Streetvibes November 2008 Edition

NAACP Renaissance ~ p.12

Respecting one another ~ p.5

Interview with Peter Block ~ p.9

STREETVIBES

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N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 8 • I s s u e 1 4 8 • 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

Tarnished Grandeur

The life and times of an SRO

By Larry Gross Contributing Writer

T

he sign on the side of the Dennison Hotel at 716 Main St. advertises “105 rooms, 60 baths.”

Directly below the sign, a man and a woman sit in the alley.

Dewayne and Irene appear to be middle-aged. She’s white, he’s black. They didn’t give their last names. Dewayne has lived at the Dennison for almost a year. Irene used to, but moved to a place in English Woods. She still visits her friend.

“I got $70 behind on my rent and they put me out,” Irene says. “The owner got aggressive with me and we got into an altercation.”

That altercation led to her being charged with disorderly conduct. That’s why she and Dewayne have to meet in the alley. But even if your not barred, visiting tenants at the Dennison can be tricky.

“You can get only one guest, and they only have two hours that they can sit with you,” Dewayne says. “If you got three kids that you need to see – like you ain’t seen them in five months – you want all three of your kids to come, but

you can’t do that.”

If tenants want visitors after 6 p.m., it’s going to cost them.

“After 6 o’clock, you can’t have no visitors,” Dewayne says, “unless you want to pay $9.40.”

Dewayne pays $85 a week for his room with no bathroom. He gets a bed, sheets, a sink and toilet paper. He shares a bathroom with other tenants.

He knows it’s risky to get behind in his rent. The management, he says, doesn’t understand what poor people have to go through.

“I would have got put out this week if I didn’t come up with $170,” Dewayne says. “I couldn’t find work last week, so I was a week behind, so I found a job and worked three days. I made more money than I thought I would and she (Irene) helped me out. That made me able to stay here.

That $170 made be beautiful.”

On the third floor of the Dennison, overnight guests are welcome. On this floor, the Dennison is what one would expect from a hotel – a bed, a

See DENNISON p.6

Council Orders Plan for Single Homeless People Sudden action, but will council pay to make it work?

By Andrew Freeze Staff Writer

C

incinnati City Council unanimously passed an ordinance Oct. 8 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 and develop a comprehensive plan for services.

The ordinance wasn’t on the published agenda for the

Oct. 8 meeting, and council passed it without taking public comment.

But private conversations about the ordinance had taken place for months, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The draft ordinance read that someone would be hired to come in and completely redo the way our services are in Cincinnati/Hamilton County,” the source says. “If that version of the ordinance had passed, it would have completely thrown out the current

Continuum of Care and dangerously risk all Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding.”

The Continuum of Care has partnered with the City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County since 1996 to plan and implement services and shelter for the homeless. This year the organization received a HUD grant for services to homeless individuals totaling $12.4 million.

The Continuum of Care (CoC) must present its plan to the city by March 31, 2009.

The ordinance makes no mention of increased funding in return but the subject has been discussed.

“The city has said, not in the ordinance, that if the CoC comes up with a plan, they (the city) are willing to bring other resources to the table,” the source says.

‘Highest standards’ The goal is a major overhaul, according to Councilwoman Roxanne Qualls.

“The recommended plan

must not For a copy of look like the City Council the current ordinance, shelter and check out the service de- Streetvibes blog livery sysat streetvibes. tem,” she wordpress.com says. “We are not seeking to achieve minor reform. Rather, the Continuum of Care should use this opportunity to plan for homeless individuals by starting with a ‘blank slate’ and designing from the ground up

See PLAN p.4

2 News Briefs Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Killing Homeless Man Fort Lauderdale, Fla. — Thomas Daugherty, a 19year-old Floridian, has been sentenced to life in prison for using a baseball bat to beat to death Norris Gaynor, a homeless man sleeping on a park bench in 2006. Daugherty and 21-year-old Brian Hooks, after drinking vodka and smoking marijuana, hid the baseball bats in their pants before sneaking up on a group of homeless men.

They broke Gaynor’s nose, five ribs, and crushed his skull. Daugherty apologized to Gaynor’s family, saying, “I wasted a human life.

I treated him as less than a human, and I’m sorry.” The attack was one of three the pair committed that night; the first was caught on video, and homeless advocates have expressed shock at the ferocity of the assaults.

(Associated Press, Oct. 23, 2008)

Middle School Students Charged with Killing Homeless Man Pontiac, Mich. — Thomas McCloud Jr. and Dontez Tillman, both 14 years old, have been charged as adults with first-degree murder for beating 61-year-old Wilford Hamilton to death. McCloud and Tillman are also suspected in the beating and killing of another homeless man, 65-year-old Lee Hoffman, with the help of a 15year-old classmate. If they are convicted as adults, the sentence will be life in prison without parole. (Associated Press, Oct. 16, 2008)

Number of Homeless Families Rising at Alarming Rate With increasing economic pressures and extensive mortgage foreclosures, more families with children are becoming homeless. In cities across the country, there has been an increase in the number of families seeking aid, especially for housing. The main causes of this rise are job losses and foreclosures — as well as higher food and fuel prices, which are quite problematic for families with no financial cushion.

Foreclosures are expected to continue to cause a large increase in the number of homeless families. (Wendy Koch, USA Today, Oct. 21, 2008)

The Vibe

Streetwise

By Gregory Flannery

Just One Candle The bad news is the 21st annual vigil, “She Screams Without Sound,” was necessary. The good news is that this time only one candle was needed to represent the year’s death toll from domestic violence. In some years, more than two dozen candles were lit, one for each dead victim.

This year the candle was for Tawyna Barnes of Springfield Township, who died of injuries sustained when her husband allegedly ran over her with a car in July. But the Oct. 15 vigil at the Hamilton County Courthouse also remembered the many victims, known and unknown, of years past.

Sponsored by Women Helping Women and the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati, the vigil included remarks by surviving family members and a march around the courthouse and jail.

“It is also important that all of us gathered tonight lend our support to women and families caught in the cycle of domestic violence -- today, tomorrow and always,” said Margo Pierce, CityBeat staff writer who served as MC at the vigil. “Victims and survivors must know that they can count on our unconditional support and our steadfast belief that no one deserves, asks for or should endure any form of domestic violence. They should never have accept responsibility and blame for the abuser's behavior.”

Top 10 Reasons Living in a Pickup Truck Sucks Homeless Awareness Week is Nov. 16-22. Posited here for your consideration during that week are these observations: * A homeless man who works several part-time jobs says he’s going to go to jail rather than try to pay a $200 fine for pissing in an alley in Over-the-Rhine one night. The library was closed.

Bars don’t want homeless people using their bathrooms. What is a person forced to live on the street supposed to do? In what way does fining him constitute justice? * A woman who lives in Over-the-Rhine recently left her house one morning and saw, across the street, a man sitting on a stoop, hands covering his face, crying. Above him was a sign from a political campaign, saying, “Hope.” * An oft-quoted Web page called “Famous People Who Have Been Homeless” lists the bouts of homeless struggle endured by three dozen celebrities, from Charlie Chaplin to David Letterman. Also worth noting is Jesus of Nazareth, itinerant preacher in the early first century.

Ron English is a celebrity to those who know him. Formerly homeless, he sometimes sells Streetvibes. He likes to draw hyper-colorful, complex self-portraits on cardboard and other found media. Thanks to Angela Pancella’s generosity and appreciation for art, you now have the opportunity to obtain one of English’s works. Pancella, director of development at Our Daily Bread, purchased the drawing, which will go up for auction Dec. 4 at the annual dinner of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless.

Close Call: Illegal Kindness Averted Students from Xavier University and the University of Cincinnati had a generous impulse.

They were going to go to Washington Park, where poor and homeless people often gather, and give them food. The two schools’ student governments planned College Cookout for a Cause for Oct. 18.

“A goal for both student government organizations is to help serve those in need in Overthe-Rhine,” said Laurel Bauer, spokeswoman for XU. “Student government officials from the University of Cincinnati contacted executives at Xavier to partner in this event to make it most effective.”

The students and the universities overlooked one salient point, however. The city of Cincinnati has enacted a rule forbidding certain kinds of generosity, in particular the distribution of free food to hungry persons in Washington Park. It has been deemed untidy.

The students didn’t give up, however. They held College Cookout for a Cause in the parking lot of Lord’s Pantry. So far, that appears to be legal; city council’s broad attack on social-service agencies in Over-the-Rhine is still tied up in court.

“The location was changed because there is a law I was not aware of that you are not allowed to hand out food for free in Cincinnati parks,” Bauer says. “It would have been a little bit of a downer if they had been asked to move.”

Yes, a downer. That’s the kind of country we’ve become: We officially discourage kindness and human decency. And God help you if you nature calls when you’re stuck outside.

U.S. House Approves Housing Bill The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted Oct. 6 to approve the HEARTH Act, which reauthorizes the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grant program. The measure won by a vote of 355-61. The National Alliance to End Homelessness says the measure provides new resources for rapid re-housing programs, funding to permanently house families and funding for homeless prevention of at-risk individuals and individuals living in insecure housing situations. The bill also expands the definition of homelessness to include people who will be losing their housing within 14 days and also lack the resources to find housing immediately. The expanded definition will also include families and youth who regularly do not have access to stable housing.

STREETVIBES November 2008 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, Stephanie Dunlap, Larry Gross, Steve Sunderland, Georgine Getty, Alyssa Konermann, Lew Moores, Elizabeth Scheper, Dede Stoops, Meera Basu Photography/Artwork Andrew Anderson, Andrew Freeze, Anthony Williams, Angela Pancella, Legal Aid Society, Ben L. Kaufman, Peter Block, Wyoming HS, St. Ursula HS 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 November 2008

Community News

Eight Minutes

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with

Myself “Objectivity” keeps people uniformed and stupid

By Margo Pierce Contributing Writer

O

bjectivity is a myth, a bedtime story people want to believe long after the harsh reality of life enters their worldview. This is something I’ve known for a long time, but it wasn’t until I started working as a reporter that whatever lingering shreds of belief I had in that particular story were obliterated.

The issue of word-count could explain it: how does anyone present a complicated issue in an “objective” way in the space of 250–500 words?

A longer piece, 2,500-5,000 words, would seem plenty, but it’s not enough to touch on all the competing arguments about the industrial prison complex, death penalty, war on poverty or any of the biggest social issues of our time.

After interviewing dozens of people, reading an obscene number of scientific studies and reviewing more legislation than a politician reads before casting a vote, I have enough information for a novella. But who wants to read, let alone publish, over 100 pages on the issues related to the war on poverty? For the general public, it’s just too depressing.

The challenge is how to inform and educate readers in an age of short attention spans and info-tainment presented in colorful snippets on television “news.” Setting aside the discussion about what people want to consume, what advertisers want to be associated with and what media outlets deliver, there are people who want to learn and understand more about the challenges we face. Those people are where I begin.

Making some assumptions about their willingness to sit and read a newspaper – they did have the motivation to pick it up -- and their willingness to be thoughtful about a topic, I want to cram as much information into the available word count as I can. So I’m

on the lookout for the interesting and engaging parts of any story.

Objectivity is lost right there – boring elements are important, too. Anyone believing objectivity survives that test must give up any hope of that possibility surviving once the research begins. Talking to people about their life experiences, from the dramatic through the mundane, inspires responses ranging from total disbelief and possibly disdain to surprise and happiness.

Human beings respond emotionally. Don’t believe me? Think about what happens when the garbage isn’t taken out or a cop wants to talk for a moment. Not even the most cynical human being can avoid emotional responses.

Then there’s the challenge of not making judgments based on personal beliefs. How can someone who believes it is possible to have a “drug-free America” objectively consider the actions of the cops I can, given the constraints arresting physicians who dis- of deadlines and my ability pense powerful medication to comprehend. Taking a position only comes when the for chronic pain? She can’t.

But she can be fair if she argument for doing so is comis willing to be open-minded. pelling.

Popular opinion supports It’s possible to suspend perthe death sonal emotions and beliefs The standard version penalty, and the reasons long enough to of “objectivity” given for evaluate inforkeeps people state execumation in a fair manner. Con- mollified and under- tions are a mile deep. sider the faminformed.

If that isn’t ily of a murder compelling, victim who forgives the killer. There can’t what is? For me, it’s a powerbe a much stronger emotional ful combination of an unfair reaction than the death of a criminal justice system comparent, daughter or son. What bined with what it means to it takes to move past that and truly value life – it’s imposconsider a murder against the sible to walk that talk when value of all human life means picking and choosing those a human being is capable of who are “worthy” of living making a fair evaluation to get based on arbitrary criteria. to forgiveness. That’s the most The most persuasive argureasonable thing to expect of ment and the one that rings most true doesn’t have to be anyone, even reporters.

Even though I take posi- the one with the most scientions on some of the topics I tific studies.

There are so many people address – that’s called advocacy journalism – I only get writing in support of executo the point after considering tions, sex-offender registraas many sides of an issue as tion and the drug war that the

unfair nature of all these efforts is lost in the avalanche of support. Important information about the failures of these efforts and their horrible consequences never reaches the general public because popular sentiment and hype, not fairness, rule a lot of news coverage.

The myth of objectivity allows writers and readers to view three or four sentences of the “opposing” viewpoint in a 200-line article to serve as “objective” reporting. Objectivity is presented as two sides of an argument, usually the extremes of each. But very few issues involve only two sides. The standard version of “objectivity” keeps people mollified and under-informed.

The idea that a single perspective can be fair seems to be at odds with the notion of fairness itself. But consider this: There are hundreds of articles written on a specific aspect of a topic presenting a specific viewpoint. Consider those that focus on the death penalty and include statements from people supporting execu-

tions, feature the loss experienced by victims’ families and how prosecutors avidly pursue death penalty cases with little to no effort made to give equal time to opposing views.

When a handful of articles focus only on the opposition to the death penalty without giving time to the supporters, the test of “fairness” is met by balancing the sheer volume of one against the other.

There is an equally complicated answer that I can’t provide in my given word count; it has to do with my experience of being the exception to just about every rule I’ve ever encountered. Being lumped into categories that didn’t fit me, by people unwilling to take time to consider anything beyond “either/or,” left an indelible impression. It’s a driving force in why and what I write.

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.

Check for more stories between issues at streetvibes.wordpress.com

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STREETVIBES November 2008

Community News

Council Orders Plan, continued from p.1 a new system that would substantially decrease the number of homeless persons requiring shelter services each night.”

Nineteen community leaders are to create the plan.

There will be slots for two city representatives, two county representatives, four executive directors of social-service agencies, four business leaders picked by the Cincinnati Business Committee, four seats for funders of services and three area religious leaders. A facilitator will lead the group.

The source - who is not one of the 19 picked to create the plan - believes the plan could include “a safe haven, more shelter for single women, additional substance-abuse services including housing,

“Obviously, we do not have enough resources to handle (the current homeless situation). We have to do the plan, and it is refreshing to hear that they are willing to bring more resources to the table, but we will have to wait and see if they will follow through with the promised resources.” housing that would target

specific sub-populations, a de-concentration of the Drop Inn Center and a statement of need for more permanent supportive housing.”

The goals are ambitious, at least so far as Qualls envision the plan.

“The plan should result in a national model that guarantees the highest standards of care for the homeless … so that the homeless can successfully move from homeless to homes and become productive members of society once again,” she says.

But what about the money?

“Obviously, we do not have enough resources to handle (the current homeless situation),” the source says. “We have to do the plan, and it is refreshing to hear that they are willing to bring more resources to the table, but we will have to wait and see if they will follow through with the promised resources.”

The need to plan Since 2000 the National Alliance to End Homelessness has advocated for the creation of 10-year plans to end homelessness, and more than 390 cities and counties across the country have completed or are developing plans. Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, says 10-year plans are valuable for several reasons.

“We realized there were more programs but the numbers (of homeless individuals)

was still going up,” she says.

“We needed improved data about sub-populations, and there was a merging connection between homelessness and jail, welfare and foster care.”

The approach seems to work.

“Many communities have been very successful in reducing homelessness,” Roman says. “Portland has reduced chronic homelessness by 70 percent. Columbus has reduced family homelessness by 48 percent, and both have 10 year plans to end homelessness.

“It is very reasonable to end homelessness. I’m old enough to remember when there was not widespread homelessness.

It is very possible, and many communities are well on their way. It is very important to look at strategies around the country that are successful and to implement those in other communities.”

Welcome House of Northern Kentucky has been working on a plan in response to a statewide initiative.

“We are focusing on four areas -- the unbanked or those that cannot get a bank account; employment and the gap between wages and what is needed for housing; housing and the costs associated; and finally education, looking at the difficulties of learning when basic needs are not being met,” says Linda Young executive director of Welcome House.

“It is very reasonable to end homelessness.

I’m old enough to remember when there was not widespread homelessness. It is very possible, and many communities are well on their way.”

“We are working to present the ideas as community issues and not just homelessness, because then it becomes someone else’s problem. The city’s job is to work on economic development, and that is how we are addressing our plan in order to get city leaders’ buy-in.”

Cincinnati doesn’t have a plan to specifically end homelessness in 10 years but rather the section on homeless services in the city’s consolidated plan already works to address homelessness. Creating a 10 year plan would be creating another plan to end homelessness when there already is one. The city’s consolidated plan refers to all levels or services and shelter, including emergency shelter, transitional shelter and permanent shelter.

“Homelessness is a big problem but not so big we can’t solve it,” Roman says.

“Remember: Homelessness is a housing problem.”

Cincinnati/Hamilton County Continuum of Care The Continuum of Care is: *a single, coordinated and inclusive process for the planning and management of the local (City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County) Continuum. The CoC works with all programs which serve homeless persons including: *outreach programs,

*emergency shelter programs for singles and families *transitional housing programs *service-enriched permanent supportive housing programs including Shelter Plus Care *specialized services-only programs

The Continuum of Care process: *involves all agencies and programs that receive funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) *facilitates the allocation of funding to these agencies *serves as an inclusive ve-

hicle to promote best practices *facilitates access to mainstream resources and services for the homeless *works to develop policies and procedures to assist homeless persons directly *aims to ultimately end homelessness.

National Alliance to End Homelessness There are four elements that are key to to creating a 10-year plan according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness’s Web site.

Plan for Outcomes Localities can begin to develop plans to end, rather than to manage, homelessness. There are two components. Every jurisdiction can collect data that allows it to identify the most effective strategy for each sub-group of the homeless population.

Second, jurisdictions can bring to the planning table those responsible for mainstream as well as homelesstargeted resources.

Close the Front Door Homelessness can be prevented by making mainstream poverty programs more accountable for the outcomes of their most vulnerable clients and wards.

Open the Back Door Where homeless people are already accommodating the shortage of affordable housing, this should be facilitated and accelerated.

Where there is no housing, particularly for those who are chronically homeless, an adequate supply of appropriate housing should be developed and subsidized.

Build the Infrastructure Ending homelessness can be a first step in addressing the systemic problems that lead to crisis poverty: • shortage of affordable housing • incomes that do not pay for basic needs • lack of appropriate services for those who need them.

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STREETVIBES November 2008

News Briefs Neighbors Hold Vigil for Homeless Man Intentionally Burned to Death Los Angeles, Cal. ¬ A well known homeless man from a mid-Wilshire neighborhood was doused with gasoline and burned to death on a local sidewalk. One witness said he saw several young men cover the victim with the contents of a red plastic gasoline container. The victim, John, had lived in the area for 20 years. After the attack, neighbors responded with flowers, candles and letters and held a vigil in his memory. Many neighbors described John as thoughtful, kind, and friendly and are vocal about the need for the crime to be solved. (Bob Pool, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 12, 2008)

Violence Against the Homeless a Hate Crime?

Los Angeles, Cal. — Last year Florida and California were ranked the states with the most lethal and non-lethal attacks against homeless people. California was cited as having 22, but Maria Foscarinis, the executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, believes the number is actually much higher because most incidents are never reported. She attributes this to the fact that homeless people are outside and can be attacked by anyone, for any reason, as well as the increasingly punitive action of cities against the homeless. In classes protected by hate-crime legislation, 0.1 percent of attacks result in death, while over 25 percent of attacks against the homeless result in death. Because of this, there is a movement to have the homeless covered by hate-crime legislation; two bills are being considered by the House of Representatives. Advocates are meanwhile working for other solutions, but believe hate crime legislation will send the message that the lives of the homeless are as valuable as the lives of anyone else. (Alison Stateman, Time with CNN, Oct. 22, 2008) News briefs compiled by Alyssa Konermann.

5 Buddha Walks into a Bar Local News

The difficult matter of respecting one another

By Gregory Flannery Editor Racism isn’t always black and white.

Sometimes it is, of course, as in the neo-Nazi flier posted on car windshields downtown last month. Bearing the name of the National Socialist Movement, the flier contains a racial slur and a photo of an African warrior in tribal regalia.

Then there’s the flier distributed in a Sharonville campaign for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives, featuring a chihuahua in a sombrero asking, “Can you speak Spanish? Ay Caramba!’ ” The flier dehumanizes Latinos, according to Rosa Rosales, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

“What’s worse, the advertisement blatantly distorts the truth by implying that Ohio voters will have to learn Spanish if they don't pass an English-only bill in their state,” she says.

In Fairfield last month, a resident hanged a ghost made of a sheet bearing the name of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, unapologetically telling a reporter he didn’t want an African-American in the White House. Crudity makes racism easier to recognize.

A Christian conspiracy?

Whether blatant or masked as humor or political warning flag, racism is both a product and a perpetrator of fear. So are cultural and religious hatred. But these can be harder to identify, because they involve matters of belief -- and therefore choice -- rather than physical characteristics alone.

Some bigotry contains just enough fact that it can pass for information. Consider Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, sent in a mass mailing to voters in Ohio and other swing states in the presidential campaign last month.

The film warns that a complacent West is under imminent threat from a global Muslim jihad, or holy war.

The film incites hatred against Muslims, according to Karen Dabdoub, executive director of the Cincinnati chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“There’s been a lot of talk about it in the Muslim community,” she says. “People

are indicating they are afraid of backlash. One of the things that the movie tries to convey is that there is a worldwide conspiracy among Muslims to take over the world, and Muslims know that is not the case.”

Other groups joined in condemning Obsession. The Cincinnati Human Relations Commission (CHRC) organized a rally CHRC rally Oct. 8 at City Hall.

“We understand and sympathize with their concern that the impact of this video will be to spread fear and hatred within our community and to further marginalize the Muslim community, which is already victimized by false characterizations and misunderstanding,” a CHRC statement said.

The Metropolitan Area Religious Council of Cincinnati likewise criticized the video.

“The distribution of the DVD Obsession in Ohio and other swing states in the upcoming presidential election is spreading miscommunication, innuendo and fear among residents in metropolitan Cincinnati and beyond,” a statement

by MARCC said.

Obsession includes a lengthy comparison of what it calls “radical Islam” to Nazi Germany. One wag even helpfully points out that “jihad” means “struggle.”

“So does Mein Kampf (the title of Hitler’s autobiography),” he says.

That just about proves the case, doesn’t it?

Left unsaid in Obsession is that nearly all of the Nazi murderers were Christians. So was Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City. So was Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated President Kennedy.

Does it follow that a radical Christian attack on humanity is underway?

Yet that is the central message of Obsession: “There is a particular strand of Islam that has challenged what is the central pillar of civilization itself, and that is the sacredness of life.”

Spare the goat Substitute the word “Christianity” for “Islam” in that sentence, and the absurdity might be easier to see.

Or try this exercise: If someone opened the Jesus Christ Saloon, what kind of outrage would follow? Saturdays could include the Resurrection Happy Hour – guaran-

teed to raise the dead.

Hatred isn’t the only force that can separate people by race, religion or culture. So can an innocent lack of consideration. Thus downtown is home to Buddakhan, a restaurant and bar that calls itself “Home of the Big Fat Buddha Burger” and “Burger Nirvana.” Buddakhan is graced by beautiful statues of Buddha – including one behind the bar.

What’s the problem? Even people who train others in cultural sensitivity can have

who had taken vows of nonviolence and celibacy. One day a beautiful woman came to his cave leading a goat. She said she would kill the goat unless the hermit either slept with her or had a drink.

“The hermit reviewed his vows. According to the vow of nonviolence, he could not do anything that would lead to the death of the goat, and according to the vow of celibacy, he couldn’t sleep with the woman. So he agreed to have a drink. One drink led to

What if this were an image of Jesus at the Jesus Christ Tavern? Photo by Gregory Flannery.

to think twice.

“I’ve been there before, and I can’t say it jumped out at me,” says George Ellis, president, Equality Cincinnati.

“But it’s an interesting question. The first thought that came to me is the necessity of trying to get to the source before we go about making value judgments. I would be interested in what Buddhists think.”

One Cincinnati Buddhist found the presence of Buddha in a bar a matter requiring more than a snap judgment.

“I have never been to Buddhakhan and I have not met the owners, but I seriously doubt that they intend to offend Buddhists,” she says. “I don’t think most Americans know that one of the five basic ethical rules of Buddhism is to avoid drinking and intoxication. As a beginning Buddhist, I knew about the rule, but in my world, social drinking was considered quite acceptable, so I asked a monk for an explanation. What’s the big deal about drinking? His reply was a story: “Once there was a hermit

another, and pretty soon the hermit found himself sleeping with the beautiful woman.

Early the next morning, while he was trying to sleep it off, the goat began bleating so loudly that the hermit woke up. His head was pounding, his stomach was upset, and he became so angry that he killed the goat.

“The moral of the story is not that drinkers are inherently bad people or can never be Buddhists. It’s that even exceptionally upstanding people can find it difficult to behave ethically when they are intoxicated.

“The Buddha made the rule against intoxication himself, so, yes, it looks a bit jarring to a practicing Buddhist to see statues of the Buddha in a bar. Out of compassion for the owners, I have to say that it might be better to put the statue somewhere more appropriate. But as long as the statue is there, then as a Buddhist, I hope that it will inspire all who see it to understand the dangers of intoxication and to behave ethically.”

Cover Story 6 Dennison continued, from page 1

STREETVIBES November 2008

‘Trash unmerciful’

Larry Gross attempts to get an interview with the owners of the Dennison Hotel. He and Andrew Anderson were not allowed up to take photos of any of the rooms. Photo by Andrew Anderson.

private bathroom and a television set.

On the rest of the floors, with the exception of a few private rooms, the Dennison has turned into an SRO – single room occupancy. It’s a boarding house for the poor.

You can pay by the month or by the week.

‘A price on everything’ Beginning in June 1994 when the Milner Hotel was leveled to make room for Greenwich on the Park, lowcost housing for the poor has been in short supply downtown. The Dennison on Main Street and Metropole Apartments on Walnut Street are the only two buildings left for low income housing downtown.

Shan Pierce, a Vietnam War veteran and a former P.O.W., has been staying at the Dennison Hotel on and off since 1971. It’s the first place he stayed after getting out of the service. He pays $320 a month for his room, along with a $50 security deposit.

On his off days from working for a food manufacturer in Dry Ridge, Ky., Pierce likes to sit on the sidewalk, drink coffee and say hello to women walking by. His mostly white hair almost matches his sleeveless white T-shirt that shows off the tattoos on his arms.

“I’ve seen various owners through the years,” Pierce says. “Actually I’ve seen the place change over five or six times.”

He doesn’t understand the current management.

“I’ve never seen any hotel run like this one,” he says.

“Basically they set the rules as they go. Everything you do, whether it’s eating in your room, cooking in your room or whatever – it’s all gonna cost you something. They got a price on everything in here now.”

Pierce’s favorite entertainment at the Dennison Hotel is the “trained roaches.”

“When you turn on the light, they scatter,” he says.

This is the story of the life and times of the Dennison Hotel – of its past and current tenants and of its history.

Built in 1887, that advertisement on the side of the building – 105 rooms, 60 baths

“These guys have to live somewhere.

They’re good people that slipped. They can’t live on the street.”

-Fred Cianciolo, business owner

– was once a point of pride.

More than 120 years ago, according to records found at the Cincinnati Historical Society, the hotel was known for its excellent accommodations and service.

Now, over a century later, the residents at the Dennison Hotel are poor. For many, it’s a slippery one step away from being homeless.

In warmer weather, you’ll find some of the tenants, mostly men, sitting or standing outside the Dennison, smoking and talking. The men are a mixture – young and old, black and white.

When you pass, some will make small talk with you before asking for a little change or a cigarette. Most simply leave you alone.

When you walk into the hotel, the first thing you notice is the smell. It’s a stale smell – a dirty one, similar to the odor of urine.

The reservation desk is behind glass windows. It’s not very inviting. Before you reach it, there are a couple of old benches where some of the tenants sit and talk.

You still see elements of grandeur, such as the craftsmanship of the woodwork as you enter the lobby and the beautiful antique hall tree where some visitors hang their coats to the left of the entryway.

A homemade sign lists visiting hours as 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

After that, visitors or tenants must pay a fee.

Sometimes that rule isn’t enforced. One night some months ago after 8 p.m. I wandered in and started asking questions. An elevator man was more than happy to give me a quick tour.

The elevator is to the right as you walk into the building. It’s an old hand elevator painted white. A blowing fan sits on a small ledge next to the shaft handle.

“I’ll take you to the second floor first,” the elevator man said. “That’s where the nicer rooms are.”

“We have to have control. If they don’t like it, they don’t have to rent here. This isn’t a government property.”

-Art Tatel, owner of Dennision hotel

While the carpet in the hallway was worn, it was clean.

The paint on the walls was decent and the hallways were wide. Every door was closed.

That wasn’t the case on the fifth floor.

There the hallways were wide but dirty. The floor was tile instead of carpet. It had that same stale smell of the lobby.

Many doors were open.

To the right was a room with a heavyset man with a long beard. He was standing naked with a large box fan blowing on him. He didn’t look my way.

As we turned to walk back to the elevator, I saw a woman sitting on a bed, wearing a nightgown, looking at me. Her hair was brown and long and she looked hard and rough.

She was skinny. She was smiling at me.

As she started to part her legs with no panties on, I hurried my pace to the elevator.

The elevator man laughed.

“You see a little bit of everything in here,” he said.

Records at the Cincinnati Historical Society show there once were two Dennison Hotels downtown, both owned by the same party. The older building, which opened in 1822, was at Fifth and Main streets. It had a bar, the Old Dennison Saloon.

The first Dennison Hotel was owned by William Dennison and named after his son.

William Dennison Jr. was the 24th governor of Ohio (18601862) as well as the U.S. Postmaster General and was in the cabinet of President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. The older Dennison was famous for its fireplaces, marble mantelpieces and hand-decorated washstands. Rooms went from $2 to $2.50 a night. Both the saloon and hotel were considered successful businesses in downtown Cincinnati.

William Dennison continued to operate the hotel until 1840, after which, it had a series of different owners.

In 1887, a New Yorker by the name of John Frey took control of the operation. It was Frey’s decision to build a more “ornamental” Dennison.

That’s the one still standing at 716 Main St. Frey operated both Dennisons for several years. After he retired, the hotels changed ownership again several times.

By May 1932, only one the hotels was left. The first hotel was torn down to make way for the widening of Fifth Street.

The bar in the saloon was auctioned for $16. The contents of the hotel rooms were also brought $1 to $15 per room.

This included antique mirrors, old-fashioned water pitchers and washbowls.

While the first hotel was torn down, the newer building continued to be a first-class hotel.

Fred Cianciolo, who owns Cianciolo’s Grocery at 720 Main St., right next door to the Dennison, has been a downtown business man since 1948. He remembers the 1970s and the splendor of the hotel.

“It used to be a really nice place,” he says. “I remember on the second or third floor there were a mother and daughter who lived there for 30 years. They were highclass people – wonderful and nice, always dressed nicely.”

Asked what had changed at the Dennison, Cianciolo shakes his head.

See Dennison p.7

STREETVIBES November 2008

7

Cover Story

Dennison continued from p.6 “Money and different owners,” he says.

Cianciolo tries to take the good with the bad with his store being so close to the Dennison.

“These guys have to live somewhere,” he says.

“They’re good people that slipped. They can’t live on the street.”

He lets some of the Dennison tenants have an open account in his store.

“Some of them are good customers,” he says. “We feel sorry for them. You know, they try. After 6 o’clock, many of them sit on my fruit tables.

The police ask me if I want the men off of them. I say if they’re sitting there, no one is going to try and break into my store.”

Cianciolo wants to be supportive of the tenants, but he does have some concerns.

“We get the postcards,” he says. “I’m not exaggerating.

15 to 20 percent are sex offenders.”

And then there’s the matter of his roof.

“Above us here, there’s trash unmerciful,” he says.

“Beer cans, rubbers, the trash and the garbage – they just throw it out the window. We have a new landlord here and he’s been trying to fix the roof.

The last man who went up there had six bags of garbage – and that’s not over a period of a year or so; it’s maybe a month.”

Included in that trash are crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia.

“Oh gosh, that’s always up there,” Cianciolo says. “Many living there (the Dennison) are drug addicts.”

Cianciolo also says to be careful when walking in the back alley.

“Every once in a while you’ll find a plastic bag,” he says. “If you do, please don’t walk on it because inside is human waste. The tenants throw it out the back window.

The owners have been trying to stop it.”

‘Nowhere else to go’ Art and Sandy Tatel own the Dennison Hotel. Reaching them wasn’t easy.

“They’re hard to get a hold

Quintion Williams lives at the Dennison, but isn’t allowed to have visitors. Photo by Andrew Anderson.

of,” one of the hotel clerks tells me. “They’re usually somewhere in the building doing maintenance.”

On most afternoons I found a Tatel working there, but not one of the owners. Sonny Tatel appears to be the one operating the hotel on most days.

He tells me he’s not related to the owners.

I inform him I’m writing a story. He’s the first to comment on some of the issues tenants are raising, for example, the roaches that room with some of the tenants.

“Right now I can tell you we have people who come here and we have no idea what they do in their rooms,” Tatel says. “It’s the way people live.

They make the problem.”

Tatel confirmed the $9.40 charge for visitors after 6 p.m.

“That’s a law,” he says, “for single-capacity rooms. They aren’t paying for two people.”

Quintion Williams gets on the elevator holding copies of Streetvibes. He’s a vendor for the paper. He asks me to buy two copies. I agree on condition he takes photographer Andrew Anderson and me upstairs. Williams agrees.

Proper identification is required for visitors. As the three of us start to approach the glassed-in front desk, I reach for my wallet to pull out my license. Tatel starts to become agitated.

“No, no, no,” he loudly says, looking at Williams.

“You went to jail for fighting.

The cops called me.”

“I wasn’t fighting nobody, man,” Williams says, looking confused.

“My boss told me if you are to stay here, no visitors,” Tatel replies.

Records at the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts show Williams was convicted of “obscene gesture or noise” and obstructing official business earlier this year.

Tatel wouldn’t let the photographer and me go to Williams’ room.

When I got hold of Art Tatel, one of the owners of the Dennison Hotel, by phone, he seemed to be in a hurry. I asked about some of the rules and restrictions that his ten-

ants dislike, the fee for visitors being limited to one guest at a time.

“We have to have control,” Art Tatel says. “If they don’t like it, they don’t have to rent here. This isn’t a government property.”

I ask Tatel if there are restrictions as to the type of people he rents to – i.e. sex offenders.

“There are no restrictions,” he says.

Tatel’s answers are short and crisp. Are there any frustrations with owning this kind of property?

“No frustration,” he says.

“Everything’s fine.”

“How long have you owned the building?”

“25 years.”

I start to tell Tatel the grand history of the building and how there used to be two Dennison hotels. He quickly interrupts.

“I know nothing about any of that,” he says.

“Is the building for sale?”

I ask.

“Everything’s for sale if the price is right,” he replies. “Do you want to buy it?”

Perhaps developers will tear down the Dennison and put up a modern hotel. Perhaps some organization will buy and restore it to its proper grandeur, making it a firstclass hotel again.

I can’t help but wonder: If this comes about, will people like Mike Lee be able to stay?

He, like others, sits on the sidewalk in front of the Dennison Hotel. He’s lived there for over five years. He’s an older gentleman who doesn’t have any teeth. His hair is gray and his clothes are worn.

I wanted to interview him, but he didn’t have much to say. I wanted to know about his background – where he’s from and if he has family here.

In a weak voice, he told me instead that he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten in days.

I gave him a couple dollars and he thanked me. I sat with him on the sidewalk for awhile in silence.

When I get up and said goodbye, I told Lee I’d be back sometime the next day.

“I’ll be here,” he says without looking up. “I have nowhere else to go.”

Save the date. December 4 at 6:00 pm the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless will hold their Annual Dinner. Tickets are $40 ($30 for social service providers). To reserve your seat call Lynne Ausman at 513-421-7803 x 11.

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STREETVIBES November 2008

Photographs/Artwork

Berta’s Art Corner

Street Fantasy, Liberty Street West End, Cincinnati, Ohio

Sign of the times? This tattered U.S. flag, flying over Hughes High School, perhaps symbolizes more than is intended.

Photo by Ben L. Kaufman.

STREETVIBES November 2008

9

Interview

Changing the Conversation Peter Block on homelessness

By Stephanie Dunlap Contributing Writer SD: So you’re the keynote speaker for the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless Annual Dinner on Dec. 4…what are you going to talk about?

PB: I’m going to talk about what it means to live without possibility. Bob Moore told me when I asked him to teach me something about homeless, he said they’re no different than we are, they just lack a support system. In some sense, we’ve all sacrificed a sense of home and place on the altar of mobility and consumerism.

The financial crisis and obesity confront us with our excesses. I think the homeless in some ways carry that burden for us -- carry the extreme of what’s really a cultural deficit, a cultural addiction. So that’s one theme.

The other is “homeless” is not who they are. It doesn’t define them, and every time we use that term we’re speaking to one aspect of who they are, any more than others are defined by their sexuality or defined by their profession.

Using the term “homeless” keeps us from knowing who they are.

We’re much closer to being homeless because of the mortgage crisis than we ever were before, which is kind of interesting. And if you look middle class, you can kind of pass and get support from the government and culture for your plight. If you don’t look middle class, then what you get is contempt.

Our task is to help people be known, be seen. This is what Streetvibes does. It gives face to people who are permanently transient, diaspora, exiles, refugees. If you think around the world of the number of people who can’t return to their own home -- why can’t they return? Because it’s a place of conflict and violence. The people who don’t have a place now are carrying the weight for the rest of us, because we don’t want to look at the violence and unrest of our own culture.

What is the violence in our culture?

People’s indifference to

And that somehow manifest destiny could be used to support gentrification seems wrong to me.

I also think there’s a part of developing Over-the-Rhine that has to be done, so I kind of understand what’s driving it. What has been happening in recent years has not been working. It’s just that the conversation is not based on relatedness; it’s a conversation designed for both sides to feel frustrated and angry. 3CDC’s problem is not their goal; it’s their devaluing of relationships with people in the neighborhood.

I think the neighborhood has been at an impasse for so long that to leave it as it is makes no sense. But I don’t know of any large, prosperous, vital city that doesn’t have space for mixed income all throughout it.

It’s the idea that the two forms of who we are -- are incompatible -- is a form of blindness.

Peter Block will be the keynote speaker at the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless’ annual dinner on Dec. 4. Photo provided by Peter Block.

each other, their isolation, people’s isolating narcissism, willingness to consume the resources of the earth.

The choice is for us to look at the gifts and talents of the homeless. They are not just their vulnerabilities. I will bet that homeless people have a smaller fossil fuel imprint than all the rest of us. Why don’t we celebrate them for that? Maybe they’re a role model for us how to live gently with the earth. They spend more time outdoors than the rest of us.

The fact that we blame them for crimes they don’t commit -- it’s on us. They’re not dangerous to us. They’re just discomforting. And maybe when they come to us with a request, all they want is to be seen.

they find out who the professionals are and who needs the money.

How does your model of civic engagement address homelessness?

I guess it would say we need to find out who they are and stop treating them as the other, as if they’re a problem to be solved. They’re a community to be known and to be received. They are the test of the hospitality of our culture.

There is a quote from Bible that is on the wall in the Half Day Café in Wyoming: Don’t forget to entertain strangers.

For by so doing, some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Do you give money to panhandlers?

I give money to women panhandlers.

Have you gotten close to a homeless person?

Only in my family. My sister was homeless. For several years, without me, she would have been homeless.

Why not men?

I don’t know. I think if I was responsible I would carry food with me. In the Philippines, that’s what they do; they carry fruit and food in the car. Then

What’s your opinion of the Drop Inn Center versus 3CDC controversy?

I think it would be a crime against the community to move (the Drop Inn Center).

How could the city of Cincinnati better address its homeless citizens?

One thing we’ve done is we’ve delegated to the private sector the common ground.

You mean 3CDC. Yes. I think the city needs a voice in this. There’s got to be some way to be together that’s not always an argument.

I think the park commission is right in the center of this, and they should be a convening agent. At some point, peace is going to be declared, so why wait 20 years?

My favorite quote is the prime minister of Israel, Rabin.

When he made peace with Arafat, people complained to him, and he said, “Who do you want me to make peace with -- my friends?”

We need to look for a larger, transcendent way to heal that wounded neighborhood.

You just can’t leave it as it is. It’s wounded. Otherwise it becomes a battle between colonialist and anti-colonialist powers, and I don’t have faith in either one knowing what’s best for the whole.

What cities have better approaches to working with the homeless?

New York has areas. San Francisco. It’s not simple, but there are spaces where, before the move to the suburbs, people of mixed incomes lived next to each other. Why have we segregated that?

You go to other countries and they all live in the same neighborhood. Not without their problems. Wealthy people have problems with their neighbors, too.

Maybe that’s what’s appealing about their lifestyle … the simplicity.

They have not bought consumerism. Maybe that’s what bothers us about them; they’ve indicted our indulgence.

The other theme would be to ask the question, what gifts do they have to offer? The gifts are: A low-carbon footprint. Approachability – if you want someone to talk to, they’re not going to run away from you. They create an economy around them. They give us somebody who, in context, makes us feel better about ourselves: There but for the grace of God go I. We can get a different worldview without going on an airplane.

What they show us is what freedom looks like -- freedom from the burden of 9 to 5.

They don’t’ complain about 9 to 5. I don’t want to romanticize them.

What needs to change so that homelessness wouldn’t be such an issue?

The context in which we engage the issue. We need to lift the contempt off the conversation and create space for compassion and concern and create space for people to know each other and to know the people who are advocates for the homeless as well as the homeless themselves.

The other thing is to stop marketing fear for those neighborhoods. The media is engaged in a large master narrative that where people are congregated are dangerous.

That’s not the story of those places. Crime does happen but it happens in lots of places. It should be a human-interest story in the middle section of the paper. There’s such a reporting bias against people on the margin.

Peter Block will be the keynote speaker at the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless Annual Dinner on December 4 at Xavier University starting at 6pm.

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STREETVIBES November 2008

Column

Short Goliath Dodges the Deadly Purse

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.

You can’t treat the addiction until you fix the hunger

I

first met Marie -- that’s not her name, but that’s what I’ll call her-- in the parking lot outside the East End office where I worked at the time. She and her thenhusband were waiting for me under the big maple tree that erupted from the asphalt. I pulled in and introduced myself and within minutes had to settle a fight.

He said something and she took offense and around came the purse like David’s sling.

She never did connect with the purse, but she did with her curses, which were enough to slay a Goliath or two.

The then-husband wasn’t a Goliath. He was even smaller than I am, and he was the one quiet member of an East End family noted for its rowdies and lawbreakers.

Marie didn’t have much local family at all. So later, when she had broken off with Short Goliath, she was pretty much on her own, without a soul in the world to stand alongside her. ***** Marie came to me on a referral from Children’s Services. She had a chance to regain custody of her children if she could stay sober long enough

and complete all the programs demanded of her. It was pretty overwhelming to her at the start, but we worked on it and made progress.

The children were with Short Goliath’s mother down Eastern Avenue, in an arrangement I never understood, for this particular grandmother, a short, feisty woman, was raising the children of two

and children on a hill so steep it seemed a wonder that one or more of them didn’t roll off the hill and into the path of one of the big rigs that weren’t allowed on Columbia Parkway.

Which leads me to another question - I know I’m meandering fearfully. If the big 18-wheelers were considered unsafe on Columbia Parkway, where there were no children, why did we send them down childintensive Eastern, where, every few years, it seemed,

By Michael Henson we’d hear of a semi rolling over one of these exother of her children. The pendable East End kids?

But it’s not for me to quesones she wasn’t raising children for were in and out of tion either Children’s Services jail on a regular basis, and the or Traffic Engineering. grandchildren she was raising ***** looked pretty much the same.

Back to Marie.

So my question was: If she I recall one session in parcouldn’t raise her own chil- ticular when she seemed redren right, what made them ally depressed. She had a lot think she could do any better to be depressed about, and with the grandchildren? she often showed it. She was But there the children were, raised in poverty in East Kenin a house on the hillside be- tucky in a home so abusive she tween Eastern Avenue and and her sisters had to nail their Columbia Parkway. It remind- bedroom shut. She and short ed me of Mother Hubbard’s, Goliath broke up. He raped all a tumble with bicycles and her. When he was convicted, Hot Wheels and swing sets she was harassed by his fam-

ammered H

I, Too Have a Voice

ily. And there was the issue of the children. So if anyone had a reason to feel down, it was Marie.

But she usually had fight in her and she showed that, too.

(That purse should have been registered as a weapon.) But she showed no fight on this particular day. She looked pale; she acted listless. She could barely raise her voice. I later found out she had a wonderful country-style voice.

Usually, she could talk her way out of her depressions.

We did a lot of work with action plans and such.

None of the usual ways worked, but as we talked, I found out what was really going on.

She had been sleeping in the woods, out of fear of Short Goliath, and she had not eaten in three days.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual does not list hunger as a symptom.

The training for most counselors does not include what to do when someone is sleeping in the woods. Most of what you learn is working

by Holly Parker

My native ancestors call out from the earth My white woman cries out from the pain My motherhood cries out from the injustice I, too, have a voice As my native ancestors felt the fear, the rapes, the destruction of their homes and their families I feel it, As my white ancestors did horrible crimes I scream of the cries I still hear in the middle of the night As my black men and women that suckled from my breast are still turned down for jobs and housing I feel the pain I, too, have a voice As a Native American white woman, mother of six black men and women I can feel all sides I am turned away from some jobs and housing because though I am qualified I do not have the right skin tone Watching as my children have to struggle for food, clothing, the right to walk down the street I to have a voice

Hatred, greed, prejudice, murder, rape, disease, poverty, division Have all had a voice in our nation Now it is my turn for I, too, have a voice

further up the scale from basic survival.

It would not make sense for me to talk with her about her family-of-origin issues when she was starving in front of me.

In this case, the solution was simple enough. We marched down the hall to the social services agency where they gave her food and hooked her up with temporary housing.

After that, we worked on very specific objectives. Week after week, she showed up at my office. Bit by bit, she repaired one or another aspect of her life. I don’t remember anyone who worked so hard and methodically to build up a wrecked life.

I wish I could tell you this story had a happy ending. I lost track of her for until I was called in to testify in a long, grueling court battle that went on for days before and for days after my appearance. At the end, the county took the children after all.

She was pregnant again by then, so maybe she saw some hope.

Poetry

I have the voice of a Native American I have the voice of a white woman I have the voice of a mother of black men and women I, too, have a voice

As the mother, native and white though I maybe Rise up to make a stand For what you say how can I understand because I, too, have a voice

If she couldn’t raise her own children right, what made them think she could do any better with the grandchildren?

As I Got Up Off the Floor As I got up off the floor Brushed myself off again I thought to myself This cannot happen again To myself I must be true Why do I allow Hit after hit to knock me down Letting it make me look like some clown Whether its with a fist A word or deed Why, why, why Do I allow this to happen to me Trap after trap I seem to fall in Stumbling right into it It's like I'm blind to it Sweet words I hear and then there Bam I find myself doing it all over again Brushing myself off and picking myself up off Picking myself up off the floor again Am I a sucker for every line Or do I just see something deep inside them They don't even see How in the world can I Warn others, but my own I am truly blind Questions I kept asking myself as I just Brushed myself off once again As I got up off the floor

STREETVIBES November 2008

The New Powell Doctrine Muslims, homeless people and other real Americans

By Steve Sunderland Contributing Writer

I

was so positively stunned

by Colin Powell's recent statements about supporting Sen. Barack Obama that I immediately sent it to my peace network. Here's the part of his comment that grabbed me: “I’m also troubled by not what Sen. McCain says but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, ‘Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.’

“Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim; he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian.

“But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that’s not America.”

Powell is the first national leader of either party to take on the ugly aspects of American society since 9/11. He signals to the country that we can no longer consider ourselves good Americans if we lump all Muslims or all Christians and Jews into the same negative frames of reference. The open acknowledgement that an American Muslim can be president strengthens efforts

11

Column

to make our country an inclusive one. By emphasizing the most unfairly demonized group, Powell asks us to wake up to the ways that national opinion can manipulate the hearts of Americans.

"Inclusion" has been a dirty word for too long in the American vocabulary. As we have increased our separation from each other based on race, gender, sexual orientation and ability, we have created a foundation for widespread hatred, ignorance and fear. Who knows a Muslim? I was struck by a rabbi writing about interfaith work noting that he has more books about Islam than friends who are Muslim. I was saddened to hear of the lack of attendance at a mosque of one of our leading educators be-

cause he “just never thought of going.” And I was continually amazed at the reluctance to engage in religious discussions with Muslims in synagogues, churches and educational institutions.

The fear of the "Muslim" is but a temporary replacement for the fear of the Hispanic or the poor or the black family, or the disabled or the person with a different sexual orientation. Now, with widespread and growing economic crisis, the chances of people creating relationships that are based on common pain are lessened.

Instead, we read of the rise of “white racist groups” to spread the hatred of immigrants and Obama. Are we surprised by this turn of events?

Powell's sentiments of

Students from St. Ursula participated in a Shantytown event to raise awareness of homelessness in our communities. Photo provided by Mayerson Foundation.

compassion struck a deep chord with hundreds of Cincinnati public, private and parochial high school students and teachers as they lived in "shanty towns" at their high schools throughout the city.

On some of the coldest nights, students gathered around fires to listen to former homeless people, now advocates, to talk about abolishing homelessness and to share the "rules of survival" for the homeless.

“Guard your valuables and your friend's bag as well,” one speaker told a freezing group.

“Everything in your world is in this bag; and if it is lost, you have to start over at the very beginning.”

He spoke with the authority of someone who had too many bags stolen. The students listened deeply to the stories and heard that most homeless do not spend their nights in cardboard boxes. Instead, they live in abandoned cars, empty and destroyed buildings or “just on the street: I just put my head down and go to sleep.”

The new “Powell Doctrine,” as I suspect it will be known, opens a long-closed door for discussion and action about the importance of inclusion as an indispensable aspect of peace. The agenda of justice, which has been put on hold might now come forward and

be taken up as a part of executive leadership at all levels.

Surely, the war will be brought to a close and reconstruction begun. Equally certain, there will be a return to civil-rights law, both at local, state and federal levels and new appointments to the Supreme Court.

The discussion of justice will take a position at the center of reviews of policies about ending hunger and homelessness, enforcing new and old laws that affirm the involvement of people with disabilities in all aspects of life and, finally, with the end of racism toward people who are American blacks, American Muslims, Americans with intellectual and physical gifts and challenges, American children who need schools that honor their uniqueness -and the list goes on.

Powell signals that there are many people, including Republicans, who want to return to the values that make America both free and just.

As America awakens, so the definition of “being an American” can be refreshed, and any American, even 8-year-old Muslims, can be proud of our country. Thank you, General Powell.

The Law as an Aid to the Poor Legal Aid Society now in its second century

By Elizabeth Scheper Contributing Writer When the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati was founded, it was part of a new concept in American law. Now the agency is 100 years old.

“At the time of our incorporation, Cincinnati was one of only seven cities in the nation with a society of this type, so our founders were really on the forefront of the national legal aid movement,” says Mary Asbury, executive director of Legal Aid. “That commitment and tradition continues today, as we are now southwest Ohio ’s largest and most effective nonprofit law firm, serving approximately 30,000 lowincome clients annually.”

The organization’s mission has changed over the decades.

For 50 years it provided criminal defense for the indigent but since 1979 has specialized representing poor people in civil cases.

Legal Aid puts special em-

phasis on victims of domestic violence, according to Asbury.

"In a recent study of homelessness, Legal Aid was surprised to see the high percentage of homeless people whose cause of homelessness was domestic violence," she says.

Attorneys help individuals who are leaving shelters obtain restraining orders, protect their child-custody rights and enforce visitation orders.

Another area of focus is home foreclosures and evictions. Many times home buyers can be tricked into seemingly enticing loans but then are unable to maintain payment. Legal Aid lawyers try to get lenders to put a hold on payments while homeowners work to stabilize their incomes.

“Last year we helped 440 families save their homes from going to foreclosure,” says Mark Lawson, an attorney in Legal Aid’s housing division.

The agency also represents tenants in public housing who face eviction or encounter housing discrimination.

Legal Aid also helps military veterans obtain the benefits they’ve earned.

"Too often veterans are not receiving the veteran affairs income that they deserve, or people with disabilities are not receiving social security income that they need," Asbury says. "In those situations, we work with Veteran Affairs and the social security office to ensure that those individuals receive the income that they deserve and therefore the stability they need to maintain a better standard of living."

Legal Aid doesn’t handle routine divorce cases that don’t involve custody issues, evictions from private housing or consumer problems such as dissatisfaction with a car or other purchase.

The Legal Aid society employs 48 full-time lawyers and coordinates a group of

Mary Asbury, executive director of Legal Aid Society, says the organization serves approximately 30,000 low-ncome clinets annnually. Photo provided by Legal Aid.

attorneys who work in the Volunteer Lawyers Program.

Legal Aid provides service in Brown, Butler, Clermont, Clinton, Hamilton, Highland and Warren counties.

A non-profit agency, Legal Aid receives funding from United Way and other organi-

zations. The state of Ohio provides funds from certain court fees. Butler County provides funding for children's legal aid in areas such as obtaining health care.

For more information, call 513-241-9400 or visit www. lascinti.org.

Local News 12 Renaissance at the NAACP

STREETVIBES November 2008

Christopher Smitherman reinvigorates civil-rights group

By Lew Moores Contributing Writer

lot initiatives on the November ballot.

arian Spencer was born in 1920, the year women in the United States were granted the right to vote. Her grandfather had been a slave until he was 13 years old.

When she became president of the local chapter of the NAACP in the early 1980s, she faced some of the same hurdles that Christopher Smitherman faced in 2007 when he became the civil rights organization’s president – a lethargy that had set in and left the organization with just several hundred members.

“Our membership was down to 500,” says Spencer, now 88, a long-time civil rights activist and former Cincinnati vice mayor. “But my husband (Donald) worked hard with me, and we brought it up to 2,000. And now Christopher’s efforts have been miraculous.

He’s a good organizer and has been able to reinvigorate the branch.”

They are separated by a couple of generations, and both are former Cincinnati council members, but they both brought to the role a fiery mettle that paid off in a resurgence, even renaissance.

Smitherman, 41, is so far pleased with the results. Membership in the local NAACP, founded in 1915, stands at 2,400, and the goal is to reach 3,000 by the end of the year.

Twenty percent of its members are white.

Last year the NAACP successfully fought a sales tax hike to build a new jail in Hamilton County. Last summer the national convention of the NAACP took place in Cincinnati, and the local chapter has again partnered with other groups in two other bal-

Unlikely friends

M

Much of its recruitment success, observers have said in the past year, can be attributed to both the organization’s and Smitherman’s higher profiles.

That has come not just from radio talk and visibility, but from three ballot initiatives in the past year -- overturning the jail tax last year, opposing red-light cameras and backing proportional representation this year -- and programs such as court monitoring and voter registration.

Next year, with Cincinnati City Council and mayoral elections, the NAACP plans again to be in the thick of the campaign.

“My goal is to have at least two ballot initiatives next year,” Smitherman says. “I’m not ready to say what they are.

I think people are seeing our efforts to do substantive civil rights work. The work of the NAACP is grassroots civilrights work. We’re involved with court watch, where we see disparities in the Hamilton County justice system (discrepancies in pursuing justice for whites and minorities).

We’re addressing that head on. There have been three ballot initiatives.”

Juanita Adams is first vice president of the local NAACP. She said part of the success comes from Smitherman not shrinking from controversy.

“He has been really outspoken on the problems and issues,” Adams says. “He has taken on what I consider some tough issues. He has been out front. He does not mind speaking out. I think people want to get involved (in an organization) when they see something happening. I think that’s the

reason our membership has increased -- people want to be part of it.”

And, she adds, “We have collaboration with other groups, reaching across to other groups. That’s speaking truth to power.”

Essential to the organization’s effectiveness, Smitherman says, are coalition-building and dismissing a common belief that the NAACP and the Democratic Party are in each other’s hip pockets. Indeed, on talk radio in the past few weeks, Smitherman has been equally dismissive of Democratic and Republican positions.

He reminds people, for instance, that Democrats (Hamilton County commissioners Todd Portune and David Pepper) came up with the idea of a jail tax last year and that Democrats on city council have voted to cut human services; and he has been critical of the party for choosing not to run any Democrats in several county races, such as someone to oppose County Prosecutor Joe Deters, a Republican.

“Some have viewed the local NAACP as the same as the Democratic Party,” Smitherman says. “I’ve been working to be clear that we’re an independent, non-partisan organization and not the arm of the Democratic Party.”

Collaboration has meant finding allies on some issues with whom there might be little agreement on other issues. Such was the case with the NAACP and the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST), an essentially conservative activist group. While they would disagree on a tax levy for Cincinnati Public Schools, they joined in the fight – along with the Green Party of Ohio, Cincinnati Progressive Action

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and the Libertarian Party – in opposing the jail tax last year.

Christopher Finney, a conservative anti-tax activist, is a founder of COAST. In May, the Cincinnati Business Courier called Smitherman’s relationship with Finney a “friendship,” adding, “The two finish each other’s sentences, each at time interrupting to give the other credit for visionary leadership or being a man of integrity.”

Smitherman furthered the description, calling it a “fabulous relationship. He just assisted us legally. We’ve been working around issues where we have common ground. We went out and tried to find partners, identified those partners and brought everybody together. It was a very unlikely partnership. The politics are very sophisticated. We have no permanent enemies in politics. We are issue-driven.

Where we can find partnerships around issues, we do that.”

Power struggle Marian Spencer disagreed with the NAACP on the jail issue, mostly because it included measures for rehabilitation and recovery. But she has supported Smitherman on other issues, especially when it comes to politically empowering people.

“The NAACP has to be there for people who are less well represented in other areas,” she says. “They had to fight for voting and open areas that were closed, they fought to outlaw lynching.

Legal Aid was there, but not in the streets. The role of the NAACP has always been to keep that door open.

“I keep thinking about my slave grandfather in heaven and how he must be shout-

ing at this point where he sees Obama running for president.”

Smitherman doesn’t mince words about his goal of seeking power for the NAACP. “It is my goal to make the NAACP in Cincinnati the most powerful organization in the region,” he says. “My end game is that, when we come in and say we’re going to do something, is that we be taken incredibly serious. We need to use that power in a very responsible way. It’s absurd to think the NAACP would be positioning itself to be powerless. How can we protect people if we have no power? Our goal is to be powerful.”

Smitherman rejects any suggestions of cult of personality, that he’s become a lightning rod or center of controversy to the detriment of the organization or a cause.

“Martin Luther King Jr. was defined as being the center of controversy,” Smitherman says. “Ted Berry was at the center of controversy, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks. As a ‘lightning rod,’ I take it as an ultimate compliment. The bottom line is I’m not interested in what anybody thinks about the work we do today. I’m interested in what you think about it 30 years from now.”

He carries it a step further.

“I don’t care what some people think about me,” he says. “I care about the guy who doesn’t have a job, doesn’t have health care, just got laid off. I care about the homeless person who’s living on the street, the unemployed and jobless. That number is growing. I care more about what they think about my work. As long as they think I’m doing a good job, then it’s a thumbs-up.”

Interested in volunteering with Streetvibes?

Contact Greg Flannery at 513-421-7803 x 12 or by e-mail at streetvibes2@ yahoo.com

STREETVIBES November 2008

Who’s Helping Whom?

Disabled volunteers serve the needy, learn job skills

By Angela Pancella Contributing Writer

What types of disabilities do your clients have?

It’s a range. Most come through MRDD (the Department of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities), so they go from mild mental retardation to severe autism. … This place is so good for a range (of abilities).

I can have someone who, all they can pull off is picking up silverware and handing it to someone, to somebody who wants to be the first person in the serving line.

Our Daily Bread, a food and hospitality ministry at 1730 Race St., Over-the-Rhine, offers a mid-day meal, serving more than 500 every weekday. To volunteer or to donate food, call Joan or Kathy at 513-621-6364.

went out and did it.

Several groups volunteer at Our Daily Bread for training in job skills. I spoke with Chris Miday, workforce development coordinator at the Easter Seals Work Resource Center.

How do your clients benefit from helping out at a soup kitchen?

We work with people with disabilities. … My goal is to come up with training opportunities for them to work on work skills before they get into the workplace. I’d say about half have had other jobs. Sometimes they quit, sometimes they just get tired of (them), and some have been with us since high school and are still with us.

13

Local News

Volunteers from the Easter Seals Work Resource Center: Kim Hoskins, Laura Grubbs, and Chris Miday. Photo by Angela Pancella.

How long have you been coming to Our Daily Bread?

I’ve been coming down here probably two and a half years.

Our vice president started the whole idea of doing volunteer work as work training. I knew about that model of taking people, and I just randomly called down here. I came down, volunteered and loved it. I asked Kathy (Our Daily Bread’s kitchen manager) if I could bring a couple of clients with me. It worked great from the very beginning. The clients absolutely loved it.

They’d come down here every day of the week if they could.

I would get tired of doing the

same thing for two hours, but I’ve got people who are just begging me to come down, stand for two hours and put coleslaw on a plate. They just can’t wait to do it. I’ve got like 50 different people who, every time I walk by them (say), “When am I going to the soup kitchen? This Friday, next Monday?”

The jobs that we get people usually are janitorial or restaurant. So it’s great training.

One lady I brought down here -- she wanted to try to bus some tables, so I let her. She got a job at Don Pablo’s busing tables. It sparked her interest, she practiced it here and

Cleo’s Joke Corner A duck walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a drink. The bartender says, “We don’t serve ducks.” The duck asks him three times for a drink. The bartender says, “We don’t serve ducks. If you ask me one more time, I’m going to nail your feet to the floor.” The duck comes in for five more days and asks the same thing. The bartender keeps telling him, “We don’t serve ducks. I’m going to nail your feet to the floor.” The last day the duck came in and asks for nails. The bartender says he doesn’t have any more nails, so the duck says, “Then can I have a drink?”

There was a lady working at the M&Ms candy factory. She was told that if there were anything wrong with the M&M bags to throw them away. The manager saw her throw away every bag and said, “What are you doing? I only told you to throw away the bad bags. What’s wrong with these?” The lady said, “All I see are Ws.”

How do your clients react to being at Our Daily Bread?

It seems like they usually understand the concept well.

Some, they get it on a different level. One woman I have with me today fully understands that she is helping people in need, and that’s why she loves it. Every time we drive home, she says, “Man, I love being down there. I just love helping those people out.” And other ones, I think, they just want to get out of the factory, get out into society and interact with different people. With some, it keeps them busy and they like the work aspect of it. Others sometimes, I think, just want to come to eat the food after they work; but if they work, I think that’s a good tradeoff.

They all have their own motives. Usually they just ask me when they’re coming again.

I ask them, especially if it’s their first time, “What do you think about it? Did you like it? Do you want to go back?”

And I’m pretty sure that no one’s ever said they didn’t like coming down here.

It’s interesting because it’s not the easiest work — not everyone’s appreciative, and people can snap at you and things like that. But that doesn’t faze them at all. I think because 80 percent of the time people are very thankful, I think that just overrides the negative.

Sometimes when they are having issues, different (clients) take it harder than others. I have a girl I bring down who’ll break down and cry sometimes if someone snaps at her, like, “I didn’t want coleslaw!” or something like that. And I say, “Look, if you go work at a restaurant, this is what it’s like all the time.” It’s very realistic. The biggest part of restaurant work is customer service; you always have to smile and say, “Thank you” no matter what people say to you. I think it’s good training for that.

Shy people that I bring here, some have said nothing and then slowly start saying, “Hi.” I’ve had some that have gone to saying “Hi” to every single person. I think that’s the most valuable thing in what I do — helping people socially and helping them feel better about themselves. I think that trumps training them for work and getting them working. Most of them get Social Security checks and other benefits. Really, a lot of our guys, they don’t have to work at all but they want to work.

That’s why they come. I think that’s great, and to give them meaningful work that makes them feel good about themselves — I think that’s the best thing. And it works really well because they’re helping other people while they’re helping themselves.

A man goes into a bar with a mouse in his pocket. He orders two shots of whiskey.

He drinks one and pours the other in his pocket. He does this about seven times.

The barmaid says, “That is disgusting.” The bouncer says, “You have to leave, sir.” The customer says, “I ought to knock you out.” The mouse jumps out of the pocket, hiccups and says, “That goes for the barmaid, too.”

How many seconds are there in a year? My granddaughter said there were 12. I said, “How is that?” She said, “Because there is Jan. 12, Feb. 2, all the way to Dec. 2. That makes 12 seconds.”

There were two friends. One was a pitcher, and one was a catcher.

They played baseball for 20 years. One day the catcher died. The pitcher was praying about a year later and wondering how his friend was. All of a sudden his friend showed up out of nowhere and said he had great news: “They play baseball in heaven. You’re pitching tonight.”

14 Street Smarts

STREETVIBES November 2008

Local News

A night in a shanty teaches students about homelessness

By Alyssa Konermann Staff Writer

C

ardboard boxes, constructed into makeshift homes with the help of plastic sheeting and duct tape, crowded the grassy space near the sidewalk. This wasn’t a scene from postKatrina New Orleans or from beneath an urban overpass. It was the temporary landscape of 19 high schools in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky the weekend of Oct. 1719.

Shantytown is an annual educational experience coordinated by the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless in cooperation with local high schools and universities.

Students construct shanties in which they spend one or more evenings while simultaneously engaging in activities that allow them to learn more about homelessness. The aim of this immersion is to foster a greater understanding of the complexities of the issue, as well as providing a level of firsthand experience that will encourage them to become active in the fight to end homelessness.

Students from Bishop Brossart High School of Alexandria, Ky., kept busy with the construction of their shanties, education and reflection activities and hearing from Riccardo Taylor on behalf of the coalition’s speakers bureau.

A mixture of first-time and returning participants filled the campus’ short-term shantytown, all eager to learn as well as anxious about the ex-

pected temperature drop that evening.

“I wanted to learn more what it’s said [to be homeless said freshman Elizabeth Ward.

“Friends who participated last year said it was fun and encouraged me to join.”

Kearria South, a junior at Bishop Brossart, had more personal reasons for taking part in Shantytown for the second time.

“My family has had handson experience with homelessness,” she said. “For a while

“They learned a lot and experienced the freezing temperatures in cozy sleeping bags and thermal clothes, realizing that not all homeless people could be as well prepared as (they) were.”

-Karen Hordinski, outeach director at CHCA both of my parents were jobless, and we were staying in a house with no power, water, or heat. My brother was also homeless for six months.”

Through the experience of Shantytown, South hoped her classmates would “know that (homelessness) is not just the stereotype of people with addictions and who are lazy.

People need to see that anyone can become homeless.”

In a special twist on the Shantytown experience, Bishop Brossart students were re-

Students from Wyoming High School build their shanties in front of their school. They were rudely awakened at 1 in the morning by the police and told to move. Photo courtesy of Jeff Seibert.

quired to sell Streetvibes to classmates in order to earn money with which they to buy lunch. The purpose was to help them further understand the daily struggles that homeless people face, though they were repeatedly reminded by the leaders of the event that this was an extremely mild version of the actual experience of homelessness.

Karen Hordinski, outreach director at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy (CHCA), worked with a group of students to host Shantytown for the second year.

“The students loved (the small Shantytown of 2007) and wanted to do it again so that more of their peers could learn about homelessness,” she said.

Thirty-six students and five adults at CHCA participated on Sunday evening, which was chosen so that on Monday morning “the students would

feel what it would be like to go to school when you are exhausted, hungry and not feeling well prepared for the day,” Hordinski said. It was powerful for them.”

The group heard Sam Jackson and Georgine Getty speak from the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, as well as Karen Fessler from Project Connect.

“Students were shocked to find out how many ways homeless people get tickets from the police, such as sitting, standing, urinating and jaywalking,” Hordinski said.

“They learned a lot and experienced the freezing temperatures in cozy sleeping bags and thermal clothes, realizing that not all homeless people could be as well prepared as (they) were.”

At Xavier University, Shantytown tackles a specific aspect of homelessness each year. This fall the student-con-

structed shanties on the academic mall spoke to the issue of homeless veterans. Graffiti covers the shanties with statistics, including the assertion that one in three homeless men are veterans, according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.

Suzanne Buzek, a sophomore at Xavier who is active with Habitat for Humanity, describes her goal as having “less people out on the streets and more people under roofs.”

“It's a harsh wake-up call, seeing the shanties on the academic mall,” she says.

Buzek recognizes the need to make the issue personal.

“When I sleep in our shanty tonight, experiencing the cold and harsh elements will only further ignite my compassion for those who don't have a warm bed to sleep in at night and my will to do what I can to change that.”

in scars and nightmares. I’m damaged goods, and no one wants me.

What do all them have in common? We are all looked down at by society and rejected by them, too. People judge us but they do not know us or our situations. People put us down and laugh at us, thinking we don’t hear, but we do. During the day we show no feelings and fight to survive. Yet at night many of us cry ourselves to sleep and wonder if anyone cares. Has God or our higher power forsaken us? No matter what we do or whom we call, we go unanswered.

The main thing we all have in common is we are or were

homeless in our lives. The pain and scorn of those words and time still live deep in our hearts and affect us today. We end up having little trust for others and have few friends and trust for God, Christians and those who claim to care.

That is because we have been badly hurt by those same people. When others find out our past, they scorn us and look down at us by saying we did something to deserve what we got.

So when do the dirty looks and scorn go away? Never.

So think before you put that person down or look away, or even treat them like they are trash. That could be you.

Look Down at Me But be ready for what you’ll see

By Dede Stoops Contributing Writer Who am I that you look down at me?

I’m the everyday person who goes unnoticed. I’m a young person who has no home and family, whose friends got tired of my couch surfing or staying there, so I’m out on the streets. I’m the kid with no safe home or parents who care.

Yet you look down at me and call us “thugs.”

I’m the kid of foster care who was not prepared for life and is now on the streets stealing to survive. Yet you call me “trash” and “lazy” not want-

ing to work or succeed.

I’m a survivor of a terrible act of nature or man. Yet you say I did something to deserve my plight.

I’m an out-of-work man with no income and home so I can’t get a job or home, yet you call me lazy. I have a mental illness and can’t get help or I get lost in the system, yet you call me a “freak” and say, “Get lost.” I’m a soldier who got lost in the system, and my country wants nothing to do with me now that I’m damaged goods, yet you say my training should have trained me to stay away from this life of the streets.

I’m an a alcoholic and/or

drug addict who has or will hit bottom and crawled out of the streets so the bottle is my comforter, yet you say I deserve it for being what I am and hurting my family.

I’m a young mother with several kids, and no man will accept their children as a responsibility; or I’m running from violence, yet you look down on me and call me a “whore” or “irresponsible.”

I’m a single woman who was abused in the past and has no friend or family who cares to help; and jobs are hard to find or get when you're homeless, yet you say I can overcome by forgetting the past. But I can’t forget the memories; they are

STREETVIBES November 2008

Editorial

Generosity is Just the Start

15

A little thought makes holiday charity more effective

By Georgine Getty Contributing Writer

A

s the weather turns colder and the winter holidays approach, many people’s thoughts turn to charity. This is one of the best parts of the season, the thing that drives us as human beings to truly recognize our good fortune and share it with others who might not have as much.

The question is how to best channel this energy so that it does the most good.

The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless is comprised of over 45 member agencies dedicated to serving homeless men, women and children. Every year, starting in mid-November and lasting until the end of December, Cincinnati’s shelters find themselves flooded with goodwill. People who want

to serve dinner on Thanksgiving or Christmas. People who want to donate toys and clothing, shoes and gloves. People who want to help decorate or take people to their places of worship. Generous, kind people. But overwhelming nonetheless.

There are two main ways to give: You can give your time and/or you can give monetarily. Here are some tips for holiday giving.

First, remember that it feels good to give. That warm feeling that you get when you help someone homeless is the same warm feeling that a homeless mother feels when she gives a present to her child or when a homeless person “re-gifts” a donation to one of his or her friends or loved ones. Simply put, if you feel inclined to make sure that a homeless family has presents on Christmas morning, the kindest way

to do this is by giving the serve food or hold a party, call mother or the father a gift cer- around to various agencies and tificate and allowing them the ask if they have a need. Don’t freedom and choice to pick the be discouraged if they already present they know their child have their volunteer needs met will love the best. This “giv- on key days like Thanksgiving from afar” might not be ing or Christmas Eve. There as satisfying as are holiday picking it out The love that you put and seaand wrapping sonal events in the community, it yourself, but year-round even if it’s just by the gift it gives that you can cleaning a storage to the parent is channel this even more im- room, will come back energy into. portant that the to you many fold and Ask if you gift it gives the last well into the new can plan child. a Mothers year.

Second, our Day brunch agencies deor a Fourth pend on volunteers to organize of July picnic. Maybe a Suand provide for holiday parties per bowl party or an Opening and food service. However, Day Bar-b-que. Carry over the many times the volunteers and feeling of charity to last the staff who contribute to that whole year. agency year round and have a Third, remember homeless special bond with the clients agencies as you make out your have already taken care of holiday shopping list. Does this need. If you would like to Uncle Bill really need a new

tie, or would he prefer a donation in his honor to help homeless veterans? Talk to your kids. Forego stocking stuffers and instead put the money in an envelope and let them give it to the director of a soup kitchen. Ask your friends and family to make donations to your favorite charity instead of getting you presents. Create a new tradition of giving.

Finally, keep an open mind and ask your favorite agency what it needs. Be a willing pair of hands. The love that you put in the community, even if it’s just by cleaning a storage room, will come back to you many fold and last well into the new year.

For a list of many fine shelters, soup kitchens and agencies in our community, please visit www.cincihomeless.org and click on “member agencies.”

A Night in Shantytown Students learn what they’re not missing

By Meera Basu Guest Columnist

vices and support for homeless

that so many homeless young

varied difficulties they have

What if your mom kicked you out of the house? I mean literally looked you straight in the eyes and shouted, "Get out!" Now imagine this in 30oF weather, and you're only wearing a tank top, perhaps if you're lucky some sweatpants and socks.

You may be thinking as you read this, "Good joke …" Unfortunately, for thousands of children even in our Cincinnati area, this is the harsh reality that hits them even before they turn 18 years old.

1 a.m. Oct. 19, 2008: For many, this date and time has no significance. For 18 Wyoming High School students, this was about the time they were waking up sleeplessly for probably the hundredth Wyoming High School students prepare for a chilly night. Photo courtesy of Jeff Seibert. time at 35oF. Earlier that day these students rode the Metro kids. Five of SUFK's teenag- people have faced. Sweet encountered. The future can to Over-the-Rhine to deliver ers gave up their afternoons to 16th birthday? Not for many look very bleak to someone more than 160 pairs of jeans share their stories. homeless children -- they are who has not acquired a high and hundreds of T-shirts and The opening question of this so alienated from their fami- school diploma. tops that our community so article references the situation lies that such benchmarks in Shantytown participants collected for that some of their lives are frequently ig- took a brief tour of Over-theStand Up for these young nored. While many students Rhine. Each of the participants Can you imagine Kids (SUFK). people en- in Wyoming spend their time had been provided a bright yelwhat life would be They began dured, but and effort preparing for the fu- low and black T-shirt. As they their service- like if each meal were the answer ture by taking rigorous cours- walked through the area, evsuch a struggle? learning activto the ques- es and are involved in activi- ery person who passed the stuWhat if you were ity at the local tions don’t ties that enhance their college dents struck up a conversation headquarters of begin to resumes, many of the home- to find out what was going on. alone, trying to SUFK, an ord e s c r i b e less students’ academic skills Individuals in Over-the-Rhine survive as a single ganization that the level of are at the third- to fifth-grade thanked them for representing person? provides serh a r d s h i p level, due to the many and an invisible population in the

United States.

The walk ended with a visit to the small local Kroger store. Students were each given $1.04 to spend at the store and challenged to provide a filling evening meal for that amount of money – the amount of money allocated per meal per person under the federal food stamp program.

Combining money together in groups seemed to be the only way of acquiring enough food for all. Can you imagine what life would be like if each meal were such a struggle? What if you were alone, trying to survive as a single person? There is only so much to buy with such a small voucher.

Thirteen local high schools held Shantytowns the weekend of Oct. 18-19. Hundreds of students gave up a night or two to sleep in boxes and raise awareness. The next time you wake up in bed, take a few minutes to be thankful.

Take some time to be grateful that you have the opportunity to participate in an extracurricular activity, get your high school diploma or even just to know you have dinner waiting for you at home. High school might seem hard, stressful and too much work, but it’s your outlet to success that some children in Cincinnati are not being provided.

16

Vendors

Resource Guide

STREETVIBES November 2008

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

Darryl Bennett

Julie Walker

Kenneth Stonitsch

Antonio Hodge

Leonard Jackson

Samuel Jackson

Riccardo Taylor

Alfred Woolfolk

Berta Lambert

Mary Mueller

Brandon Nelson

Mark Shears

Charles Cole

Terrence Williams

Raynard Jones

Richard Tyree

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