Streetvibes January 2005 Edition

January, 2005

STREETVIBES Homeless Memorial Day honors homeless individuals who have passed away in 2004 The Annual Homeless Memorial Day was held at dusk in Washington Park on December 21, 2004 with a barrel fire and the

reading of names. The gathering was sponsored locally by the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless.

Homeless Memorial Day is a national day of mourning for the homeless men, women and children who have passed away in a given year. The event featured the lighting of candles as the names of the deceased were read. Local church and youth groups were on hand to pass out soup and warm clothing.

Coalitions in Cleveland, Dayton, Columbus and others all across the nation participated in the event with a candlelight vigil and the reading of names of persons who have died.

Held on the longest night of the year, the winter solstice, Homeless Memorial Day is a chance for friends and loved ones to gather to mourn those, both known and unknown, who

are no longer with us. Over 100 people attended the event in Washington Park near the Drop Inn Center in Cincinnati. Homeless Memorial Day is also a chance to mourn the national tragedy of homelessness and bring awareness to the suffering of the 25,000 men, women and children who experience homelessness each year in Cincinnati.

“It is great to see the community pull together to help provide relief for the people experiencing homelessness in Cincinnati,” stated Georgine Getty, Executive Director of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, “it’s just unfortunate that we have to meet on such somber terms. It’s a tragedy that people continue to die homeless.”

Record turn out helps Coalition celebrate 20 years of service at annual dinner

by John Zeh photos by Jimmy Heath The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless celebrated its 20th anniversary with a record turn out, a look back at GCCH’s success, and a powerful vision of what’s necessary in the future.

“Homes, Dignity, and Hope” included a silent auction, an award’s ceremony, and an address by a veteran advocate for the poor on December 9 at Xavier University’s Cintas Center.

The event’s master of ceremonies, dental hygienist Clifford Jones, introduced “two dynamic souls,” GCCH director Georgine Nearly 300 people attended the GCCH Anual Dinner Getty and social worker/psychologist Dr. Ronald Arundell. encamped along the Ohio River in The Coalition published the Getty praised the coalition’s Covington, KY, transporting citizens 100th issue of Streetvibes last year, leaders for their great “sense of to the polls November 2nd, served “a real milestone leading to the humor and sense of humanity. You Mother’s Day luncheons to 150 monthly papers’ 10 year anniversary are the backbone of preserving women, helped operate a successful as an alternative to the mainstream GCCH’s mission and future,” she 2004 Stand Down for 500 folks, press in 2005,” said editor Jimmy said. “What an amazing gift you have worked as advocate for affordable Heath. given Cincinnati.” housing, and introduced He cited Streetvibes’ biggest She listed accomplishments homelessness into the curriculum of challenges as a “political struggle” such as: ‘hosting 11 general body public schools with “amazing results,” with City Hall, saying mayor Charlie meetings last year of member groups’ creating a whole new outlook that will Luken would like to shut down representatives, participation in the help children and teenagers become Streetvibes, because, in Luken’s Greater Cincinnati AIDS Coalition, advocates for the homeless,’ Getty words, GCCH is “arming defending homeless people said. panhandlers with papers to sell.”

Streetvibes is part of a network of about 50 other street papers with a new online newswire “bringing a voice to people who often go unheard.”

Heath is a photographer and community activist living and working in Overthe-Rhine, where he arrived nine years ago as a homeless person, eventually finding his way to the Drop Inn Center homeless shelter.

Dr. Arundell is associate professor of social work at Mt. St. Joseph College on the west side holding a masters from Fordham University and a doctorate in counseling from the University of Cincinnati. He worked in the 1970’s to make General (now University) Hospital here more accountable to patients. He has also worked as an ironworker and millwright.

He said he uses Streetvibes in his classrooms to give students insights to people who are poor and

See DINNER, Page 8

Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless

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

Becoming a Streetvibes Vendor is a great way for homeless and other low-income people to get back on (or stay on) their feet. Streetvibes Vendors are given an orientation and sign a code of conduct before being given a Streetvibes Vendor badge. Vendors are private contractors who DO NOT work for, or represent, the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homleess. All profits go directly to the vendor.

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

GCCH Staff Georgine Getty - Executive Director Allison Leeuw - Administrative Coordinator Andy Erickson - Education Coordinator Rachel Lawson - Civil Rights VISTA Kate McManus - Civil Rights VISTA Janice Faulkner - Receptionist Mary Gaffney - Receptionist Streetvibes Jimmy Heath, Editor Photographers Ben Boswell, Jimmy Heath, Berta Lambert, Curtis Proffett Cover

by Jimmy Heath Homeless Memorial, Washington Park, December 21, 2004

from responsibility and the smelly visage of poverty?

I don’t think we are a society anymore. We are groups of people living together, nothing more, and we take solace in our isolation from the uglier aspects of human suffering. We pull down the shades and turn up the sound so that we aren’t exposed to the pain and suffering of our brothers and sisters.

For those of us fortunate enough to have choices, the promise of poverty is not a risk. We take for granted each and every gift we receive.

How many of us have thought about what would happen if the clean water stopped flowing from our faucets and showerheads? A child dies every 15 seconds from diseases largely caused by poor sanitation and contaminated water; that is more than 2 million preventable child deaths a year. Young girls in Tanzania miss school because they need to help their mothers fetch water from several kilometers away.

Thousands more will die in Asia of water born illness as a result of last month’s earthquake and tsunami.

How many of us stop to think about what would happen if oil stopped flowing? It looks like planet Earth has enough oil for about for about 27 years. That’s it, assuming that consumption does not increase.

What will we do? We might have to walk a block or two.

Ask the Iraqi’s what it is like to not have electricity for months. It is easy to take it for granted when you have it.

The holidays celebrate the gluttony of the American masses. We are so caught up in the ritual meals and spending sprees, we forget who we are and who suffers. As many Americans hoist their lard pile into post-holiday winter doldrums we need to seriously consider what we have devolved into as a society.

Yeah, I love this time of year.

It helps me get my spirit straight.

Some City Social Service Budget Cuts Restored

Streetvibes

Luken’s budget had cut the $4.8 million Human Services Policy program completely; City Council put back $2.5 million from city and federal funds.

Luken questioned using new ticket revenue to balance the budget, saying he believed the $2 million figure to be “optimistic.”

In 2005 Lukens’s mayorship will be over and he does not plan to run for reelection.

es

Cincinnati’s poorest citizens, including programs for children, senior citizens and community councils.

The City is mostly relying on $2 million the city hopes to get in 2005 from a new program to catch speeders and red-light runners using radar-equipped digital cameras.

Holdouts were Republican Pat DeWine and Democrats Laketa Cole and Alicia Reece, whose main objection seemed to be to the redlight cameras.

The Human Services Policy, which has traditionally used 1.5 percent of the city’s general fund also provides money for battered women’s shelters, food pantries and drug abuse programs.

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Cincinnati City Council finally reached a compromise last month on a $2 billion, two-year budget that will restore only partial funding for social services, neighborhood grants and City Council members’ own budgets.

After public outcry and efforts by some councilmember’s, the budget restored $3.2 million in politically popular programs. The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless and representatives of City service providers all rallied together to oppose the cuts during City Council meetings and Finance Committee meetings.

Mayor Charlie Luken’s budget proposal severely cut many programs that give care to

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relief programs. If you want to make a pitch for programs for the poor, you

by Jimmy Heath better be able to explain it in dollars.

I enjoy the period of time For example, homeless shelters between Halloween and the Super Bowl. It’s one holiday after another. speak to the dollars saved providing I don’t much like the cold weather or shelter as an alternative to locking the short days of winter. But there is people up in an expensive jail. It is the promise of spring on the horizon. the only thing that government understands.

The passing years close as if Like winter, rich or poor, the chapters in a book. The events of a cold wind of the heartless cuts given year are forever bound in a through all of us. Those of us who do block of time marked by the passing nothing are guilty too. We all bare of the seasons. Events continue to the shared responsibility of the recycle over and over again, until suddenly it is the end of another year. tragedy of poverty.

These are my concerns as we I wish we could learn from the past, but we always forget. Or, we choose step into this New Year. As the economy faces new challenges, the not to remember.

The good things; babies being poor suffer even more. Poverty is a complex phenomenon. It born, children has been established that becoming adults, poverty is not only about friendly greetings from low income and a neighbor, love and consumption, it is also celebrations mark low achievement in most of our existence. education, health, And this is what being nutrition, and other areas human is all about – of human development. the celebration of life. Jimmy Heath The poor lack material When we look into the eyes of the poor, do we opportunities like jobs, credit and safe neighborhoods. see this promise? Some of society Suddenly, government begins does not. There is a cynicism that to recognize what it deems as transcends the potential of the less “essential services” because there is a fortunate citizen, relegating them to realignment of priorities in a tight stereotypes and a life of failure. It is economy. Social services are the first considered by many, especially thing to be cut in a budget. government, that the poor are When the middle-class and unredeemable and the best we can do is keep them from straining social the rich feel the pinch, it is passed on to those who are most in need. systems. As long as the poor stay quiet, stay out of trouble and perform Everyone stops writing checks or passing out spare change. The the menial tasks required by society, babies cry. The elderly poor become then we don’t need to do more.

This is an unfortunate tragedy, invisible.

Government is nothing more because we will lose our future by than people, like most of us, yet we letting these children and adults languish in substandard housing, pain look on it as a lumbering monster without identity. Corporate buildings and hunger, and the lack of an are about the people inside, not some adequate social net. indiscriminate logo tinplate. Do Government calculates the value of a poor person by projecting people find safety and isolation within these structures? Is there shelter in what it will cost in dollars to keep these institutions that allow those these graduates of destitution out of people, people like us, a reprieve expensive, tax-payer funded social

Str

Streetvibes accepts letters, poems, stories, essays, original graphics, and photos. We will give preference to those who are homeless or vendors.

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

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

Worthy of Promise, Doomed by Gluttony

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Homeless News Digest

compiled by Jimmy Heath Seven activists who were arrested after occupying a former DC homeless shelter are out of jail. The Washington Post reported the seven were released on their own recognizance by a judge. They were told to stay away from the former Randall Shelter in Southwest while their cases are pending.

The protesters oppose city plans to sell the shelter building to the Corcoran Museum of Art. They got into the building last month, served Thanksgiving meals to homeless people via a window, and stayed there until being removed by DC Protective Services. Each was charged with unlawful entry. City officials say a new shelter in Southeast was opened when the Randall Shelter was closed.

The Office of Community Services in Miami Beach, which coordinates the city’s homeless services, has moved out of City Hall to larger offices.

Maria Ruiz, the city’s homeless outreach coordinator, said homeless services and the entire Office of Community Services was relocated to the adjacent City Hall building because they needed a larger space to accommodate staff, the homeless and others served by the office.

Ruiz said her six staff members were sharing two desks in the old space.

“It was hard,” she said. “We were literally on top of each other.

We had no waiting area and we constantly had people waiting around in the hallways. Employees now have their own work station in the new space.”

Police dragged screaming protesters from an abandoned building near Halifax, Nova Scotia on Saturday as nine people demonstrating against homelessness were arrested.

About 40 demonstrators boarded a bus in downtown Halifax and rode to an abandoned library in nearby Dartmouth, N.S. The demonstration had been advertised for weeks and police vehicles followed the bus along its route to what had been, until Saturday, an undisclosed location.

Protesters said they wanted the building to be used for affordable housing to keep people off the streets.

Some of the demonstrators filed into the building, which is owned by the Halifax Regional Municipality, and barricaded themselves on the third floor.

About 30 police officers arrived on the heels of the demonstrators. Officers rounded up some protesters from inside the building, taking others off the roof.

The protesters were then loaded into a police van, even as some yelled at the force police were using to arrest them.

Beginning next month, some south suburban homeless shelters will begin giving people breath tests to see if they are intoxicated, according to published reports.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that if the test registers a blood-alcohol level greater than that state’s legal limit of .08 percent for driving, the person will be denied entry into the overnight shelter.

The move met with opposition from some shelter volunteers from Public Action to Deliver Shelter, according to the paper, who felt the policy would force them to turn away clients.

PADS runs 26 shelter sites.

Rich Otto, a South Suburban PADS board member, told the paper that the board approved the testing policy, but later decided to make compliance voluntary.

In Seattle, Washington a civic and nationwide effort to end chronic homelessness received a recent boost with the announcement of a new charitable partnership aimed at providing more supportive housing nationwide.

Local housing advocates received more good news with the release of a national report showing that in Seattle and eight other cities, supportive housing has proven more successful and cost-effective in dealing with the chronically homeless than relying on jails, prisons, treatment centers, emergency shelters and emergency rooms.

“Supportive housing” is housing where an array of services such as mental health and employment counseling, and drug and alcohol treatment - is provided to help end the persistent homelessness seen in about 20 percent of the overall homeless population locally and nationally.

Without such supports, many chronically homeless people

repeatedly move from streets to shelters, emergency rooms, prisons or mental hospitals — and then right back to the streets, advocates say.

It analyzed the costs of supportive housing, jails, prisons, emergency shelters, mental hospitals and hospital and emergency rooms in nine cities — Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix and Columbus, Ohio.

In Seattle, the cost of supportive housing was estimated at $26 per person per day, in contrast with $87.67 for a day in jail, $555 for mental hospitals and $2,184 for hospitals.

otherwise occupying themselves.

Homeless people who have night jobs will also be welcome. They usually end up in the street because most sleeping shelters fill up early. .

The City Council has approved $30,000 in hotel vouchers for families, which sadly make up the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population. Early next year, the city will work with the state to open one of the unused buildings at the Fort Logan Mental Health Center for homeless women and their children.

In San Francisco firefighters dousing burning brush along Interstate 80 last month While Denver Mayor John found the burned body of a 54Hickenlooper’s Commission to year-old homeless man under an End Homelessness is hammering overpass, police said. out a 10-year plan to deal with the Investigators were trying to city’s homeless population, the figure out whether the man died from commission headed by Roxane the fire.

White is taking a host of shortThey have found evidence of term measures that will provide camping in the area, but no evidence shelter for nearly 1,000 people of foul play, Richmond police Sgt. this winter.

Enos Johnson said.

For the last two winters, The victim was identified Denver has opened the lobbies of through fingerprints by the Contra various city buildings to house an Costa County coroner’s office. overflow of homeless people. This winter, those who don’t fit into the Don’t be Squirrelly! city’s other shelters will bed down at the former district attorney building at 303 West Colfax. It is an innovative solution for the short-term, but this is expected to be the last winter that overflow homeless end up in a building lobby.

Starting next spring, nearly 100 beds will be made available at the downtown Rescue Mission by shifting working homeless to a renovated motel. At the St. Frances Center, which does not have overnight sleeping facilities, hours will change to allow homeless people unable to tolerate sleeping in shelters to spend the night there reading and

Buy Streetvibes!

The Coalition for Peace With Iraq (CPWI) We will meet in January on the 2nd and on the 16th from 4 to 6 PM at the Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church, located at 103 William Howard Taft Road As of December 7th, 1,276 American Troops have been killed in Iraq. The official death toll of Iraqi civilians is 16,804, just since March 20, 2003. Come out and learn what you - what we together can do to end this madness.

For information call Hal at (513) 325-8620 or email steve,carltonford@uc.edu

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Who Let the Dogs Out?

by Gray Dog Years ago, we had the dogs of Birmingham, snarling and leaping at Civil Rights demonstrators, barely restrained by their handlers.

This spring, we had the dogs of Abu Graib, straining at the leash to threaten and humiliate naked men.

And now, the dogs of Passaic. I hear, this week on National Public Radio, of a prison in Passaic, New Jersey where aliens convicted of crimes are waiting to be deported. These men are unarmed, unable to threaten their keepers, nonetheless the dogs are there to control them, intimidate them, keep them in line. Even lawyers coming to assist them are threatened with the dogs. This story has been better hidden than the others. We have no photos of the dogs and their masters and victims. And it took several months of investigative reporting by an NPR reporter before it came to light at all. (See www.npr.org/ templates/story/ story.php?storyId=4184282) From what I can tell, all these dogs are German Shepherds.

Police dogs, we sometimes call them. We think of them as hero dogs. When I was a child, one of my favorite programs was Rin Tin Tin, the on-going story of a German Shepherd attached to a troop of cavalry; every week, he saved a

life, gave warning just in time, carried someone to safety.

Shepherds carried messages in battle in the two World Wars. They sniff out drugs, guide the blind; I suppose they even herd sheep.

Good dogs to have. They make good guardians for your property; they’re gentle with children; they’re big, sturdy, loyal dogs. If you want a good family dog, choose a German Shepherd.

But the dogs of Birmingham, of Abu Graib, of Passaic have turned to something else. These are dogs willing to rip into a man’s flesh on command, to instill fear and terror. They do not merely guard and protect, they dominate, pacify, and humiliate. The world watches in horror what these dogs have done.

But the dogs are not the problem. The problem is with the one who is in command of the dog.

We know what it takes to turn a dog from a pet into an instrument of terror - training. Wild dogs will bite, intimidate, and kill. That is their job, that is how they make their living. And I suppose that if you’re the prey, a wild dog can be a pretty terrifying creature. Even my little terrier will torment a mole to death. But wild dogs will pretty much limit themselves to biting and killing what they need to survive.

To become an instrument of

humiliation, a dog needs human intervention. A prison dog needs to be taught to become what we have seen in Birmingham and Abu Graib and what we hear of in Passaic.

This is true even for breeds of dog known for their viciousness.

A few years ago, when the American Kennel Club published an annual report on different breeds of dog, owners of Pit Bulls raised a storm of protest over wording that suggested that Pit Bulls were a potential threat to children and other pets. Not so, the Pit owners said. It’s all in the training. (My personal friend, Dixie, is thick in the shoulder and has a fearsome bark, but lives in house full of children and wants nothing of me when I visit but my full and undivided attention.) A properly trained Pit can be as gentle as any other dog, or as vicious. It all depends on their trainer.

So what of the trainers?

Who trained these trainers to teach a dog to attack a helpless other?

What does it take to turn a regular American kid (assuming there is such a being) into a handler of attack dogs, into a brutalizer, a dehumanizer of others?

We know how easily it can be done with a dog. A dog has a relatively simple brain that operates in fairly predictable ways. Pavlov taught us this trick in the lab.

A New Year

easy to look down or otherwise have In working together towards

by Riccardo M. Taylor a problem with someone who does set goals that benefit the entire As we greet the year, I not fit our perception as a worthy community many of the obstacles, believe there is a lot of reflection we member of our community. I, for which cause so much disparity can be should have, in accordance with the one, believe that, like in the words of overcome, paving the way for a year in passing.

Ms. Mary Gaffney “the only time you greater sense of belonging for all the For one thing there is a great should look down on communities’ members. need for people to unite. Life has so someone else is to Although it seems quite much to offer for all of us, but the be giving them a simple, I am the first to reality is that no one is an island, hand to stand up.” admit that the therefore, not enough emphasis can Such an easy formula community of be put on the idea that we must stand should be easy to Cincinnati has a long united on many issues. follow. way to go. For years Then world in its bigger However, we have as a scope is mostly beyond our reach, we have been community practiced and although peace does not prevail instilled with so many division on so many Riccardo Taylor throughout the world, we can and prejudices that it is fronts that we need a must do our part to foster peace here hard to see or act degree of education on at home. I do not believe that we can beyond our meager ideas of what or receptiveness towards those groups police the world, or solve the how things should be. Learning to be of community members whom we problems that abound abroad. Yet, I more open minded about another’s have not had close encounters with. am convinced that a united front at disposition in life is key to bridging It takes more than a passing word, or home can solve most of the problems the gaps, which keeps us at odds a nod from a distance. It has to be we face, which effects so many of with others of our community. We an in your face type of encounter to ours lives. The understanding of must stand up against injustices understand and ‘feel’ another’s community is relationship too those committed against others, and perceived position. Once the blocks who share common goals, facilities, become instrumental in setting up of ice which sever the lines of and ideas with each other. In saying, entities, which help to close the gaps communication are melted away, we greater emphasis needs to be placed that cause us so much variance in are sure to find much more on the common interest, which effects scope. No one person can go out commonness, then we may believe those who are apart of the particular and save the world, or in this instance existed between the different groups. community. Minor differences of the community, however, a united Of course I do not contend to have status such as race, economics, and front can and will set the stage for the master plan of sorts to heal the creed must be sidelined in order for a hurdling the many differences we deep wounds our community suffers, true community to be realized. It is so suffer as a community. yet I’m convinced that if we are to

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Streetvibes

Farmers, hunters, and shepherds knew the basics centuries before that.

But what sort of training does it take to turn a human American boy or girl into a person who will turn an animal into a tool of abuse? The human brain is much more complex than that of a dog.

Moreover, it is frequently encumbered by natural affinities, conscience, moral teaching, and ethical principles that get in the way.

So how do we get from “We Are the World” to “We’re Number One?” I’m not sure I even want to know. But I know it continues to happen, for I see that we as a people are becoming steadily more callous and arrogant, easily dismissive of losers, wrongdoers, or the “evil.” However the process works, I am sure it is reinforced by talk shows, video games, reality shows, and a national leadership that disguises its contempt for the weak under a thin, opportunistic veneer of “Christian” compassion.

There is a good chance more tales of the abusive misuse of dogs will come out in the months ahead. But it would be wrong to suggest that we, as a nation, are going to the dogs. Really, it’s the handlers we need to fear.

survive and grow as a community we must act. They say Rome was not built in a day, but today is a good starting point for our community to revitalize itself.

20 YEARS SERVING THE NEIGHBORHOOD

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

(513) 621-5514

Farm Worker Victory in to speak to the crowd.

North Carolina asked The church went silent as the

by Dick Wiesenhahn I first got the word in September from Beatriz Maya, National Boycott Director in Toledo that the 5 1/2 year boycott of the Mt. Olive Pickle Company was over!

The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) AFL-CIO had just won the largest union contract in the history of the state of North Carolina, covering over 8,000 guest workers form Mexico.

FLOC organizers Santiago Rafael, Maria Garcia, Beatriz Maya and I began the long trip south to attend the official signing ceremony in Raleigh, North Carolina.

More than 150 people were squeezed into the small Church of Christ in anticipation of the great event. The church was decorated with red FLOC banners and flags everywhere. Directly behind the speakers table hung a banner which stated “Farm Workers Feed The World.” It was all very exciting.

The official gathering included Farm Worker Union president Baldemar Velasquez and executives from the Mt. Olive Pickle Company and the North Carolina Growers Association. Also present was the Roman Catholic Bishop of RaleighDurham and the directors of both the National Council of Churches and the National Farm Worker Ministry.

After the contracts were signed and the principals had had their say, an actual farm worker was

new immigrant worker said in broken English that this was the best day of his life! At first contact with FLOC he was not sure he could trust the union organizers. But, after learning about union representation and the benefits of a contract he could see how his wages and working conditions would improve. Therefore, he and other workers became enthusiastic supporters.

We all had a great lunch in Raleigh and then drove the 60 Farm Worker Union president Baldemar Velasquez and executives from the miles south to visit FLOC’s modest headquarters in Dudley, Mt. Olive Pickle Company and the North Carolina Growers Association at official signing North Carolina. The small office located in the back of the Mexican store owned by Angelita is support to enable FLOC to hire Velasquez, Democratic donated to FLOC rent free. The additional field organizers and to Congresswoman Marcy Kaptar, walls were filled with all types of open a FLOC office in Mexico.

Toledo Mayor Jack Ford and long information such as farm locations, Please come and hear time national farm worker ministry farmer’s names and strategies for representative Olgha Sandmann. The Baldemar Velasquez tell the story field organizers. It was a very of the Farm Labor Organizing press conference and panel impressive example of grass roots Committee and sing the many discussions were followed by a power. songs of the farm workers Mexican pot-luck dinner and fiesta The first Midwest celebration and finally a very inspirational speech movement. Help us to raise the and press conference for this great needed funds to do the hard work

by Baldemar. union victory took place at FLOC of organizing 8,500 farm workers Now, the FLOC victory headquarters in Toledo, Ohio in celebration is coming to Cincinnati on on 1,000 farms ion North October. Three Greater Cincinnati Carolina. Tickets are priced at Saturday, January 15, 2005. The FLOC support committee members $10 for adult, $5 for children and Greater Cincinnati FLOC Support Lon Coleman, Sara Hayes, and I free for 10 years and under. For Committee is sponsoring a benefit made the 350 mile round trip to more information please contact concert to celebrate the historic Toledo to be in solidarity with the Dick Wiesenhahn, Greater agreement and to thank everyone FLOC staff and supporters from all Cincinnati FLOC support who supported the boycott of Mt over the country. The celebration committee, (513) 984-1963 Olive Pickles. Also, we need to included FLOC president Baldemar provide very important financial

Frost Elementary holds benefit about homelessness, it is not often for GCCH that we have the pleasure of

by Andy Erickson Sixth-graders from Frost Elementary helped raise $900 to benefit the Coalition for the Homeless in November. The benefit was part of “Soup Bowls for the Homeless,” an event created by art teacher Tracy Ferguson and her students. Guests at the event received handmade soup bowls in exchange for donations. Students served soup to the guests and spoke about homelessness in Cincinnati.

The Coalition for the Homeless would like to thank Tracy Ferguson, her students and Frost Elementary Principal Mark Walden for putting this event together.

While we are committed to working with schools to educate students

working with elementary schools.

The donations were very generous, the students were fantastic, and the soup bowls looked great!

National Homeless Civil Rights Organizing Project (NHCROP) 117 East 12th Street Cincinnati, OH 45202 homelesscivilrights@yahoo.com Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless (513) 421-7803

Berta’s Art Corner

Andy Erickson

Streetvibes

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Listen to Elders

by Ms. Mary Gaffney To my fellow readers of Streetvibes, and my homeless friends, Happy New Year, the first month of 2005.

As I sit here in the office reflecting on 2004, I think of the happiness as well as the sadness.

Happiness for being a witness to the 113 year anniversary of my home church, St. John A. M. E. Zion. The sadness is for one of our oldest members, Rachel Hanley, who closed her eyes forever for the sweet rest. She was 101 years of age. In October, another of the oldest members, Loretta Jefferies died.

The reason I mention these two ladies is because as a child, I remember how they treated me, with advice for a young child, and even later as I grew up, I remember the talks they had with me. Even though they are not here, I still remember them and thank them for their talks with me. Happiness to Sister Jeffries and Sister Hanley.

I am still at St. John, attending with my great-grandchild.

There is another lady who is still active and demonstrating her leadership in the church. And another member, who has shared

Raynelle Mount

What a Year!

by Linda Corey Thanks to God and the fellowship of Narcotics Annonymous, I had a year clean on December 23. Boy, what a year! I have met a lot of special people. I completed the Woman’s Full Circle program at the Drop Inn Center July 21st. My counselor, Miss Annie is a very special and smart lady. I have learned a lot about myaddiction to alcohol. I live life on life’s terms and I have learned spiritual principles before personalities. I have also learned one-day-at-a-time. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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An Agenda of Plunder

Miss Mary Gaffney her kindness with all the members, has been in the gospel choir for 66 years. Thank you Sister Raynelle Mount, and may the Glory of God be with you.

It doesn’t take much time to stop and listen when the elders take the time to speak or give advice on things that you are bound to encounter in your life. It helps when an issue in your life comes before you. Yes, there may be stress but you will survive.

To my homeless friends, some have found a place to call home, and some have found employment. I am happy for this.

To the ones who have not met their goals, don’t give up. Keep striving and keep the faith. And to my readers, also remember, God loves us we are his children. Until next month...

Loretta Jefferies

A Rattlesnake, if cornered will become so angry it will bite itself. That is exactly what the harboring of hate and resentment against others is a biting of oneself. We think we are harming others in holding these spites and hates, but the deeper harm is to ourselves. ~E. Stanley Jones

Hate must make a man productive. Otherwise one might as well love. ~Karl Kraus

All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first. ~James Thurber

by Timothy Harris Francis Fox Piven is professor of political science and sociology at the graduate school of the City University of New York.

She is co-author with Richard Cloward of a number of awardwinning books, including Regulating the Poor, The Poor People’s Movement, The Breaking of the American Social Compact, and Why Americans Still Don’t Vote.

Her latest book, published in 2004, is The War at Home. Seattle’s Real Change street newspaper caught up with Professor Piven when she was in town last month to speak at the annual conference of the Statewide Poverty Action Network.

Real Change: So your new book makes the point that the war and the events of 9/11 have provided political cover for a huge transfer of wealth and other sorts of shifts in national priorities. What are some examples of that?

Piven: I guess the more apparent examples are the tax cuts which are geared to reducing taxes on the wealthiest people in the United States and corporations, much more than ordinary working people. Those taxes were justified in Congress as being necessary in time of war. It’s a pretty obvious use of war to redistribute domestic wealth.

You usually think of war as a strategy in which one nation plunders another nation’s resources.

In this case our leaders were trying to do that for sure - they invaded a nation with a lot of oil resources but they also were using the fog of war to impose their own agenda, which is an agenda of plunder in the United States.

I think another dimension of that is the environmental changes that are occurring. Now those don’t have the acute pinch that cutting your wages does because it takes a much longer time to feel the environmental affects of increased pollution. But this administration is committed to the use of public lands for private business: more logging, more drilling. That’s a heritage, a public heritage, and it’s being given away.

Another example, not so related to the war: the President and his party were able to increase subsidies to pharmaceutical companies. As if they needed subsidies! They are among the most comfortable industries in the United States. Bush is promoting the Medicare Prescription Drug Act as evidence that he really is a compassionate conservative! That act give big subsidies to the pharmaceutical companies and it also protects them from competition from drugs imported from Canada.

It also protects them from any effort by the government to use its

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buying power to force down drug prices.

This is an agenda of plunder. One of the features of this that I’m not sure I entirely understand is the reckless quality of it. Ordinarily, when you look through history and across the globe, elites try to ensure that they will remain elites over time. They look for stability. This regime is so risk-taking, so reckless, that it’s as though they don’t have a time horizon. Their roots are not sunk in society. They want to take it and run. I find that very, very strange, and also very alarming. Because they’re taking it from us, and they may run, but we will inherit the damage that they do.

RC: What should we be most concerned about in terms of the Bush administration agenda on poverty over his second terms?

Piven: We should be concerned about everything, but we should be concerned about the further erosion of income supports, which includes unemployment insurance. They did not extend federal unemployment insurance since 2003. TANF becomes more restrictive, more punitive, more derogatory of its clients. They want to privatize the Medicaid program because it’s a big program.

And union rights are very, very important, and worker rights generally. The attack, for example, on overtime pay standards is very important if it succeeds, if it is in fact implemented. We should work on a minimum wage increase. Five dollars and 15 cents is the minimum wage. That’s the lowest minimum wage in history, in real terms.

RC: Why are they so fixated on Social Security?

Piven: Because there’s money to be made there. Money to be made by bankers, investment firms, brokers, and financial advisors, and maybe also because the Social Security reserve fund, which is built up through the Social Security tax, is paid entirely by working people. Social security tax is rigged so that there’s no tax on incomes over a certain amount. But that fund has built up, and as it builds up, it creates at least the legal possibility that the public sector can become a player in the economy.

RC: Kerry talked a lot about jobs, he talked a lot about tax priorities, but he didn’t say that much about poverty.

Piven: The entire tendency of the Democratic Party in the last 30 years, under the influence of the Democratic Leadership Council, which is pernicious, has been to move away from the issues of the 1960s; the issues through which the Democratic Party becomes the

See PLUNDER, page 9

almost ten years. After all this, he is still requesting a relationship and custody of our son. out of college again this past fall The Safe and Stable (for the third time) to focus my Families legislation would directly attention on helping my son benefit my family. My time clock is Matthew. running out on public assistance Matthew’s abuse started benefits. Yet I have had to drop when he was only 19 months old. out of college several times in order His father sexually abused him. The to be there for my son. He is very courts ended up allowing the father angry about the sexual abuse he has supervised visits with his son after I suffered by his own dad. I have got custody, but when Matthew had to spend much time in and out turned four years old, they allowed of court hearings, and even was his dad unsupervised visits. After temporarily jailed when I refused to two or three visits with his dad, my force my son to visit his dad. So I son came home and told me of was in contempt of court and I have more abuse. Again, I fought for no regrets for being in contempt. supervised visitation; this lasted until I need more time to pull my son was 6 1/2 years old when myself and my family’s stability his father regained unsupervised together. The Safe and Stable visits again. When he became 7, Families Campaign aims to give me his father abused him again and the that time.” visitation became supervised.

The Safe and Stable In the meantime I learned Families Campaign welcomes the that Matthew’s father was abusing new year firm in our resolve to his new wife. He has now been battle united with Angela, Matthew, charged five to six times for and the thousands of other women domestic violence assaults, and children across Ohio who bear convicted two times, and has scars from living in violent homes. incredulously been allowed For more information on how you supervised visitations with my son can join the battle call the Ohio throughout much of that time for Empowerment Coalition at 513/ 381-4242 or 877-862-5179.

Safe and Stable Families Campaign 2005

by Lynn Williams, Ohio Empowerment Coalition organizer In January 2005 the Safe and Stable Families Campaign will be leading the way to get statewide guidelines adopted to assist lowincome domestic violence victims & their children in Ohio. The Campaign is working to ensure that public assistance recipients in Ohio are screened for domestic violence by trained caseworkers; ensure that victims receive referrals for care and support services; and allow caseworkers to grant waivers exempting recipients on a case by case basis from program requirements if the requirements would place a victim’s family in danger. The waivers will allow battered victims time to access the supports needed to successfully pull their families’ lives back together without jeopardizing their safety.

Domestic violence occurs at every income level, and across all races and ethnic cultures. Women living in wealthy suburbs are battered as are women living in the

poorest areas of the inner cities. In some cases, men are battered, although statistically over 98% of battered victims are women.

Research also shows that over 60% of public assistance recipients have been battered….and these are just the reported cases, the tip of the iceberg.

The Safe and Stable Families legislation would help Angela of Greene County who shared her very painful story with members of the Ohio Empowerment Coalition. “My children and I have been through domestic violence and sexual abuse and my family is still reeling from the repercussions of a father abusing his own son, our son, Matthew. Resolving this and making sure justice is done, getting counseling for my children and myself, and dealing with an often indifferent court system has zapped a lot of my emotional strength.

Even though I have ambitions of getting my degree from Wright State University and finally finding a “family” supporting job, I dropped

The Impossible Will Take a Little While

Bush’s Iraq war, yet has remained that hope is a way of looking at the light-hearted and free of bitterness. world-in fact a way of life.

How do we learn to keep Because Tutu embodies a defiant, Nowhere is this more apparent than on in this difficult political time, and resilient, persistent hope, where we in the stories of those who, like keep on with courage and vision? act no matter A few years ago, I heard what the seeming Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak at odds, both to be a Los Angeles benefit for a South true to our African project. He’d been fighting deepest moral prostate cancer, was tired that values, and to evening, and had taken a nap open up new before his talk. But when Tutu possibilities. As addressed the audience he became Jim Wallis, editor animated, expressing amazement of the that his long-oppressed country had evangelical social provided the world with an justice magazine unforgettable lesson in Sojourners, reconciliation and hope. Afterward, writes, “Hope is a few other people spoke, and then believing in spite a band from East L.A. took the of the evidence, stage and launched into an then watching the irresistibly rhythmic tune. People evidence change.” started dancing. Suddenly I We need Paul Rogat Loeb noticed Tutu, boogying away in the to be strategic, of middle of the crowd. I’d never course-to learn seen a Nobel Peace Prize winner, new ways of framing our vision and Tutu and Nelson Mandela, persist still less one with a potentially fatal reaching out to those who under the most dangerous illness, move with such joy and supported George Bush because conditions, when simply to imagine abandonment. Tutu, I realized, they saw no other alternative. We aloud the possibility of change is knows how to have a good time. need to muster enough power to deemed a crime or viewed as a Indeed, it dawned on me that his convince mainline Democrats that type of madness. We can also ability to recognize and embrace capitulation was at the core of the draw strength from the example of life’s pleasures helps him face its most recent defeats, and that former Czech president Václav cruelties and disappointments, changing America’s politics requires Havel, whose country’s experience, be they personal or political. drawing the line. But none of this he argues, proves that a series of Few of us will match Tutu’s will happen unless we persist and small, seemingly futile moral actions achievements, but in a political time find ways to keep engaged those can bring down an empire. When that’s hard and likely to get harder, several million Americans who’ve the Czech rock band Plastic People we’d do well to learn from just come in to peace and justice of the Universe was first outlawed someone who’s spent years movements in the past couple and arrested because the authorities challenging abuses of human dignity years. said their Zappa-influenced music from apartheid’s brutal system to We do this by recognizing was “morbid” and had a “negative photo by Jimmy Heath

by Paul Rogat Loeb

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social impact,” Havel organized a defense committee. That in turn evolved into the Charter 77 organization, which set the stage for Czechoslovakia’s broader democracy movement. As Havel wrote, three years before the Communist dictatorship fell, “Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart.”

Even in a seemingly losing cause, one person may unknowingly inspire another, and that person yet a third, who could go on to change the world, or at least a small corner of it. Rosa Park’s husband Raymond convinced her to attend her first NAACP meeting, the initial step on a 12-year path that brought her to that fateful day on the bus in Montgomery. But who got Raymond Parks involved? And why did that person take the trouble to do so?

What experiences shaped their outlook, forged their convictions? The links in any chain of influence are too numerous, too complex to trace. But it helps to know that such chains exist, that we can choose to join them, and that lasting change doesn’t occur in their absence. A primary way to sustain hope, especially when our actions seem too insignificant to amount to anything, is to see ourselves as links on such a chain.

see HOPE, page 9 Page 7

DINNER, cont. from Page 1 live with “tremendous resilience to poverty and addiction.”

The coalition has two key aspects that inspire Dr. Arundel, “a spirit of resistance” and service to others. “You fight for the rights of the homeless to be treated fairly and with dignity,” he said. “Your shelter and food are used tirelessly to help others, seeing the impact of social policies on old people. You resist and advocate against policies not in the interests of the people.”

With city funding of social services, Dr. Aundel cautioned that there is a direct connection between cutting aid and increased incarceration and the number of people who disagree with unfair policies.

He said he was alarmed at the federal government for going after people in the anti-war, environmental, and anti-globalization movements.

“There is a climate of intimidation and silenced public dissent,” he warned.

The soundtrack is “Bad Moon A’rising” by Credence Clear Water Revival, he said, “but there’s also a time now for opportunities to build a strong movement of resistance based on the real issues of people to actually stop (President) Bush’s agenda.”

The best ways to make change happen? Build a broadbased movement, a network of people who act cooperatively, help people feel solidarity and a common identity, set goals that require major change and a challenge to the status quo.

“Acting collectively to sustain a great goal must unite all progressive forces to set the terms of the debate,” he said.

There also needs to be “an all-out assault on corporate criminals who are looting our future. And we need to build a movement from the bottom up and stop apologizing for asking for services that are as essential as police and fire prevention.”

Activists will face resistance but can create change, he assured the

Andy Erickson (left) presents Vendor of the Year Award to William Johnson

Page 8

audience. “They say cut back. We say fight back,” he concluded. “The people united will never be defeated!”

At the elegant dinner, awards were made to winners in five categories: Volunteer of the Year to Susan Smith, Service Provider to Eve Beasley, Streetvibes Vendor of the Year to William Johnson, the Jimmy Render Award to Marcia Battle, and the buddy gray Award to Kevin Lab. buddy gray was a grassroots activist who saved old housing in Over-the-Rhine and helped the coalition grow stronger before he was killed by a client with questionable motives that led some to feel gray was assassinated by people working to gentrify Over-theRhine.

Dr. Ron Arundel challenges the crowd to unite progressive forces “This coalition is one of a kind,” said Lab. “Never doubt it.

The evidence that you are just overpowering is what we accomplished last week (saving most of the social service funding cut by mayor Lukin). “We are indeed alive!”

Sponsors of the dinner were 3C Ministry Foundation, Real Estate Investors Association, Sisters of Charity, Xavier University, Bethany House, Center for Respite Care, Cincinnati Health Network, Drop Inn Center, First Step Home, Goodwill, Health Resource Center, Homeless Medical Van, Interfaith Hospitality Network, Joseph House, Lighthouse Youth Services, and People Working Cooperatively.

GCCH’s mission is to serve Executive Director Georgine Getty Addresses the dinner as a unified, social action agency, fully committed to its ultimate goal: the eradication of homelessness with respect for the dignity and diversity of its membership, the homeless and the community. The Coalition works towards this goal by coordinating services, educating the public, and engaging in grassroots organizing and advocacy.

It was formed in May of 1984 for one purpose: the eradication of homelessness in Cincinnati. What began as a coalition of 15 volunteers meeting weekly in an unheated church basement has grown into a coalition of over 45 agencies and hundreds of volunteers.

Left to right, Kevin Lab, Bonnie Neumeier, Alice Skirtz Homeless and formerly homeless individuals are incorporated into all programs and initiatives at the Coalition.

Contact GCCH at 117 E. 12th Street (one block north of Central Parkway), Cincinnati, OH, 45202, (513) 421-7803, or infor@cincihomeless.org. Visit http://www.cincihomeless.org Veteran journalist John Zeh is a native Cincinnatian who lives in western downtown and edits Rainbow NewsAMP Alert.

Georgine Getty presents Volunteer of the Year Award to Susan Smith

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the descent of some, like the Weathermen, into violence. Yet privately, as we now know from Nixon’s memoirs, he decided the movement had, in his words, so “polarized” American opinion that he couldn’t carry out his threat.

Moratorium participants had no idea that their efforts may have been helping to stop a nuclear attack.

Although we may never know, I’d argue that America’s recent movement against the war on Iraq similarly helped make further wars against countries like Iran and Syria less likely, and paved the way for more widespread questioning, even if not quite enough to turn the election. The protests of early 2003, the largest in decades, brought many into their first public stand, or their first in years. It wasn’t easy to voice opposition when being called allies of terrorism. Yet people did, in every community in the country, joined by the largest global peace demonstrations in history.

Many then continued through electoral involvement, raising further issues and building further alliances. These movements may have inspired the next Rosa Parks, Benjamin Spock, or Susan B. Anthony. They certainly marked

the first steps for innumerable individuals who if they continue on will become a powerful force for justice, joining the ranks of the other unsung heroes who ultimately create all change.

Even if the struggle outlives us, conviction matters. Actions of conscience confirm the link between our fate and that of everyone and everything else on the planet, respecting and reinforcing the fundamental connections without which life itself is impossible. Whether we flourish or perish depends on how well we can honor the interdependence that Martin Luther King evoked: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

Nor should we forget that courage is contagious, that it overcomes the silence and fear that estrange people from one another.

In Poland, during the early 1980s, leaders of the workers’ support movement KOR made a point of printing their names and phone numbers on the back of mimeographed sheets describing incidents of police harassment against then-unknown activists such as Lech Walesa. It was as if, in the words of reporter Lawrence Weschler, they were “calling out to

everyone else, ‘Come on out! Be open.

What can they do to us if we all start taking responsibility for our true dreams?’”

As the Polish activists discovered, we gain something profound when we stand up for our beliefs, just as part of us dies when we know that something is wrong, yet do nothing. We could call this radical dignity. We don’t have to tackle every issue, but if we remain silent in the face of cruelty, injustice, and oppression, we sacrifice part of our soul. In this sense, we keep on acting because by doing so we affirm our humanity-the core of who we are, and what we hold in common with others. We need to do this more than ever in the current time.

Paul Rogat Loeb is the editor of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear (Basic Books, 2004, $15.95), named the #3 political book of fall 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association.

He’s also the author of Soul of a Citizen. This article is adapted from The Impossible, and part was excerpted earlier in The Nation. www.theimpossible.org

agenda but it’s a different values agenda. It’s a values agenda that a party of the down-and-outs, the lot of the people who are talking marginals, immigrants, people of values talk would respond to. color, and women. So the RC: Do progressives simply argument has been that they have to need to out-organize get with mainstream America. fundamentalists, or is there room I actually think that the for dialogue?

American people are not so selfish Piven: Grover Norquist, and so evil that they would not who runs a populist right coalition in respond to appeals to improve the Washington but now has links with conditions of the poor. All the such coalitions in the states, boasts survey data shows that they would. that his coalition has moved If you call it welfare, they shrink evangelical Christians from being from it because welfare has been quasi-socialists to being free assaulted since the early 1970s. marketers. He’s talking about the The program has been said to be sense in which many evangelical the cause of every social problem in Christians were big supporters of the world, without any evidence, to the New Deal. Why were they big be sure, but the propaganda works. supporters of the New Deal?

But if you ask people whether they Because they recognized that the think the poor should get a hand up, New Deal gave them work relief. everybody agrees.

It gave them early food subsidies.

RC: There’s been a lot of It gave them the Works Progress talk lately among progressives Administration. These were things about recapturing the language of that made a lot of sense to them values. How do you rate that as a even though they were also strategy for overcoming single-issue evangelical Christians. And if isolation?

Christ was an evangelical Christian, Piven: Well, I don’t know Christ also would have been in about that. I mean, what do they favor of relief, WPA, food mean by it? If they mean that we subsidies, and so on. should talk about sex too, I think RC: In Poor People’s it’s crazy. If they mean we should Movements, you write about how advance our own ideals with moral social movements gain power in conviction our ideals about equality, proportion to their ability to democracy, the elimination of threaten and even stop business as poverty, more inclusive society — usual. One of the things that was yes. Those are moral ideals. apparent to me in Seattle during Those are values and we should be WTO — and I’ve seen it growing clear that they are values. It’s not around the country — is the an economic agenda, it’s a values

militarization of policing. Do you think the political space still exists for noisy disruptive movements to occur?

Piven: Yeah, I certainly do.

It’s not fascism. The political space still exists. If you wanted to be entirely safe without any cost, well, it never really is. There are risks associated with truly disruptive action. Sometimes high risks, but that has always been the case. And yet, people have undertaken such actions, they have gone to jail, and they’ve sometimes won.

RC: So, what else would you say to those who are wondering “What now?”

Piven: Well, it’s gonna be a tough few years but I think only a

few years. We cannot continue following these policies without creating domestic political crisis in the United States. And we should be ready for that crisis. We should be politically prepared, politically mobilized, straighten out our heads about what we believe in and what we want to correct in our own society and we should understand that this is not only important for us, it’s important for the entire world, because the United States has become a very dangerous power.

People all over the world now agree that the greatest danger to world peace is the United States government.

Reprinted from the November 24 issue of Real Change, Seattle

HOPE, cont from page 7 The unforeseen benefits of our actions mean that any effort may prove more consequential than it seems at first. In 1969, Henry Kissinger told the North Vietnamese that Richard Nixon would escalate the Vietnam War, and even use nuclear strikes, unless they capitulated and forced the National Liberation Front in the South to surrender as well. Nixon had military advisers prepare detailed plans, including mission folders with photographs of potential nuclear targets. But two weeks before the president’s November 1 deadline, there was a nationwide day of protest, the Moratorium, when millions of Americans joined local demonstrations, vigils, church services, petition drives, and other forms of opposition. The next month, more than half-a-million people marched in Washington, DC. An administration spokesperson announced that Nixon had watched the Washington Redskins football game and that the demonstrations wouldn’t affect his policies in the slightest. That fed the frustration of far too many in the peace movement and accelerated

PLUNDER cont. from page 6

Many Thanks to Aiken Leadership Team Students who donated a mountain of gifts for homeless children!

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Page 9

cars with smiles all around. Little children, dressed for long waits in the cold, were on the lines along with babies in carriages, very old and disabled people waited, and those in wheelchairs or on crutches kept their places in the ever moving line. No one was turned away and many decided to juggle the boxes and bags without help, turning down the eager offers from high school and college youth. Monday, I was thoroughly soaked by the rain but my spirits were lifted by the both the work of the teams, the support of the Free Store staff, and by the good spirits of the people accepting the food.

Tuesday, was more of this same generous spirit. Today, a warmer rain steadily fell but people continued to come and to receive the generosity of

important. Waiting on lines was an opportunity for several to see old friends and embrace in the warmth of the room. Others seemed lost in their thoughts, moving toward a young person who lifted boxes of vegetables It has been raining off and on and a bag with a turkey into their since Monday but nothing can stop hands, gesturing with a finger that our efforts to bring and deliver food, they needed help getting to the curb toiletries, and friendship to the Free or to their cars. Very brief greetings Store/Food Bank. With members of were exchanged by those carrying the the Peace Village participating in key boxes with those leading the way to roles in logging in people, organizing some form of transportation. Yet, it to bring food to the sites, volunteering was clear that food and peace were to give the food away, and planning connected even though there was for next steps, the work of the past little discussion about how rare good few months has blossomed into three food and generosity was in anyone’s days of unforgettable experiences. life.

Thousands of families and individuals What was remarkable about started to line up for the food at 3am, the great giveaway, the unlimited Sunday evening. The stream of generosity, also raised important people, standing for questions about why our city and long times in a cold country refused to establish a policy drizzle and hard rain to end hunger for most people once was frustrating for and for all. Why do we see very old those of us who and sick people in the rain, on a long wanted to move the line, seeking food? Why were line along as quickly as families, hugging little beautiful possible. After a while, children, soaked to the skin, waiting we got the hang of it on line for even a few minutes for and the room where food? Why were vets, some wearing food was distributed by old military clothing, forced to march family size was jammed in this kind of food line? Why is our and people began city government planning to cut all moving toward doors, subsidies to this agency and all to cars and buses. A pantries involved in collecting and wonderful group of distributing food? And, why does it Dr. Steve Sunderland volunteers from area take a major national holiday to high schools and colleges, plus some a city and the Peace Village that had spring open the coffers and hearts of churches, assisted all who would let donated and continued to donate people for something as basic as us with carrying their boxes of food, thousands of pounds of food. food? bags of turkeys, hams, and chickens.

The Free Store/Food Bank Peace seems like an orphan This morning, only a little line had become transformed into a site of in all of this effort to reduce hunger, of hungry people were on hand at peace. Everywhere you could look, taking a place on a line behind a blind 7:30AM as the rain pounded down peace meant being respected, and and angry person, ashamed and but they were whisked into the food being given some food to celebrate in stubborn that this place is necessary room and then out to their waiting one’s own way just what was for such meager food. Peace cries

The Peace Village

out for a different kind of relationship to the poor and the rich. What is clearly being demanded is a peace with respect for predictable food, a peace with relationships that are open to knowing and believing in a society of sharing, a peace, finally, of radical insistence that no one ever face the humiliation of hunger. Questions swirled around us but we were too busy lifting, walking, and moving the food along, to face these realities.

From time to time, I would see the face of a teenage volunteer; eyes wide open in disbelief, shoulders tense with fear, looking into souls of this army of need. What were they wondering about the world that we have left them and not told them about?

We learned that all over our region, organizations are at work preparing food for strangers through pantries in churches giving food, through relationships with welfare agencies that have identified needy individuals and families, and through a traditional Thanksgiving dinner provided to thousands in the Dayton, OH convention center. The student’s reports spoke of an old value in people to share a little, to make a small difference of a meal, to feed strangers a fine meal and send the accompanying message of hope and friendship.

This is an important event in the lives of many organizations for reasons that are very varied and largely unknown and certainly unheralded. Thanksgiving stops normal action, calls for a peace gesture that involves something more than the donation in the basket. At this time, we see and hear about people in their eighties coordinating services including food for strangers as if this was as natural as sunshine.

Youth are enlisted in sorting foods, making boxes, helping deliver food to the sick and working right next to their neighbors and family, perhaps for the first and only time in their lives.

Brilliant poems, imaginative press releases, and sentimental pictures flood into view, many created by young people who have found the right words and pictures to reveal the reality of a holiday that is bittersweet for too many.

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

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The Next Day

attacked, mentally terrorized (orange alert, red alert, etc.), we lost jobs, couldn’t get more, went into a

by Maria Guerriero horrible recession, made foreign Maybe people felt lonely at work that day. People needed to talk enemies. Take this as my cry for help and convince me not to go to but were stuck behind a desk or at Canada.” home taking care of the kids or And thus began a continental standing in front of a room of five dialogue. The writing, off the cuff, year olds. Email was their only probably typed with droopy eyes exhaust.

At 11:34 am on November 3, over morning’s second cup of coffee, Amberly, an administrative assistant in took on the air of well-crafted journalism. In it all was the real news Cambridge, sent out an email that and commentary of the day, written read: “The bloodshot eyes here are many. People wear black and wince by people like your next door neighbor. in the cold gusts outside . . . and Chuk, a visual artist living in inside I suppose. One gust. Long New York: “I won’t be voting again, and draining. Feeling like it’s ever. That’s it. I’m done with it. I’m stripping me of my freedoms. But I was mostly stripped of them gradually not playing by anyone else’s rules anymore. I’m not playing the ‘pick over the last four years, not your representative and live with it’ necessarily realizing. The sudden game anymore. It’s a waste of change in climate makes me everyone’s time and effort. Never understand how close I am to again. Never.” Marc, an activist and freezing.” The subject of the email poet living in Belmont, read “Comfort.”

The thread of discontent after Massachusetts, wrote in a poem: “We close the curtain on the voting the presidential election sparked booth, our pencils cry out.” Chris, a dialogue, email being the means of producer from Boston: “I’m going to bonding that day. Most wanted to stay under the covers, hoping to take channel any anger into push ups, crunches, and dumbbell curls while some sort of post-election holiday. thinking of the ‘map.’” Pamela, a Julie, a mother and student from Levittown, New York, sent around a communications expert from Danvers, Massachusetts: “I am a message that read: “I feel a hollow ‘60s kid and my generation is about place in my stomach and a great to see its gates fall. Everything we black cloud all around me. In the fought for, everything we rallied for, immortal words of Janet Jackson I everything we had ‘sit ins’ for, all want to ask Bush, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ cuz as far as my those marches, all this may be reversed.” A quote from Abraham eyes can tell we were physically

Lincoln got around electronically thanks to Michael, a student at UMass Boston: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

In response to Julie’s email, Owen from East Meadow, New York sent a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Owen, inspired by history, added, “We are reaping what we have sown. It is time to plant new seeds. Whatever you see in this world that doesn’t make sense to you, resist it. I am human and I do not always practice what I preach, but I will try to change. I love you guys. The election is bull@#$%.

Every day we can do something.”

There were some resounding themes, including anger, loss of hope, and the urgent need to find the nearest Canadian passport office, but this shocked love and resilience emerged most often, and lasted a bit longer. Mary, a retired professor from Ohio, worked at the polls in Oberlin that day. The next morning, she emailed her kids. “My very dear children,” she began. “Please remember that this is our country, and we need to participate in it as fully as possible. We must remain actively involved in the electoral process at all levels—all those ‘unimportant, unglamorous, unexciting’ elections to things like school boards, city councils, state legislatures. . . . By the time of the presidential election,

so much else has already been decided. Don’t let others make these choices for you. So stay the course you’ve set for yourselves, and eventually the two halves of this sadly divided country will find a way back to each other.”

It was comfort that people needed, shelter from the idea of four more years. And it was found, as with all comfort after something tragic and confusing, by reaching out to each other. James chose a new path.

“The answer has never been in politics or broad social movements,” he wrote. “That is not where human beings live. We live in homes and neighborhoods with each other.

What is important to us is who we pass on the street on our way to work and in the grocery store, and who we come home to and who we go out with.

“There is no hope in Canada either, except for the hope that is here — and that is the hope in how we treat each other every day, and nowhere else. Even if Kerry had won, 15 million children would have died this next year due to poverty and preventable disease. The only thing that matters is what you decide to do for other people with the gift of your life.

“That’s what I think anyway.”

Maria Guerriero feels that spontaneous overflows of emotion are key to any revolution.

Reprinted from Whats Up, Boston, MA, USA, in its December 2004 issue.

Queen City Barrel - photo by Curtis Proffitt Streetvibes

Page 11

Streetvibes Vendor Code of Conduct About the Greater Cincinnati All Vendors Sign and Agree to a Code of Conduct Coalition for the Homeless and Report Any Violations to GCCH - 421-7803 Streetvibes....

1. Streetvibes will be distributed go to the individual vendor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vendors must also never sell Streetvibes door-to-door.

8. Vendors must not deceive customers while selling Streetvibes. Vendors must be honest in stating that all profits

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

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

Broken or worn badges will be replaced for free, but only if the old badge is returned to GCCH. 10. Streetvibes vendor meetings are held on the first weekday of the month at 1pm. The month’s paper will be released at this meeting. If a vendor cannot attend the meeting, he or she should let us know in advance.

If a vendor does not call in advance and does not show up, that vendor will not be allowed to purchase papers on the day of the meeting or the following day.

Five free papers will be given to those who do attend.

11. Failure to comply with the Code of Conduct may result in termination from the Streetvibes vendor program. GCCH reserves the right to terminate any vendor at any time as deemed appropriate. Badges and Streetvibes papers are property of GCCH, and must be surrendered upon demand.

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

Streetvibes Vendor: 70 cents

Printing and Production: 30 cents

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

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

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

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

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

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

Streetvibes is a member of the:

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

Where Your Dollar Goes...

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

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

There have been periods of history in which episodes of terrible violence occurred but for which the word violence was never used...Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the violence for what it was. The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they though of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever committed.

Gil Bailie line

War would end if the dead could return.

Stanley Baldwin line

Page 12

Streetvibes

Community Shares honored four local activists at the presentation of the McCrackin Peace & Justice Awards on Sunday, December 12.

Named for the late Rev. Maurice McCrackin, the awards recognize individuals who have demonstrated long-term commitment to the creation of a peaceful and just community.

The ceremony took place at the Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church.

The 2004 Honnorees: Rev. Dr. Paula Jackson The Reverend Dr. Paula Jackson (Mother Paula) has been Rector of the Church of Our Savior Episcopal Church in Mt. Auburn since 1986.

Under her leadership the congregation has become well known for its commitment to social justice issues. The church advocates for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons in the church and in the community at large and offers literacy education, outreach to Hispanic persons, a Black Women’s support group, and an HIV/AIDS support group.

Jim Lowenburg Jim Lowenburg is a powerful and effective leader who has had a major impact on a variety of efforts for social justice in Greater Cincinnati.

For many years, he was a driving force of Cincinnati’s Central American Task Force — raising funds for community-based efforts in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala and keeping Cincinnatians informed of events there. He was one of the founders of Peace Works, which connected international issues to those at home. And, it was Jim who brought local nonprofit leaders together to form a federation called Community Shares.

Rev. Rodney Sutton Rev. Sutton is active in the affairs of the United Church of Christ and is a strong voice for racial reconciliation and peace. He is a minister and youth leader working with lowincome African American youth from several neighborhoods throughout Cincinnati in his capacity as Director of the Racial Justice Youth Ministry of

Inwood Park - photo by Ben D. Boswell

photo by Jimmy Heath

Four Activists Honored with 2004 McCrackin Peace & Justice Award Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Once homeless himself, Rev. Sutton works with the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless and is a tireless advocate for the rights and dignity of the homeless.

Ruth (Cookie) Vogelpohl Cookie Vogelpohl’s work in feeding people in Rev. Maurice McCrackin Over-The-Rhine and the West End is legendary by her founding of Our Daily Bread nearly 20 years ago.

Our Daily Bread is a ministry of hospitality dedicated to serving the needs of neighborhood residents – providing shelter for the homeless, food for the hungry and socialization “Too many governments are for those who are alone. Cookie making informed, deliberate choices respects and supports the human that actually hurt childhood,” rights of all individuals, especially UNICEF Executive Director Carol those most in need.

Bellamy said in a statement released ahead of the launch of a report at the London School of Economics.

“Poverty doesn’t come from nowhere; war doesn’t come emerge from nothing; AIDS doesn’t spread by choice of its own. These are our choices.”

In ideal circumstances, childhood is the relatively short window within which society can provide a certain quality of life to build hope for a successful future.

But as the report argues, with over half the world’s children crippled by the toxic cocktail of HIV/AIDS, poverty and war, the world is failing to deliver on the promise of a happy childhood.

The report entitled “Childhood Under Threat” is a call to action for the world to harness whatever means necessary to do better for the future of our children.

Perhaps the most devastating attack on children and childhood is coming from the scourge of HIV/ AIDS and the huge spike in the number of children orphaned by AIDS. In just two years, 20012003, the number of children who had lost one or both parents due to AIDS rose from 11.5 million to 15 million, according to the report. Eight out of ten of the children who have been orphaned due to AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Working to stem the tide of infections and in helping to take care of the children that have been left behind is filled with tremendous challenges.

Streetvibes

Children under attack from AIDS, war, poverty

Page 13

I WANTED TO WRITE

Deer Skull Abbey of Gethsemani, December 2004

by Michael Henson I hike the trail to the second pond and find, in the snow, the skull of a deer, a doe, a young doe.

The bud of a molar still hides in her jaw.

A few black flakes of leaf cling to the butter-colored bone; some stamens of pine, some bits of earth lie within her vacant orifices and in the narrow flutes of her nostrils.

A treasure, I think.

So I start to walk her down the road that passes through the field of red winter grasses.

And I am startled, for I hear a chirruping, thin whistle, a sigh, an extended bleat.

A hawk? I think, a young hawk?

But the piping stops when I stop and starts again when I start.

And starts and stops again.

So I know: the wind I make by walking plays through those slender, piccolo nostrils.

And so she whistles me bleakly back to the house where I am staying.

There, I place her on the desk and study her closely.

I ponder the strange arabic interstices that knit together three plates of bone and the deep, sullen cavernous sockets that once held her eyes.

And it seems she watches me as I write and it seems she tells me, Your turn, some day.

And what she says is true.

For who am I? And what do I have for all my tinkering and complaint?

My worry and work?

All this heaving of animal breath in and out of my damp nostrils?

Nothing at all.

Only this breath that I catch from moment to moment.

Only this moment of body, this articulated stack of whistling bone.

I wanted to write but The pencil I was given had a broken point.

I wanted to write of my fear That the hatred of Palestinian children Will increase and more 13 year old girls In school uniforms will be Killed.

I wanted to write of my hope To see this vote as an affirmation Of the path of peace for our broken country.

Others

by Robert Manassa Lord, let me live form day to day, In such a forgetful way, That even when I kneel to pray, My prayer shall be for others.

Help me in all the work I do, Ever to be sincere and true, And know that all I do for thee, Must need be for others.

Let self be crucified and slain, And buried deep nor rise again, And may efforts be in vain, Unless they be for others.

And my work on earth is done, And my new work in heaven begun, May I for get the crown I’ve won, While thinking still of others.

Yes, of others Lord, yes others, Let this my motto be, Help me to live for others, That I may live with Thee.

I wanted to write with a pen Of love for My enemies.

I wanted to write of the shabby Trees that will need to be sold For Christmas.

I wanted to write of the blind That are leading one path to Healing.

I wanted to write of my admiration For the parents of soldiers caught In the web of service to a spoiled ideal.

I wanted to write of the hungry Who could not come for the free Meal of humiliation.

I wanted to write of those lost In the world of their own chaos Including my sense of humor.

I wanted to write to Jos, Nigeria And remind my brothers and sisters That the world watches and waits for peace.

I wanted to write to those children Outside the walls waiting to get in And share the joy of Binny, Amos and Katy In India.

I wanted to write to the families of Buenos Aires Who have eaten regularly only from nightly Trips to garbage cans and ask: “Where is Humberto?”

I wanted to write the Indonesian peace movement And remind them of my continuing love for their struggle To bring non-violence to the new democracy.

A Personal Darkness

I wanted to write Mary Ann of her beauty and Inner passion for love that bubbles forth from a body Without only legs.

by jh The rising voice speaks of a dreadful past, an anger that hides.

Lurking invisible, revealed by the press of a challenge.

The grown man, unborn, reeling from a personal darkness.

What is this presenting creature, who brings a hidden madness?

Ignored? Abused? Dominated?

The grown man, unborn, reeling from a personal darkness.

The tattered garments, the eyes, the anger.

A broken human, wanting to be heard, nothing more.

The grown man, unborn, reeling from a personal darkness.

The scars of a history in the hands, the broken nails.

The broken voice that swells but does not speak.

The grown man, unborn, reeling from a personal darkness.

Page 14

I wanted to write that my faith In people continues despite the swagger Of tyrants in my own heart.

Streetvibes

I wanted to write Duraid and Mama of my admiration For keeping the flag of peace waving Inside their beautiful hearts, our hearts as exiles.

I wanted to write Hans of my love For our German brothers and sisters Who continue to light the lamp of justice.

Unwritten Beatitudes 1. Blessed are the ignorant for they shall be taught.

2. Blessed are the humble for they shall be made proud 3. Blessed are the blind for they shall see 4. Blessed are the falsely accused for they shall exonerate 5. Blessed are the losers for they shall be triumphant 6. Blessed are those in tribulation for they shall experience bliss 7. Blessed are those in debt for they shall be forgiven 8. Blessed are those in prison for their minds shall be set free 9. Blessed are the addicted for they shall be made whole 10. Blessed are the impaired for they shall renewed 11. Blessed are the pacifists for they shall honored 12. Blessed are the powerless for they shall overcome 13. Blessed are the scared for they shall no longer doubt 14. Blessed are those who serve for they shall be served 15. Blessed are the undesirables for they shall find acceptance

By Club Quaker, Youth Group of Eastern Hills Friends Meeting: Jeremy Coppock, Nathan Coppock, Daniel Coppock, Daniel Montgomery, Grace Montgomery, Matt Whispe, and Jamie Pogue.

by Robert Manassa Heavenly Father up above Please protect the ones I love.

Guide them and keep them and let them know that I’ll always love them so.

I’m sending up this prayer, down on my knees Father God – all of my sins, forgive them please I’m not to proud to beg I’m standing on my last leg.

Precious Lord – please continue to hold my hand I need your help and grace to help me stand I need you not only for a day If these words are wrong in any way Then Father God – teach me how to pray

CHILD OF THE UNIVERSE I firmly believe that mother universe will provide all that I am in need of to sustain this life of mine.

Each of us can harness the talents and energies to accomplish everything we set for ourselves as a goal.

We are each in the space and place we belong in.

Where we are and where we are headed is already pre-destined.

It has been determined by the seeds we have sewn in this life and by those of the past. Its success depends on how well we attend to the crop we have planted within us. when in doubt we must speak truthfully.......in all matters love every one with a open hand......even when it is painful to do so ......look into tomorrow and do what is for the good of all.......including you.

Great care should be taken of what you manifest.

Do not speak or act anything negative into existence...Knowingly refrain from these activities.

A Servants Prayer

Shutter Speed

by Jimmy Heath

Writers!

Submit your Poetry to STREETVIBES Streetvibes@juno.com

Christmas Tree in Fulda Apartment Building Courtyard, Over-the-Rhine

Streetvibes

Page 15

357-4602

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

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

SHELTER: Both Anthony House (Youth)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Need Help or Want to Help?

MIDDLETOWN/HAMILTON (Butler County) St. Raphaels (Food Bank/Soup Kitchen) 863-3184 Salvation Army 863-1445 Serenity House Day Center 422-8555 Open Door Pantry 868-3276 New Life Baptist Mission (Soup Kitchen) 896-9800 Hope House (Homeless Families/Singles) 423-4673

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

Center 271-5501 Mary Magdalen House 721-4811 McMicken Dental Clinic 352-6363 Our Daily Bread 621-6364 Peaslee Neighborhood Center 621-5514 Project Connect Homeless Kids 357-5720 St. Vincent De Paul 562-8841 The Emergency Food Center 471-4357 Travelers Aid 721-7660 United Way 721-7900 VA Homeless 859-572-6226 Women Helping Women 872-9259

January 2005

Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless

Remembering Those Who have Died On The Streets

Homeless Memorial

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