformist or outside the mainstream you might be perceived to be.

Jump ahead a generation or two, and The Soloist presents quite a different story: Here’s an exceptional man – “He reminds me a little of Miles Davis,” Lopez says at the beginning, a rather odd thing to say about a homeless man playing a violin. He wonders “how safe it can be for a man trying to reconnect with Tchaikovsky as drug dealers, prostitutes and hustlers work streets

See Soloist, p. 12

STREETVIBES January 2009

Local News

Surviving the Hurt in the Heart

11

Depression doesn’t have to be deadly um prescribed for his tinnitus.

Schulte has told me I can ask him anything.

“People need to learn about It’s a day of heavy rain this,” he says. “It doesn’t broken by flashes of bright bother me. That’s why I speak, sun cutting through violent that’s why I share my story clouds, a day to mirror the life openly.”

So I ask him: How many that Skip Schulte has come to tell me about when he blows did you take?

“I took 50,” he says matterinto the Streetvibes office redof-factly. cheeked and smiling.

In the small The first “I was scared that I silence that thing he does it is hand me would die,” he says. follows, me two small “I didn’t really want strikes again how depieces of pato die. I wanted to be scribing the per. One is out of pain.” landscape of titled, “Fadepression is mous Persons Who Have Committed Sui- like pointing out landmarks cide” (among them: Sigmund on a topographical map. You Freud, Socrates, Virginia can outline the general lay of Woolf, John Belushi, Kurt Co- the land, but you can’t ever bain). The other small piece of really convey what it’s like to paper is titled, “Have Had De- navigate from the ground. A pression.” Abraham Lincoln man can tell a reporter he once took 50 pills, but he can’t ever tops that list.

The life Schulte has really really describe the wordless come to tell me about, though, morass that was a depression so deep it made him want to is his own.

At age 31 Schulte fell into die.

After swallowing the pills, his first diagnosed bout of major clinical depression and Schulte says he immediately grew so scared that he called tried to commit suicide.

“Some people are offended his parents, who took him to by the word ‘commit’ sui- have his stomach pumped.

What were you scared of? I cide,” Schulte pauses to say, “because suicide is not a crime ask him.

“I was scared that I would of any type. They prefer the die,” he says. “I didn’t really phrase “complete suicide.” want to die. I wanted to be out ‘Out of pain’ of pain.”

This time Schulte spent a litIn 1982 Schulte was a fi- tle more than a month in inpanance instructor at Miami tient psychiatric care. Within University. Within three days days of this release, someone over Christmas break, his two had totaled his parked car. best friends moved away and “I can laugh about this now, his girlfriend left him. Schulte but it wasn’t too funny then,” started traveling from Oxford he says. “One of the things to Cincinnati to see a psychol- with depression, it’s hard to ogist. make decisions, and here I “One day I went in to see was trying to decide what kind him and said, ‘I am thinking of car to get and how to spend about closing my eyes on U.S. seven or eight thousand dol27 one of these weeks when I lars.” come down to see you.’”

He says that without exagSchulte stayed four or five geration he went to every Hondays in the inpatient psychi- da, Toyota and Datsun dealeratric unit of Good Samaritan ship in the Greater Cincinnati Hospital. On day two after his area two or three times. release, he overdosed on Vali“One Saturday morning I

By Stephanie Dunlap Contributing Writer

Tues and Thurs Buffet($7.00)-11AM-2PM Wed-Thur-Fri-Sat 9PM-3AM

got angry about something – Sigmund Freud called depression ‘anger turned inward’ – and I said to myself, ‘Skip, you are gong to buy a Toyota today at Howard Adams Toyota on Fifth Street in downtown Covington.’ ” And he did just that. Two weeks later he enrolled in a psychology class. He vividly recalls sitting in that class and suddenly feeling “100 percent better.”

Schulte went on to earn his master’s degree in mental health counseling from Wright State University. He started Wright State’s doctorate of psychology program, but after three quarters he relapsed into depression, dropped out and never returned.

He’s had seven relapses into clinical depression in the 26 years since that first bout.

Though he says some of them have been more difficult, he has never again tried to take his life.

He knows now how to treat his depression. He’s taken 10 different kinds of anti-depresSkip Schulte. Photo by Andrew Anderson. sants. He participates in and leads depression and suicide support groups, walks five to real talent lies in helping pro- But people just don’t know how to address depression.

10 miles a day and works on fessions.”

Often family and friends developing his spirituality.

Learning QPR either don’t know the char“I personally strongly beacteristics of depression or lieve in the power of prayer,” Though Schulte is a fount other mental illnesses, or they he says. “I believe everybody of statistics, there are far few- don’t take them seriously. has a spiritual side” -- whether er statistics on suicide among They think someone threatenor not someone believes in a ing suicide is joking around or the homeless. higher being. trying to get attention.

The telling first result in my As a single, older male who “They are trying to get athighly scientific Google search has already attempted suicide is an article titled, “Where is tention, they’re crying out for once, Schulte says he’s in the very highest risk classifica- the Research on Homeless help!” Schulte says.

He says other signs of suition. The chances of his kill- Persons and Suicide?” cide potentiality are giving Schulte believes it’s because ing himself are 38 times that the homeless are not the most away possessions, drawing up of the general population. a will and otherwise getting “I don’t lose any sleep over preferred or studied people. affairs in order, risk-taking “A lot of people couldn’t it,” he says. “But I know it, care if the homeless people behavior and obsession with I’m cognizant.”

Among other organizations, kill themselves, which is so death.

His preferred suicide preSchulte volunteers with the sorry and sad,” he says.

Worldwide there are a milvention technique is the simPartnership for Mental Health and speaks about suicide pre- lion suicides per year and 100 ple “QPR”: Question, pervention to any group that will million people are affected by suade, refer.

Ask direct questions, such have him. It gives him pur- depression. There are three suicides for every two homi- as, ‘Are you suicidal?’ Dialing pose.

211 accesses a local United “I think I’m probably mis- cides.

Way hotline to find help.

And yet, Schulte points out, placed,” he says. “I think my Schulte doesn’t think anyit’s easier to find a transgender 1128 Walnut St support group than a depres- one can save anyone else, sion support group. Not that however.

Pizza by the Slice “I think you can help people there’s anything wrong with the former, he’s quick to add. save themselves,” he says.

Are you interested in helping with Streetvibes? Are you a writer, poet, artist or photographer? If so, contact Greg Flannery at 513.421.7803 x 12 or email streetvibes2@yahoo.com

12

STREETVIBES January 2009

Local News

‘Soloist,’ continued from page 10 teeming with the lame and the afflicted.” Reminds me of the Beatitudes, when Jesus told people they’d need to kick the lame and afflicted out of their way if they wanted to enter the kingdom.

Davis, Ma, Juilliard, “I’ll be back” … How could we, as a society, allow a man with such commercial potential to simply whither away? Attention must be paid.

Where Kesey’s book made one uncomfortable – you suspect you’re not really all that different from those in the asylum – The Soloist is earnest in its attempt to reaffirm some American memes that seem in danger under the current economic uncertainties: The cream always rises to the top (unless that evil mental illness gets in the way; but even then, if you don’t give up, you’ll soon be “discovered” as special); most homeless people are that way because they like it that way (read the reviews

on Amazon and you’ll be sight, in which Jill Bolte Tayamazed at how some people lor, a neuroanatomist, recounts found this message “reassur- her own stroke, in which she ing”); friendship is far better witnessed the difference befor people than health insur- tween the evil left-side, ratioance; and nal part of the music is more brain, and the ‘The Soloist’ is healing than “nirvana” of earnest in its medicine. the intuitive attempt to reaffirm right It seems to side. some American me that the Guess which memes that seem “self-help” side she liked genre, after a in danger under the better? couple of deIt’s as if current economic cades of milwe’re still uncertainties. lions of books paying for our with pretty postmodern much zero drift. The subhelp to anyone, is gradually jective has not merely turned being displaced by an “inspi- on itself; it’s transformed itrational” genre, of which this self from leftist polemics to book is one. Other recent right-wing rationalizations. best-sellers this year include So, if postmodernism says The Last Lecture by Randy there is no objective truth, any Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon explanation for life is just as professor who, before he died, good as the one science prodelivered a sentimental but vides – hence, we have that rather vapid lecture that was awful “creationist museum” a viral video before it became just across the river, working a book; and My Stroke of In- “entertainment” deals with our

zoo. Likewise, any subjective experience can and should be used to make pronouncements about an objective truth that just doesn’t exist. In our current culture, with the reality television shows, the inspirational reading lists and millions of blogs that only other bloggers read, the subjective is eating itself alive. I think this is exactly what the head of the Nobel awards committee, Horace Engdahl, meant when he said American writing had become “too isolated, too insular … too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture.”

I don’t mean to fault any of these authors – you can read Amazon reviews to see how thousands of readers have been “inspired” by these titles. I just find them cynical and nihilistic, in much the same way I find the current political climate cynical and nihilistic (like, say, when the best representative we have

for the “common man” is Joe the Plumber, who is neither Joe nor a plumber). We can’t solve problems such as mental illness, homelessness, cancer, strokes, etc., so it’s best if you just smile and make the most of it, because a positive attitude means everything.

And if you see Miles Davis hanging out next to a Dumpster, fix him up with some lessons from the Los Angeles Symphony and contact your agent immediately. Jamie Foxx needs another shot at an Oscar. And, hey, if we bring some awareness to the plight of the homeless – or, specifically, the “good” homeless people who look or act like a celebrity – that’s just gravy.

The Soloist is the 2009 selection for “On the Same Page Cincinnati,” the communitywide reading program of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. To participate, visit www.CincinnatiLibrary.org/samepage/.

Proving Cincy Cares

Pilot project is first step in new health-care initiative

By Lew Moores Contributing Writer A tattoo parlor in Clifton was the first to apply. Day care centers, a few non-profit organizations, barber shops, restaurants and other small companies soon followed.

Now, just a month after the process began for signing up, 92 employers representing 1,226 employees and families have applied to be included in the city of Cincinnati’s CincyCare program, a pilot health care project intended to help uninsured employees who work for small companies in the city.

“I was surprised by the response,” says Dan Gahl, a Cincinnati Health Department official who will be project coordinator for the program. “I hope it highlights a diamond in the rough.”

The $1.4 million program – a partnership among the city, health department and the private sector – will offer primary care, health evaluations and limited prescription benefits to employees of Cincinnati companies who are ineligible for federal health care benefits.

The employees will otherwise have to meet federal income guidelines.

A medical home The program was about two

years in the making, according to Gahl and Hirsh Cohen, an assistant city health commissioner. The idea was born when the city’s health department was going through budget discussions with the city and there was talk of possibly closing one of the department’s seven health centers, which handle about 135,000 visits each year.

Councilmember John Cranley (who did not respond to phone calls and e-mails for comment) and others stopped that closing from happening, say Gahl and Cohen. Cranley thought the city health centers a great asset and began to think of a way to get more to use them.

“He thought, ‘Why don’t we leverage that asset to do a program to get employed but uninsured workers in the city into a program that would use the health centers?’ ” Gahl says.

City council set up an advisory committee to look into the possibility. They came up with a two-year pilot project.

Funding was provided by the city through a federal block grant of about $600,000,with another $100,000 provided by the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati for the first year and again in the second year.

The program is expected to begin March 1. Employ-

ers who have applied to be The rationale for the proincluded generally include gram is pretty straightforward those who employ anywhere – encourage businesses to from two to 20, with most re- remain in the city and attract serving slots for three to six other businesses to the city. employees. It’s a market most “What I’ve heard from some health insurers don’t go after, employers is that it gives them says Gahl, because there’s “no an advantage among the comeconomy of scale.” petition in the suburbs for emThe process would involve ployees,” Gahl says. “They’re an employee or family mem- looking at the health of their ber filling out a medical his- employees. That’s a bigger tory and having blood drawn deal than I ever thought it for analysis. would be.”

“So right off the bat we It would mean a healthy hope to identify people who work force is a productive have no idea they have high work force, with less absencholesterol, no idea they have teeism. high glucose,” Gahl says.

“A lot of people who don’t Patients would choose a city have health care end up in an health emerc e n t e r, gency “Everything they need will which be at that home for primary r o o m , ” would G a h l and preventive care. That then bewill be provided at a $10 co- s a y s . c o m e “ T h e payment. There will be no the pacost of pre-existing exclusions.” t i e n t ’s doing “medithis care cal home.” in an ER is about 10 times the “With that, primary care cost of doing it in a clinic. It will intervene and stop it from will provide a more cost-efbecoming a major and ex- fective program.” pensive problem,” Gahl says.

“We know there’s an unmet “Everything they need will be need of uninsured people, and at that home for primary and we want to get them into some preventive care. That will be sort of regular care model to provided at a $10 co-payment. show that getting that care is There will be no pre-existing actually going to improve their exclusions.” health over the two years,” Cohen says.

Healthy for business A handful of cities that are trying a similar program, both

say. Because the program is a pilot project, it will be closely monitored over the two years.

“We’re going to watch what kind of people, what kinds of employers sign up,” Cohen says. “We’ll be measuring the utilizations and outcomes of this data to be in the forefront of creating maybe a new approach of going forward, maybe with different funding or subsidies. We want to have enough data to go out on the streets and expand this to a broader population -- what it costs and how it should be funded.”

What they’ll be looking at, basically, after two years is the “wellness of the individuals,” Cohen says.

The incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama is also encouraging.

“I’m not expecting a total panacea,” Cohen says. “It will be incremental. I think we’ll see counties and cities think strategically about the value of health care in our own neighborhoods and be creative about how they fund things.”

“My opinion is there’s going to be federal funding for health care,” Gahl says. “It’s going to be trickled down. I think Cincinnati has an unbelievable architecture to compete for those funds. I hope to be able to say that this program is evidence that we deserve that funding.”

Read the Streetvibes blog for stories between issues at streetvibes.wordpress.com

STREETVIBES January 2009

13

Interview

A Chef for the People Once homeless, Michelle Ross cooks for those who still are

By Angela Pancella Contributing Writer

I

n the front of the serving line at Our Daily Bread is a box where guests can put “compliments to the chef.”

On a recent day the box had comments such as, “I like the hamburger, I like the pasta, I like the salad” and “Doing a good job, Chef!!” with a smiley face drawn on the exclamation points.

Michelle Ross started as assistant chef in October 2007 before becoming Our Daily Bread’s chef in March 2008.

How did you get started at Our Daily Bread?

Actually, I was doing community service. I came down here to volunteer. I liked it, and then Kathy (Ray, kitchen manager) called me one day and asked me if I wanted to work here. I was working at 2020 at the time — Juvenile (the Youth Center). I really wanted to work here anyway in the first place but they weren’t hiring at the time. So then I said, “Sure.”

What was it you liked about it?

I like to cook, number one.

I like the atmosphere. I can relate to all the people here because I’ve been where they’ve been at in my life.

What surprised you about the job?

It just was overwhelming,

like, oh, God, I was scared.

The quantity of people and the quantity of food. But then it just became (snaps fingers) like that, I can just do it. I love it down here. I loved serving.

What makes you happiest?

When the food comes out good and everybody likes it.

If I can talk to somebody and help them and tell my story, that really is cool. Like, there was a couple in here, they needed help with shoes and coats and stuff, so I hooked them up in the back room.

They was real grateful. That made me feel good.

I got messed up in drugs and alcohol real bad in ’95. I was homeless myself, living in the woods, here and there, wherever. I went through a treatment center through the First Step Home program. I highly Michelle Ross and Eric at Our Daily Bread. Photo courtesy of Our Daily Bread. recommend that program. I meal, you’ve got a place to Have you gotten to know went in there in June of ’96 want to pass that on?

Oh, yeah.

And I learned a come and get warm for a couthe guests? and graduated in November Yeah, I try to come out evof ’97. I’m doing good, and lot through that program; that ple hours.” Keep your gratiprogram was wonderful.

And tude — I’m still grateful for ery day and say, “Hi, how you I like working here because somebody took the time to hot water and a hot meal. doin’?” and stuff like that.

I see every day what I don’t How do you process it?

And I’ve been close with a lot want to be like anymore, and help me. So, yeah, every day I get to give back here.

That’s Most of the time I try to of volunteers. there’s hope for those people, cool, ’cause I come to work think back to where I was.

That makes it tough when too. I talk to some people going, “God, I wasn’t grateful back then, they go away. about my story.

“I got messed what can I do when I was all caught up in Yeah. It kinda hurts your If you have the today for someusing and stuff, I wasn’t very heart. up in drugs and willingness to else?” grateful. I thought I was, but What would you like to see help yourself, alcohol real bad body You know what apparently I wasn’t. I learned in the future? then you and in ’95. I was I just would like to hopefulGod can do it to- homeless myself, I mean? That’s a lot of things about myself how I feel—I through treatment.

I was very ly keep cooking good meals gether. I believe living in the try to feel that selfish. But I just kinda think and doing the best job I can that with all my woods, here and way. Some days back to where I was, and I and serve the people. I’d just heart. That you have to want it. there, wherever.” are better than just let everybody be where like to see peace and everyothers, but, you they’re at right now, you body getting along. I’d like to - Michelle Ross Nobody can do know, I’m hu- know? Or I’ll go talk to (So- see people get out and try to it for you. man. cial Worker) Miss Joyce Cue help themselves, better themHow did you What’s the toughest part of if I get upset. But for the most selves. get involved with First Step the job? part, it’s great. I love working Our Daily Bread is an Home?

I don’t really consider anyhere, I mean, I have my days, Over-the-Rhine (Cincinnati, Actually, my friends told thing to be too tough — just but for the most part I love ’it Ohio) ministry of Christian me about it; they were in AA when people complain and cause I do get to see where hospitality serving more than at the time.

You feel like, because your stuff, ’cause I’m thinking, I’ve been every day, which is 500 meals daily at 1730 Race St. friends helped you out, you “Well, you’re getting a free really helpful to me.

When Humanitarianism Goes Bad City Council’s sneak attack on the Drop Inn Center

By Tom Dutton, Marcia England, Kate Fadick, Chris Wilkey, and Barbara Wolf Contributing Writers

B

eware the new language of concern — the new humanitarianism — regarding homelessness in Cincinnati.

In October 2008 Cincinnati City Council passed an emergency ordinance that, while probably not technically in violation of the state’s Sunshine Law, sure is sketchy in that it was not formally on the agenda and never received public commentary. Placed in front of council members on the day of its passing, the

ordinance sailed through with barely a hiccup.

Regardless of its legal status, the ordinance clearly articulates council’s intention: “Directing the Cincinnati/ Hamilton County Continuum of Care for the Homeless to immediately address the inadequacies of the current provision of services for single homeless individuals in the City of Cincinnati and to put into place a comprehensive plan to implement such services. The plan must ensure that, as a critical segment of the homeless community, single homeless men and women will have access to safe, appropriate shelter facilities and that such facilities will pro-

vide comprehensive services necessary of homeless individuals to obtain and maintain housing.

“Furthermore, council directs that the comprehensive plan guarantee the highest standards of care for the homeless so they can successfully move from ‘Homeless to Homes.’ In addition, all plan recommendations must insure that any facilities are ‘Good Neighbors’ and do not result in any behavior or actions that are disruptive to businesses and residents. Recommendations for shelter facilities and service models must be based on nationally recognized bestpractice methods within the context of the Continuum of

Care for the Homeless and shall include case management services, medical services, mental health services, and recovery services.

“Furthermore, it is the intent of the mayor and the Cincinnati City Council that the recommended best practices model will guide city of Cincinnati resource allocations for services to single homeless men and women in the future. Any and all providers of these services will be selected through an objective, competitive process consistent with HUD guidelines that homeless services planning and implementation are coordinated, inclusive and outcome-oriented. The Continuum of Care

is urged to submit its recommendations to the mayor and Cincinnati city Council no later than March 31, 2009.

“Furthermore, it is the intention of the mayor and the city council to empower the Continuum of Care to respond to this mandate by creating a process that in inclusive of all of the key stakeholders in the community, including but not limited to homeless providers, the business community, government representatives, funding entities and regional/national experts. Failure to present a comprehensive completed plan to council by the deadline will lead to di-

See Council, p. 14

14

Editorial

STREETVIBES January 2009

Council, continued from page 13 rect intervention by council to Fourth, the ordinance has a address the homeless system rushed time schedule. Few in in a different manner.” homeless care feel comfortIf you pardon the not-so- able that a “comprehensive veiled threat of the last sen- completed plan” can actually tence, the ordinance might be accomplished by March seem reasonable at first 2009. This raises concerns glance. Isn’t it a good idea to about the validity of the proexamine shelter facilities and cess itself. City council’s statto ascertain the best practices ed intent to implement its own of homeless care from around plan “in a different manner” the nation? suggests that a script is alIt would seem so, but a clos- ready written and that failure er reading of the ordinance re- of the process to actually deveals the emperor’s clothes of liver a “comprehensive plan” this new humanitarianism. is the desired outcome.

First, the ordinance is speFifth, the ordinance is miscious. Without offering evi- guided. Rather than recogdence to support its claims, nizing homeless facilities as the ordinance’s first sentence places of compassion because sets a tone of crisis in home- they deal with the least fortuless care that needs address- nate of our neighbors and thus ing “immediately.” Shelters deserve our respect, the ordiare thereby positioned as nance has the temerity to have places of deficiency. Rather facilities prove their status as than trying to “good neighThis “good nurture a sobors.” At this cial discourse neighbor” policy is historical mothat can al- where the ordinance ment, when low citizens criminal acts reveals its true to learn from of violence and appreci- intentions, because on homeless ate otherness the elephant in the i n d i v i d u a l s — to come to are increasing room here is the see the homeand when citDrop Inn Center less for their ies are in efgifts — the fect criminalordinance reinforces the dom- izing the homeless by passing inant, pernicious discourse draconian legislation and inthat sees homeless people as curring more police sweeps deficits, as lower-than-life in- (Washington Park), the ordividuals needing to be fixed, dinance, in the worst of the disciplined or regulated. discredited blame-the-victim Second, the ordinance is tradition, faults shelters imspurious in that its pitch for plicitly as bad neighbors from comprehensiveness is be- the start and relieves other lied by its narrow focus. At a neighbors of their responsibiltime when the fastest growing ity to civil community relasegment of the homeless are tions. families with children — 25 This “good neighbor” polpercent of the total homeless icy is where the ordinance population are children, and reveals its true intentions, be45 percent of this number are cause the elephant in the room 5 or younger — the targets of here is the Drop Inn Center the ordinance are single men — the second largest home(49 percent of the total) and less shelter in the state and single women (16 percent). home to mostly single men Third, the ordinance is mis- and women. Many do not see directed. Rather than address room for a homeless shelter the political-economic forces in a neighborhood experiencthat actually create homeless- ing renewed development in ness — lack of affordable the so-called Gateway I, II, III housing, joblessness, poverty, and IV; a redesigned Washingless public assistance, lack ton Park; a new SCPA — all of child support, massive in- at a time when city and corequality — the ordinance ig- porate figureheads chime for nores those forces and shifts economic mix. attention to homeless proNo, all this mobilization of viders as if they are the only people’s time and resources to problem in this matrix. look at “best practices” with a

Sam Burton, longtime volunteer at the Drop Inn Center. Photo by Andrew Anderson

“clean slate” is merely cover Rhine, as if, yet again, they proffer is best for the poor. for city council’s real inten- are the problem.

Styling themselves as the new tion: to displace the Drop Inn Attacking social services humanitarians, the highbred Center from Over-the-Rhine. is nothing new in U.S. cit- rhetoric of compassion only This should come as no sur- ies and continues to grow in masks the lowbrow project of prise. City and corporate pow- popularity. Zoning ordinances urban colonialism. Be not surers-that-be have been plotting targeting social services have prised about the new language the Drop Inn Center’s future been put in place over the past of concern that will take form behind closed doors for some several years in states such as and rain down over Cincintime now. But even when they Washington, Maryland, Flor- nati. It will go something like have been out in the open, ida, Texas and Connecticut. this: their track record has mostly Some have been challenged The way we care about the amplified Cincinnati’s unre- by the American Civil Liber- homeless, both as a society lenting war on the poor. For ties Union on the basis that and in our Queen City, is unexample, Cincinnati does not they violate the Constitution. acceptable. The homeless are have just one anti-panhan- In a landmark 1985 case, the not getting the services they dling ordinance, but two. In U.S. Supreme Court ruled that need. The homeless need supfall 2001 city council passed a Cleburne, Texas, ordinance port systems. And this lack of the “Impaction Ordinance” to similar to that put forth by support is affecting the neighrestrict public monies in af- Cincinnati City Council was borhood negatively—the confordable housing development overturned because it fur- ditions in Washington Park, in poverty-stricken communi- thered no government interest for example, have to change. ties. The ordinance mistakes other than the removal of so- We are behind the times. We symptoms for causes by im- cial “pariahs” due to commu- need to put resources behind pugning low-income housing nity prejudices. the facilities. We need to build as the cause of poverty rather It’s all just a little bit of a new state of the art facility. than job We are not l o s s , fooled by this A compassionate Cincinnati would work to governdiscourse — develop relationships and connectedness mental which is just among those who are homeless and their rollbacks, code to disneighbors, not simply move the homeless out declining place the Drop of sight. wages, Inn Center and patterns take its land. of racial discrimination and history repeating, as ShirA humanitarianism worthy geographic segregation and ley Bassey would say. In the of its name argues for a difpoor education; and the list 1960s “Urban Renewal” came ferent societal vision — for a could go on. And then this to be called “Negro Removal,” different political imaginary: past June, in a resolution (No. precisely because it displaced One that stands for eradicating 4-2008) that seems to take its blacks from their neighbor- homelessness altogether, not cue from the Housing Impac- hoods across the country. See- just building another shelter; tion’s attempt to restrict af- ing that the script has already and one that stands to counter fordable housing, city council been written, we can now call economic inequality, not just this time is trying to reduce council’s pattern of ordinanc- settle for economic mix. the concentration of social es as well as its most recent Let us work toward a society service agencies in Over-the- “good neighbor” policy pre- that is empathic and compascisely for what they are trying sionate, one that adds services to do, “Homeless Removal.” and adds housing, the sum of As the project for Homeless which the Drop Inn Center is Removal gains steam, some, already doing. A compassionof course, will be rank and ate Cincinnati would work callous to the poor. Good rid- to develop relationships and dance, they will say. But the connectedness among those more sophisticated will veil who are homeless and their their intent in a faux generos- neighbors, not simply move ity, believing that what they the homeless out of sight.

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STREETVIBES January 2009

Short Story

Yale, continued from page 8 drove it halfway across the country — 16 hours — to see his little brother Micah.

But Lucas never goes home to Michigan for more than a week during breaks; it’s just too much trouble, he says.

When he is back, he usually crashes at his best friend’s apartment.

“It’s hard,” he admits, referring to his relationship with his parents. “I want to accept their apology. I want to be OK with them.”

Like Ye, Lucas was also 17 when he left his house with then-12-year-old Micah in tow.

He had been living in Detroit — ranked the most dangerous city in the United States in 2007 by the FBI’s crime statistics report — since he was 10 and, he explains, “It got to the point where it just wasn’t safe to be in my household.”

Strangers came in and out of their house at all hours due to his parents’ lax security; and on more than one occasion he was robbed in his own bedroom.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen to me when I went to sleep,” Lucas says.

“And I damn sure didn’t want to have to sleep outside of my little brother’s room every night.”

At first, being on their own wasn’t that bad, Lucas says.

Two of the day’s meals were provided at school, and they stayed with a family already housing one of Lucas’ friends, who was in a similar situation.

Though he knew he needed to move, he still felt conflicted.

“I was turning my back on my family, on my neighborhood,” he says, “and that’s one thing you don’t do. No matter what.”

Soon after they realized their sons were not returning, Lucas’ parents started calling.

They threatened to call the police if Lucas didn’t immediately bring his brother home.

Because Lucas was still a minor, he couldn’t fight his parents for legal custody of Micah. But he held his ground.

After some negotiation, he agreed to let Micah stay with his older sister, who was also living in Detroit.

“I would never have done it if (Micah) hadn’t said, ‘I’m going to be safe. You take care of yourself,’ ” Lucas says.

15

* * * As a teenager, Miles Marks, class of ’10, never got an allowance. He laughs, remembering his childhood, as he sits over breakfast.

“I used to sell tea bags and tell people it was reefer,” he says.

He’s still chuckling as he recalls growing up in Chicago and “doing a Cheering crowds at Yale don’t know that even Ivy League athletes have experienced homelessness. lot of things I probably Marks says when asked about gambling, Ye says, declining shouldn’t * * * how much money he had to elaborate further. Shortly have been doing at that age.”

When Marks was 8, his par- when he left. “If I remember after Brad moved in, Huan “I mean, it’s scary to wake ents sent him and his 5-year- correctly, I had about $3 worth went to live with friends, and up and find bums outside your old sister to live separately of quarters in my coat pocket. Ye moved in with his father. car, but it seems like people I had about 20 singles, two Ye was never formally with their maternal and patertry to glamorize it when they nal grandmothers, hoping they twenties, and $100 my grand- asked to leave, so he stayed do stuff like that,” Lucas with his father for another says, referring to Tyra Banks’ would be safer away from father had given me.”

One hundred sixty three three weeks after the sex con- undercover experience as a their rough neighborhood. frontation with his friend from homeless person.

Marks moved to another part dollars. boarding school. But with his of the city, and his sister went He finds the concept entirefather’s constant insistence to Missouri. ly ridiculous. * * * that he “reconsider (his) bad Marks’ grandmother died “There was no tangible end habit” — his decision to be when he was 15, but he confor me,” he says. “I had no idea “When I was born (my tinued to live in her house parents) had a yacht and two with a man — Ye knew his fa- how I would handle it menwith his two aunts. Before cats,” Ye says. “Then the yacht ther’s home was not the place tally. Would I lose my damn he needed or wanted to be. his grandmother’s death, his sank, and I got older.” mind? … I spent 48 hours in a “It’s incredibly uncomfortAunt Lind* had started dating car, where I didn’t leave but to Ye’s parents divorced when able to live with someone who a man named Greg, whom his he was 5, and he and his older use the restroom.” grandmother had never liked. brother Huan went to live with thinks very, very, very little of During the year and a half you,” Ye says, “It’s doable, Marks always he was on his own and wasn’t their mother but it’s miserable. thought it was staying with friends, Lucas es“There was no in the sub“I think for him the most because Greg tangible end for me,” urbs of Bos- upsetting thing was his reac- timates he spent three to four was white, months living off and on in his ton. he says. “I had no tion to my reaction,” Ye’s fabut after Greg car.

But, he idea how I would ther reflects.

“Like, he had no and Linda got Logistically, at least, benotes, living idea I would have that kind of married and handle it mentally. ing an athlete made fulfilling arrangements Greg moved Would I lose my damn did not be- reaction. I just started to cry, I some basic necessities easier, in, Marks dismind? … I spent 48 come prob- was so upset. I tried to think of even in high school. what a good father does in that covered the While he worked to pay for hours in a car, where I lematic until situation.” truth. food, he showered at the gym he was 14 or He says he was most wor- and used the school’s laundry Marks says didn’t leave but to use 15. Around the restroom.”

Greg was that time, his ried about the stigma Ye facilities to wash his clothes. “loud and igHis bonds with many memmother began would face.

“My biggest concern was if norant” and bers of the custodial staff alseeing a man he had chosen this as a deciwould start unnecessary fights named Brad. Although Ye was lowed him to get away with with him. He would come at boarding school at the time, sion,” he says, “it would be being at school at odd hours. into the living room and, the information his brother re- very costly to him for the rest “I know what it’s like to feel of his life.”

Marks says, scream, “‘Turn layed made him uneasy. invisible, too,” he admits.

The ensuing argument, that fucking TV off!’” for no Heated verbal fights bereason. When Greg got physi- tween Huan and Brad turned he says, “marked a point of * * * cally abusive, Marks knew he physical time and time again, departure that we’ve never had to leave. and Brad had problems with broached again.”

To be continued...Feb 09.

“I want to get this right,”

Missed an Issue? Check out the Streetvibes archive at www.cincihomeless.org/content/streetvibes

16

Vendors

Resource Guide

STREETVIBES January 2009

Streetvibes vendors buy the paper for 25 cents and sell the paper for $1, keeping the money they have earned. The vendors can be identified with a white badge and can be found selling the paper in downtown Cincinnati, Clifton, Northern Kentucky and area churches. The money they earn helps them meet basic housing, food and health care needs. Not all vendors pictured.

Josephine Baskerville

Doris Binion

Terry Ranson

Anthony Williams

Nell Williams

Grady Cook

Cleo Wombles

James Davis

Jon Darby

Dede Stoops

Julie Walker

Kenneth Stonitsch

Antonio Hodge

Leonard Jackson

Samuel Jackson

Riccardo Taylor

Berta Lambert

Mary Mueller

Brandon Nelson

Mark Shears

Charles Cole

Alfred Woolfolk

Terrence Williams

Raynard Jones

Richard Tyree

Michael Holley

Need Help or Want to Help?

Shelter: Women and Children

Central Access Point...381-SAFE Cincinnati Union Bethel...768-6907 Bethany House...557-2873 Grace Place Catholic Worker House...681-2365 Salvation Army...762-5660 YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter...872-9259

Talbert House...684-7965

PATH Outreach...977-4489

Treatment: Women

Resources

First Step Home ...961-4663

Treatment: Both

City Gospel Mission...241-5525 Justice Watch...241-0490 St. Fran/St. Joe Catholic Worker House...381-4941 Mt. Airy Shelter...661-4620

AA Hotline...351-0422 CCAT ...381-6672 Joseph House ...241-2965 Hamilton County ADAS Board ...946-4888 Recovery Health Access Center ...281-7422 Sober Living ...681-0324 Talbert House...641-4300

Shelter: Both

Advocacy

Shelter: Men

Anthony House (Youth)...961-4080 Caracole (HIV/AIDS)...761-1480 Drop Inn Center...721-0643 Interfaith Hospitality Network...471-1100 Lighthouse Youth Center...221-3350 St. John’s Housing...651-6446

Housing:

CMHA...721-4580 Excel Development...632-7149 OTR Community Housing...381-1171 Tender Mercies...721-8666 Tom Geiger House...961-4555 Dana Transitional Bridge Services Inc. ...751-0643 Volunteers of America...381-1954

Food

Lord’s Pantry...621-5300 OTR/Walnut Hills Soup Kitchen & Pantry..961-1983 Our Daily Bread...621-6364 St. Francis Soup Kitchen...535-2719

Treatment: Men

Charlie’s 3/4 House...784-1853 DIC Live In Program...721-0643 Prospect House...921-1613 Starting Over...961-2256

Appalachian Identity Center ...621-5991 Catholic Social Action ...421-3131 Community Action Agency ...569-1840 Contact Center...381-4242 Franciscan JPIC ...721-4700 Greater Cinci Coalition for the Homeless..421-7803 Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center...5798547 Legal Aid Society ...241-9400 Ohio Justice & Policy Center ...421-1108 Peaslee Neighborhood Center ...621-5514 Project Connect Homeless Kids ...363-3300 Stop AIDS...421-2437

Health

Center for Respite Care ...621-1868 Cincinnati Health Network ...961-0600 Crossroad Health Center ...381-2247 Hamilton county Mental Health Board...946-8600 Hamilton County TB Control ...946-7628 Health Resource Center ...357-4602 Homeless Mobile Health Van...352-2902 McMicken Dental Clinic...352-6363 Mental Health Access Point...558-8888 Mercy Franciscan at St. John...981-5800 NAMI of Hamilton County..458-6670 Oral Health Council...621-0248

Catholic Social Services...241-7745 Center for Independent Living Options...241-2600 Churches Active in Northside...591-2246 Emmanuel Community Center...241-2563 FreeStore/FoodBank...241-1064 Franciscan Haircuts from the Heart...381-0111 Goodwill industries...771-4800 Healing Connections...751-0600 Madisonville Education & Assistance Center...2715501 Mary Magdalen House...721-4811 People Working Cooperatively...351-7921 St. Vincent de Paul...562-8841 The Caring Place...631-1114 United Way...721-7900 Women Helping Women...977-5541

Northern Kentucky

Brighton Center...859-491-8303 ECHO/Hosea House...859-261-5857 Fairhaven Resuce Mission...859-491-1027 Homeward Bound Youth...859-581-1111 Mathews House...859-261-8009 NKY Homeless & Housing Coalition...859-727-0926 Parish Kitchen...859-581-7745 Pike St. Clinic...859-291-9321 Transitions, Inc...859-491-4435 Welcome House of NKY...859-431-8717 Women’s Crisis Center...859-491-3335 VA Domiciliary...859-559-5011 VA Homeless...859-572-6226

Hamilton/Middletown

St. Raephaels...863-3184 Salvation Army...863-1445 Serenity House Day Center...422-8555 Open Door Pantry...868-3276