Streetvibes September 2004 Edition

September, 2004

STREETVIBES Four Cincinnati Schools Pilot New Homelessness Education Packet

by Andy Erickson, GCCH Education Coordinator The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless’ education program is growing.

This fall, Mother of Mercy High School, Aiken University High School, Seton High School, and Summit Country Day School will each pilot the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless Education Packet in their classrooms. The Education Packet incorporates all of the Coalition’s educational materials into one comprehensive unit, many of which were developed collaboratively between educators, advocates, and the homeless themselves.

The materials include Voices Unheard, a 2001 documentary of homelessness in Cincinnati; a school-year subscription to Streetvibes; Through Our Eyes, a 2003 book written by Mother of Mercy High School students about homeless individuals they met at the Coalition; Homeless in Cincinnati, a 2001 study of Cincinnati’s homeless population

by AIR, Inc.; a visit from the GCCH Speaker’s Bureau; and a recently created teacher’s guide, which provides lecture information, worksheets, activities, and suggestions for

using the materials mentioned above.

“I think what makes this teaching unit on homelessness special is that it is put together, in part, by the experts in homelessness, namely the homeless themselves,” said Pat Klus of Seton High School. “This teaching tool is not just up-todate statistics; it has a real face.

The homeless and their experience combined with the efforts of those in the fields of social services and academics make this a really unique educational collaboration.”

The idea for the Education Packet grew out of the Through Our Eyes project with Mother of Mercy High School students and other schools in Cincinnati who wanted to teach about homelessness. “The Through Our Eyes project was so enjoyable and was such a success because we worked closely with teachers and students to develop it,” said Georgine Getty, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless.

“When the project was completed, we realized we could do the same thing on a larger scale.”

Much like Through Our Eyes, The Teacher’s Guide was developed with the input of

educators from each of the four pilot schools. During the pilot phase in the fall, GCCH staff will observe classrooms and continue to solicit input from educators and students. In this way, GCCH will refine the materials, ensuring that they are effective and appealing to both teachers and students.

The creation of the Teacher’s Guide would not have been possible if not for the funding provided by SC Ministry Foundation, The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, and Public Welfare. With a portion of these funds, GCCH was able to hire an education consultant, Karen Regina, to help with the development of the unit. Regina worked closely with the Coalition and is credited with the writing of the Teacher’s Guide. She had previously worked with local PBS station WCET on “Safe Passage,” a multimedia curriculum on the Underground Railroad.

“Many regard homelessness as one of the most pressing societal problems facing the United States,” noted Regina in her introduction to the guide, “yet it remains a subject mired in myth and stereotype, with the homeless themselves invisible to or ignored by the majority.”

The GCCH Education Packet is part of the Coalition’s effort to end homelessness through education. “An educated public is a compassionate public,” reads an introductory section in the Teacher’s Guide, “and compassion is what it will take to curb the growing numbers of people who become homeless every day in our community.”

A final version of the GCCH Education Packet will be available for purchase in early 2005. With the exception of the Teacher’s Guide, all of the Education Packet materials are currently available for individual purchase. A price listing for items appears below.

Voices Unheard: $25.00 on VHS or DVD Through Our Eyes: $12.00 ($10.00 if no shipping is required) A visit from the Speaker’s Bureau: $50.00 for a one-hour presentation.

Homeless in Cincinnati: $10.00 or available free as a PDF from our website, www.cincihomeless.org Streetvibes: Available for $1.00 from any badged vendor.

A year’s subscription is also available when you become an individual member of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless for $50.00

The National Underground Corporate Center to Railroad Freedom

by Rev. Damon Lynch III, New Prospect Baptist Church & Thomas A. Dutton, Director, Miami University Center for Community Engagement in Over-the-Rhine ‘Free at last. Free at last.

Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.’ Nope, not Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This time it’s a frumpy, white man, depicted by editorial cartoonist Jim Borgman in the July 22 Cincinnati Enquirer, facing Cincinnati’s new $110 million National Underground Railroad Freedom Center with arms raised, unshackled from his ball and chain of ‘Racist City stigma.’

One wonders if Cincinnati gets it.

Cincinnati’s National Underground Railroad Freedom Center officially opened August 23rd with a rousing array of ceremonies, including first lady Laura Bush and air-time on ABC’s Good Morning America

and CBS’s Early Show. Actually the ceremonies began the evening before with a $1,000 per plate fundraising dinner and 1300 paying-guests. The ceremonies did not go by without comment, however. As guests dined on gold-rimmed china and linen from Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s canceled wedding, just a few blocks away on Cincinnati’s main square about 200 gathered to view The People’s Freedom Center: A Living Wall of the Missing Pages of History and Contemporary Struggle.

Conceived as an educational event that included speakers and dancers, the agit-prop displayed photographs, paintings, posters, banners and leaflets that showed clearly how the freedom struggles of Cincinnati’s poor, blacks, and other disenfranchised groups have not been won and that the fight

Protest.... cont. on page 10

Marching to the Freedom Center, Vine Street

photos by Jimmy Heath

Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless

Streetvibes Streetvibes, the TriState’s alternative news source, is a newspaper written by, for, and about the homeless and contains relevant discussions of social justice, and poverty issues. It is published once a month by the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless.

Becoming a Streetvibes Vendor is a great way for homeless and other low-income people to get back on (or stay on) their feet. Streetvibes Vendors are given an orientation and sign a code of conduct before being given a Streetvibes Vendor badge. All profits go directly to the vendor.

The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless is a group of shelters, agencies and individuals committed to ending homelessness in Cincinnati through coordinating services, educating the public and grassroots organizing.

GCCH Staff Georgine Getty - Executive Director Allison Leeuw - Administrative Coordinator Andy Erickson - Education Coordinator Rachel Lawson - Civil Rights VISTA Kate McManus - Civil Rights VISTA Janice Faulkner - Receptionist Mary Gaffney - Receptionist Streetvibes Jimmy Heath - Editor Photographer Jimmy Heath Cover Materials from the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless Homelessness Education Packet Streetvibes accepts letters, poems, stories, essays, original graphics, and photos. We will give preference to those who are homeless or vendors.

Subscriptions to Streetvibes, delivered to your home each month, can be purchased for $25 per year.

Address mail to: Streetvibes Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless (GCCH) 117 East 12th Street Cincinnati, OH 45202 (513) 421-7803 e-mail: streetvibes@juno.com web: http://homeless.cinci.com

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Gated Community For Who?

by Jimmy Heath All over the country, the cycle of gentrification is displacing lower-income residents. White-collar workers eager for convenience and a trendy neighborhood are flocking back to the urban city.

The poor have very little political or economic defense against developers who want to buy up crumbling buildings and rehab them into luxury condos and lofts, and city and state governments are only too pleased to ease the way for this transition - they do all they can to tear down public housing and subsidize upper-income Barricades on 13th Street In Over-the-Rhine developers.

Blocking a street is not a downtown neighborhood street One of the effects of this solution to the drug problem, but have complained to Cincinnati re-urbanism in Cincinnati is the City Council and police about the it temporarily greases the city’s recent closing of 13th problem of drug dealing, violence, squeaky wheel – it sends a Street to automobile traffic from message to the uneasy upperspeeding cars and other dangers Reading Road as a strategy for class that something is being on the narrow one-way avenue. curbing drive-through drug But now that the Over-the- done to appease new, formerly trafficking in the Pendleton area suburban residents. It Rhine Chamber of Commerce, of Over-the-Rhine. Suburban and which represents up-scale superficially addresses the out-of-state dope concerns of neighborhood development, and the socustomers entering from developers. Sadly, drug dealers called Pendleton nearby Interstate 71 and simply move on to another Community Council have 471 find an easy and corner and the problem becomes stepped up their direct route to the dealers complaints, the City finally someone else’s. It won’t be long lining up on 13th street. before middle-class residents responds with a street Customers are drawn to realize they have been had by this closing as a solution. The Jimmy Heath the area, the police say, weak “solution.” barriers and the extra by the quick and easy As long as the customers protection did not come at access. keep coming there will be the behest of low-income 13th To control the problem, someone standing on the corner, street residents who have been the City installed traffic barriers whatever corner. For every drug asking for help all along. It’s a to block the street. This “test” deal that goes down, there is an response to the complaining closing of 13th street is scheduled middle-class condo developers equal amount of buyers. A to be in place for at least six message needs to be sent to the and other rich folk who are months. The street is not buyers that this is not the place moving into the area. No one completely blocked and is still cared to do anything until the rich to buy drugs. Coming at the accessible from the west. drug problem backwards will not people started complaining.

“The blockade is useless – solve the problem. It is not “The rich-guy developer all you have to do is go down to enough to create a slight that lived next door to me started Pendleton and 12th,” says Sonny inconvenience by blocking street this whole thing – he started by Williams who recently moved corner access. blocking access to his property,” from 13th street. “It’s ridiculous says Williams. “They change Most important is evenly because all they have to do is go distributed access to safety for things without a public hearing, down an extra block. They [drug without real input from ordinary everyone, including low-income dealers] are sitting right there on people who have lived and citizens.” the corner.” worked and raised their kids on Of course, everyone This year alone there have benefits from a safer street and these neighborhood streets. It been 3 murders in the Pendleton should never be a matter of neighborhood. Something being area of Over-the-Rhine on or near done about the drug trafficking on economics from the standpoint 13th street. (Half of the city’s of who’s “worthy” and who isn’t. this or any street is welcomed by homicides this year have occurred all. But this is a classic study of It is a sad commentary on our in District 1, which includes the society that money rules the day; power; who has it and who Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, that appearance, color and doesn’t. Residents of OTR have and the police claim that the culture judges how precious you been begging for years for help majority of these murders are are, or aren’t. with the problem of drug dealing drug related.)

Soon, it will be necessary and associated crime, not just on 13th street is lined with 13th street, but at dozens of Over- to block every street in the community, creating a gated turn-of-the-century tenement the-Rhine neighborhood hoturban neighborhood. We need a buildings mostly inhabited by spots. Some have taken matters community that celebrates each low-income people of color. into their own hands, forming citizen equally – and not apply There is litter and graffiti and block clubs and making a drug dealers everywhere. Many commitment to reporting activity, weak fixes only when the rich people come in and start crying. of the citizens and their families all at great personal danger. For Says Williams, “We don’t feel like they have been low-income Over-the-Rhine abandoned by the police and the residents too, drug dealing and the want our neighborhood locked down like we are in jail or city. mayhem that comes with it is the something.”

For years, residents of this number one safety concern.

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photo by Jimmy Heath

Homeless News Digest

compiled by Patty Lane Boredom was the reason given by three teens who beat a homeless man to death in California. Joseph Brown was attacked while he slept near an abandoned building in West Oakland. Brown was the 44th of 48 people killed in Oakland so far this year. His badly beaten body and the age of his alleged killers is shocking to Chief Richard Word. “This was such a brutal and senseless crime,” he says. “I cannot understand how three young boys could be so cold and callous.” The three teens remain in custody at juvenile hall. It’s expected they will be charged with murder. None had prior criminal records.

Advocates are worried that the homeless population in Los Angeles could be hit hard by the West Nile virus. They are issuing a call for extra safety measures for those who sleep in parks and alongside rivers where mosquitoes carrying the disease thrive.

While many know the warning signs and notice an increase in dead birds possibly infected with the virus, they are reluctant to leave the parks. “A lot of them are staying by the rivers and the water because that’s where people won’t complain about them,” Jenny Arevalo, a response team member tells the Mercury News. “But they’re putting themselves at higher risk,” she says. A city council member has asked a team from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to pass out information about the disease and talk with people camping near water and in parks.

Advocates are advising people sleeping outdoors to cover up at night and visit an emergency room if they experience any symptoms, like a fever and stiff neck. They’re also trying to obtain insect repellant. A study done in Houston found that 10 percent of West Nile encephalitis cases in 2002 were homeless men and women. But homeless people living in the parks say they’ll stay. “I won’t leave,” says Kevin Snow. “I am concerned about it, but worry?

It doesn’t do any good to worry. There’s no known cure anyway.”

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Free bus service in Houston, Texas, is getting homeless men and women to clinics, shelters and social service agencies.

Project Access is one of few like it in the country. The Associated Press reports it was developed by Healthcare for the Homeless-Houston, which is a consortium of 28 agencies and organizations. It was launched a year ago after an annual survey found the biggest barrier for homeless people to get health care was transportation. A $120,000 city grant allowed the group to charter a bus company and run a route each weekday.

A school district in California is gathering school supplies to help homeless children have equal access to education.

The Hollister School District is starting a school supply drive called the “Backpack Project.”

The district’s goal is to gather school supplies and backpacks for homeless and needy children in the community. “All of these children have to deal with special circumstances like hunger and fatigue, along with trying to stay in school,” Diane Ortiz of the HSD tells the Hollister Freelance News.

There are more than 80 homeless children in the district. We really want to try and make sure they have equal access to education,” she says.

With many homeless families moving from shelter to shelter, roughly 23 percent of homeless children drop out of school nationwide. “When you have 80 children living in a shelter in a small community, there is obviously a problem,” she said.

“Our goal is to reduce the barriers for these students and their families and let them know the schools support them. This is not something we can cross our fingers and try to ignore.”

The district hopes to have 50 backpack stuffed with pencils, crayons, notebooks and other school supplies ready to go by the beginning of the school year. Since there is no state or federal grand funding, they are counting on the community to help out. The HSD hopes to continue supporting students in need by providing help with free lunches and afterschool programs.

Cincinnati, Ohio or Bhopal, India? Queen City Barrel goes up in flames

by Brian Garry Ed. note - In August, a storage facility for Queen City Barrel in Lower Price Hill went up in flames. A major fivealarm fire destroyed the nearly 100 year-old building. It continued to smolder for days, keeping investigators out of what was left of the structure.

40,000 to 50,000 barrels were being stored in the warehouse at the time of the fire. During the blaze, people living within a five-mile radius were instructed to “stay in place,” requiring citizens to turn off air conditioners, stay indoors and close all windows until the noxious fumes dissipated .

For years citizens and activists have tried to rid our city of this rogue polluter, Queen City Barrel. When I was the live-in manager at the Catholic Worker House, many of our homeless men worked at Queen City Barrel, unprotected and exposed to deadly chemicals. Some would come home with stories of the chronic environmental carelessness and abuse that went on there.

Studies have shown lower IQ’s of children living near the facility directly related to Queen City Barrel toxic chemical releases. Many times, these types of polluters are located in low income areas. BASF chemical company on Dana

Serving Behind the Line

by Anonymous At 6:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., and 6:30 p.m., we go down and serve food to the folks who stay in this place, ( the Drop Inn Center) including myself.

Everyday I see still-using addicts and alcoholics come through the line to eat. From me being on that side, I look in their eyes and I can see the hurt, pain, helpless and hopeless state of mind. I can feel their pain without them

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Avenue in Evanston, had similar complaints and a similar fate; an explosion, spewing deadly chemicals into the air.

Maybe it’s not a good idea to have dangerous, toxic, carcinogenic chemicals in our residential neighborhoods.

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to have created them at all.

Where I grew up in Bond Hill, there were five chemical companies within a mile of my home. As innocent children, my brothers and I simply thought that the air smelled bad at night.

Little did we know, that the rich, uncaring chemical companies were poisoning us.

Maybe the former Cincinnati Health Commissioner Arnie Less was right, when he said that Cincinnati’s number one cancer rate was due to the large concentration of chemical companies in the area. Is this what they meant when they said, “better living through chemistry’?

Maybe citizens and law makers could learn a lesson from the Queen City Barrel tragedy.

Toxic, dangerous, carcinogenic chemicals and our neighborhoods don’t mix. It’s not too late to ban chemical companies from doing business in our communities. Let’s keep ourselves, our environment and our children safe from dangerous chemicals. showing it because I’m just about four months away from those same feelings.

I can smell the aroma in the air as some pass by, waiting to be served, hoping to get more than they are supposed to get. I can smell most of the unwashed bodies along with the food that everyday I’m grateful for, because it can get worse. I look into those eyes everyday and look up to God, and say by the grace of God there goes I. I taste being thankful to God for where I am and what I do today and everyday when I’m serving behind the line.

Thank You!

by Miss Mary Gaffney Hi there. As we enter into the month of September I want to thank you, the readers of Streetvibes, for your support of the paper and the program that helps the homeless here in Cincinnati.

You should know by now my feeling towards our “homeless friends. ” I see them every day and I hear and share with them their problems.

Georgine Getty, executive director, Andy Erickson and Jimmy Heath of

the Streetvibes newspaper, bakery goods each week. She Elizabeth Linville and Allison also brings coffee, sugar, and paper goods, including one day Leeuw of the Homeless Coalition and myself where she brought a home cooked meal want to express heartfelt thanks to a to be served to beautiful and visitors in the office. dedicated lady for her concern and Mrs. Jean Taylor, president of interest for the homeless.

St. John’s A. M. E. Zion Baptist church For months, and St. James A. M. Susan Smith has visited this office and Miss Mary E. Zion Church, both in the has seen firsthand the plight of the homeless and their Avondale community, want to lives and has furnished donated thank this courageous lady for

Farewell Streetvibes Community

by Elizabeth Linville

learned, probably in my first month on the job, is that I could This will be my last find common ground with all of article for Streetvibes as part of these people. I would like to GCCH’s staff. I am starting thank all of you for teaching me graduate school at Ohio State something about homelessness to study city planning and will and life in an urban area. sadly be leaving the Homeless So I wonder, did I gain a Coalition to move to Columbus. greater understanding of This past year of working at homelessness, Cincinnati, and GCCH has been a wonderful politics this past year? I am not experience. When I sure if I started work, I was understand eager to gain a anything about greater Cincinnati politics understanding of after a year of Cincinnati, politics, working in Overand homelessness. I the-Rhine but the have lived in the following is a list Greater Cincinnati of interesting area for most of my things I have Elizabeth Linville life, but my learned: understanding of the 1. People in Over the issues facing the people living Rhine are friendly. I always get in Over-the-Rhine was limited a hello and smile from someone to what I read in the newspaper on my way into work. When I or saw when I was driving am having a difficult time through the downtown area. wedging my car into a parking During this year, I have space, I can usually count on met many fascinating people; someone walking by telling me the list includes my co-workers, how much more space I have social service providers who left. work with the Coalition, area 2. City council meetings advocates, our Streetvibes vendors, and many individuals who are struggling with the problems of poverty and homelessness. Something I

are either very entertaining or very boring. My favorite involved Pat DeWine passing around a picture of his teenage self with Ronald Reagan (shortly after Reagan died). A not so favorite one was an hour long discussion of office furniture.

3. You can’t hide the homeless. I often feel like the powers that be in the city want to simply hide the fact that we have homeless individuals, poverty, and panhandlers.

These people have always existed in society. With the poor economy this country, particularly Ohio, has seen for the past few years, it is natural that there is a large amount of homeless individuals populating our city. I believe in trying to help all of these people find housing and jobs; I don’t believe in passing laws that move them out of the public eye.

4. Cincinnati is a fascinating city. With racial unrest, the impaction ordinance, a large population of homeless, and gentrification in the

her thoughtfulness and concern for the less fortunate of our family.

It is heartfelt, when you see my friends eyes light up as she walks into the building with food. They are grateful to enjoy this food and even take some with them.

The Homeless Coalition and our churches and members thank you, Susan, for your love and concern for our fellow man.

May God forever keep you and your family in his care – Mary A. Gaffney and her friends at the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. downtown and Over-the-Rhine areas, it is easy to focus on all the things I think need to be fixed. I will always be amazed by the old buildings in Overthe-Rhine and the unique people I have met in this town.

I like Columbus, but I will miss the crazy hilly streets, weird traditions, and dramatic political scene Cincinnati has to offer.

I realize that my next few years as a student will be quite different from my experiences working with the Coalition. In my studies and whatever jobs I take in the future, I hope to always remember the things I have learned at this job. I will miss coming down to Over-the-Rhine everyday, spending my days angrily discussing this city’s attitude towards homelessness, and trying to do what I can to help. I hope to hear someday that we have ended homelessness in Cincinnati and the Homeless Coalition had to close; in the meantime, keep up the good work everyone.

Good-bye!

“I try to go for longer runs, but it’s tough around here at the White House on the outdoor track. It’s sad that I can’t run longer. It’s one of the saddest things about the presidency.”

George W Bush, 8/21/02 Streetvibes

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Fire Cats Review

To Whom It May Concern

The Fire Cats Review is provided by the Fire Cats, a fearless group of advocates living right here in Cincinnati. We join this month’s review already in progress....

The Village (movie) Fire Cat Pink: So I saw The Village.

Fire Cat Blue: Me too!

Fire Cat Clear: I didn’t, but I heard about it.

Fire Cat Blue: Oh, hi Clear!

Fire Cat Pink: I didn’t see you there.

Fire Cat Blue: Did you like The Village?

Fire Cat Pink: I did. I thought it was very interesting. People in the theatre were mad at the ending though. Some girl was apologizing profusely to her boyfriend for making him see it.

Fire Cat Clear: Yeah, I heard it was pretty bad. CityBeat gave it a “D.” Fire Cat Red (coming in late): Oh – The Village, was it good? (then guessing the ending) Fire Cat Blue: I really liked it! I think Shyamalan makes really pretty movies. And the cast rocked.

Fire Cat Clear: That last movie he did – Signs- that wasn’t very good either. Mel Gibson sucks.

Fire Cat Red: Yeah, that movie sucked.

Fire Cat Black (coming in really late): The Village? I was disappointed at the theatre, but in retrospect it was a cool idea.

Conclusion: The three Fire Cats who saw The Village liked it to varying degrees. The two who did not, hated Signs.

Wrigley’s Eclipse Gum: Cherry Flavor: Fire Cat Red: What do they call it, brown? It has a real bite to it and may cure my sore throat. Terrible.

Fire Cat Blue: It tastes like Robotussin. It gets bad and then okay, and then bad again.

Fire Cat Clear: It never got okay for me. Only bad.

Fire Cat Pink: It’s horrifying (throws up in corner) Fire Cat Black: Oh, yeah (in clear despair). Cough drop.

Instantaneous cough drop. It does get slightly better for a second.

Conclusion: The Fire Cats were united in their disgust over this fascinating gum.

Things that have piqued the Fire Cat’s Interest: 1. The new Metallica Movie: looks like it will rock and totally give a balanced view of addiction.

2. The Cure, Huey Lewis and the News, Sonic Youth, the Pixies and other geriatric rock tours.

3. The Ponys: Indie rock concentrate.

4. Baked goods: like cookies. And pie.

5. The election, especially Barack Obama.

6. Mayoral Race 2005. A year to go and already of interest to the Fire Cats.

by Linda Corey I am in the Full Circle Program here at the Drop Inn Center. The writing class is very important to me. I can write down how I am feeling and I love this writing class very much. The writing class gives me hope, faith, and Stephanie is a special, talented writer, and Jocardo is a talented, funny writer. These people are special to me and they take time out of their hectic work schedule to spend time with us. They are two talented writers. They are sharing and caring and very helpful to me.

Please keep this writing class going. I have been here since January and I have learned a lot about my alcoholism and my chemical dependency and this Drop Inn Center is truly a ray of hope.

Being Trapped I was in jail in Florida for a simple battery. I was put

Cuts in Housing Programs July 22, the House Appropriations Committee approved the FY 2005 VA-HUD funding bill. While the bill provides $1.5 billion more for the Section 8 program than President Bush’s request and rejects the Administration’s “flexible voucher” proposal, it pays for this by cutting most other critical housing programs, rather than identify and provide new sources of funding.

Cuts Include (Below FY 2004 Levels): * Public Housing Operating Fund, cut by $154 million * HOME Program, cut by $86 million * Homeless Assistance Grants, cut by $54 million * Housing for the elderly cut by over $32 million * Housing for persons with AIDS cut by $13 million * Housing for persons with disabilities cut by $11 million These cuts are unacceptable. More than 14 million people pay over 50% of their income on housing, 5 million renter households live in “worst case” housing situations, 3.5 million people experience homelessness each year, and the poorest renters face a lack of over 2 million affordable units.

The American housing crisis takes place against the backdrop of recent U.S. Census data, which revealed that 34.6 million Americans are living in

Wrigley’s Eclipse Gum: Cherry Flavor: ugh!

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on probation. I violated probation then I went to jail, then again I got a disorderly conduct charge. I took probation again and I went to jail again.

The jail was horrible.

No smoking and the metal doors would echo when they closed. We used to call the food “road kill.” Every morning at 5 a.m. we went to breakfast. We had to wear orange jumpsuits. The beds were metal and had a concrete mattress and I don’t like heights so I would most always get the top bunk.

Oh, I was unhappy. It gave me a chance to think over what I had done. We used to count the days until our release.

I did 33 days for the simple battery. The drunk and disorderly I sat there about 33.

Oh, I was counting the days.

We used to say, “5 more days and a wake up.” The guards used to tell us, “remember what you did to get in here.”

Streetvibes

poverty.

The Senate will consider the bill in September when Congress returns from the summer recess. Your calls and letters are needed to tell Senators and Representatives to fully fund Section 8 and all housing programs, and reject any attempts to reduce HUD funding.

20 YEARS SERVING THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Empowering our neighborhood children through peace, art and education Peaslee Neighborhood Center 215 East 14th Street Over-the-Rhine Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

(513) 621-5514

by Larry Gross It was a fall, October morning. There was a chill in the air.

The businessman got out of his silver Saab and quickly locked its doors. He walked through the parking lot and made his way to the sidewalk – walking briskly to the office building which was only a block away.

He knew he would be the first one there so he dug into his pocket on the right side of his pants and found his keychain. The key with the blue plastic cap on it would open the front door.

As he crossed the street and approached the office building, he looked at the bench located in front of it. It was a bench he provided for his employees who smoke. Beside the bench was an ashtray. Both the bench and ashtray was bolted to the sidewalk.

On the bench was a man sleeping. An old dirty blanket, brown in color, covered the man’s face and body. The man’s feet and his shoes were left exposed. The shoes were full of holes. The man wasn’t wearing any socks.

The businessman jingled his keys and made a lot of noise when unlocking the front door of the office building. He thought it would wake the homeless person sleeping on the bench. He wanted it to be a signal for the bum to leave.

The businessman walked into the elevator and pressed the button for floor five. He shook his head thinking to himself that at least the vagrant was asleep and he didn’t have to contend with the guy asking for money.

He checked his e-mail and voice messages and then decided to head over to the deli around the corner for a cup of coffee.

He was surprised to find the homeless person still sleeping on the bench. Without wanting to, he could now see some of the old man’s face. His beard was long and mostly white. His unkempt hair was almost down to his shoulders and mostly grey. His closed eyes looked sunken into his head. He smelled of urine.

Feeling angry, the businessman locked the door to his office building again and made his way to the deli. He complained to the waitress who gave him his coffee about the tramp outside the building and vented his frustrations about

A glimpse of sympathy photo by Jimmy Heath

Living Out Loud: The Businessman -

how city council does nothing be arriving here soon.” to keep these tramps off the Without answering him, streets and away from decent the taller, older cop went up to people. the bench and gently shook the When he returned with old man. his coffee, the old man was still “Sir? Sir? It’s time to asleep on the bench. wake up. You need to leave this The businessman called property.”

District One. The old “There’s Feeling angry, the man started to a bum asleep stir a little but businessman locked the still wasn’t on the bench outside my awake. door to his office building.”

The “Is he younger cop building again and made causing any said to the harm?” businessman his way to the deli. He “No, not “Charlie’s being yet, but the guy complained to the too nice. I’ll stinks and will get the old waitress who gave him be intimidating man’s to my attention.” his coffee about the employees and He customers.” approached the tramp outside the “Have bench and the you tired to building and vented his older cop stood wake him?” aside. The “No! younger cop frustrations about how It’s not my job removed the to get involved city council does dirty blanket with waking covering the nothing to keep these him up. He old man and needs to be lifted him to a tramps off the streets removed from sit-up position my property. while slapping and away from decent It’s your job to his face. protect us from people....

“Wake up!” these kinds of he said almost people.” shouting, “it’s time to move He waited in the lobby on.” area of the building until the The homeless man cops arrived. Occasionally he opened his eyes and the would peek out the front door businessman looked at him. of the building to see if the The bum looked familiar. tramp was still there.

The young cop continued When the squad car to slap the homeless person’s pulled up and parked in front of face and the old man became the building, the businessman startled. walked outside and waited for “What? Please! I haven’t the policemen to approach him. done anything.”

“This is the man I need The young cop lifted the removed from my property,” he old man to his feet and threw said, pointing to the homeless him against the building. The person on the bench. “My cop started searching his employees and customers will pockets.

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“Hey! What’s this? You got a little joint rolled up here in your back pocket? That ain’t good, sir.”

The young cop put the homeless person’s hands behind his back and handcuffed him.

When the old man turned around, the businessman looked at him. He looked like a coworker from years back. He wanted to say something to the bum, but didn’t know what.

The younger cop led the homeless person to the squad car and put him in the back seat.

The older cop approached the businessman and asked for his name and phone number. After getting the information, both policemen got in their squad car and quickly drove away.

“Was that Grant?” the businessman said out loud, remembering an older coworker he worked with at a consulting firm years ago.

He looked at the now vacant bench. The dirty brown blanket was lying on the sidewalk.

He returned to his office and stared at the paper cup holding his now almost cold coffee.

He drank it quickly and started to feel irritated that his day was getting off to a late start.

“Was that him?” the businessman thinks to himself again. “What in the hell went wrong?”

He opened his planner and started to look at some papers that were in his basket.

“This is going to be a long, busy day,” he murmured as he tried to remember Grant’s last name.

This story first appeared in CityBeat’s Living Out Loud column, July 21 issue.

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The Peace Village

hunger. Our schools and colleges may not include in their curricula the impact on all of society from growing numbers of hungry people. And, our governmental agencies may feel that this population is not a valuable constituency.

Peace also means caring to change unjust food choices by acts of involvement in food collection, food distribution, and food choices for those who are hungry. Caring requires education about the causes of hard and impossible choices about food and the basics. Caring leads to peace when education, action, and reflection combine to make a difference in the ability of hungry people to get food for themselves and their families. Peace means

PEACE AND HUNGER PROJECT OVERVIEW This Fall, we begin a project to connect the work of peace to the work of reducing hunger in the Peace Village.

Primary and secondary schools will join with colleges and universities in the Cincinnati area to learn about and change the conditions for more peace and less hunger through a wide variety of programs. We will be working with the Free Store/Food Bank, pantries throughout the city of Cincinnati, and with the leadership of Ms. Laketa Cole, Cincinnati Councilperson, and Steve Gibbs, CEO of the Free Store.

Through leadership activities in each school aimed at collecting food and money for food, through a wide variety of service learning actions that spotlight the depth of the connections between hunger and peace, we will raise Dr. Steve Sunderland to awareness the importance of taking the strengthening of those in need combined action to make a of food in concrete ways, one peaceful difference.

WHAT IS THE CONNECTION person at a time, one family at a time, one pantry at a time, and, BETWEEN PEACE AND one community at a time.

HUNGER? Peace can increase as Peace is related to food hunger diminishes as citizens security for people who are faced with hard and impossible choices move from hard and impossible food choices to good and healthy between choosing adequate food ones. Predictable food for their families or prescription drugs, health care, rent increases, availability from pantries may be the key factor in helping utilities, and other basics of life. individuals and families in Peace can be defined as being able to choose a life where surviving and coping with emergency food needs. Education food is a regular and predictable about food as a peace program part and where the choice for may spark broad interest and food does not throw the action in supplementing food individual and their family into programs with discussions of unjust and life-threatening better health, housing, and consequences. employment opportunities.

Peace involves the basic Stronger families due to better right to live in food safety, food food may make for brighter and health, and food citizenship. healthier schools and children There can be no peace if people are forced to live with little or no capable of a just education.

Peace is the absence of good food, or, under such deep issues of hunger. Peace is the fear of jeopardizing the physical presence of a community spirit of and mental health of the family just food choices. Peace is the due to inadequate finances, or, citizen’s action to reduce hunger without a respect for the dignity and strengthen everyone. Peace is and value of each person as the presence of a continuing reflected in adequate food education and action about choices.

Hungry people are caught preventing the reappearance of hunger. Peace is hope founded on in a war zone: they become victims of an economic and social a just response to those in greatest need. system that has poor people as THE PEACE VILLAGE casualties. The war is often EFFORT TO REDUCE invisible. Our newspapers may not report the deaths and sickness HUNGER AND INCREASE PEACE of these people as they suffer

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The Peace Village is planning on working with following Cincinnati schools and colleges: SCPA, Clark Montessori, Hughes, Aiken, Ross, Wyoming, Shroder, Rothenberg Elementary,Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, Nativity Elementary, Mt. Notre Dame, McAuley, Roger Bacon, Moeller, Ursuline Academy, University of Cincinnati: Student Peace Village Chapter, Raymond Walters College, UC, The Just Community, UC, Hebrew Union College, Wright State University, Peace Village Student Chapter, and Xavier University.

Different religious institutions have also expressed an interest in linking youth with this project: Wise Temple, Clifton United Methodist Church, St. Johns Unitarian Universalist Church, and Knox Presbyterian.

OPTIONS FOR INVOLVEMENT The range of possible ways of connecting with our project are great. Schools, colleges and religious institutions can work together and/or separately on one or more of the following programs: leadership development for school based organizing for hunger and peace programs; food collection; dollars 4 food events; service education with pantries/Free Store events; hunger peace dinners; school wide assemblies on hunger and peace; classroom presentations based on lesson plans on hunger and peace; essay contests on hunger and peace; art projects using posters, tiles, murals on hunger and peace; adopting pantries; holiday special collections and other programs.

WHEN DO WE START? I will be contacting each school about some possible dates for a Saturday morning September training session for teams from all the schools.

Teams should be about 5 people, including a teacher. During the morning we will meet with Steve Gibbs, Laketa Cole, and the teams of all the schools. We will look at some models for small and large projects, ways of connecting our work with both the Free Store and the pantries, and some of the fun ways we can celebrate our learning about and taking action to change hunger in the Peace Village. And, a newsletter will be started to share stories of what each school and college is doing in their programs. I am hoping that we will have the meeting at the University of Cincinnati and I am waiting for conformation from The Just Community.

ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION

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I am preparing a directory of faculty, staff and students for our Directory. Please send me via email the following information: Name, phone, email address, school address, your position at the school. Please also send a sentence about your experience and/or your school’s experience with hunger issues; please note if you already have a relationship with the Free Store or a pantry, Kids Cafe; please note if you have had a HUNGER DINNER; please note if your school has done a FAST, or an assembly on hunger in the recent past; please indicate if you have experience or are open to lesson plans that connect peace and hunger issues; please identify any problems you foresee with this program; please note if you prefer a small or large initial program; and, please indicate the best time to call you for a meeting.

An excellent article by 5th grade teacher, Terry Moore, “Beyond the Bake Sale,” has appeared in the Summer, Rethinking Schools magazine and is available if you would like to see it.

NEXT STEPS After August 9th, I would like to call for a meeting with teachers. I have already met with Barb Coyle of Roger Bacon and touched base with Craig Rush of Shroder and Joy Fowler, SCPA. Our meeting would be to answer questions about the project, think about levels of involvement, and prepare for the leadership training event. I hope to hear from The Just Community of UC about co-sponsorship and the site of a possible leadership conference. I have been working with Dr. Marvin Berlowitz, UC School of Education, about offering graduate credit to teachers for their involvement.

This now looks possible. A lot is beginning to happen that makes me smile at the creativity of so many excellent teachers and creative students. Together, we can make a big difference in bringing peace to our city through education, action and reflection about reducing hunger.

I look forward to our next steps, your comments, and a successful year of peace.

Dr. Steve Sunderland, professor of Social Work at the University of Cincinnati, is the Director of The Peace Village, a group of individuals from the national and international community committed to examining all issues of Peace in the world. Dr. Sunderland also heads up Posters-forPeace which engages people in expressing their visions of Peace, in their own words, through the creation of posters.

The Fourth Annual Public Forum on Homelessness

THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL TAKE A LITTLE WHILE: Living and Acting with HOPE in Difficult Times Wednesday, October 13, 2003 8:30am to 5pm

Franklin County Veteran’s Memorial Wayne Brehm Room 300 West Broad Street, Columbus, Ohio Presented by The Columbus Coalition for the Homeless In Partnership with The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, Otterbein College, The Columbus Metropolitan Area Church Council, The Interprofessional Commission of Ohio Featuring PAUL LOEB as keynote speaker This forum will focus on advocacy, through the work of volunteers and professionals, for the needs of marginalized people - particularly those who are very poor and often homeless. The attendees will hear presentations by one of the country’s leading proponents of citizens living, acting and working for a more justice and equitable society for all people.

“Paul Loeb brings hope for a better world in a time when we so urgently need it.” Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity

For more information about Paul, see www.paulloeb.org

The Narcotics Anonymous Program - How it Works such as I had to surrender; you For Me

by Roger G. Hi. My name is Roger and I am an addict. At first, I felt hopeless before I came to the Narcotics Anonymous program. I let new ideas flow into me. I ask questions. I share what I have learned about living without drugs, even though the principles of The Twelve Steps were strange to me a first. The most important thing about it is that it works.

Now the program is a way of life for me. I learn the value of spiritual principles,

see I am an addict seeking recovery. I used drugs to cover my feelings and did whatever it took to get more. Now I read my N.A. literature and go to meetings. I’ve now found my life steadily improving. I maintain abstinence from mind altering drugs.

Living the N.A. program gives me a relationship with a higher power greater than me and leads me to forgiving myself and others. So now I enjoy where I am and where I am going, on my way to recovery.

FEELINGS! SUFFERING!

By Ron I will tell you about suffering. Suffering is anger.

When I picked up [drugs], after being clean for almost two months, I was so angry with myself I could cry.

As a matter of fact, I did cry at first because I was angry and then because I was depressed.

The depression set in because I was beating myself up for using. I found it hard to accept that I could put myself through that kind of pain and misery again. I was also feeling a sense of loneliness. Mainly because I felt so alone, I did it

to myself, so I felt by myself.

After all of these feelings, that’s when confusion set in. I was so mixed up I didn’t know which way to turn.

If it wasn’t for God’s grace and my friends in this program, I would hate to guess where I would be today.

So I would like to thank God for another chance at life.

With his help, and the help of this program, I would like to stay clean and sober for the remainder of my days! I hope this story will be of some help to someone.

Buy Streetvibes From Badged Vendors Only!

Streetvibes Vendors are required to sign a code of conduct and agree to abide by all the rules of the Streetvibes Vendor Program. If a Vendor misrepresents or breaks the rules, she/he may be removed from the Program.

To report a Vendor, call 421-7803. ext. 16

Know Your Rights Brochure Available!

The Know Your Rights Brochure is now available at the Coalition’s office. The brochure is a legal guide for Cincinnati’s homeless and covers a person’s basic rights when interacting with the police, as well as some local laws that might be of interest to the homeless population. If you are a homeless person or if you work with homeless people and would like to obtain free copies of the brochure for yourself or your agency, please call 4217803, or stop by the Coalition office and pick one up.

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Page 9

Protest.... cont. from page 1

photos by Jimmy Heath

for freedom is a daily battle. The Living Wall rebuked the government/corporate orthodoxy that the Freedom Center signals like Borgman’s cartoon - all is well in Cincinnati.

Of course, all is not well.

Cincinnati remains the country’s eighth most segregated large city (Scientific American, March 2004), up from 18th over a decade ago. Of the 25 largest metropolitan areas, the Greater Cincinnati region has the 2nd largest socioeconomic divide in the nation based on local governments’ per capita tax revenues. Greater Cincinnati’s ratio between the wealthiest top five percent and poorest bottom five percent is 32-1, with the national average at 11-1 (Cincinnati Metropatterns Report, 2001). Of the 75 largest cities in the country, Cincinnati has the 12th highest poverty rate (24.3%) and the 9th lowest median household income ($21,006) (Nomination for Federal Empowerment Zone Report, 1998).

Nine blocks from the Freedom Center lie communities of extreme poverty. One community, Over-the-Rhine, once home in 1950 to approximately 30,000 residents, mostly white, now consists of about 7,500 people, mostly black, with a median income of less than $10,000. Over-the-Rhine gained national notoriety in April 2001 with the urban uprising precipitated by the shooting death of unarmed, black teenager Timothy Thomas by a policeman.

Police brutality, harassment, and abuse are still daily realities.

Nine blocks from the Freedom Center homeless men, women, and children fight for survival against city policies and neglect. In May 2003 Cincinnati

City Council passed its second legislation on panhandling, this time requiring panhandlers to register and to actually carry a card. In summer 2003 the National Coalition for the Homeless ranked Cincinnati as the ‘sixth meanest city in America.’

Nine blocks from the Freedom Center begins the city’s Empowerment Zone, composed of nine neighborhoods primarily of color, with a black infant mortality rate between ’24-30 per thousand births, compared with a People gather to look at art display on Fountain Square rate of 10 for Hamilton County’ (Nomination for Federal Empowerment Zone Report, 1998).

Ironically, Children’s Hospital, recently ranked 8th in the nation, lies in the center of the Zone.

Because of the persistence of conditions like these, a class-action racial profiling lawsuit was filed against the city (2000) and a boycott of downtown travel and tourism was initiated (2001) which continues to this day.

Many world-famous Protestors meet police and are turned back performers such as Bill Cosby, Whoopi wanted to take on. To his credit, city/corporate nexus goes to Goldberg, Smokey Robinson, Dr. Crew wants the Center to be great lengths to ignore boycotters Wynton Marsalis, and Barbara provocative in the community, to and the freedom struggles already Ehrenreich have honored the get people to think about today’s on the ground in Cincinnati. City Cincinnati boycott. Conventions issues and to take positions. But and corporate figures will deny have moved elsewhere, affecting when asked in a recent lecture this, saying that they work hard the city’s economy. The boycott how the Freedom Center would to bring about change. But they has support of national and accomplish this, his answer was have refused to sit down with international organizations and that it would provide a space for boycotters to discuss their leaders. reflection and dialogue. demands.

Welcome to ‘Plantation The answer is weak.

No one disputes a museum Cincinnati,’ the context of Worse, given Cincinnati’s recounting a particular sordid Borgman’s cartoon. It may seem troubling racial climate, it appears chapter in history and what we unfair to saddle the Freedom evasive and more in line with the can learn from it, but for Center with Cincinnati’s context, city’s and corporate sector’s Cincinnati now to build a $110 but for Dr. Spencer Crew, CEO stance regarding the boycott and million Center and then call for and Executive Director of the racial concerns more generally conversation smacks of Freedom Center, Cincinnati posed to wait it out. This waiting game speciousness that is brazen and a challenge that he explicitly is not benign, of course, as the continued next page

Rev. Damon Lynch III speaks to crowd on Founain Square Protestors march past new Freedom Center on riverfront

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Protest.... insulting. Corporations are throwing big money at the Freedom Center; a tactic that grants them good media play and allows them to portray themselves as supporters of freedom. Just as corporations with dubious environmental records underwrite Earth Day to greenwash themselves and to improve their market share, so too are corporations underwriting the Freedom Center to freedomwash their hands of actual grassroots, freedom struggles and to improve their reputational value.

The Freedom Center exemplifies an alignment of the government with corporate capital that soothes freedomdubious corporations to paint themselves black while continuing to pursue business as usual. The same forces willing to spend $110 million to commemorate a struggle of the past show little interest in addressing the inequities of the present and are guilty of causing and exacerbating

those conditions. Corporations in Cincinnati and elsewhere are willing to fund a whitewashed symbol of freedom while denying freedom in actuality.

Evidence? Consider the judgment of the Mulitnational Monitor, the journal that tracks the activity of corporations, especially as they impact the Third World. Every December the Monitor publishes its ‘Ten Worst Corporations of the Year.’

The matchup between the Monitor’s appraisal and those corporations on the Freedom Center’s ‘Freedom Seekers Society’ list (contribution of $1,000,000) is rather striking.

Over the period 1991-2003, six corporations made Monitor’s list: Boeing, US Bank, Coca-Cola, GE, Timewarner, and Procter and Gamble. Coca-Cola and Procter and Gamble share the honor of making the list twice. GE goes one better, and is listed three times (1991, 92, and 94—and four times if one goes back to 1988).

This irony is not lost on

activists and boycotters. More ironies abound. The Freedom Center glosses over serious mention of the events of April 2001 and the continuing aftermath. In the very last space of the Freedom Center— designated the ‘dialogue zone’— visitors are able to ‘write’ their thoughts and reflections of their experience, but in magnetic words that are already provided.

Even more revealing is the Freedom Center’s recent naming of its ‘100 Everyday Freedom Heroes,’ a list that includes people one would expect such as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Fanny Lou Hamer. But the absences are striking: Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, John Brown, Ella Baker, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and anyone from the Black Panthers.

Even W.E.B. Dubois is not listed under his name alphabetically, but comes up in the caption to the ‘Niagara Movement,’ which he founded. Who makes the list?

Cincinnati’s own corporate

mogul—CEO of the American Financial Corporation, chief owner of the Cincinnati Reds, former owner of the Cincinnati Enquirer, and former CEO of Chiquita—Carl Lindner.

One last irony, and this one revolves around the Center’s architecture. Everywhere one looks the materials, colors, details, and the displays are competently handled, but they are also muted, antiseptic, banal, without risk - in a word, corporate. The whole atmosphere plays it safe. Nothing offends. Nothing challenges.

This is far from the gripping architecture of the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC that forcefully reinforces the horror of the displays and experience.

Banality hardly seems the most appropriate imagery for the holocaust of slavery and the struggle against it. You have to wonder about the Center’s ideology, when the docents explain proudly that the imported-marble facades will bleach white over time. One wonders if Cincinnati will get it.

NOW Conference Held in Las Vegas

by Rhonda McKinney On July 17th and 18th, Feminists from all across the country gathered in Las Vegas for the National Organization for Women (NOW) annual conference.

Among featured guests was Carol Mosley Braun who received the NOW Women of Courage Award for running for president in the 2004 election.

Mosley Braun thanked NOW members for “continuously standing up for all women: poor, black, brown, white, LGBT.” She stated that NOW is the voice of all women who may be too old, too young or too abused to speak for themselves.

Mosley Braun added that activists are the ultimate patriots because they stand up for and believe in the vision of America that has been promised to us. She ended by stating the importance of getting Bush out of office and getting more women elected to high positions in America, stating that it was “ironic and weird” that the new Iraqi constitution demands 25% of elected officials be women, but only 15% of the United States Congress members are women.

A second featured speaker was Michelle Odle, the woman who started the largest class action lawsuit in history against Wal-Mart for their discriminatory practices. Wal-

Mart is the largest employer in the United States and employs 1.1 million Americans, 2/3 of whom are women. Wal-Mart made a $9 billion net profit in 2003 and it is estimated that they are building one store per day worldwide.

Because of their gigantic stature, WalMart is setting standards for employers and suppliers worldwide.

Wal-Mart has also been NOW’s official “Merchant of Shame” since 2002.

Odle’s story began when she discovered that she was being paid $12,000 less per year than a man in the same position with less experience because “he had a family to support.” She was then fired from her job at Sam’s Club (owned and operated by Wal-Mart) because a man from out of town wanted to relocate to her city and “needed” her job. Odle found attorneys willing to do a class action suit against Wal-Mart. Since she got the ball rolling, 1.6 million women have joined in the suit.

Also speaking about Wal-Mart were Jackie and Larry Allen, a husband and wife who worked at Wal-Mart. Jackie

Allen was paid $2 less per hour than her male co-workers who were performing the same tasks. She was also sexually assaulted and harassed and management refused to take action. Her husband Larry Allen was unable to afford the health insurance offered by Wal-Mart.

He accrued $33,000 debt when he had a health crisis. Both Allens currently work at unionized Meijers and are very happy in their new jobs. Jackie stated, “women suffer at WalMart. Their families suffer at

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Wal-Mart.”

When the speakers were finished, over 200 NOW advocates loaded into buses and drove to the Las Vegas WalMart to protest with local unions who provided everyone with free “Wal-Mart hurts women – Always” umbrellas.

The Las Vegas unions are upset with the local Wal-Mart which has put 19 union operated stores out of business since it moved in. The protest was led

by NOW president, Kim Gandy and Michelle Odle.

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Hot, Dry, Dangerous

by Will Parry Last summer’s heat wave in Europe left between 14,000 and 15,000 people dead in France alone. Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom also experienced record death tolls from the searing temperatures.

In Rome, the mean average temperature during June, July, and August of last year was 95 degrees Fahrenheit, a full 7 degrees above the mean average for the same summer months between 1995 and 2002.

Deaths shot up in Rome along with the temperatures. An estimated 1,094 more people died than might have been predicted from the mortality data of the previous years. The highest increase in deaths occurred among people over 75, living in the most impoverished areas of the city.

In France, hospitals and morgues were overwhelmed.

Most of the victims were elderly. Most lived in isolation from family and community.

Most were poor. Rich folk don’t die of heat waves.

Fred Brock wrote a deeply affecting commentary on this mass tragedy in the New York Times. Brock quoted Dr. Eric Klinenberg, a New York University sociology professor who has studied heat-related deaths. Dr. Klinenberg says the toll in France exposes a major social change: the emergence of an older, vulnerable population that lives and dies in isolation.

The ranks of this population are growing in the U.S. as well as in Europe.

Children and grandchildren move away, leaving their aging elders to cope as best they can.

Communities have become atomized. Neighbors are less likely to look after one another

services, health care than in earlier times. And heat professionals, and volunteers. waves cruelly reveal this fraying A 24-hour telephone assistance social fabric. line is prepared to link callers “Heat waves are silent to available resources. and invisible killers of silent and But here in the U.S., invisible people,” says Dr. says Dr. Klinenberg, heatKlinenberg. related deaths are seen as “an He act of God” reminds us International Herald Tribune or as “the that the failure of severe heat Columnist William Pfaff individuals to wave of 1995 care for found last year’s heat waves in our own themselves.”

Midwest left In 1995, a blessing.

The victims, 700 people Chicago’s dead in wrote Pfaff, “were not, most commissioner Chicago of human alone. This services of them, killed by the heat. tragedy has blamed the faded from The time had come for them 700 victims. the national “We’re to die, and the heat eased memory, “a talking about non-event in people who their way… we should be American die because history,” he they neglect grateful to pneumonia, says. “If 700 themselves,” people had broken hips, and heat waves he said. been killed by International a tornado, Herald that can take us gracefully we’d still be Tribune hearing about to where we all most go.”

Columnist it.”

William Pfaff In fact, says Dr. found last year’s heat waves a Klinenberg, heat waves kill blessing. The victims, wrote many more Americans each year Pfaff, “were not, most of them, than tornadoes, hurricanes, and killed by the heat. The time had earthquakes combined. come for them to die, and the In 1995, Chicago heat eased their way… we officials suppressed the terrible should be grateful to toll, but the scale of last year’s pneumonia, broken hips, and calamity in France was simply heat waves that can take us too vast for cover-ups. The gracefully to where we all most French even considered the go.” cancellation of one national Indeed, the infirmities of holiday to provide funds for the old age are real, and indeed we elderly. all must go. But a society that This summer, Italy is values human life will not implementing a massive permit the elderly to perish in a intervention program. In heat wave.

Rome, for example, city As Fred Brock notes, officials have established a plan, there is nothing graceful “about focused on the elderly, dying a slow, agonizing death involving health and social alone; of being discovered only services, emergency medical when neighbors or passersby

Iraq Evicts Reporters from Najaf

s

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Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs

ibe

Najaf, saying there was rumor of a potential car bombing targeting journalists. When most reporters stayed, the police returned with the order to leave.

Concerns about the interim government’s commitment to freedom of the press were sparked Aug. 7 when officials order the Baghdad office of the pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera closed.

A constitution endorsed by the members of Iraq’s now disbanded Governing Council in March includes protections for freedom of speech.

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cellular phones they saw would be confiscated. In response to the threat, many journalists left the city.

The order would mean that the only news coverage of the ongoing violence in Najaf, one of the most revered cities to Shiite Muslims, would be provided by reporters embedded with the U.S. military.

The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

The order also said that all cars coming into the city would be searched and all protesters must leave the city.

Earlier, police had advised reporters to leave

It’ll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers.

e Str

Iraqi police ordered all journalists to leave the holy city of Najaf last month, just as a new U.S. offensive against militants hiding out in a revered shrine there began.

Four police cars surrounded a hotel in the city where journalists were staying and presented the order signed

by Najaf ’s police chief, Brig.

Ghalib al-Jazaari.

Though the order did not spell out a punishment for those who did not comply, the police who delivered it said any reporters remaining would be arrested, according to journalists at the hotel. The police said any cameras and

report a strong odor; or of being buried in a cheap wooden casket in a common grave….”

Society, says Dr. Klinenberg, must come to terms with the broader issue of old people living in isolation.

“When massive numbers of people die alone, it’s a social embarrassment,” he says. “It’s the sign of a sweeping social breakdown. Everyone is implicated.”

Those charged with environmental protection under George W. Bush should confront the implications of last summer’s thousands of deaths across Europe. The sweltering temperatures there corresponded to the forecasts of climate scientists. British meteorologists predicted that as a result of climate change, 2003 would b the warmest year on record.

In the Guardian of Great Britain, George Monbiot writes that “the consensus among climatologists is that temperatures will rise in the 21st century by between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Centigrade [34 to 42 degrees Fahrenheit]; by up to 10 times, in other words, the increase we have suffered so far…”

“We are not,” writes Monbiot, “contemplating the end of holidays in Seville. We are contemplating the end of circumstances which permit most beings to remain on earth.”

The more than 14,000 French elderly are, in some sense, the canaries in the mine shaft. The air is foul. The canaries are dying.

Will Parry is director of the Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans. Reprinted from the August 5, 2004 issue of Real Change, Seattle, WA.

Support Your Vendor

Voter Power - to the Polls

by Joanne Zuhl Sean, a registered voter when he was housed, wonders how he will get his ballot now that he’s not.

“Good question,” he says. “I’ll have to make arrangements.”

Arrangements include getting his voting address changed and trying to pull together information about the candidates without a television, radio, newspaper subscription or mail-outs. It’s hard to keep up on the issues, he says, but they are among the most important issues in his life right now.

“I think that it’s important that people on the low end of the financial spectrum develop an awareness that many of the services that they receive are dependent on voting and public input,” Sean says. “Many don’t realize that.

They’re just looking for handouts.”

That’s not good enough, say voter registration activist now scouring the city for unregistered, disenfranchised voters. Dozens of organizations across the country including Cincinnati and here in Portland are targeting low-income families, people experiencing homelessness, and ex-felons for voter registration.

“This is the first year that we’ve had a real emphasis on voter registration, education and mobilization, and that sort of came after the 2000 election,” said Katie Fisher with the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “Just the sheer numbers in the census showed us that low income people are voting at a much lower percentage than middle income and higher income citizens, which explains why many times we feel like the low-income population is on the defensive in trying to get services and programs that they want.”

The National Low Income Housing Coalition is among several clipboard-laden groups these days. From the National Homeless Coalition’s “You Don’t Need a Home to Vote” campaign, to the Faithful Citizenship Project, getting low-income, homeless and otherwise disenfranchised voters to the polls is the popular past-time of summer political activists. The national Community Voting Project is raising $2 million to help community-based organizations register poor and homeless people. Oregon Action is taking a four-pronged approach to

reach young voters, homeless and low-income populations, and ex-felons. The Oregon Bus Project’s Voters Wanted program is registering patrons to Sisters of the Road Café and other homeless and low-income people on the streets.

The soccer moms of 2000 have been replaced by the impoverished, homeless, and disenfranchised of 2004.

Many people on the streets simply don’t know that they can vote. In Oregon, [as well as Ohio] it is not necessary for a person to have a mailing address to register, even though one is asked for on the registration form. Many social service agencies and organizations allow their address to be used as a mailing address. For place of residence, people on the street can simply note the corner or general neighborhood.

Low-income and homeless people are also more likely to lack a car, taking them out of the loop of the Department of Motor Vehicles where many people register to vote.

Fisher said low-income families also tend to move and change addresses more because they are renters. On top of that, and perhaps because of it, there’s apathy.

“There seems to be a lot of disparagement and hopelessness among the homeless that what they do won’t make any difference anyway, so why bother,” Sean said. “It’s actually the exact opposite, but it’s a real common feeling.”

For Tara Watson, the meaning behind voter registration hit home during a frustrating turn at making countless registration form copies at Kinkos.

“You kind of look at them as some kind of arbitrary piece of paper, but it’s so much more. For somebody, this is their segue to government.”

Watson makes the copies as an intern with the Oregon Bus Project’s Voters Wanted program, whose goal is to register 6,000 new voters with specific attention on the homeless, for the November elections. After learning that there were an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people homeless in Portland, Watson became even more driven.

“That’s a sizable number of people that are essentially

disenfranchised, for a lot of reasons,” she said. “But they’re the people who are most affected by budget cuts and program reductions and such.”

Watson is quick to run down all the barriers, real or perceived, derailing potential voters, specifically the lack of knowledge about the process.

“We need outreach,” she says. “We need to tell people that you don’t need to have a house, you don’t need to have anything but a concern for your community to register to vote.”

To date, the Voters Wanted program in Portland has registered nearly 1,500 people who hadn’t been voting.

Taylour Johnson’s faith — religious and social — led her to commit the summer to register people experiencing homelessness. She’s an intern

with the Faithful Citizen Project, a collaborative effort of the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, The National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice and the National Council of Churches.

“I was a senior in high school, and the presidential election occurred in 2000. I wasn’t 18 yet and it was a horrible feeling for me,” said Johnson. “Voting has become one of my favorite rights as a citizen of the United States.

Voting is such an amazing thing for me, and it makes me feel just a little bit depressed that young people nowadays don’t look forward to it and that some people nowadays just don’t feel engaged with it. It’s bittersweet.

I feel so proud to vote, and it saddens me to see so many people who don’t feel empowered, when they should.

It really is a powerful thing.”

Taylour is a student at the University of Oregon, but she became keenly aware of the concerns and issues surrounding poverty and homelessness while in high school. “I realized how politics affect these people’s ability to live and survive,” Johnson said. “You look at the statistics and they show that

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people who don’t vote are lowincome people, single mothers, homeless people - and the elected officials don’t have to be accountable to them because they aren’t registered voters and they don’t vote. “In the past three or four years, you can see how elected officials haven’t held themselves accountable to lower-income families and people.”

As an example, Johnson is quick to cite the recent Measure 28, which failed and resulted in cuts to social services that cater to the lower incomes. That includes public education, which particularly hurts lower-income families because they can’t buy a private alternative.

“They don’t cut the services that benefit the people who vote, they cut the services to the people who don’t vote, because they don’t vote.”

Talking with people on the street in the registration process, Johnson said she hears a lot of the “my vote doesn’t count,” or “people in my community don’t vote so what’s my vote going to do.”

“There’s just a lot of hate for the system, hate for the government, and viewing voting as giving in,” Johnson said.

“They don’t feel very comfortable with it. It’s just like with any community that’s not represented as well by their political officers, like young people. They don’t hear about issues they want to hear about.

They don’t always see public policy helping them.”

It wasn’t until the 2000 election that the general public became keenly aware of the disenfranchised population, and it’s no secret that the removal of names from the voting rolls in Florida is a motivating factor behind the move to reach citizens not being targeted by the campaigns.

Reprinted from Street Roots, Portland, Oregon, July 2004.

Don’t be Squirrelly!

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Page 13

July, Southern Ohio

My Love

Just to Justify

by Mike Henson

by Ron

by Fran Yeager

The rains of spring are over.

The flooded pools of White Oak Pond Run, Five Mile, and a thousand other streams now recede, shrink, and clarify.

The banks harden into the shape they will hold for the rest of the season.

The stolen topsoil of the farms to the north settles to the bottom.

The living screen of willows goes brittle.

The paper leaves rattle at the touch of a breeze.

Sunlight spears the bluegill among the rocks and grasses.

Smallmouth lurk beneath ledges and in the shadow of the boulders.

They fatten on the dark minnows.

When I wake up, my mind goes to my first love.

I’ve been crazy about them since I was a little boy.

To awake with that aroma in the air, I just knew the rest of my day would be fair.

The smell, the smell was everywhere. It even became my air.

The sound the butter made when it hit the hot skillet made my mouth water. I could barely wait for them to be on my plate.

My God, I hope I wasn’t late.

I know by now, you know who my first love is. I would go to the end of the world for a stack.

My first love is called flapjacks. I hope you don’t love ’em like I do, because I don’t want to fall out with you!

On the campus The place we call U.C. They were in need In need of a reason To spend money Clearly now you must see The structure was spose to be About moving free So, they decided to take it up racially When the truth be known It really wasn’t about black or white It was people being people Moving fast and tryin’ to be on time But, money is money And it’s all a big play So, they got to have a reason For the bills that must be paid While you and me are the puppets Left with the pain The tension from the speed And wanting everything yesterday For as much as we gain Is as much as we can lose For they’ll starve us all To take it all away Just to justify Spending money today It’s love and war And we all got to hold our own pain And keep on working together No matter what any man say They’re fighting it all On needful things!

You are Love, You are Loved

by J. D. Lyles You are in fear because you are alone, But you are Loved.

You have a lot of hate to hide your fear, But you are Love.

You are going to form a thought that will materialize into an action.

Will this action be of hurt or Love?

You are Loved.

You have questions about life on earth; life after death.

You are Love.

You have dreams. You have goals.

You don’t succeed.

You are loved.

You have bills to pay, children to feed, You have lost your job.

You are Love.

Most important is to never underestimate the power of Love.

Mother

by Rob Harris When I was a baby you held me close and made sure that I was safe.

As a child you taught me right from wrong and introduced me to the Christian faith.

As I grew you were my provider, the one who mapped my steps.

In addition, you were the one I admired for all that you went through, sacrificing the rent do I could attend a Catholic school. You never cease to amaze me with all the wonderful things you do, no matter what the situation, I know I that can always count on you. Ma, you are my everything, and did I mention I have your eyes. I talk, sit and act like you, because it is from you that I was devised. I can’t thank you enough for all the nice and Christ-like things you do, but today I simply want to say Happy Mothers Day and I love you.

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Pit Bull

by JH Tiny, warm pet on a rope, dragging on the ground, cringing, sighing, begging, bright, innocent eyes.

Gettin’ ready for the big fight, small puppy.

Teach you how to kill.

Cinder block as play toy.

Chewin’ on broken glass.

Momma’ was a killa’, don’t know who daddy is.

Chicken bones and bread for dinner, drinkin’ from the street oilpond.

Wantin’ to run away, but can’t ‘cause the rope is too tight, and the grip is too strong, and there ain’t nothin’ on the other side anyway...

Freedom

by Linda Corey In the Constitution, freedom of religion and speech.

Freedom is being free.

I am now free from my addiction of alcohol.

I feel excellent: no more hangovers, guilt, shame, fear and isolation.

I cannot change the past.

My future is looking a lot better than it ever did.

It’s difficult to change.

Not to change is fatal.

I have some character defects to work on, applying the spiritual principles.

Help STREETVIBES Celebrate 100 Issues!

How has STREETVIBES touched your life?

Streetvibes will soon be celebrating its 100th issue and nearly 10 years of publishing in Greater Cincinnati.

Do you have a Vendor story or thoughts on this milestone that we could share with our readers?

Do you have a favorite story from a previous issue?

Please contact us at the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, 117 East 12th Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 or send us an email. www.Streetvibes@juno.com We would love to hear from you!

Streetvibes

Where’s Jocardo?

Epiphany

by Linda Corey

by Robert Blanchard

Where can he be? Maybe he’s not feeling well or something unexpected came up and he just couldn’t make it today. He will definitely be here next week. He will apologize for not showing up. He will tell us why and he will have an excellent sense of humor. He always makes us laugh so I forgive him for missing this week and I will look forward to seeing him next week. I miss him.

Dawn pinked but briefly in the eastern skies, ‘til it surrendered to the blue.

Sleepy street lights dimmed and closed their eyes, it was the time to make it through.

Staccato accents bleated to traffic’s roar and smoke, silencing the soft shuffle of feet.

Broken men in broken shoes listened and in turn spoke, of their epiphany in the street.

“I found a loaf of wheat bread,” pointing to a door, “I got us some sardines to share.”

Here were loaves and fishes reverently eaten by these poor, in a communion of brotherly care.

The day was slowly passing in its concession to the night, the world wound down still to rest.

A single star was shining brightly as flowing light, surely, tomorrow, again would be blessed.

Sweet Mothers Love

by Marcel N. Lee A mother’s love is truly priceless; worth More than diamonds, silver or gold.

We recognize her sacrifices As through the years, our live unfold.

She taught us all about God’s word.

With unending faith, her voice was heard.

Her patient heart came form above, For us to cherish, “Sweet Mothers Love.”

Side Effects of Medicine

by Linda Corey Migraines Upset stomach Boy, they cure one thing, then you have side effects to deal with.

Oh well, as Marcus Welby says, I’m not a doctor, I just play one on TV. PhD. Alright, I’m guessing, well, you have this, so let’s give you some side effects.

Is there really an answer or a cure?

DECEMBER 7th

by Cornelius Douglas Pearl of beauty, pearl of life Within your channel deep.

Rest the men and tools of war For you and God to keep.

From northern skies Fell death and strife As history wrote by early light, A tearful memory tale.

What valor is there to be found In tragic human loss?

Man must begin to live as one no matter what the cost.

For all who died that Sunday morn We bow our heads and pray.

For them, Please grant them Peace.

For us….a better way!!

Mothers don’t judge you, even if you are wrong.

Their love is steadfast, loyal, and strong.

She sows good seed, from up above, Then cultivates them with her love.

Mothers are the sun that lights, For life our inner shy, So that we may know that we are loved, And need not question why.

A mother’s love is rare indeed, She takes care of our every need.

Even when her hair turns gray, Sweet mothers love is here to stay.

Shutter Speed

by Jimmy Heath

Money

by Linda Corey Money Cash Dead presidents Over in China it’s called Yen I had money I have lost money Money is the root of all evil Money can’t buy love Money to some people is everything Money you need to pay bills I have been happier without money The rich people: the more they have the more they want It’s easier to get a camel through an eye of the needle than it is to get a rich man into heaven

Josiah and his 17 cicadas in a jar, Over-the-Rhine

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A Different Truth

by Kody Akhavi

issues, encourage free debate, dismiss taboos, and to “shake “Any war has a human cost. up rigid societies.” So why is We care for the Iraqi people.

Al-Jazeera regarded as We are Arabs like them. We are dangerous if their values are so Muslims like them.” - Samir decidedly western?

Khader, Al-Jazeera producer It might have something The swiftness with which to do with their disregard for coalition forces captured Iraq the U.S. military’s evasive and and deposed Saddam Hussein scripted responses to reporters’ has been chronicled by the questions, particularly during major news networks. Anybody the occupation of Iraq. Alwith a television set can get an Jazeera correspondents try to abridged version of the war. In corroborate the information Control Room, Jehane Noujaim, they receive through secondary director of Startup.com and a sources, and question the former MTV producer, reluctance of the western media challenges this view through a to do the same. The look at the influential Arab presumption that the Iraq war is network Al-Jazeera, providing a a staged event, initiated by the rare but lucid account of the U.S. occupation and bought international perception of the into by the media, is not Iraq war. concealed. Within the first five Strongly condemned for minutes of the film, Samir frequently airing footage of Khadar, the engaging producer civilian casualties as well as of Al-Jazeera says, “Any American POWs, the fledgling military commander who wants Al-Jazeera network continues to win a war should have to show the world everything propaganda at the top of his about the Iraq war that the agenda.”

Bush Administration does not By revealing that Alwant it to see.

Jazeera correspondents are Noujaim’s film opens articulate and discerning with a montage of Iraqi life; reporters, Noujaim repudiates men getting haircuts, children the claim of the Bush laughing and playing, Administration that the Arab automobile traffic. The scene is network is the mouthpiece of interrupted by the sudden Osama Bin Laden. At CentCom appearance of President Bush (U.S. central command which on television as he declares his doubles as the media briefing intent to invade Iraq. room), one BBC reporter jokes, Al-Jazeera, with upon recognizing Hassan headquarters in Doha, Qatar, Ibrahim as a former colleague, will broadcast the war to over that all BBC reporters 40 million Arabs. The goals of eventually end up working for the network are to educate the Al-Jazeera.

Arab world on democratic Control Room’s

characters are ripe with contradiction. We are introduced to Lt. Josh Rushing, the doe-eyed Marine spokesperson, as he grapples with Ibrahim over the reasons for the impending U.S. invasion.

Ibrahim criticizes the western media’s lethargy and ignorance while simultaneously defending the American democracy and its constitution. Rushing adamantly defends his military’s position but recognizes the polarizing effect of spinning a story. If somebody strongly attacks the U.S. military policy, Rushing subconsciously frames his response in an even more slanted angle, in an attempt to create balance. This, he admits, ultimately distorts the objectivity of information.

Even Khadar, the most ardent critic of America’s scripted war admits he would send his children to America to study if and when he could afford it. “If I am offered a job at FOX I would take it,” he concedes as he smokes a cigarette, “to exchange the Arab nightmare for the American dream.”

The American media presents itself as ignorant.

When a video feed at CentCom displays a riotous group of Iraqis ripping apart paper bills and flinging them into the air, a FOX reporter asks, “What are they ripping up? It looks like they’re ripping up their own money.”

He appears amused.

By contrast, the AlJazeera correspondents, who are covering the war in their “backyard,” appear far more informed than their counterparts.

Ibrahim clarifies, “Those are Kurds from the north of Iraq who aided the Coalition Forces. They use a different currency, and in a show of defiance, they are ripping up the old money.”

Al-Jazeera correspondents even deconstruct a “news clip” in which a statue of Saddam Hussein is torn down to a chorus of cheers. Their knowledge of how Iraqis look, speak, and comport themselves suggests that the U.S. military fabricated a victory celebration in order to prematurely signal the end of the war.

Control Room’s purpose is not to refute the claims made by the western media but to challenge the notion that there is only one story for every event.

Marshall McLuhan’s motto “medium is the message” resonates through each minute of the film. The actual combat on the ground pales in importance to the scripted story of victory, which Khadar concedes, “will be neatly tucked into the history books.”

Although the multibillion dollar American media factory will continue to bombard the masses with its illusions of actual world events, this film challenges the viewer to be contemplative.

The result is a cathartic and informative film that goes so far as to question itself. Truth is always the first casualty of war, and in its absence, objectivity becomes a mirage.

Reprinted from the July issue ofWhat’s Up, Boston.

Debate: Welfare to work or the end of poverty?

by Jason Sizemore By all rights, we can agree that welfare is perceived as an integral thread in the “safety net” keeping the nation’s poorest from slipping through the proverbial cracks.

In contrast to similar political hot potatoes like Social Security, Medicare/ Medicaid, workmen’s compensation, and unemployment insurance, the budget for welfare accounts for one percent of federal spending.

The aforementioned programs comprise the majority of the federal budget, yet none receive the same examination. I highlight that fact simply to provide fiscal and social perspective, not to marginalize the importance of these programs.

What we can do is ask a question that resides in the core of the welfare debate: Is the

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program part of our societal “safety net” designed to provide temporary assistance in times of personal financial distress, or is it the mechanism by which the working poor are elevated to a better life? In a contemporary light, is the Welfare-to-Work program (a.k.a. Workfare) enacted by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) a step in the right direction?

I. Give a man a fish.

Originally implemented in the 1930s to spare single mothers the burden of balancing work and raising their children, focusing on cash and rent supplements for those who qualified, the system saw increasing growth in the rolls through the late 1960s. First in the Nixon and then Carter administrations, attempts to increase benefit amounts and

include two-parent households in the programs failed in Congress.

Most critics cited an increasing lack of personal responsibility and the moral implications of creating a dependent class segment in American society.

The focus began to shift toward better educational opportunities, skills assessment/training, and job placement. There have been three historical shifts.

II. Teach a man to fish.

By the early 1980s, the idea of migrating welfare recipients back to the work force through education and placement in better paying jobs was gaining ground in social and political discourse. Ronald Reagan’s depiction of welfare mothers in “Cadillacs” struck a nerve for many, but also jolted serious political debate on the future of the system and what direction to pursue. The end result was the most sweeping reform in the

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history of welfare entitlement, 1988’s Family Support Act (FSA). Through programs like JOBS (Job Opportunity and Basic Skills Training Program), opportunities for educational advancement increased, benefit amounts rose slightly, and eligibility extended to two-parent households. The effect of JOBS was indeed increased employment, better paying jobs, and sustainable independence. Incentivizing work seemed to be the right idea.

However, these improvements were significantly overshadowed by an increase in program enrollment of 30 percent (10.9 million to 14.2 million persons from 1989-1994). The spike was attributed to economic recession and an increase in

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about war; that we always try to rationalize it though it’s inherently irrational.

It’s hard for normal people to be in war. It’s full of things we are normally told not to do, that our moral compasses are tuned to avoid, such as murder. People deal with this in different ways - some develop a healthy psychological separation between what they’re doing and the selves that they are used to while others - and this is arguably the majority - embrace it fully. The rush of war feels good, and those who are in charge of wars want their soldiers to keep feeling good. If you view any of the people you’re hurting as people then you won’t be able to do your job. So they become animals, and in our treatment of them as animals, we slowly lose that which makes us human.

In one of the winning selections of this year’s annual World Press photo contest, an African soldier walks down a dirt road with his fists raised triumphantly, holding up two handfuls of human bones.

There is a glory in war, and those who respond well to this story gain a superhuman quality. The divine purpose they’re told they have mixes with the immense power in their hands, with disturbing results.

The enemy isn’t worthy of life.

Their dead bodies aren’t the sacred remembrances we dutifully bury during peacetime, but souvenirs to laugh at and display and wear. Their living bodies are yours to enjoy, either sexually or violently or both. It happens the same way in every war throughout human history.

The only problem is when we see pictures of it.

We have been hearing about physical and psychological torture in our terrorist prisons in Brooklyn and Cuba for a while now. We have seen accounts of beatings and forced injections that cause paralysis. We non-combatants know this, but are able to ignore the words and choose instead the words we like - that we are great because of our war, that we are noble and forthright in how we engage in it, that the world will love us because of it, that we are answering a higher power. We hold onto this for dear life.

Photos, however, are hard to ignore. Television cameras were the reason we lost the Vietnam War, because we saw that we are no holier in war than anyone else. The military has prohibited, then heavily restricted camera use in war zones ever since. So what do we do in response to the undeniable? Find a new way to deny.

Everyone, right and left, is calling for high-level resignations, so that this scandal can be mopped up the way all scandals are; the scapegoat faces the consequences, and we maintain the illusion that what we saw was an accident. Seymour Hersh’s excellent reporting and Al Gore’s brave repeating are valuable contributions to the discourse. They highlight what we should know: that those photos were the end result of a long, complex line of policy shifting and administrative swagger. But regardless of who is at fault for this incident, war - all war - is still what we see in those pictures and we hate it and we do it anyway.

The rush of control, the ability to take or spare life, is

given to us by war. Many people in wartime see themselves as heroes, reveling in the results of their work.

Others realize that the life is not for them, and experience a different kind of anguish.

Either way, it serves those who prosecute wars well to encourage that rush, to stoke the bloodlust, to instill contempt and spite for the enemy, just as well as it serves them to encourage the compassion and humanity of the folks back home. It’s a careful balance to strike, made near impossible by the presence of photos, cameras, information.

When my uncle saw the pilot’s go signal, he suffered through one of the most agonizing moments of his life.

Then his friend said to him, “I’m not a real religious guy.

But I know that this is the kind of thing you go to Hell for.”

They left the safety in and walked back to their quarters.

After a tense and lifethreatening moment with their commanding officer, a reassignment, and an injury, he was discharged. The U.S. military denied his ever being in the Air Force for the next 20 years.

Regardless of how we react to it, and how much the government allows us to see of it, the rule of war is atrocity.

While we’ve been given a real opportunity to know this, we’re only a handful of jail sentences away from forgetting it all over again.

Despite working for an American media outlet, Jesse encourages readers to look to the foreign press for news in these troubling times.

Reprinted from the July edition of Whats Up Magazine in Boston.

infamous Contract with America. The Personal Responsibility Act, introduced

by Senator Robert Dole (RKansas), eventually passed after two vetoes, emerging as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996. Signed into law by President Clinton with special attention paid to health coverage for children of departing recipients and tougher enforcement on child support arrears, the main tenet of the bill was to reduce the number of beneficiaries on the rolls by mandating work and a 50 percent reduction by 2002.

Unlike the FSA of 1988, this bill had teeth, a five-year eligibility, and serious penalties to non-compliant states. Older

programs such as AFDC (Aid for Families with Dependent Children) and JOBS were combined into the new TANF (Temporary Aid for Needy Families) system. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) stated we were “turning our backs” on needy families and children.

Still, the plan moved forward, with some states beating the curve to reduce the number of cases.

Viewed along the compliance timeline and PRWORA metrics, Welfare to Work is a success. Rolls are down over 50 percent across the board. But will Workfare cure the blight of poverty in America? Can PRWORA be seen as a turnkey success story for either party? The answer to both questions is a definite no.

Taking a lesson from Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush straddled the party fence in 2003 to push Medicaid reform, taking a historically Democrat stronghold as his own. Undeniably, core social ailments will continue to blur the line of policy and politics. I find it unlikely, impossible even, that government (big or small) will ever introduce meaningful anti-poverty measures or fix all of the holes in the “safety net.”

I suppose the shortcoming of policy is dictation by politicians. Take note of the three shifts in welfare policy as proof that government is poorly versed in devising a feasible, lasting solution to poverty.

Jason Sizemore has a B.A. in international studies from WSU.

The Universal Rule of War

by Jesse Post “Many of us, restless and unfulfilled, see no supreme worth in our lives. We want more out of life. And war, at least, gives a sense that we can rise above our smallness.” Chris Hedges, author of War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning During the Vietnam War my uncle served in the Air Force. His job was pretty simple: whenever the siren sounded on his base, he’d run out onto the tarmac, load whatever missiles were there onto the awaiting fighter jets, and then wait for the pilot’s signal. Thumbs down meant, “Keep the safety in and put the weapon back — this is just a drill.” Thumbs up meant, “Remove the safety - this is for real.”

One day the siren blew and he dropped his playing cards or his ukelele or whatever it was, just like usual, only when they got outside they realized that nothing was usual at all. The missiles were armed with chemical warheads; some kind of nerve gas. He and his buddy sweated a bit while arming the jet, wondering why this thing even existed, never mind why it was being used as part of a drill. Then they looked at the cockpit and the pilot was holding his thumb up.

I was surprised at how quickly the denial happened.

The photos of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were published and we immediately went for the blame: either this small handful of rogue criminals acted independently or this was the result of a systemic military-wide policy. In the instant need for explanation, we quickly glossed over the truth

Welfare... unwed mothers.

III. Give a man a boat; cast him into the tide… Workfare at last.

In his 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton vowed to “end welfare as we know it.”

It was a bold statement, given welfare reform had been a largely Republican issue. It was a calculated move to shore up his strength among moderate swing voters in a rather muddy election year (remember Ross Perot?). The Clinton Welfare Reform Plan of 1994 introduced a 50 percent back-to-work standard, but provided no enforcement on participation.

Again in 1994, under a refreshed Republican Congress, the issue resurfaced in the

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FRAC News Schools Adjust for Higher Lunch Costs (“Schools adjust for higher lunch costs,” CNN, August 10, 2004) Schools nationwide are raising the price of lunch, in some cases for the first time in more than a decade and by as much as $1. The price hikes are responses to rising food, labor, and transportation costs. While typical annual food inflation is about 3 percent, dairy prices in June were 27 percent higher than a year ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Meat and cheese were up 11 percent and poultry 9 percent.

Many Hurricane Charley Victims Receive Food Stamp Benefits (U.S. Department of Agriculture, August 15, 2004) In the wake of Hurricane Charley, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved replacing the full August allotments of food stamp benefits for current recipients in several hard hit areas: the entire counties of Lee, Desoto, Charlotte, Polk, Manatee, Hardee, Sarasota, Collier, Highlands, and Volusia, and for certain ZIP code areas in the counties of Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola and Seminole. A USDA press release issued on August 16th reports on the initial efforts undertaken to provide commodities as well as food stamps to Florida’s hurricane victims.

Wealthiest 20% See Income Share Grow to 50% (“Wealthiest 20% See Income Share Grow to 50%,” Baltimore Sun Times, July 29, 2004) The income gap has steadily grown over the past 20 years between the wealthiest Americans and those at the middle and bottom end of the pay scale. In 1973, the top 20 percent accounted for 44 percent of total U.S. income, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Their share rose to 50 percent in 2002, while everyone else’s fell. Tax cuts have shifted the overall tax burden from the richest Americans to the middle class.

A soft job market has sent wages down, and lost jobs are being replaced by lower-paying ones with fewer benefits.

Economists say wages should rise as companies boost hiring, but the growing gap between the haves and have-nots will remain.

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Calorie Intake Among U.S. Adults Up in Last 30 Years (Annual Review of Nutrition, 2004) Energy intake among adults has increased in the last 30 years, according to a study published in the latest Annual Review of Nutrition. Factors contributing to the increase include a rise in the percentage of the population eating away from home (particularly at fastfood restaurants), larger portion sizes of foods and beverages, increased consumption of sweetened beverages, changes in snacking habits, and improved dietary intake methodology. Children age 1-19 showed little change in energy intake, except for an increase among adolescent females.

Obesity Often Linked to Income (National Public Radio, July 2004) Americans spend a good deal of money eating out, a habit tied to the nation’s obesity epidemic.

Researchers say the less people can pay for food, the more calories they consume. NPR’s Patricia Neighmond reports in the first of a two-part series.

California: Good Nutrition a Luxury for Low-income Seniors (“Hungry Seniors Can’t Afford to Eat More Nutritiously, the Alameda County Community Food Bank Discovers After Conducting Focus Groups,” PR Web, August 10, 2004) Low-income seniors may not know where their next meal will come from and therefore are unable to concentrate on good nutrition, according to a focus group summary report released by the Alameda County Community Food Bank of California (ACCFB). While

policy makers prescribe nutrition education as the solution to the explosion of diet-related diseases among low-income populations, the Food Bank’s newly released qualitative data suggests that education alone will not address this problem until issues of hunger and food insecurity are first resolved.

New York: Agency Mails Nearly 100,000 Food Stamp Benefit Cards to Reach More People (“Stamp of Approval,” CityLimits.org, August 9, 2004) Nearly 100,000 New Yorkers who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and live alone will receive a food stamp benefit card in the mail. None of them will have filled out an application, talked to a caseworker or visited an office to receive the benefit. “We’re just going to give it to them,” said a government spokesperson. The state welfare agency’s new policy is one of USDA’s approved Combined Application Projects (CAPs) aimed at serving more people who are eligible for food stamps. While food stamp participants are expected to top one million this summer, an estimated 700,000 New Yorkers who are eligible for food stamps do not receive them, according to the Community Food Resource Center (CFRC).

CFRC’s Jodi Harawitz says identifying people likely to qualify is key to bolstering the program’s participation.

Wisconsin: Survey Finding Food Insecurity In Comfortable Community Comes as “Shock” (“School survey reveals nutrition gap,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

Streetvibes

August 17, 2004) A survey finding nearly one in five elementary school children in the Burlington Area School District come from families that eat inadequately, worry about not having enough food or skip meals because they can’t afford food came as “a shock” to university and school officials.

The finding suggests food insecurity is more serious in the Burlington area, a seemingly comfortable community, than statewide. The majority of households with food insecurity had a working family member.

Food insecurity is “actually happening here, not someplace else, which is what we normally think,” said one educator. The survey, the first of its kind in Racine County, has prompted one principal to suggest the school district do more to promote the lunch program.

Alice Thomson, administrator of the UW Extension Nutritional Education Program for Racine and Kenosha counties, would like the district to offer free and cheap breakfasts. Research suggests that a lack of adequate food is linked to lower test scores, poor school achievement, increased absences, hyperactivity and anxiety.

To subscribe to the weekly FRAC News Digest go to: http:/ /capwiz.com/frac/mlm/ For questions, comments, and news tips, please contact: Helen Yuen Food Research and Action Center 1875 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 540 Washington, DC 20009 (202) 986-2200 x3019 Email: hyuen@frac.org

Streetvibes Vendor Code of Conduct About the Greater Cincinnati All Vendors Sign and Agree to a Code of Conduct Coalition for the Homeless and Report Any Violations to GCCH - 421-7803 1. Streetvibes will be distributed honest in stating that all profits go Streetvibes....

This program has helped for a $1 voluntary donation. If a customer donates more than $1 for a paper, vendors are allowed to keep that donation. However, vendors must never ask for more than $1 when selling Streetvibes.

2. Each paper purchased from the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless (GCCH) costs 30 cents. Papers will not be given out on credit. Old papers cannot be traded in for new papers.

3. Streetvibes may only be purchased from GCCH. Never buy papers from, or sell papers to other vendors.

4. Vendors must not panhandle or sell other items at the same time they are selling Streetvibes.

5. Vendors must treat all other vendors, customers, and GCCH personnel with respect.

6. Vendors must not sell Streetvibes while under the influence.

7. Vendors must not give a “hard sell” or intimidate anyone into purchasing Streetvibes. This includes following customers or continuing to solicit sales after customers have said no.

8. Vendors must never sell doorto-door or on private property, unless given permission from the owner of that property.

9. Vendors must not deceive customers while selling Streetvibes. Vendors must be

to the individual vendor. Vendors must not tell customers that the money they receive will go to GCCH or any other organization or charity. Also, vendors must not say that they are collecting for “the homeless” in general.

10. Vendors must not sell papers without their badge. Vendors must present their badge when purchasing papers from GCCH. Lost badges cost $2.00 to replace.

Broken or worn badges will be replaced for free, but only if the old badge is returned to GCCH. 11. Streetvibes vendor meetings are held on the first weekday of the month at 1pm. The month’s paper will be released at this meeting. If a vendor cannot attend the meeting, he or she should let us know in advance. If a vendor does not call in advance and does not show up, that vendor will not be allowed to purchase papers on the day of the meeting or the following day. Five free papers will be given to those who do attend.

12. Failure to comply with these Rules and Regulations may result in termination from the Streetvibes vendor program.

GCCH reserves the right to terminate any vendor at any time as deemed appropriate. Badges and Streetvibes papers are property of GCCH, and must be surrendered upon demand.

The mission of the North American Street Newspaper Association (NASNA) is to support a street newspaper movement that creates and upholds journalistic and ethical standards while promoting self-help and empowerment among people living in poverty. NASNA papers support homeless and very low-income people in more than 35 cities across the United States and Canada.

Streetvibes Vendor: 70 cents

Printing and Production: 30 cents

The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless (GCCH) was formed in May of 1984 for one purpose: the eradication of homelessness in Cincinnati. What started out as a coalition of 15 volunteers meeting weekly in an unheated church basement has since grown into a Coalition of over 45 agencies and hundreds of volunteers dedicated to improving services for homeless individuals, educating the public about homelessness and empowering homeless individuals to advocate for their civil rights and housing needs.

Streetvibes is a tool of GCCH used to help us achieve our goal of ending homelessness. On the one hand it is a self-sufficiency program geared towards the homeless and marginally housed individuals who are our vendors. Streetvibes vendors buy the paper for 30 cents per copy and sell it for a suggested one-dollar donation, keeping the profit that they have earned.

hundreds of people find and maintain housing. The vendors also sign a code of conduct stating that they will behave responsibly and professionally and they proudly display their official Streetvibes badge while selling the paper. Our vendors put a face on “the homeless” of Cincinnati and form lasting friendships with their customers.

On the other hand, Streetvibes is an award-winning alternative newspaper and part of the international street newspaper movement.

Focusing on homelessness and social justice issues, Streetvibes reports the often-invisible story of poverty in our community.

Streetvibes is also proud to include creative writing, poetry, articles, photography and interviews written by homeless and formerly homeless individuals. Streetvibes enjoys a loyal reader base that respects the honest portrayal of the joys, sorrows, and challenges facing the people of Cincinnati.

Streetvibes is a member of the:

The International Network of Street Papers (INSP) unites street papers sold by homeless and people living in poverty from all over the world. INSP is an umbrella organisation, which provides a consultancy service for its partner papers and advises on the setting up of new street papers and support initiatives for marginalised people.

Where Your Dollar Goes...

The Streetvibes program maintains a minimal overhead cost so that our vendors can keep as much of the proceeds as possible.

Please call our office at 421-7803 for more information about the program. Many thanks for your support.

Streetvibes

Help STREETVIBES Celebrate 100 Issues!

How has STREETVIBES touched your life? Streetvibes will soon be celebrating its 100th issue and nearly 10 years of publishing in Greater Cincinnati. Do you have a Vendor story or thoughts on this milestone that we could share with our readers? Do you have a favorite story from a previous issue?

Please contact us at the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, 117East12th Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 - or send us an email.

We would love to hear from you!

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TREATMENT: Both N.A. Hopeline 820-2947 A.A. Hotline 351-0422 C.C.A.T. 381-6672 Talbert House 684-7956 Transitions, Inc 859-491-4435 VA Domiciliary 859-559-5011 DIC Live-In Program 721-0643

TREATMENT: Men Charlie’s 3/4 House 784-1853 Prospect House 921-1613 Starting Over 961-2256

TREATMENT: Women First Step Home 961-4663 Full Circle Program 721-0643

HOUSING: CMHA 721-4580 Excel Development 632-7149 Miami Purchase 241-0504 OTR Housing Net. 369-0004 ReSTOC 381-1171 Tender Mercies 721-8666 Tom Geiger House 961-4555 Dana Transitional Bridge Services, Inc 751-9797

Caracole (AIDS) 761-1480 Friars Club 381-5432 Drop Inn Center 721-0643 Haven House 863-8866 Interfaith Hospitality 471-1100 Lighthouse Youth Center (Teens) 961-4080 St. John’s Housing 651-6446

Need Help or Want to Help?

If you need help or would like to help please call one of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless members listed below.

SHELTERS: Women and Children YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter 872-9259 (Toll Free) 1-888-872-9259 Bethany House 557-2873 Salvation Army 762-5660 Welcome Hse. 859-431-8717 Women’s Crisis Center 859-491-3335

357-4602

SHELTER: Men City Gospel Mission 241-5525 Garden St. House 241-0490 Joseph House (Veterans) 241-2965 St. Francis/St.Joseph House 381-4941 Mt. Airy Center 661-4620 Volunteers of Amer. 381-1954 SHELTER: Both Anthony House (Youth)

Formed in 1984, The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless is a membership organization. Our member groups serve the homeless through emergency shelter, transitional living facilities, permanent housing, medical services, social services, soup kitchens, and mental health/addiction services.

The Coalition also consists of individual citizens who want to take an active role in ensuring that Cincinnati is an inclusive community, meeting the needs of all of its citizens. Join the fight to end homelessness; contact the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless at (513) 421-7803, 117 East 12th Street Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

OTHER SERVICES: AIDS Volunteers of Cincinnati 421-2437 Appalachian Identity Center 621-5991 Beech Acres 231-6630 Center for Independent Living Options 241-2600 Churches Active in Northside 591-2246 Cincinnati Health Network 961-0600 Community Action Agency 569-1840 381-4242 241-2563 Contact Center Emanuel Center

Freestore/ Foodbank 241-1064 Fransiscan Haircuts 651-6468 Goodwill Industries 771-4800 Coalition for the Homeless 421-7803 Hamilton Co. Mental Health Board 946-8600 Mental Health Access Point 558-8888 Hamilton Co. TB Control 632-7186 Health Rsrc. Center 357-4602 Homeless Mobile Health Van 352-2902 House of Refuge Mission 221-5491 Legal Aid Society 241-9400 Madisonville Ed. & Assis.

Center 271-5501 Mary Magdalen House 721-4811 McMicken Dental Clinic 352-6363 Our Daily Bread 621-6364 Peaslee Neighborhood Center 621-5514 Project Connect Homeless Kids 357-5720 St. Vincent De Paul 562-8841 The Emergency Food Center 471-4357 Travelers Aid 721-7660 United Way 721-7900 VA Homeless 859-572-6226 Women Helping Women 872-9259 MIDDLETOWN/HAMILTON (Butler County) St. Raphaels (Food Bank/Soup Kitchen) 863-3184 Salvation Army 863-1445 Serenity House Day Center 422-8555 Open Door Pantry 868-3276 New Life Baptist Mission (Soup Kitchen) 896-9800 Hope House (Homeless Families/Singles) 423-4673

$1 Donation

September, 2004

STREETVIBES

BUY FROM BADGED VENDORS ONLY

Cover Story

Cincinnati Schools Pilot New Homeless Education Project

Serial Number

Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless