Streetvibes September 2008 Edition

Writing Their Way p.4

Addict’s Almanac p.12

Check out the Streetvibes blog @ streetvibes. wordpress.com

STREETVIBES

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S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 8 • I s s u e 1 4 6 • C i n c i n n a t i ’s A l t e r n a t i v e N e w s S o u r c e

A Sweeping Change

No Place to Lay Their Heads

Police and homeless advocates work together

By Andrew Freeze Staff Writer

F

ive years after the Cincinnati Police, the mayor, the Ohio Department of Transportation and Downtown Cincinnati Inc. developed a plan to remove homeless camps from underneath downtown bridges, both police and advocates for the homeless say the plan is working – and helping homeless people.

At issue was the right of people to sleep in public places, as well as a city ordinance requiring registration of panhandlers. A lawsuit filed by Don Henry, a homeless For more man sleepbackground on the bridge ing under sweeps, check out a bridge cincihomeless.org in 2003, and look under helped to “In the News” change police policy for sweeping homeless camps and eliminated the registration of panhandlers.

Survey counts homeless outdoors

In the five years since, relations between the police and homeless advocates have im-

By Gregory Flannery Editor

“Police contact me when they run into someone needing services downtown.

They try not to arrest or ticket them, and allow me and other outreach workers to help them.” - Chico

A

Lockhart, outreach worker

proved.

“Before the sweeps took place, police officers would find a camp and decide to clear it out,” says Sgt. Steve Saunders, neighborhood liaison for District One. “They would bring in a crew from the jail to clean out the encampments under bridges so there was less blight and people would not crash their cars while looking at the homeless encampments.”

Don Henry speaks to reporters during the bridge sweeps in the summer of 2003. As a result of his lawsuit, police policies changed and the city’s panhandling registration was dropped.

Photo by Jimmy Heath.

In December 2003, in response to Henry’s lawsuit, police changed the policy to “allow 72 hours notice of trespass prior to arrest and removal of personal possessions from a homeless encampment, provided the homeless person

properly identifies himself (or herself), is not violating any other laws, and exigent circumstances do not exist.”

“This policy also led to better communication between social service agencies and

See SWEEPS p.6

The Best Justice You Can Afford

By Gregory Flannery Editor

T

hese are signs that don’t inspire confidence in an attorney: You have to empty your pockets when you get to her office. She doesn’t have a room for a private conversation. She doesn’t have her own computer. She doesn’t have enough filing cabinets.

She plans to spend less than two hours on your case, including the trial.

That’s what the Hamilton County Public Defender’s Office is like, according to a study by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA). The report, Taking Gideon’s Pulse: An Assessment of the Right to Counsel in Hamilton County, Ohio,

Blistering report on public defender ’s office concludes that poor people facing jail are systematically denied the constitutional right to effective legal counsel.

“There is little doubt that poor people charged with crimes facing a potential loss of liberty are not afforded the constitutional protections demanded by the United States Constitution,” the report says.

“However, NLADA finds that the majority of the responsibility for this failure lies with the state of Ohio and not with Hamilton County.”

If that conclusion – poor people get screwed -- isn’t so surprising, some of the details are.

That welcome feeling The problems start the moment a client walks in the door. The public defender’s office is in the same building downtown as the county prosecutor’s office.

“Defendants, defense attorneys, prosecutors, victims, and witnesses should not be confined together in the small spaces of entry ways and elevators, and public defender clients should not pass through metal detectors manned by law enforcement to meet with their attorneys,” the report says.

Conditions in the office itself are inadequate, NLADA

man sitting at Seventh and Broadway at 5:45 a.m. says he isn’t homeless.

He doesn’t want to answer questions from a social worker.

“I draw a good income,” he says. “I ain’t homeless. I don’t want to sign no papers.”

Brad Roberts, an outreach worker with Projects, Assistance and Transitions from Homelessness (PATH) says he has no papers that need signing, just a few questions for a survey.

“I draw a good income,” the man says.

Then he asks for change.

Roberts gives him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead.

“I ain’t trying to be rude,” the man says. “I draw a good income. It’s a long story why I’m homeless.”

The quarterly homeless survey by social-service agencies is a kind of downtown scavenger hunt – that is, a hunt for people reduced to scaveng-

“It’s hard to get a good night’s sleep.

The cops heckle them all night. The business people come in the morning and heckle them. I try to respect their space.” - Brad Roberts,

found.

“The physical layout of the Hamilton County Public Defender’s Office is totally unsuitable for the work that needs to be done on behalf of clients,” the report says.

“Public-defender misdemeanor staff sits in cubicles within a single large room. The office layout does not allow for confidential conversation with a client or witness or prosecutor.

This forces many attorneys to speak with clients in the courtroom instead of in advance of a court date.”

The issue isn’t esthetic – it’s a matter of justice denied,

ing for a place to sleep outdoors. Participants spread out at 4 a.m. Aug. 27, visiting the banks of the Ohio River, parking garages, benches and other places for people who have no

See DEFENDER p.7

See COUNT p.6

outreach worker

2 News Briefs Homeless Man Killed While Sleeping Dayton, OH -- A homeless man died due to bluntforce trauma to the head in Dayton. Floyd E. Drummond, age 57, was found dead Aug. 16 in downtown Dayton. Drummond’s niece says he was hit in the head with a brick while he slept on a bench just off Interstate 75. She says Drummond had gotten into an argument with Kevin Alsup, who is being held on charges of murder and felonious assault. Alsup was scheduled to appear in court Aug. 26.

Hospitals Use Homeless in Scheme Los Angeles, CA -- Outrage greeted reports in 2006 that hospitals in the Los Angeles area were dumping homeless patients in Skid Row, an area with a large street population. Now the same hospitals are being charged with fraud and using homeless people as pawns in a financial scam. Federal agents raided three private, for-profit hospitals in the Los Angeles area Aug. 6 and arrested the CEO of City of Angels Medical Center.

The scam involved runners who would go to Skid Row and search out people who had Medi-Cal eligibility cards and those with Medicaid. Some people allegedly received medical treatment, whether they needed it or not. Residents of Skid Row said the practice was common and some individuals were able to make $150 to $200 if they were picked up.

(Information compiled from The New York Times and San Francisco Gate)

Teens accused of killing homeless man Pontiac, MI -- Three teenagers, ages 14 and 15, are suspects in the death of a homeless man. Police say the trio beat to death Wilford “Frenchie” Hamilton. The 61-year-old man died Aug. 26 of internal injuries, police said. Hamilton underwent surgery for wounds to the face and head and was on life support before he died.

The teenagers who allegedly killed him also face charges for other assaults, including a 65-year-old man found unconscious from a beating.

After surgery he was in critical condition. (Information compiled from The Detroit News)

The Vibe

Streetwise

By Gregory Flannery

My Big Fat Arrest The night before the jury reached the verdict in our trial over a peace protest, I spoke with a young man headed for Iraq. He didn’t want to go. In fact, he’d gone AWOL rather than fight in Iraq. But now he was going.

A year and a half later, my fellow protesters and I have finally lost our legal struggle. My young friend has fared far worse: He lost his eye and other bits of flesh to a roadside bomb. He’s still physically recovering. The recovery that happens within the heart and mind will likely take much longer.

In September 2006 seven people plopped their asses in U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot’s office and refused to move unless he agreed to sign the Declaration of Peace. We were part of a nationwide series of rallies, petitions, marches and civil disobedience. The local effort was coordinated by the InterCommunity Justice and Peace Center. While inside, we received moral support -- and snacks! -- from people opposed to the war. Over the past two years a whole team of volunteer lawyers has donated hundreds of hours to represent and advocate for us.

Chabot didn’t sign the Declaration of Peace. For seven hours we sang about peace and justice and read aloud the names of American invaders and Iraqi citizens killed in the war. After we repeatedly refused invitations to leave, dozens of police officers swarmed into Chabot’s office.

Some were in masks, some in riot gear. They were grossly overdressed: They had come to arrest two 15-year-old girls, a 78-year-old nun, a minister in clerical garb, a young woman working as a community organizer, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and a fat news editor.

It’s Right to Annoy the State Our trial on a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespassing stretched over six days. We tried to put Chabot on the witness stand; we failed. We tried to put former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the witness stand; we failed. We tried to convince the jury to convict the war instead of us; we failed. We tried to convince a three-judge appeals court to overturn the conviction; we failed. We tried to get the Ohio Supreme Court to overturn it; we failed.

What we achieved is this. We made people think about the war – Chabot, his staff, the police officers, the jury, judges, newspaper readers, TV and radio audiences. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is too seldom on our minds. We find it too easy not to think of the slaughter being waged in our names, with our money.

To the extent that we caused inconvenience with our little protest and the long legal struggle that followed, I’m glad. It is sometimes useful to slow down the forces of order. With a little imagination, anyone can take little steps to impede or at least discourage the process of making war: Next time you’re in a post office, pick up a few dozen Selective Service registration cards.

Take them home and fill them out, registering Donald Duck and the Bush twins for the draft. Or simply recycle the registration cards. Encourage your neighbors to do the same. Make it just a little bit harder for the state to fight future wars.

The reason the war in Iraq has lasted so long and so many have died is very simple: We, the people, have let it happen. If it’s going to stop, we, the people, will have to make that happen.

The Curriculum is Deadly The military is still looking for more people to kill Iraqis. The latest initiative is the Army Preparatory School. This is an opportunity for people who dropped out of high school to earn their general equivalency diplomas. The good news is the federal government seems finally to being taking seriously the need for more funding for education. The bad news is that those who receive their GEDS at the Army Preparatory School move on to basic combat training. This is, of course, merely a variation on old practices: It is always the poor who do the bulk of the killing and dying in war.

And don’t believe that crap about it being a volunteer military because there is no draft in effect. Serving in the U.S. military is voluntary only until you take the oath. Once you’re in, there’s nothing voluntary about it. Ask the hundreds of deserters who have fled to Canada rather than go back to Iraq. Ask my young friend with the missing eye.

STREETVIBES September 2008 Streetvibes is a newspaper that provides relevant discussions of homelessness, poverty and other related social justice issues. It is published monthly by the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless.

Address: 117 East 12th Street Cincinnati, OH 45202 Phone: 513.421.7803 x 12 Fax: 513.421.7813 Email: streetvibes2@ yahoo.com Website: www. cincihomeless.org Blog: streetvibes. wordpress.com Streetvibes Staff Editor Gregory Flannery Contributing Writers Margo Pierce, Angela Pancella, Andrew Freeze, Michael Henson, Stephanie Dunlap, Larry Gross, Steve Sunderland, Antonio Hodge, Bill Haigh, Mack Russell, Tye Doudy, JP Gritton Photography/Artwork Andrew Anderson, Andrew Freeze, Anthony Williams, Jimmy Heath, Lonnel, DJ Advisory Committee Joe Wessels, Steve Novotni, Andrew Freeze, Georgine Getty, Michael Henson, Stephanie Dunlap, Steve Gibbs The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Programs include Streetvibes, “Voice of the Homeless” Speaker’s Bureau, Cincinnati Urban Experience (CUE), Homeless Curriculum, and Homeless Civil Rights Organizing Project. All donations support these programs and are taxdeductible to the full extent of the law.

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STREETVIBES September 2008

Community News

Eight Minutes with a

Screamer

3

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

Below: “We will conquer, we will rule” print by Saad Ghosn.

Provided by Saad Ghosn.

Saad Ghosn screams his political and social concerns for all to see

S

By Margo Pierce Contributing Writer

ometimes you just want to scream. Whether out of frustration or anger or something else, the pressure of the desperation you feel craves a release. It no longer matters if screaming is rude or might upset others – you just have to do it. That is the essence of the woodcut exhibit by artist Saad Ghosn, now on display at Clay Street Press Gallery in Over-The-Rhine.

“I really felt like there were so many things that needed to be said, things that were going wrong, things that I disagreed with,” Ghosn says. “I really felt like I wanted to shout certain things. I felt by screaming what I believe, I would be heard, I would make a statement.”

His statement is in the form of woodcuts: images made by applying black ink to a piece of wood carved to create a picture, then pressing it against white paper, leaving a stark image. The details can be simple, almost childlike drawings, or detailed and sophisticated. This contrast can be as fascinating as it is confusing, an apt description of the themes portrayed by the artist.

“Where I am coming from is not really only me; it’s values oriented,” Ghosn says.

“Freedom, democracy, profiling, destruction of religion at the purpose of politics, use of power to solve issues, imposing peace on individuals even if it’s a peace not really based on justice, using force to bully, sanctioning corporations at the expense of the individuals, the illusion of being free while in reality we’re living with a lack of freedom because of the lack of basic human rights and values –- all of these are really important values that transpire in every one of my drawings.”

In Ode to Freedom, 11 figures are contained in boxes –- standing, kneeling, crouching, sitting –- surrounded by

barbed wire against a backdrop of chain-link fence. This isolation is individualism at the expense of human community, Ghosn says.

“It comes back (to where) our society and where our culture is going,” he says. “Frequently the connectedness is going away. There is more isolation of the individual by many things, not only by politics but also by the increasing values in the society which are really based on individual achievement, individual success.

“You can really see this going on a lot in society coming from a culture that is much more tribal, much more grouporiented. It’s very much like an individual builds barriers around himself or herself because society demands it.

“You end up being trapped.

Yes, you want to succeed, you want to live well, you want to be self-sufficient and individual but this by itself isolates you and takes you away from your essence … what you really as a human being aspire to, which is much more connectedness. Materialism prevails and, yes, you become kind of a prisoner of it.”

His upbringing in Lebanon included a focus on relation-

ships “where the values (are) based on the connectedness to others.”

“All the time to care for the other, this was really the most important thing,” he says. “My

“...I would really like people to scream like me about these issues: ‘Enough is enough! Don’t hijack good values to serve your self-interest.’ ” parents never raised me to, ‘You need to achieve this. You need to make money.’ They all the time said, ‘You need to be kind. You need to protect the others.’ If there was a person who was mentally deranged, this was the first person all the time you need to respect and care for.”

In addition to being director of pathology and laboratory medicine service at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and a professor at the University of Cincinnati, Ghosn is a grassroots activist. He’s a fixture in the peace activities led by the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center, and he provides an outlet for artists to express their political views

in their work through the annual S.O.S. (Save Our Souls) art exhibition he founded.

Politics is something that bothers Ghosn enough to make him want to scream.

“In the name of freedom, in the name of democracy, we are really eliminating a lot of people’s human rights and destroying democracy and freedom and religions, and I would really like people to scream like me about these issues: ‘Enough is enough!

Don’t hijack good values to serve your self-interest.’ ” In the print we will conquer we will rule, a massive boot bearing the words “New world order,” “We will rule,” “With us or against us” and other volatile phrases is surrounded by a field of human heads -- faces under the sole and skulls above it.

Ghosn says his work is intended to illustrate positive alternatives. One is spirituality.

“There is one particular writing that comes back that really has a different connection,” he says. “I use frequently ‘La ilaha illallah,’ which is, ‘There is no God but Allah,” which is the slogan of Islam.

But for me, I use it in many ways.

“I use it because it’s Ara-

bic, so it’s my background.

It’s spiritual, religious. ‘There is no God but one God’ is a uniting … theme of many religions. I don’t want to make a distinction between Muslim and Christian. I use it when it comes to spirituality, when it comes to values. Christian versus Muslim versus Jews versus Buddhists -- it doesn’t really make a difference.”

Ghosn is a Christian but his complexion and accent are more likely to be used to define him than anything else.

“With the profiling, especially after 9/11 and up to now, we do not value people by who they are but frequently we make quick judgments about what they look like and what they may be,” he says.

“It’s not limited to Arabs. It can easily be black, women, Hispanic, religious –- it can be anything.”

That is one of the many things Ghosn would like to see change -- and why he’ll keep screaming.

To view Scream, which runs through Sept. 13, visit the Clay Street Press Gallery from 10 a.m.– 4 p.m.

Saturdays. To schedule a weekday visit, call 513-2413232.

4

Community News

Writing Their Way

STREETVIBES September 2008

Homeless teens take up camera and pen

By Stephanie Dunlap Contributing Writer When Melody Smith was 15, her family was evicted, and their occasional brushes with homelessness turned full-time.

So she wrote.

Writing was healthy therapy “for someone who couldn’t afford any other form of therapy,” she says.

In 1996 writing became Smith’s ticket out of poverty and homelessness when she won a real life essay contest for YM teen magazine.

“That was the first time that even my friends knew I was homeless,” she says. “Writing actually got me not homeless anymore.”

Morning shows interviewed her. The teachers and other students at school grew protective of her. Smith wrote more essays and won scholarships to college.

Now 28, living in Northside and working in marketing and graphic design, Smith looked at the teens’ transitional home across her street and saw a repository for what some of her neighbors seemed to consider lost causes. Transplanted lost causes, no less -- out-of-town teens shuttled to Cincinnati, getting into trouble, getting themselves arrested.

“There’s a lot of disgruntled neighbors here in Northside,” Smith says. “I guess for some

people it can feel like they’re not even Cincinnatians, so why are they here?”

Instead of lost causes, Smith saw young people in need of the same community support that had made such a difference to her through her own difficult youth.

“I want to get to know who these kids are that everyone has decided they don’t like -- find their real personal side and share that through stories,” she says. “I like taking on the cases that no one is willing to take on.”

So Smith set out to bring to those young men across her street the same therapeutic art form that had changed the course of her life. She teamed up with InkTank and Project Connect to fashion a joint writing/photography project that she calls “The Clique Click: A Storytelling Project.”

According to the project timeline, each week for eight weeks homeless and disenfranchised teens will explore aspects of writing and digital photography. The project culminates in an exhibit of the youths’ work in the Cincinnati Museum Center lobby.

InkTank, which is still securing funding for the full project, is a community-based writing collective that brings writing to nontraditional populations. Project Connect works to keep young people experiencing homelessness

Melody Smith saw the need for those on the edge to be able to express themselves, so she formed “The Clique Click: Storytelling Project.” Photo by Lonell, participant in the project.

Lonell takes pictures of a spider web in Mount Airy Forest as part of “The Clique Click: A Storytelling Project.” This photo was taken by DJ, another participant in the writing and photography group.

connected to education.

Smith and her partner, the project’s photography coach Wil Jones, are now about two-thirds through a scaleddown Clique Click pilot project. Two Dayton teens living in the Northside transitional

“I try to tell people you don’t have to be a teacher or be a social worker to change the lives of these kids.” -Melody Smith

home have learned to study the world through a camera lens and to record it in journals Smith gave them.

Because Streetvibes was unable to get permission to interview the boys by deadline, their names have been changed to TJ and Donnell.

They are both juniors in high school.

Donnell reported that he’s in the group home because his grandmother didn’t want him anymore, Smith says.

Smith and Jones decided that the general theme of the pilot program would be the environment and its impact on self. They discovered early that it was important to pose questions that offered no “yes” or “no” answers but

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had enough direction to focus the youths’ budding creativity.

Channeling this creativity is the key to reaching so-called “lost causes,” Smith says.

“Kids are not going to stop creating, they are just going to create in ways that are unhealthy,” she says. “They are not going to stop wanting to belong, they will just find a different alternative to belonging.”

That’s why, in addition to the Clique Click project, Smith tries to connect troubled youth to as many healthy adults as she can. She introduced TJ and Donnell to the people at the McKie Recreation Center.

She set them up with people who work in construction and auto maintenance, two fields that interested the youth.

Before moving to the forprofit sector, Smith was a caseworker for juveniles on probation. She decided she could do more good if she volunteered her time, so there would be no question of her motives.

In addition to Click Clique, Smith has started a Northside adults’ writing group and is organizing a mentoring program for youth.

“I try to tell people you don’t have to be a teacher or be a social worker to change the lives of these kids,” she says. “And you don’t have to

do it full-time.”

The teens’ first Clique Click project outing was to Mt. Airy Forest. Jones gave the youth a lesson in camera operation and composition and set them loose.

“The main thing that stands out is the picture of the spider web,” Jones says. “(Donnell) really stayed until he got the shot he wanted, and it really paid off. I think it was good for him to see that, even though it took a lot of time, it was worth the effort.”

Smith and Jones quickly realized they’d have to recruit a number of adults for the fullsize group because their individual attention was so important to the youth.

“After every single picture, they want to show you the back of the camera,” Smith says.

Donnell took immediately to the camera but TJ struggled.

That’s how they learned that TJ needed new glasses. He is still waiting for his eye exam.

Later TJ wrote about where rivers once flowed, while Donnell wrote about a nameless boy who fell from the sky and got hurt.

In Donnell’s story, a man picked the hurt boy up, said, “That’s my son,” and held him.

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STREETVIBES September 2008

5

Local News

Day Laborers Counting on Council’s Promise Organizers want reforms in Rumpke deal

By Gregory Flannery Editor

T

he end of summer finds the Day Labor Organizing Project (DLOP) with a handful of hard-won successes and a pair of political frustrations.

Day laborers working for TLC, a temporary-employment agency, no longer have to pay for the use of vests, hard hats, gloves, goggles and other safety equipment at Rumpke Recycling, according to Elizabeth Byrd, a volunteer with the Cincinnati Interfaith Workers Center.

TLC has stopped charging day laborers for rides to Rumpke. Although TLC charges $3.50 for a ride after work, that is now optional, instead of workers being required to use – and pay for – the company’s transportation, Byrd says.

Third-shift workers are now receiving their paychecks at 6:45 a.m., instead of having to wait until 9 a.m.

DLOP, a project of the Interfaith Workers Center and the Greater Cincinnati

Coalition for the Homeless, also succeeded in getting a promise of future support from Cincinnati City Council.

Councilwoman Roxanne Qualls sponsored a motion earlier this year that requires the city’s future contract with Rumpke to include compliance with Cincinnati’s living-wage ordinance.

TLC pays day laborers at Rumpke $7 an hour, Byrd says. The city’s living wage is now $10.70 an hour for jobs that don’t provide health insurance.

While glad that council passed the motion, Byrd is apprehensive about its resolve. The city’s contract with Rumpke is up for renegotiation next year.

“We suspect the city will cave,” she says. “I suspect we’ll have a fight on our hands.”

Byrd’s skepticism is the result of two earlier proposals that seemed to have city council’s backing, but never went to a vote. The first was a proposal to regulate day-labor halls, forbidding charges for safety equipment and mandating other

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reforms.

“We had for over two years worked to get city council to develop an ordinance regulating day-labor halls,” Byrd says. “Quite a lot of energy went into it.”

Following a review by the city solicitor’s office,

“We suspect the city will cave. I suspect we’ll have a fight on our hands.” - Elizabeth Byrd

however, the proposed ordinance died. DLOP worked to get council to approve a milder measure, establishing accreditation standards for day-labor halls in the city.

“The same thing happened,” Byrd says. “It got drafted, everybody loved it.

It went to the city solicitor and got killed.”

There’s another reason organizers are less than jubilant over council’s promise to add living-wage compliance to the next contract with Rumpke. The law already applies to the

recycling contract, but the city refuses to enforce it, according to Don Sherman, director of the Interfaith Workers Center.

The living-wage ordinance applies to companies and sub-contractors with contracts of $20,000 or more with the city. Rumpke’s contract with the city is for $2.1 million. But the city’s Office of Contract Compliance rejected a complaint

by DLOP and the Interfaith Workers Center. The office concluded that the livingwage law doesn’t apply because day laborers don’t sort recyclable material as defined in the contract, but rather “pre-sort” it.

“The Contract Compliance Office somehow decided these workers weren’t separating and sorting these materials,” Sherman says.

“They didn’t give us a breakdown of why the living-wage ordinance didn’t apply. I’ve been a lawyer, and I was really dumbfounded. Basically it was a political decision. It certainly wasn’t framed in a legal argument that explains why the ordinance doesn’t

apply.”

DLOP has also been hampered by the effect of high turnover in the ranks of day laborers and workers’ fear of reprisals if they complain about working conditions, Byrd says.

“Things have been very quiet,” she says. “After our big push, worker involvement dropped to none. The advocates felt we could not safely move forward without worker involvement, because we risked firings. We don’t want workers to lose their jobs, even if they’re bad jobs. We’ve had to step back from some of the ongoing in-your-face stuff, unfortunately. We hope to pick that back up.”

DLOP is organizing a survey to see if the city’s living-wage ordinance is being applied at other companies with city contracts.

“That’s a really exciting campaign, but we’re going to need a lot of help,” Byrd says.

To contact DLOP, call 513-621-5991.

Looking Out for the Neighbors Drop Inn Center adds arrest policy

By Andrew Freeze Staff Writer In an effort to work more closely with neighbors, the Drop Inn Center has added a new behavioral expectation for those who stay at the emergency shelter. The “three strike” policy affects residents who are arrested within 500 feet of the center.

The first time a resident of the Drop Inn Center is arrested within that zone, he or she will receive a warning from the shelter staff. After a second arrest, the resident will receive a warning and counseling. After a third arrest near the shelter, the person will be barred.

“We hope to stop a behavior before it starts,” says Pat Clifford, executive director of the center.

Each month the Cincinnati Police Department will provide a list to the Drop Inn Center about suspects who have been arrested within 500 feet. During July, the first month of the new policy, po-

lice arrested 126 people within 500 feet of the Drop. 24 people who were arrested, had stayed at the Drop Inn Center during July. 55% of those arrested with the 500-foot zone had never stayed at the Drop Inn Center and 26% of the arrested had stayed at the Drop before but not in the month of July.

That number accounts for only 19 percent of the arrests in the area, according to Clifford.

“With 500–600 people staying at the Drop each month, 24 does not account for the majority of arrests in or around Washington Park,” he says.

Clifford says the new policy is meant to help residents improve their lives.

“We are for Washington Park remaining a public park and for the Drop Inn Center to remain in Over-the-Rhine,” he says. “A public park has public expectations. Before, negative behaviors were just accepted by the Drop, the police and Music Hall. We are now working together to help

people.”

Many of the people arrested around the Drop Inn Center are charged with nuisance or “quality of life” crimes such as loitering, public indecency due to public urination, open flask charges, littering charges, and trespassing charges.

“Arresting people for nuisance crimes does not change a person’s behavior,” Clifford says. “But working together with the Cincinnati Police Department and the neighbors of the Drop Inn Center, we can help people improve their lives.”

William Ross-Bey, a resident at the Drop Inn Center in late August, says the new policy doesn’t bother him.

“You can’t arrest me,” he says. “I don’t smoke or drink.”

He and Clifford say most of the shelter’s residents have taken the new policy in stride.

“Most residents are for it because they don’t identify themselves as the problem,” Clifford says.

6

STREETVIBES September 2008

The Jump

A Sweeping Change, continued from p.1 the police,” Saunders says.

Georgine Getty, executive director of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, agrees.

“The bridge sweeps and the ensuing lawsuit brought us all to the table, and we started talking with each other along with the downtown business community, city officials and homeless people,” she says.

“More communication is always a step in the right direction.”

The new working relationship not only provides a way for the city to eliminate the camps without violating homeless people’s rights; it also provides opportunities to help them.

“Providing the extra notice allows outreach workers to be contacted and helps people get

connected with services before they are forced to move,” Saunders says.

A home for Charlie An indirect result of the 2003 bridge sweeps was the formation of the Homeless Outreach Group (HOG), which provides a way for outreach workers to work together to get people off the streets and into housing. The police now notify HOG of an impending sweep, providing an opportunity to engage clients sleeping under bridges.

Arnita Miller, an outreach worker with the PATH team, works with clients who have severe mental illness and substance abusers.

“Before, we had no communication with the police

Sgt. Steve Saunders, a neighborhood liaison for the Cincinnati Police Department, now works closely with homeless advocates and outreach workers to help homeless people move off the streets. Photo by Andrew Anderson.

and no way of knowing what bridge camp was going to be

“We have 1,100 shelter beds that are full every night but at least 1,300 homeless people nightly. I believe people have the right to be in public space...” Georgine Getty, executive director of GCCH

swept next,” she says. “Now we have a good relationship with the community police officers. They let us know by e-mail if there is going to be a sweep, which allows us to engage those under the bridges in services.”

Chico Lockhart is outreach coordinator for Downtown Cincinnati Inc. “Police contact me when they run into someone needing services downtown,” he says. “They try not to arrest or ticket them, and allow me and other outreach workers to help them.”

Getty, a critic of the city’s old policy, applauds the cooperation of the police.

“We have developed a strong relationship with District One,” she says. “We have realized that no one wants to be arresting homeless people for homeless issues such as open container and loitering.

The police have been willing partners in finding alternative to arresting people. The outreach worker provided by DCI and other outreach workers have gone a long way to working with police to help

Count, continued from p.1 place to go.

Two people are sleeping on benches outside the Tower Place Garage. A woman sits bent over, the purse resting on her knees serving as a pillow.

A man on a nearby bench is prone, a jacket over his head.

Roberts makes some notes but doesn’t talk to him.

“I just didn’t want to wake him up,” Roberts says. “It’s hard to get a good night’s sleep. The cops heckle them all night. The business people come in the morning and heckle them. I try to respect their space.”

The survey team goes to the 10th floor of the parking garage and walks each floor, searching. When they return outside, the man on the bench is awake. The man tells Roberts he is 57 and a military

veteran.

“He said the main cause of his homelessness is lack of a job, and the reason he doesn’t

“He said the main cause of his homelessness is lack of a job, and the reason he doesn’t have a job is because he got sick and couldn’t work.” 57 year old man sleeping outside parking garage

have a job is because he got sick and couldn’t work,” Roberts says. “I think he’s mentally ill. I think that’s the illness.”

At 5:30 a.m. a man is asleep on the sidewalk in front of the TJ Maxx store on West

Fourth Street. A blanket covers him; his shoes are on the ground next to his head. A man nearby has a cardboard box and an open Bible on the bench where he’s resting.

Roberts tries to talk to him, but the man violently shakes his head, bellowing a guttural concatenation of syllables that sound like an angry version of speaking in tongues. Roberts knows the man.

“He’s religiously fixated,” Roberts says.

The porch surrounding St. Peter in Chains Cathedral is surprisingly vacant at 5:40 a.m.

“They’re usually lined up all the way down both sides, sleeping,” Roberts says.

Timing might be the key, according to Lynne Ausman, administrative coordinator for

move people off the street and into housing.”

In fact, more outreach, rather than tougher enforcement, is what police want.

“Hopefully DCI will continue to keep their outreach program,” Saunders says. “I see the biggest need is more outreach workers.”

Saunders talks about a man named Charlie who was sleeping under a bridge at Fort Washington Way. The police posted signs in the area, warning those camping there that they had to move.

The police talked to Charlie and encouraged him to get connected with PATH, an agency that helps homeless people. Staffers from PATH met him at the bridge and got him into Tender Mercies, which provides housing for people with mental illness.

“Now Charlie is able to thrive, not just survive,” Saunders says.

Other cities have noticed how effectively the police and homeless advocates are working together in Cincinnati and are working on creating similar policies in their own cities, Saunders says.

‘People need help’ While everyone agrees that communication has been instrumental in connecting people sleeping outside to services, all agree it’s not a perfect system.

“We don’t want to sweep them, but we do have to enforce local and state ordinances,” Saunders says. “We handle camps on a complaint by complaint basis. We need the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. On a previous survey, she found the cathedral porch full of homeless people.

“They were all getting up and moving; that was about 4:00 or 4:15,” she says. “I’ll make a note that we should come here first next time.”

The survey involved about two dozen people from the Homeless Coalition, PATH, the Drop Inn Center, Caracole, Lighthouse Youth Services, the FreeStore FoodBank and other social-service agencies.

The questions for the survey include the length of time a person has been homeless, the cause and any special needs.

Davetta Lewis, a clientsupport specialist for Caracole, which serves people who have HIV/AIDS, marvels at something a teacher told her in psychology class: Homeless people want to be homeless.

more beds and more outreach.

A possible solution is public campgrounds where people who are homeless can pitch tents and sleep legally outside.”

The larger question of why so many people have to sleep outdoors – and why it’s banned -- remains unanswered, Getty says.

“The age-old question about homelessness is who owns the right to public space,” she says. “We have 1,100 shelter beds that are full every night but at least 1,300 homeless people nightly. I believe people have the right to be in public space. Downtown businesses and residents often differ. Ultimately what we need is safe, affordable housing for all city residents. The ‘housing first’ model by Over-theRhine Community Housing is a great first step in the right direction (see “Million Dollar Baby,” edition of Aug. 1).

Five years after the controversy, downtown business owners are more likely to see the problem differently, Lockhart says.

“Businesses are coming around and understanding that people need help,” he says.

Miller says the changes in the past five years are a good start.

“The community police officers do a great job,” she says.

“Most clients in the camps know them. The community needs a better understanding: If they really want to improve anything, it is to understand what people’s needs are. We need housing, and we need good-paying jobs.”

“I was kind of offended,” Lewis says. “Everybody has choices, but I’m pretty sure most people don’t choose to be homeless. A lot of working poor are half a paycheck away from being homeless.

Georgine Getty, executive director of the Homeless Coalition, describes a couple she found sleeping at Government Square – a 20-year-old woman and a 28-year-old man. They lost their apartment to fire.

“They parked their child somewhere,” she says.

“They’ve been homeless for two weeks.”

There are no shelters for unmarried couples in Cincinnati.

“They want to stay together,” Getty says. “They were huddled up like kittens. Her head was resting on his back.

It was so sweet.”

Some choice: the bench or the riverbank.

STREETVIBES September 2008

7

Local News

Defenders, continued from p.1 according to Bill Gallagher, a Cincinnati civil rights attorney and chair of the Indigent Defense Committee of the Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

“When they’re under-funded, they can’t do their jobs properly,” Gallagher says.

“When they can’t do their jobs properly, we end up with people staying in prison longer than necessary. We have innocent people being convicted. We have people in the Justice Center longer because their lawyers can’t get over to visit them.”

The caseload for staff attorneys is more than double that recommended by national standards.

“Using caseload numbers that we know to be underrepresentative, the Hamilton County misdemeanor staff attorneys are handling almost two-and-a-half times the maximum caseload recommended by nationally recognized and accepted standards,” the NLADA report says. “This equates to 30 attorney positions handling the work of 74 attorneys.

“As troublesome as an excessive workload is on an attorney who must handle more than double the number of cases recommended by national workload standards, the true outcome measure of work overload is the tangible effect it has on clients. In Hamilton County, the workload means that on average a public defender can spend only one hour and 42 minutes per misdemeanor case (including trials).”

For juveniles dependent on public defenders, the prospect is even more bleak. The public defender’s office uses the juvenile court as a training ground; from there attorneys move on to Hamilton County Municipal Court. But juvenile court can lock kids up much longer than municipal court does.

“The Hamilton County Public Defender Office uses the Juvenile Unit as a training ground for staff attorneys who then ‘move up’ to adult misdemeanor practice,” the NLADA report says. “This is unwise. There are many more serious and life-impacting cases with direct and collateral consequences filed in the delinquency court than in the municipal court. Juvenile Unit attorneys handle serious felony acts that may result in several years’ incarceration under the jurisdiction of the Ohio Department of Youth

Services.”

‘Keep the judges happy’ The person who holds the official title of Hamilton Coun-

“...the complaints were not that the attorneys were incompetent, but rather that they were filing too many motions or trying too many jury trials or otherwise too vigorous in their representation.” ty Public Defender is Louis F. Strigari. NLADA’s report is not kind to Strigari, even while acknowledging that he is “a dedicated father-like figure … (who) is extremely well-liked in the Hamilton County legal community and is a kind, thoughtful man who cares deeply about indigent defense and has held a longterm, broad vision for the provision of counsel to the poor.”

Strigari scheduled an interview with Streetvibes to discuss the report but missed the appointment. Subsequent efforts to reach him by phone were unsuccessful.

NLADA’s report is based on interviews with more than 75 assistant public defenders, private attorneys, county officials and judges listed by name -- and “a significant number of additional attorneys who spoke with us but preferred not to give their names.”

Strigari, who has been the chief public defender since 1994, is too cozy with judges, according to some of the people NLADA interviewed.

“Critics of Mr. Strigari’s leadership claim that he is too beholden to the Hamilton County judiciary and unwilling or unable to rock the boat with the state and county to secure appropriate funding,” the report says. “For example, it appears that the public defender office has been historically strongly motivated to keep the judges happy. This has manifested itself in the chief agreeing to remove specific assigned counsel attorneys from cases at the request of some judges, where the complaints were not that the attorneys were incompetent, but rather that they were filing too many motions or trying too many jury trials or otherwise too vigorous in their rep-

resentation. Some assigned counsel attorneys have been admonished not to file too many motions or try too many cases, perceiving that the public defender office might cease appointing them.”

Assigned counsel are private attorneys retained by the public defender’s office, which also has staff attorneys.

Both are underpaid, NLADED concluded.

“In Hamilton County, assigned counsel fees are set at $45 per hour and are also capped at a maximum number of hours based upon the type of case,” the report says.

“The rate has not increased since September of 2004. …

To the extent that overhead exceeds the $45 per hour rate paid by Hamilton County, then assigned counsel attorneys are literally paying for the privilege of representing the poor.”

But it gets worse. Strigari allegedly leans on assigned counsel not to bill the county for all their hours.

“We were repeatedly told that Chief Public Defender Strigari contacts the lawyer and cajolingly suggests that it is not practical to submit the bill to the judge in the amount claimed, even when that is the amount of time that was spent … Many told us they receive a suggestion that they should file fewer motions or take fewer cases to trial, and they

“The Constitution does not allow for justice to be rationed to the poor due to insufficient funds.” perceived that they would otherwise run the risk of no longer receiving appointed cases.”

NLADA recommends a series of reforms to improve the Hamilton County Public Defender’s Office. They do not include a future for the man who now holds the title Hamilton County Public Defender – Lou Strigari.

“The present requirements of public defense administration in Hamilton County, however, exceed the leadership qualities that Mr. Strigari can offer,” the report says.

‘No connection’ The problem inevitably reverts to money. In this case, the issue isn’t only how much but also whence it comes.

Ohio is one of 20 states that make counties pay most of the cost for public defenders.

The National Legal Aid & Defender Assoication released its report about Hamilton County public defenders in July.

Moreover, Ohio has cut back on what it does contribute.

“The State of Ohio has not only allowed its counties to shoulder the predominant burden for funding the right to counsel, it is one of only two states that are actually going against the national trend toward 100 percent state funding by reducing its reimbursement percentage over the past 30 years,” the NLADA report says.

In a brief telephone conversation scheduling an interview that ultimately didn’t happen, Strigari gave a nod to the issue of funding.

“We’re doing the work of the Lord – at least that’s the way I look at it,” he said. “We don’t do it for the money, that’s for sure.”

While urging the county to press for increases in state funding, NLADA applauded the county’s recent efforts.

“Despite these seriousness of the problems detailed throughout the report, NLADA concludes that Hamilton County has demonstrated an emerging commitment to providing constitutionally effective assistance of counsel in recent years,” the report says.

“The county has done this through their willingness to candidly assess the strengths and weaknesses of their existing public defense system and by taking positive action on those assessments – most notably in the creation of two new management positions in the Public Defender Office.

However, they are not yet providing constitutionally-adequate representation.”

Gallagher says reform will take time as well as money, but the public defender’s office can take initiatives now that won’t cost anything. The office has never established a relationship with institutions that could help, he says. Opportunities for collaboration and grants alike have gone unexplored.

“There is no connection with the private bar,” Gallagher says. “There is no connection with the bar association.

There is no connection with the law schools.”

Paying for free lawyers for people accused of crime is no path to political success. It is, however, at the core of the nation’s legal system.

“The Constitution does not allow for justice to be rationed to the poor due to insufficient funds,” the NLADA report says.

But practical considerations also attend. We can pay now or pay later, according to NLADA. The Hamilton County Public Defender’s Office, it seems, is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

“Hamilton County’s policymakers are in the unenviable ‘between a rock and a hard place’ position of having to either fund public defender services at an adequate level (thus threatening the county’s fiscal health) or face expensive systemic class action lawsuits or other costly court action to ensure a meaningful right to counsel for the poor (also threatening its fiscal health)” the report says.

Local News 8 Gated Communities for the Homeless

STREETVIBES September 2008

Shelters are full and the underpasses sealed off

By Andrew Freeze Staff Writer

T

he summer months typically find fewer people staying at Cincinnati’s homeless shelters – but not this year.

The usual seasonal decline can sometimes be attributed to more seasonal jobs, more housing available and people sleeping outside because of the nicer weather.

But this year the numbers at many of Cincinnati’s shelters look more like their winter numbers. This worries the people who work with homeless people.

The demand for help at St. Francis/St. Joseph Catholic Worker House is unusually high, according to Carl Fields, house manager.

“We have 16 beds for men, and August is usually our slowest month; but we have been staying full all summer,” he says.

The Catholic Worker House normally has three or four beds available throughout the summer, but not in 2008, Fields says.

The Drop Inn Center has also seen a steady rise in the number of “bed nights.”

“Our bed-nights count was up 63 percent in June and 60 percent in July, compared to our 2007 numbers,” says Pat Clifford, executive director.

Georgine Getty, executive director of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, says homeless people have been telling her, “There is a month to a month-and-ahalf wait list to get into the family shelters.”

Our Daily Bread, a soup kitchen in Over-the-Rhine, serves a mid-morning meal.

There, too, the need for help

has been on the rise.

“Our numbers have doubled from two years ago,” says Sister Mary Beth Peters, executive director. “We now serve 14,000 meals, a month, which is about 500 meals a day.”

The snapshot in Cincinnati doesn’t match claims last month by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that homeless has significantly dropped across the country.

Clifford, Fields and Peters say the reason for the high numbers could be the weak economy, a lack of seasonal

“If you can’t build beds, give (homeless people) a legal place to sleep.” - Sgt. Steve Saunders, Cincinnati Police Department

jobs and more people falling into poverty.

With Cincinnati’s shelters full most nights, there are still people who sleep outside. In Cincinnati, there is no legal place for people to sleep if they don’t have a home, according to Sgt. Steve Saunders, liaison officer for Cincinnati Police District One. The designation of legal campgrounds for homeless people might help, he says.

“If you can’t build beds, give (homeless people) a legal place to sleep,” Saunders says.

Compounding the fact that it’s illegal to sleep outside, it’s also getting harder to find shelter outdoors. The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) has begun installing a series of five fences under various highway overpasses

Top: A sign warns campers of the impending fencing at an overpass. Above: Fences have been placed up around underpasses throughout the city at a cost of $15,000. Below: Graph provided by Drop Inn Center. Photos by Andrew Anderson.

to keep people from camping there.

Chico Lockhart, outreach coordinator for Downtown Cincinnati Inc., says he still sees lots of people sleeping outside and under bridges.

He and other case managers

work to get them into shelter or housing (see “A Sweeping Change,” page 1).

“We want to connect people to services, not put up fences,” Saunders says.

But the fences are going up nonetheless. A statement from

ODOT says the state is spending $15,000 to put up the fences “for the safety of those who sleep outside.”

With shelters full, soup kitchens serving twice as many meals and laws prohibiting people from sleeping outside, Cincinnati is seeing a new kind of housing development: gated communities for the homeless – gated to keep them out.

Interested in volunteering your talents with Streetvibes?

Contact Gregory Flannery at 513421-7803 x12

STREETVIBES September 2008

9

Poetry and Artwork “to be able”

On My Journey On my journey, the road has been rough, It has been easy, and it has truly been hard But there have been many lessons.

I’ve learned to love, I’ve learned to hate I’ve also learned to appreciate, but most of all I’ve learned who family is.

Because what I was taught in the home Didn’t prepare me for the streets.

The streets are not what I’ve seen on TV Or what I’ve seen in the movies, The street is real And when one experiences it Only then will you know.

I’ve learned to share and embrace those I encounter on my journey.

Before I thought family was those I was born to.

I was told blood is thicker than water But I found out that love is thicker than blood And that family is not necessarily those you are born to.

They are often the people you meet in the street.

By Mack L. Russell

Looks like you picked up on the signs The mediocrity of which blinds Why truth is only found between the lines The soulless make it so hard so times To be part of that number, no easier kind Of a way or ways to shift, waves that wash me overboard Into the masses of junkies’ divorce From the present, and from the real Into the realm of what we feel The pressures of what it means to deal With dollars and sense, colored suits and pension checks Politics of non-sense, and eons worth of segregated conscience With the bell’s call and the mosquito draw Blood from the veins of our poorest of all Religious cloaks like daggers fall Systemically backstabbing the supposed call Do not sin, paralyze the temptress’s laws Which cite or cites the change, chaos that cast me headlong Into the chasms of soldiers’ pride From the past, and from the fable Into the galaxy of what we label The tenements of what it takes to be able … yes, be able To come to the table And reveal the truths that lay between lines That nothing and no-one is merely a product of the times We are what, what we manifest, than what is life But a test, replete with joy yet rifled with strife No easier kind, of a way or ways To search, than drift downward dastardly to the lowest of lows And than you will know where truth is sewn In the face of your own In your friend’s boisterous tone In the humanity of those struggling all alone

By Bill Haigh

Cleo’s Joke Corner Do you know the only place that dogs don’t like to go, besides the veterinarian? My granddaughter said, “They do not like to go to the flea market.”

To Lucy and Paul Drawing by Anthony Williams

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Tijuana.

Tijuana who?

Tijuana buy a Streetvibes?

Why is it hard to get inside a piano? Well, the keys are on the inside.

Column 10 Otis Campbell is Dying They don’t make them like him anymore

By Michael Henson Columnist I was looking for air for my tires and Calvin said, “If you tell ’em inside, they’ll turn on the pump for you. It’ll save you 75 cents.”

Before I could even go inside, one of the workers at the station was out sweeping, so Calvin had him turn it on for me. I filled my tires and I still had my 75 cents, so I gave it to him.

“You might as well have it,” I said. “I was set to pay it out anyway.”

He nodded and tucked the coins into a pocket of his coat.

I had not seen Calvin in 10 years or more, and the years had not been kind. He used to be a feature in the old East End. They call this part Columbia-Tusculum now, but it’s the old East End just the same. At the time I knew him, Calvin lived in an old wood frame house on a hill above Columbia Parkway. For years, that house was buttressed by long 2x10 props to keep it from tumbling down into the traffic.

I asked about it back then.

My first impression was that it was an early stage of a renovation project. He laughed,

and I didn’t get it.

It was all a joke to him. ******** You could see he had once been a handsome man, and you could see in him, still, something of the energy and grace he must have once possessed. His hair was that sandy color that, as it grayed, seemed only to shift tones. His were a frosty blue and glinted when he joked. But his face was a spidery red, and his nose was swollen and there were deep furrows beneath his eyes. His back was bent. He moved real slow.

Ten years ago. He was a broken man even then. ******** He made something of a living doing odd jobs around the neighborhood, mostly for the ones who decided the neighborhood’s name was Columbia-Tusculum. It was mostly beer money. He was a regular at the soup kitchen at Seven Hills Neighborhood Services.

That program is long gone.

I don’t know who feeds the people like Calvin now.

I don’t think it’s the people of the condominiums.

When I first met Calvin, I had a job in which I tried to reach out to the addicts and alcoholics of the East End and persuade them into treatment.

I didn’t have a lot of success. I had better luck with the clients referred by parole or probation. But every now and then it worked.

It didn’t work with Calvin.

It was all a joke to him. He laughed every time I tried. ******** I recognized Calvin, but I

They are, in fact, a dying breed -literally, for the drunk is dying as long as he keeps drinking.

But also because there are fewer of the type that just slowly drinks and dies. wasn’t sure he recognized me.

He had his hands in his pockets and his face and nose were still swollen and reddened.

The deep furrows beneath his eyes had guttered deeper yet.

His cheeks sagged like empty sacks. His eyes were still the same frozen blue, but they had a syrupy glaze over them.

I asked him, “Do you remember me?”

He peered at me through the glaze.

“No,” he said. “I don’t reckon I do.”

STREETVIBES September 2008 Michael Henson is author of Ransack, A Small Room with Trouble on My Mind, The Tao of Longing and Crow Call.

This column is part of a monthly series on poverty and addiction.

“I remember you,” I said.

“You used to live in a little house up yonder.” I pointed to where I thought the house once stood. I don’t remember if it stood on the knoll with the new condominiums or in the place they hollowed out for the parking lot at Starbuck’s, I waved in the general direction, hoping he would help me out. But he looked away with a nod.

We talked for half an hour or more about people who had come and gone from the old East End, some living, some dead, some living sober. ******** One of our most beloved stereotypes is that of the town drunk, the lovable lush. Otis Campbell was good for a great many laughs on the old Andy Griffith Show, and I suppose there are a hundred others.

The drunk says funny things and nobody’s hurt. But you know and I know that’s not the way it really is.

That old-time drunk can also tell you stories that will break your heart. I recall one old man, a Black man who had been on chain gangs in the old south. He showed me the scars from the chains on his legs and he sang some of the old chain-gang songs and he was happy to share his piece

of history. But he was dying just as Calvin is dying, and they all are dying.

They are, in fact, a dying breed -- literally, for the drunk is dying as long as he keeps drinking. But also because there are fewer of the type that just slowly drinks and dies.

Add some cocaine or Oxy into the mix and they go down faster.

The ones like Calvin just drink and slowly die. ******** We talked, as I said, about people come and gone, some living, some dead: Sam who had done so well for awhile.

Philip, who got it, but got it too late and died three months sober.

And we talked about some living and sober. So I asked him, “Do you want to get some help?”

Calvin looked around.

He looked up at the hillside where his rickety house used to perch. He looked around at the cars whipping past on Columbia Parkway or nursing at the pumps of the station.

“Naw,” he said. “I reckon it’s too late for that.”

He didn’t laugh, though. I suppose it’s not a joke for him anymore.

The Sign Says, ‘God Bless You’ Its owner says something else

By Larry Gross Contributing Writer

W

hen he got on the bus, I recognized the guy. Oftentimes I’ve seen him downtown on the corner of Seventh and Vine streets with his paper cup and a cardboard sign that says, “Homeless. Please help.

God bless you.”

Many times I’ve put a buck or two in his cup.

It was approaching 10 o’clock at night when he got on the bus heading up Queen City Avenue. I don’t normally take bus rides that late, but I had business downtown that made it necessary to take the No. 6 bus after the sun went down. Why this man was on the bus, I don’t know.

What I do know is he was drunk. So did the bus driver.

When he got on, he could hardly stand up.

He’s a tall, thin man with short blonde hair. He was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans. The bus driver was

as nice to him as she could be – even when he started to board the bus without paying his fare.

“Sir, you need to pay the fare,” she said.

He stood there, around the middle of the bus, staggering with his hands in his pockets, looking for change.

I wonder why he was drunk. Is it because he’s homeless? Is that what made him so angry?

When he found his change, he staggered to the front of the bus, put his coins in the slot and asked for a transfer. When the bus driver gave him the transfer, he continued to stand there.

“Sir,” said the bus driver, “you need to sit down.”

On shaky legs, he continued to stand.

“Sir, I’m not going to move this bus until you sit down.”

These words had no effect on the man at all. He continued to stand as though he didn’t know what else to do.

A gentleman sitting in one of the seats to the man’s right groaned.

“Man, sit down,” he said. “I want to get home.”

This woke up the drunken man, who now was suddenly angry.

“Don’t talk to me like that, boy!” he said, getting in the other passenger’s face. “I’ve worked hard today.”

The drunk man dropped his transfer. He asked the bus driver for another one.

“It’s on the floor,” she said.

“Just pick it up.”

“Give me a goddamn transfer,” he said.

“Sir, sit down!”

He finally sat in a seat to the left of the passenger who had made him angry. He started to curse at the man and at the bus driver, who wouldn’t give him a new transfer. The bus driver got on her phone and called

I find myself now wondering what happens to that money when I place a buck in a paper cup downtown for a person holding up a sign stating he or she is homeless. her supervisor.

The drunken man, still with shaky legs, moved to the back of the bus and calmed down.

The bus driver got her bus moving again and apologized to the other passenger. She told him her supervisor would meet her at a stop on Werk Road and have the man removed from the bus.

I’m thankful I didn’t have to witness that. My stop was before the bus turned on that street. But the events of that ride leave thoughts and questions in my mind.

I now wonder if the man is really homeless. He had some-

place to go in the western part of town. Was he staying with a friend on that night when he was so drunk?

I wonder why he was drunk.

Is it because he’s homeless? Is that what made him so angry?

Was he taking his anger out on that other passenger because that other passenger had a home to go to?

I find myself now wondering what happens to that money when I place a buck in a paper cup downtown for a person holding up a sign stating he or she is homeless. I suppose it’s not any of my business. It’s my choice to simply give and try and help.

I might feel different later, but for now I find myself avoiding the corner of Seventh and Vine. I don’t want to see the guy who caused trouble on that late-night bus ride. I don’t want to think about him or look at him.

I don’t want to look at his cardboard sign that says “God bless you.”

STREETVIBES September 2008

11

Column

A Sporting Silence China’s brutal acts ignored for the sake of the Olympics

By Steve Sunderland Contributing Writer

W

hat are we to make of the Olympics in China? The hoopla goes on, documenting the success of the Chinese in bringing off an event that many thought would be upset by protests.

The protests were squashed.

The president of the United States went and left as a sports fan. The world joined him in silence about the genocide in China, the Chinese domination of Tibet and the arrest of elders who legally sought to protest China's housing policies. How did China emerge without a touch of responsibility for being a country with no freedom of speech, little freedom of assembly, abusive of religious freedom and exploitive of workers’ rights to safe, reasonable, and free work?

The world has bought deeply into the connection between the sports-industrial complex as a way of appeasing this political, economic and military giant. World problems of hunger, war, unemployment, inflation, homelessness, the absence of safety nets for health and ruthlessness toward dissent have been increasing during the games, as if the real world of suffering exists in a parallel world that can be ignored. China is also partially responsible for the expansion of world and state misery. So why the silence?

We have to look to the reaction to the "Bodies" exhibit at Cincinnati Museum Center to get a hint about the "silence."

The financial success of this grisly exhibit has overshadowed the moral concerns that the "bodies" might be Chinese political prisoners who were murdered. This exhibit points out that even in a democracy, the forces of authoritarianism and greed can overcome democratic values. In a sad way, the power to do whatever it wants is the common characteristic of the behavior of the Museum Center and the Chinese government.

The city, like the world, is suffering from a fear of offending the rich giants that control everyday life in largely invisible ways. Every now and then a project breaks through the public relations strategy and touches a nerve of the population that is unexpected and unwanted by the controlling forces. Think of the shame of New Orleans after Katrina, Burma's denial of services following their hurricane or manipulation of the gas crisis.

The Museum Center is clear that it has to have a "success" with the exhibit and resents any threat to closing it down for any reason. In reaction to criticism, it has said the exhibit has "entertainment value" and it is "educational" -- and

these concerns should trump any moral concerns. Yet the financial realities of the exhibit aren’t known by the public any more than the political realities that brought the exhibit to Cincinnati or the medical realities that created the exhibit. This lack of transparency continues the fiction that the exhibit, like the Olympics, has values that super-cede humanitarian concerns.

What must it be like to be sitting in Chinese prisons, working in labor camps or contemplating taking an action against the Chinese government? History tells us many stories of those imprisoned in such conditions. Recently, a new diary emerged from Poland's horrifying Holocaust history. It is by Rutka Laskier, a 14-year-old Jewish girl who died in Auschwitz. Her diary was kept by a friend and only just shared with scholars and the public, titled Rutka's Notebook: A voice from the Holocaust.

Rutka writes: "To sit in a gray locked cage, without being able to see fields and flowers. Last year I used to go to the fields; I always had many flowers, and it reminded me that one day it would be possible to go to Malchowska Street without taking the risk of being deported. … I'm already so 'flooded' with the

atrocities of the war that even the worst reports have no effect on me. I simply can't believe that one day I'll be able to leave the house without the yellow star. Or even that this war will end one day. ... If this happens, I will probably lose

No one questions that Tibet has been overrun by Chinese imperialism with the resulting toll of thousands of deaths of religious and civilian people. my mind from joy."

Millions of Chinese and Tibetan people could write their own stories of current conditions that mirror Rutka's harrowing existence. There is little question that slavery and genocide occur in China at this time. No one questions that Tibet has been overrun by Chinese imperialism with the resulting toll of thousands of deaths of religious and civilian people. Evidence of the Chinese selling body parts in ways that are illegal in any other country is clear and damning. Chinese workers suffer under sweatshop conditions, fake labor laws and brutal working conditions and have little opportunity to

litigate violations of even fake labor laws.

I have had the privilege of working with recent student and faculty visitors from China to a local school. After a bit of awkwardness in getting to know each other, we launched into complicated discussions of both China and the United States. There was nothing but enthusiasm for the United States but there was a particular concern for peace: "We want peace and we are afraid of being attacked by the U.S. We do not want to be another Iraq."

Criticisms of Chinese policies were also evident, especially about Tibet. Statements of courage, concern and compassion were made as the students and teachers worried about their future. I felt that the hope for a different government in both the United States and China was being wished for, a government of the people and for peace. To create such a world, we must break the silence and say that China's government must change. And we must join our voices and resist the phoniness of the Museum Center’s rationale. Long live Tibet! Close the Bodies exhibit! Unite for peace!

Title: Black David Letterman Character: Man of sense and (cents) of humor 1 – Waking up to find that he has now become the watermelon man 2 – He realizes that he has to wait a year to hear the important affirmative action decision 3 – He goes to the doctor and asks, “How has this happened?” You have been drinking too much moon shine 4 – He is learning to understand that George Walker Bush is for the 1964 Civil Rights Act 5 – On a job application, he learns to understand why an Afro-American writes he is an American, when asked “What ethnic group are you?”

6 – He realizes as he enters the church and listens to the song being sung, “As we lay they burdens down” [The true meaning of the burden of proof] 7 – As he looks in the mirror he can fully understand Jason Bourne (in the Bourne Identity) 8 – He realizes why his eyes is on the prize 9 – He realize that Fred Shuttlesworth, Leslie Gaines, Martin Luther King Jr. and General Kabaka Oba are his brothers.

10 – He realizes that Billy Graham is the number 1 spokesman on television

By Antonio Hodge

Column 12 Addict’s Almanac

By Tye Doudy Street News Service Warning: Grapic language

T

he smoky interior of the Roxy, with its smells of clove cigarettes, coffee and greasy diner food, is an oasis. Those old familiar pulpfiction posters on the wall and the same Skinny Puppy songs playing on the jukebox. Small groups cluster at tables and in the booths. Gothic kids and punk rockers drinking the allnight coffee and chain smoking. Flamboyant gay guys sitting at the bar talking loud and looking around to see if anyone is paying attention.

No one is.

I spot an associate sitting by himself at one of the small two-person tables and make my way over. His name is Joe but he goes by Ashes, and Ashes looks loaded. He barely looks up when I sit down; and from the length of the ash on his smoke, I can tell he was on the nod. His hooded eyes finally look up and find mine as the waiter takes my order for coffee and toast. He tucks a long strand of greasy hair behind his ear and through missing teeth tells me I look like hell. Coming from him this is truly something.

Ashes has been on the streets a long time. He was already “old” when I first hit the dope road all those years ago. Beneath his long and tattered leather jacket and his Sisters of Mercy T-shirt, his thin frame shows the wear of the longtime dope fiend. His arms are covered in homemade tattoos and scars from past abscesses. He is somewhere in his late 30s but looks a decade older. Anybody with eyes would make him for an addict. He’s about as trustworthy as a rented snake, and he is the closest thing I have to a friend at this moment.

My first question is, of course, is he holding; and second, can I get him to kick

The squats that line the freeway overpasses are like catch basins for the refuse of the city. The mentally ill, sexual deviants, illegal immigrants, wanted fugitives, hardcore drunks, prostitutes, crusty train-hopping kids, tweakers, junkies, the unlucky, and the unloved.

down a little something. Even a rinse would set me straight and buy me some time to make a plan. No junky wants to give up any dope ever, but I have some leverage as he has no hustle and he knows I will make some money today. He supports his habit by spare changing in the transit mall. Not a sure thing, even on a good day. A real loser’s gambit. Real bottom-of-thefood-chain shit. So I get him to agree to get me well as long as I take him along on whatever scheme I cook up for the day.

The shock of the smell In order for me to get the fix, we first have to go back to the squat he shares with some other scumbags under the Jackson Street overpass. We

I have to be careful.

I’ve only been out of jail a few hours.

I don’t even have laces in my boots yet and am still carrying the clear plastic property bag with all my shit in it. Many junkies have gotten out of jail only to OD with their first shot. leave at once. Fuck the coffee and toast. It’s only a few blocks away; and as we make our way to the spot, morning people are beginning their day.

Office workers are emerging with their overpriced Starbucks beverages, and service workers are on their way to their shitty jobs serving shitty food to shitty people.

The pedestrians avoid eye contact and keep moving.

They’re not scared, just seen it all too many times. Anybody who lives or works downtown is so used to this that it’s like rain to them. Something unpleasant but inevitable, just part of the city. When we finally reach the overpass and duck down through the hole in the freeway fence, the smell of shit is a shock. The whole side of the embankment is dotted with small white flags of used toilet paper marking each pile of human excrement. There are no public bathrooms open at night in this area of Portland, so people do what they have to do wherever they can. No matter how many squats I’ve been in, the smell of piss and shit always takes my breath away for a moment. This is the bottom. Truly, it would

STREETVIBES September 2008

be hard to fall any lower than this. Maybe dying of AIDS in

He’s about as trustworthy as a rented snake, and he is the closest thing I have to a friend at this moment. a welfare hospital would be worse. Maybe.

The squats that line the freeway overpasses are like catch basins for the refuse of the city. The mentally ill, sexual deviants, illegal immigrants, wanted fugitives, hardcore drunks, prostitutes, crusty train-hopping kids, tweakers, junkies, the unlucky, and the unloved. We all have called these places home. For a night, for a week, even years for some. It’s easy to fly below the radar here. No rent, no responsibility and nothing to worry about besides where the cops are and where your next fix or your next bottle is coming from.

My next fix is coming from Ashes, and he is unrolling his works from a piece of leather he had up his sleeve.

“There’s not much here to go around,” he says.

But he is willing to share a little, after he gets his, of course. I watch, trembling in anticipation while he prepares his shot; and as he draws up the black water from the spoon, my stomach does flip flops like maybe I’m gonna puke or shit my pants. But I don’t.

Ashes has no veins, so he just shoves the point in his shoulder and slowly pushes down the plunger with a slight grimace of pain.

“I left a good rinse for you” he says, gesturing towards his spoon.

Upon examination, there is a light brown residue on the spoon and in the tiny piece of cotton stuck to the bottom.

I look around at the spectral figures in the darkened squat.

Most still in their bedrolls and sleeping bags. It’s hard to spot a familiar face, so I just ask out loud if anybody has a clean point. Nearby, what I had mistaken for a pile of trash and old rags stirs; and by some miracle, this small girl who I hadn’t even noticed says she might. She begins to dig in her pack and pulls out the familiar brown paper bag of the Outside In needle exchange. She tosses the bag to me and tells me to keep it; she says she is trying to kick.

I don’t want to think about

Tye Doudy is 33 years old and lives in Portland. His stories are all true and told in the hopes that others might learn from his mistakes. This is the first in a series of articles about his life. He can be reached at wurmstar@gmail.com.

what I might have done if there weren’t a clean point available. Sharing needles under a bridge is not anything I want to experience. I’ve been lucky and I know it. I want to hug this tiny female savior but we don’t know each other. I wish I had a million dollars to give her. She might have just saved my life and I tell her so as my way of thanking her.

She merely shrugs and rolls back over so she doesn’t have to watch us shoot dope in front of her.

as “the boost and return.”

Another variation on this is to hang around outside the store picking up receipts or getting receipts out of the trash. Then you go into the store, steal the exact item on the receipt and return it for the cash.

The only thing required to do returns is a valid ID. Once you have done three returns,

Maybe dying of AIDS in a welfare hospital would be worse.

Maybe.

The booster’s shot I have to be careful. I’ve only been out of jail a few hours. I don’t even have laces in my boots yet and am still carrying the clear plastic property bag with all my shit in it. Many junkies have gotten out of jail only to OD with their first shot. They dumbly do the amount they were used to doing before being locked up. Not realizing that the time inside has lowered their tolerance. From what Ashes has left me, I definitely don’t have to worry about an OD, so I prepare the meager fix and do my thing.

It hits me first in the muscles of my jaw and with a slight burn up my arm. No euphoria, no rush, just a slight sensation of relief. It wasn’t much but it will have to do. I know I will have to make some money soon, and my first thought is Home Depot. It’s a bus ride but pretty much a sure thing.

They give you up to $100 cash back on returned merchandise.

You don’t even need to have a receipt.

The hustle works like this. A guy goes in and shoplifts $99 worth of whatever. This guy is known as a “booster.” Another guy waits outside. The booster takes the stuff out of the store and hands it over to the guy who waited outside. This guy is called a “returner.” The returner then goes inside the store and returns the merchandise for cash. This is known

your ID is burnt and the store cuts you off. So boosters are always looking for new returners with clean ID who don’t look like disreputable dope fiends. Right now I need someone with a clean ID to take the bus to with me to the Beaverton and put some work in.

Ashes is not an option. He doesn’t even have ID, and any loss-prevention guy would make him instantly. I tell him to help me find someone to do returns, and I will kick down some cash on top of the shitty little shot I already owe him.

The small girl in the corner who gave me the rigs has overheard all this, and it is too much for her. She stands right up and says, “Fuck kicking!

I want in.” I feel kind of bad for dragging her into my madness but she says she has clean ID and in the light is actually pretty cute in a beat kind of way.

She stands probably five feet tall and is no more than 100 pounds. She has black dreads pulled back into a ponytail, large expressive eyes, pale skin, and very red lips.

She says her name is Zoey but she goes by Squeak. Appropriate. She is wearing black Carhart bibs and a Venom shirt but says she has just the outfit for our expedition. After digging in her impossibly large pack,

See ADDICT p.13

STREETVIBES September 2008

13

News

The Cost of Free Food

Generosity, creativity and dancing help pay the bills

By Angela Pancella Contributing Writer

meal, maintain our dining area and assist in our social work department are all paid. Many of the people working at Our Daily Bread have faced obstacles to working elsewhere.

Perhaps they have had legal problems or an addiction history; they might have mental illness or a spotty employment record. Our goal is to see their work at Our Daily Bread provide a basis for greater stability in their lives.

There are administrative costs to keeping Our Daily Bread up and running as well — keeping track of the budget, scheduling staff and volunteers, getting publicity so the community knows what we’re up to.

Where does the money

come from to do all this?

Mostly from individual donations. There are also companies that support us, and about a fifth of our budget comes from foundations.

September is a big month for Our Daily Bread’s fundraising. On Sept. 12 we have a dinner dance called the “Soul of the City Soiree.” A Motown band will come to town for it; Montgomery Inn will be providing food.

In September we also release a cookbook, Food for Thought, a collection of recipes from volunteers, donors, staff, local chefs, local media and other friends. Mixed in with the recipes are favorite stories and quotations about life at Our Daily Bread over

our more than 20-year history.

Information about these and other activities can be found on our Web site, www.ourdailybread.us, or by calling 513621-6364. As always, you’re welcome to visit us in person at 1730 Race St. Come in and have a meal. It’d be our treat.

ing at the $4.3 million since spent on them.

Whether or not you have, The final hours of Seattle’s ‘million-dollar toilets’ like me, googled "Seattle

By JP Gritton latte), before you could use a million-dollar toilets," you Street News Service bathroom -- unless you hap- know all about them. The selfpened to be in Victor Stein- cleaning toilet is about what A while ago my hometown brueck Park, where there’s it means to be human — it's of Boulder, Colo., bought a a free, self-cleaning toilet. It about well-laid plans going, bunch of old bicycles and was just waiting there, like a quite literally, to shit. left them around the city, green bicycle.

I witnessed the toilets' final spray-painting them green to Like Boulder, Seattle has hours from around 8 a.m. to distinguish them from other just learned a lesson about around 8 p.m. July 31. This is bicycles. It was a great idea: human nature the hard way: what I saw: Boulder is very sunny and It turns out that public restInternational District sometimes it’s warm; people rooms are great places to poop 9:44 a.m.: The outside is there like exercising, for ex- and pee, but they're also really covered in small dents, the inample with bikes. great places to do drugs and side feels maybe clean — exWithin a few months, have sex. Also, if you don’t al- cept for the toilet, which has though, all of the bicycles had low advertising on them, you three inches of toilet paper in disappeared. It turns out that, won’t afford anybody to clean the bottom. The instructions if you have free bicycles lying the self-cleaning toilets. come on in English, Spanish, around, the only people who I wonder what former and Chinese; and then a terriwill ride them are college kids Councilwoman Tina Pod- fying sound begins, as though on acid, who subsequently lodowski, who advocated for somewhere there’s a vacuum lose them in the mountains. self-cleaning toilets a decade powered by a jet engine.

When I moved to Seattle ago, is thinking now. Or if Michael Hill works next two years ago, one of the first former Mayor Paul Schell, door at the International Disthings I noticed was that you whose veto of the project was trict post office. The first thing had to buy something (i.e., $4 overridden in 2001, is laugh- he tells me is that he never uses the toilet. The next thing he says is that other people use it, sometimes two at a time.

Addict, continued from page 12 Across the square, a woman is she finally finds what she is laugh and seeing her smile standing at the corner. after, and with a giggle she for the first time, I realize she 10:04 a.m.: Man with exgets back under her blankets. is more than kinda cute. She otic camera takes pictures of Some rustling around and is a very pretty girl. Petite the pagoda; but judging from a small amount of cussing and delicate features highthe angle, he also must have later, she emerges virtually light the playful light that captured some of the toilet’s unrecognizable. Some worn shines from her eyes, and if last moments.

Gap khakis, a striped Co- I’m not mistaken, that light is 10:10-10:17 a.m.: Four lumbia sportswear sweater, being directed at me. people use the toilets. Woman and her dreads pulled back at corner disappears. I realize in a bright knit stocking hat Reprinted from Street Roots as I take notes that editorial inhave transformed her into terns and plainclothes cops are someone the Home Depot © Street News Service: virtually indistinguishable. clerk probably won’t look www.street-papers.org Pioneer Square twice at.

11:01 a.m.: When I get to Her new look has Ashes Part one of a six-part sethis toilet, a family is waiting and me laughing, and that ries. For future installments, to use it, looking Midwestgets her a little pissed off, visit http://streetvibes.wordern. A man comes out, but the but after a minute she starts press.com. toilet is beeping loudly. The laughing, too. With that waiting family looks confused

and doesn’t actually go inside.

After the doors have closed again and the man has walked away, one of the people waiting pushes the button — the doors don’t open. The family stays there until two city workers come by and pry open the doors. I am too embarrassed to ask anyone questions.

11:29 a.m.: Somebody has been inside for awhile, so one of the two guys waiting kicks the door. Hard. That’s why there are dents in them.

Victor Steinbrueck Park 12:13 p.m.: After he is done I talk to a man who won’t go on record, except as “Turtle.”

“There’s filth in there, drugs,” Turtle says. “It’s a good idea, but people smoke weed in there. Crack. Shoot heroin, you name it.” I ask him what we should do, and he says there’s nothing to be done.

12:34 p.m.: I use the bathroom; and inside there’s a can of malt liquor, a plastic wrapper and a pile of soaking wet toilet paper on the ground.

The toilet is clean and flushes well.

At Real Change Like, 2 p.m.: I call Andy Ryan from Seattle Public Utilities and ask him about the high-pitched beep.

“That’s the ‘pull-yourpants-up’ alarm,” he says.

We talk about the toilets: how there aren’t any attendants, how they’re cleaned more than any other toilet in the city.

“They’re no better or worse than any toilet,” he says.

“They just cost more.”

Waterfront 4:24 p.m.: It starts raining.

There is a family — Midwestern — outside the toilet. I have been watching the toilet

from across the footpath, by a flight of stairs. I decide now to cross the footpath and talk to the family. I go over to them, and a very young boy goes into the toilet. I stand a few feet from the family and feel uncomfortable. I say, “Have you ever seen a free, selfcleaning toilet?” but nobody hears me. The boy emerges, is applauded.

Capitol Hill Around 6 p.m.: The button is green, and I press it; but when the doors open, a man is standing by the toilet.

“Hi,” I say.

The doors close.

Later, when he comes out, I learn his name is Mike Jefferson and he’s used the toilet three times. He says the toilets are good for people who have to “piss or puke” on their way home after the bars have closed.

I go inside and find a complete roll of toilet paper by the toilet, soaking wet. There’s also the piston of a syringe and graffiti.

International District 7 or so p.m.: A crowd has gathered under the pagoda by the public toilet, because now it’s raining harder. I circle the block a couple times, I guess expecting to see a drug deal or something. But they’re just trying to get in out of the rain.

I realize that I’ve stared at people going to the bathroom all day and take a bus home.

The next day I walk by a toilet on my way to work and there is a small padlock on the door. Seattle’s automated public toilets have gone the way of the green bicycle.

When you come into Our Daily Bread, no matter who you are, you can get a free meal. A hot meal, too, most days — jambalaya, hamburgers — although in the summer we’ve had meals like cold chicken salad just so the kitchen wouldn’t get too hot to work in.

How much does it cost to provide food to people for free? The food itself, oddly, is one of our smallest expenses.

That’s because generous companies make food donations to us, a church group makes meatloaves and brings them in, volunteers bring fivepound sacks of sugar on the

days they work.

Only rarely do we have to buy anything to supplement what is donated. Mostly we buy items such as spices so we can prepare donated meat and vegetables in a variety of ways.

So if the food isn’t a major expense, what is? Utilities, for one. Making Our Daily Bread hospitable in all kinds of weather takes air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter. Keeping the lights on, the water running, the telephone paid for — we can be frugal, but the costs still add up.

Staff salaries are another expense. Our food is served by a volunteer crew every day, but those who prepare the

Flushed Away

Angela Pancella is director of development at Our Daily Bread, a food and hospitality ministry in Over-the-Rhine.

The ministry serves a mid-day meal Monday through Friday, serving more than 500 meals every day. To volunteer or donate food or nonperishable items, call Joan or Kathy at 513-621-6364.

Reprinted from Real Change News.

14

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STREETVIBES September 2008

STREETVIBES September 2008

15

Editorial

Feds Play the Numbers Game Anatomy of a press release

By Street Roots Editorial Team Street News Service Right off the bat, the headline was fishy: "Data Demonstrate 52,000 Fewer Americans on Our Streets, in Our Shelters." That was the heading on a press release distributed at a news conference last month by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, the overseers of the nation’s 10year plans to end homelessness.

Still, the numbers sounded impressive.

"For the first time in the history of contemporary homelessness in the United States, the federal government has released national data, reported by local communities, showing a second year of consecutive decline in chronic homelessness, with an average 15 percent decline each year from 2005 to 2007 in the number of

persons experiencing chronic homelessness in the nation," the press release said.

This information was based on the third annual homeless assessment report to Congress from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

It’s worth noting that this is actually based on an extrapolation of inconsistent figuregathering during a 12-month period between October 2006 and September 2007, before the fallout of the mortgage crisis materialized on our streets, unemployment hit a four-year high and the specter of spiking fuel prices came to roost on our stoops.

The fact is that point-intime, one-night counts in January 2007 tallied nearly 672,000 experiencing homelessness across the country – both those sleeping outside and in shelters. That report says that the total number of

homeless people counted on a single night decreased by about 6 percent, or 23,600 people – out of nearly 1.6 million people who needed emergency shelter or housing during the year-long reporting period. That means, the report says, that about one in every 200 people in the United States stayed in a homeless residential facility during those 12 months.

But you’re not hearing that trumpeted by the feds. The press release doesn’t use those numbers. Instead, it uses the number of people defined (by HUD) as chronically homeless, which narrows down the target population to very specific category of people who are "unaccompanied homeless individuals with a disabling condition who have either been continuously homeless for a year or more or have had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three

years." You had to have been on the streets or in emergency shelters, not in transitional or permanent housing, during these episodes.

It needs to be noted that this definition cuts the figures down to an estimated 18 percent of the homeless population, according to the report, to which most of the federal money for assistance is being directed.

Nor will you hear the length of caveats the report lists for the fractional reporting by social-service agencies or for interpreting the numbers, which, it says, "should be done with caution" and even questions the measure of "real" success.

(Those are the report’s observations, not ours.)

The feds’ press package also doesn’t mention the report’s findings that among those newly homeless, "the most common path to homelessness is leaving someone

else’s housing unit" -- they were already homeless, but living off friends and relatives until they wore out their welcome. These numbers don’t even factor into the measure of homelessness by the people charged with correcting the problem.

This shell game of facts corrodes our understanding of the real work at hand – to restore public and affordable housing to the poor, ensure health care and provide gainful employment – down to the nub of feel-good political hubris. It cheapens the progress being made and the lessons learned, condemning us to repeat our past while proclaiming success. It is, in the words of wiser men, the very definition of insanity.

Reprinted from Street Roots © Street News Service: www.street-papers.org

Chris Bortz Lays a Goose Egg Promises column, doesn’t deliver, leaving this space blank

This is where Chris Bortz’s photo was going to go.

This is the space Streetvibes reserved for a guest column by Cincinnati City Councilman Chris Bortz on his proposal to restrict social service agencies.

He promised to write it. He assured us it was coming.

Two days before deadline, this is what he sent:

16

Vendors

Resource Guide

STREETVIBES September 2008

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

Josephine Baskerville

Doris Binion

James Bybee

Anthony Williams

Nell Williams

Grady Cook

James Davis

Jon Darby

Tony Drummond

Julie Walker

Kenneth Stonitsch

Antonio Hodge

Leonard Jackson

Samuel Jackson

Riccardo Taylor

Alfred Woolfolk

Berta Lambert

Mary Mueller

Brandon Nelson

Mark Shears

Earlene Moreland

Terrence Williams

Charles Cole

Quition Williams

Raynard Jones

Cleo Wombles

Need Help or Want to Help?

Shelter: Women and Children

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

Starting Over...961-2256

Treatment: Women

First Step Home ...961-4663

Treatment: Both

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

AA Hotline...351-0422 CCAT ...381-6672 Joseph House ...241-2965 Hamilton County ADAS Board ...946-4888 Recovery Health Access Center ...281-7422 Sober Living ...681-0324 Talbert House...684-7956

Shelter: Both

Advocacy

Shelter: Men

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

Housing:

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

Food

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

Treatment: Men

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

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

Health

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

Oral Health Council...621-0248 PATH Outreach...977-4489

Resources

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

Northern Kentucky

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

Hamilton/Middletown

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