Streetvibes August 2006 Edition

August 2006

STREETVIBES Cover Story

Day Labor in Cincinnati: A Portrait of Exploitation

They then work until 4:00pm,

by Georgine Getty, Executive Director, Greater often with no breaks. Workers Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless are also charged rent on any Day labor halls are this nation’s dirty little safety equipment (goggles, secret. Recently, the press has been filled with gloves, hardhats) they use, even if stories exploring the labor and exploitation of day this equipment is provided by the labor workers in such places as Los Angeles and contractor. At 4:00pm they clock New York. Often these discussions center around out and wait for the labor hall the issues of undocumented workers, but more civil transportation to pick them up. rights and labor groups have been focusing their attention on the fact that day laborers perform some They are not reimbursed for this time. Between 5:30 and 6:00pm, of the hardest, dirtiest work in this country for very the workers arrive back at the little pay and with almost none of the protections labor hall. If they are paid daily, that people with regular work enjoy. Across the they may wait several hours for country, groups supporting day labor workers, such their check. as the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, If at any time in this (NDLON) have begun giving a glimmer of hope to process the worker complains, he this invisible section of the workforce. or she may be blacklisted and will In Cincinnati, an estimated 500-600 men not be hired again. There is no and women work at these labor halls each day.

Day labor halls are usually located on major roads in grievance procedure for those who are blacklisted; they are poorer neighborhoods such as Over-the-Rhine. On simply never sent out again. The the surface, day labor halls seem fair enough: you next day, they wake up and start show up, they send you out to work, you get paid all over again. 7 days a week, the same day. However the devil is in the detail, people are working 12-14 hour and many labor halls violate both labor laws and days, and ending up with just human rights. enough in their pockets to keep To understand labor halls, it is helpful to them in poverty. It’s no wonder follow a day laborer through his or her day. They wake up at 4:00am and head to work. According to that the labor halls, when they find themselves short of workers, swing by local a 2001 study, Homeless in Cincinnati, an estimated shelters to recruit.

60% of homeless individuals work, often at day Another way to understand day labor is to labor halls; this means that a disproportionate talk directly to the people who work it. Derrick has amount of these workers wake up at a shelter or been working day labor for 3 or 4 years while he under a bridge, forgoing both sleep and breakfast to stays at the Drop Inn Center. He cleans the find work. Around 4:30am they arrive at the labor stadiums after the games, unloads trucks and sorts hall and wait for it to open. At 5:00am, employees garbage. His average day starts at 4 a.m. and goes show up to open the labor hall. Workers add their until 8p.m., when he is name to a list and wait in As a laborer for a temporary labor dropped off back at the the hall. These halls pool, you have certain rights; shelter with between $25 rarely provide bathrooms and $40 in his pocket. for workers, and if they You have the right to be paid a fair Thomas works do, they tend to be filthy wage; full time as a and harbor criminal maintenance manager at activity. At 6:30am, those McDonalds, but has who have shown up early You have a right to a safe workplace; worked day labor for 25 enough are sent out to You have a right not to be years to supplement his available jobs. At this discriminated against; income and keep from point, favoritism is becoming homeless. routinely shown to people You have a right to overtime, if you Thomas keeps a little who are known and liked qualify; notebook with him in by the dispatcher. Even which he interviews his more troubling, workers You have a right to be paid on time; fellow workers and are often selected solely chronicles the injustices based on race or gender.

You have a right to workers they face, such as being At 7:00am, the compensation if you are injured on charged for workers arrive at the the job. transportation that never workplace on the arrives to pick them up. substandard bus If you need help in getting what you As he puts it, “if you pay transportation mandated have a right to call John Lavelle at for transportation daily by the labor hall (for 421-7803, ext 16. for a year, that’s a down which the workers are payment for a car. If you charged $6.00 - $7.00, a pay it for 5 years, why, you’ve bought a car!” full hour of wages). They then wait until 8:00am to Further, most labor halls keep over 50% of the pay clock in. They are not paid for any of this time, yet they are required to be there. At 8:00am, they clock offered by the contractors, meaning that Thomas receives half of the money for his labor, and the in and begin work. Contracts vary from industrial work to shipping to picking through trash at a landfill labor hall receives the other half.

Randy had a good job with GM Motors to cleaning the baseball stadium after a Red’s game.

from 1977 until 1990, when his job was shipped out of the country and he was downsized. Randy’s been working day labor ever since. A certified welder, he’s worked on skyscrapers with workers who made $25 per hour for the same work for which he was paid $6.50 an hour. Unfortunately, Randy can’t work anymore since he was run over by a forklift at a day labor job site and his leg is failing to heal properly. He is currently trying to get disability and find an apartment.

A new collaboration of workers and faith and justice groups has formed called the Day Labor Organizing Project (DLOP). This group meets every Wednesday at 9:00am at Our Daily Bread, a local soup kitchen that many day laborers frequent.

According to Don Sherman, director of the Cincinnati Interfaith Worker’s Center, this group has three goals, “to educate the public about the abuses of day labors, to pass legislation so that day labor workers are protected by labor laws, and to create a non-profit labor hall so that the money earned by workers goes directly to the workers.”

In May, DLOP released its report card of local day labor halls. Volunteers interviewed over 100 day labor workers and asked them to rate the labor halls on issues such as wait times for work, failure to pay, lack of restrooms, unsafe transportation, unnecessary and superfluous fees, wrongful termination, harassment, refusal of permanent employment, and racial discrimination.

The highest rating went to CinTemp, who received a C. The lowest rating went to Labor Solutions, who received a D-.

“On top of low wages and long hours, day laborers are often subject to poor working conditions, harassment by labor hall staff members, and termination at any time for any reason,” states Don Sherman. “This is an unregulated industry that exploits the most vulnerable of populations.”

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 Monique Little - Education Coordinator Lynne Ausman - VISTA Gina King - VISTA Andy Freeze - Intern Andy Lawrence - AHA Coordinator John Lavelle - VISTA Melvin Williams - Reception Susan Smith - Volunteer Streetvibes Jimmy Heath, Editor

Photography Jimmy Heath

Cover Day Labor Office 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

Page 2

Blessing From The Edge

by Jimmy Heath It’s a hard lesson to be sure, When we see a person on the imagining yourself without the things we take for granted. But a moment street standing idle, holding a sign or shaking a paper cup for spare change of reflection as we pass this individual what do we see, what do we feel? Is might bring a sense of gratitude for even the simplest things in our lives. it possibly the reality of where our I guess we like “pleasant” lives could be that frightens us? things. Although I’m When we look not sure what that is at the dirty shoes and anymore. A nice meal, the torn clothes are we a home with a white terrified by this picket fence, a individual without a comfortable bed and a name because this could sympathetic social and be us, or are we governmental angered by a perception environment? And that challenges our own Jimmy Heath going to work every wealth and socially day, raising a family – things that are accepted norms – wealth and dignity “normal?” that certainly could be achieved by I think that for most homeless the panhandler if only he would people life is not miserable. Their life shave, dress up, and get a job? is manageable in a different and I think the homeless teach us unfamiliar way. They work together, a valuable lesson. Imagine that lonely, anonymous person shaking the share together and rise up together.

But it’s a life that can’t be cup on a downtown corner comfortable or predictable. bestowing on us a kind of miracle?

To visit a homeless That we are able to make it through encampment under a bridge or along life safely and with most of the things the river reveals our own we need in order to be comfortable. shortcomings as a sympathetic social Have you ever asked yourself, environment. The man and woman “There but for the Grace of God go who live outside choose the used and I?” Or do you swerve around this worn out barbeque grill as a stove phantom on the corner or cross the and tree limbs as clothes lines, but in street to avoid a lesson that we think our life we recoil in fear and disgust we don’t need or have the time for?

at the mere thought of living like that.

Sympathy and shame usually comes last, if at all. Most of the time we ignore it. It’s like much of what is missing in modern life. Connection.

Recognition. Simple kindness to a stranger. We will hold the door for a stranger and feel good about it, yet cower at the sight of a human we may not fully understand. The homeless are treated like lepers.

The homeless remain aliens in a hostile land - hanging on the fringes like 21st century garbage pickers or street urchins. Where did these people come from? What is at the root of their defiance and eccentricity? What happened in their lives that put them on the street?

In reality, they are givers of truth to those who pass by, if you step out of yourself for a moment.

When I wake up for the day ahead, I take the time to review this truth with gratitude. I thank my brothers and sisters living on the edge for reminding me of the joy in life; their lives, my life and the lives of people close to me. Underneath the concern I have for my friends on the street is remembering the glint in their eyes and the ready laugh. The carefree way in which they share their limited possessions. It is a blessing a sweet sorrow they bring to my heart. I wonder whose life is better.

SPCA visit upsets homeless dog-owner Canada - A homeless woman in Halifax is accusing the SPCA of discrimination after getting a visit from an investigator about her dog.

Maureen Chapman says the investigator approached her and other homeless people last month and explained the definition of animal cruelty before handing out instructions on how to build a dog house.

Chapman, who has lived on the streets for seven years and calls her dog her family, says she was insulted.

“He always eats, but I don’t always eat,” Chapman told CBC News while taking a break from cleaning car windows near Halifax’s busy Robie and Quinpool intersection.

“You can’t just discriminate against people who live on the streets because you assume they aren’t taking care of their dogs.”

Dorothy Patterson, a worker with the Ark Outreach Centre in Halifax, says the homeless people who visit her centre take good care of their dogs, even going so far as to make visits to the veterinarian.

“We know that our youth get their dogs shots and are well looked after,” Patterson said.

But the Nova Scotia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals spokeswoman Judith Gass says her group receives complaints every summer about homeless people and their dogs.

Gass says it’s the SPCA’s mandate to investigate accusations of cruelty, and denies Chapman is being unfairly targeted.

“We wouldn’t expect other people who are walking their dogs to have water and food with them at all times because they’re probably just out for a short jaunt and are going back home where they’re going to have plenty of water and food,” Gass said.

It’s unfair to keep a dog out in the sun all day without shelter, she added.

Gass says the SPCA’s investigators will keep making the rounds this summer to make sure that dogs are not mistreated.

Obit - Jim Orr

John Young, president of the Freestore/Foodbank, told the Cincinnati Enquirer that Orr was “considered a champion of individuals in the world for people who needed help. He was a strong force in addiction treatment.” He served on any number of boards and committees, including the Red Cross, Cincinnati Union Bethel, the Children’s Home, the Center for Comprehensive Addictions Treatment (CCAT), and Central Psychiatric Clinic (now the Crossroads Center).

As first president of the ADAS Board, he struggled to see that

indigent alcoholics and addicts could receive help. But he took a personal, up-close interest as well.

He was not afraid to enter the gloomiest tenement or the most wretched abandoned building to reach an addict in need of help.

He was especially remembered by the recovering community of the East End where, on Monday, July 17, members of the Home Boys (and Girls) group of Alcoholics Anonymous held a memorial meeting for “Old Man Orr.” One member recalled, “Jim always told us to remember what a great thing we have. He had a great capacity for love, a great capacity for joy. And he expressed that to everyone he met.”

Jim Orr, founding member of the Hamilton County Addiction Services board and its first president, died Friday, July 14, in the Beechwood Home in Hyde Park. He was 82.

Jim Orr, a combat veteran of World War II, was the heir to a family business, the Potter Shoe Store, and a life-long Jim Orr resident of Hyde Park.

He made many contributions to the Cincinnati community, but his deepest commitment, after his family, was to the poor and under-served, especially those who suffered from addiction.

Streetvibes

Homeless News Digest

Compiled by Jimmy Heath San Francisco. CA - Hamilton Family Center, the foremost organization providing shelter to homeless families in San Francisco, has started a new program designed to give rental assistance to as many as 70 families in the coming year to help them move into permanent housing.

The “First Avenues” program will provide each family with subsidies of about $500, as well as in-home counseling for core survival issues such as jobs and finances, said Suzanne Sheedy, Hamilton’s development director. About 60 percent of the program’s $900,000 budget will come from city funding.

Private organizations will provide the rest.

Mayor Gavin Newsom called the program a valuable new asset in his administration’s effort to provide permanent, counseling-enriched housing to the homeless instead of shelters or other temporary accommodations.

Las Vegas, NV - It’s a crackdown on the homeless. Last month, Las Vegas City Marshals again tried to clean up local parks and kick out everyone who has camped out.

It’s all part of an effort by the Mayor and City Council to clean up Huntridge Circle and Baker Parks.

Mayor Oscar Goodman watched as marshals made several arrests.

Three people were arrested for being at city parks before opening time. Five others were cited for trespassing on private property.

Marshals have also been training on a new ordinance that requires homeless people with mental illnesses to be hospitalized for three days.

Reno. NV - A homeless man died last month when he was hit by a train near the Tracy-Clark exit of Interstate 80.

The man was walking along the tracks about 1:30 p.m. south of the highway when the train hit him, the Storey County sheriff’s office said.

The man was dead when officials arrived.

Fingerprints will be used to identify the man, who carried no identification.

Langley, BC - Six homeless people are on the move after their camp was closed by police.

The path to the camp was lined with a string of plastic Canadian flags, strung from tree to tree within the dense cedar grove.

While the camp itself was a collection of tarps and tents, the inhabitants had tried to add some homey touches. Clocks were attached to poles, plastic and real houseplants stood here and there, and windchimes dangled from poles.

Laundry and bedding hung on clotheslines between the ramshackle structures.

There were also piles of garbage and discarded items stacked near the trail, including bicycle parts, chainsaws, plastic bags, luggage, children’s toys, a shop vac and propane tanks.

It was this garbage and the fires that led Langley RCMP to move in and close down the squatters camp evicting its homeless tenants.

“This is just bull—t. This is really hard on somebody. I’m not hurting nobody,” Joanne, one of the camp’s residents said as she packed up her personal belongings under the watchful eyes of police and bylaw officers.

Joanne, a 54-year-old who says she has lived in the clearing since last December, broke down in tears over the eviction while speaking to a community police officer.

A few moments later, she yelled that she would come back the next day and blow the whole place up with dynamite.

The property owner, the Township fire department and nearby residents were all concerned about the squatters living in the woods.

Smoke seen coming from the area led to the action, said the Township’s chief bylaw officer, Bill Storie.

“It wouldn’t take much for this to go up, it’s so dry,” said Storie.

Workers hauled the accumulated debris and garbage to the edge of the property. Joanne, the only one of the six residents present when reporters arrived, was frantically hauling away the things she needs.

She said she isn’t sure where she’ll go now, but she won’t go to a shelter.

Joanne has been living homeless for between two and a half and three years, she said.

“A miserable two and a half years,” she added.

Police tried to convince her to move into housing in Vancouver, where she could live with her two kittens, the orange Tigger and black Mishka.

Officers offered her a bus ticket to Ontario, where she has family, but she refused that as well.

Shawn McSweeney said he and another man visited the camp once, looking for a stolen barbecue.

They didn’t find it, and the only person there at the time was a man sitting in

a wheelchair, apparently high, McSweeney said.

Langley has no homeless shelter, yet the police estimate there are up to 70 people living on the street and in similar camps or squatting in abandoned buildings. The Salvation Army has estimated there are up to 100 homeless people in Langley.

In Jackson, MI, twenty homeless people were housed and fed at a gymnasium on the first night of a curfew Mayor Frank Melton ordered for the homeless.

A city transit bus picked up the homeless at Union Station in downtown Jackson and took them to the Champion Gymnasium at 1355 Hattiesburg St. There, snacks, pizza, milk and water were offered, and cots were lying against the wall.

“Nobody is going to hurt you,” said Melton, who had planned to spend the night at the gym. “We just need to know what to do to get close to you.”

Among them were Jonathan Graham, 17, who moved from Texas to Jackson two years ago to take care of his grandmother. After she died, he’s drifted around with no place to call home.

“I just want to do something with myself,” said Graham, before boarding the bus at Union Station.

“I’m ashamed of being here.”

Earlier in the day, Melton predicted about 50 or 60 homeless people would show up.

Melton had said he was including a 10 p.m. curfew for the homeless as part of a new state of emergency. The new proclamation also continues the juvenile curfew the mayor established June 22 with his first emergency proclamation.

The homeless curfew drew immediate complaint from the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition for the Homeless.

Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the group, said Melton’s plan criminalizes homelessness. “If the city of Jackson goes through with this, it will be the first curfew (on homeless people), the first law of its kind in the country,” he said.

Melton said those refusing to go to the gym would not be arrested.

The mayor said homeless people who refused to go risked being arrested on charges like loitering.

Melton said those who agree to spend the night in the gym will be fed and given a cot to sleep on. Social workers from the city’s Youth Services Division will gather basic information about the homeless people, including whether they have alcohol or drug problems or suffer from mental illness, he said. “We are going to try to get to the bottom of this,” he said.

Melton maintains that the effort will not cost the city money because he is going to have the homeless people who stay in the gym

Streetvibes

pick up litter and mow grass on public property. He said teams of workers will begin in the Washington Addition neighborhood.

“I don’t believe in a giveaway program,” he said. “People are going to have to earn their keep.”

Melton said the impetus for his plan came from his recent encounter with a 17-year-old homeless boy and out of concern from the business community over crimes linked to homeless people.

The mayor’s plan drew mixed reaction from some of the city’s homeless. Willie Rogers, a homeless man reeled on a pair of crutches, raised his voice to be heard over the crowd at the Daybreak Shelter on Pascagoula Street near Gallatin Street. “You know if you don’t pick up paper, you are going to be taken to jail,” he said.

Mike Thomas, the manager at Daybreak, a daytime shelter for homeless people, said some people are convinced the mayor’s offer is a trap. But he thinks it is a good start to address homelessness in the city.

Most shelters in the city require overnight residents to be inside by 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. Thomas said allowing homeless people until 10 p.m. to get to the gym gives some homeless people the flexibility to work a job and still have a place to sleep.

“If the men work until 7 p.m. or 8 p.m., they can’t get in there.

They are just out here on the street,” he said.

Another atypical feature of Melton’s plan is that the Champion Gymnasium will accept men and women. Most homeless shelters are strictly segregated by gender.

“There will be both females and males there for supervision, so that’s not going to be a problem,” the mayor said.

Ace Knox, a homeless man, said he thinks the city needs more shelter space for women. But he is not sure that the curfew is fair.

“It sounds a little bit like discrimination,” he said.

“Instead of rounding up homeless people and forcing them into a gym, the city should be tackling the root causes of homelessness and implementing its 10-year plan to end homelessness,” he said. “This curfew will only tarnish the reputation of Jackson as being a caring community.”

The details of Melton’s plan were developed in little more than 24 hours following a morning news conference. But Michael Raff, deputy director for the Department of Human and Cultural Services in Jackson, said it fits into the city’s 10year plan to end chronic homelessness.

“We’re trying to do things differently,” he said. The plan “calls for innovating ways to deal with this problem,” he said.

It already is a hit with some local business owners who are fed up with their shops being broken into.

Page 3

Dumfries Regrets Raid on Homeless Dumfries, VA - The tents erected in a tangle of woods were obviously illegal, their occupants no doubt squatters. But Dumfries officials say that although the police chief’s decision to dismantle a homeless camp — and toss out four men’s sparse belongings — may have been legal, it was not right.

The chief has been ordered to say he’s sorry.

“I don’t know what the ultimate answer is on how we deal with the homeless,” Dumfries Town Manager Dave Whitlow said yesterday.

“But it’s not going to be that we just push them out on the street and destroy what little they have.”

He told Police Chief Calvin L. Johnson to write a letter of apology and have his force “do whatever it takes” to replace some of the lost items — including birth certificates, military discharge papers and identification.

“What I have directed the police department to do is to make these people whole,” Whitlow said. “This is not the way we want to be known. This is not the way we want to act. That’s not to say I condone folks trespassing on private property, but I also believe we need to treat people with dignity and respect.”

The police chief was responding to a resident’s complaint last month when he ordered officers and public works employees to tear down

the camp, which was hidden on 27 wooded acres near Route 1, Whitlow said. A few of the men might have lived there for more than a year, he added.

Whitlow, who was on vacation at the time of the eviction, said his recent call for repentance had the full support of the Town Council.

Johnson’s office referred calls for comment to Whitlow.

Dumfries, at 1.63 square miles, is a smudge on the map. The town is about 35 miles from the District and just north of Quantico Marine Corps Base. About 5,000 people live there.

Already, community members have begun donating items such as a tent and clothes, and yesterday a police department employee ordered a birth certificate for one of the men, Whitlow said.

Frances Harris is the program director for Action in the Community Through Service, a Dumfries nonprofit group that the men sometimes have gone to for food. She said they showed up the morning after the camp was dismantled.

“They were upset. What bothered them most were the things that kept them in touch with the world, like phones and phone numbers for job opportunities,” she said. “One of the comments one of the gentlemen made was, ‘It’s not easy to live like this, but at this point, it’s the only option

Saving A Way Out of Poverty

Pitts (R-PA). If signed into law, this bill will allocate $1.2 billion over 10 years towards the creation of Individual Development Account (IDA) programs that will give lower income families and individuals an incentive to save money to put towards education, homeownership, and small businesses enterprises. Many supporters of IDA’s believe

(Street Sense, USA) The Savings for Working Families Act (H.R. 4751) was introduced to the House on February 14, 2006 by Representative Joseph

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we have.’ “ Along with the their belongings, “a piece of their dignity” was also tossed out, Harris said.

“When you have so little, everything you have is so important to you,” she said.

In the fiscal year that ended in June, about 8,400 people went to the organization — which serves eastern Prince William County — seeking food or financial assistance. Employees estimate that there are more than 500 homeless people countywide.

For someone already on the edge, the loss of a small item, such as a driver’s license, can be a heavy blow, Harris said. Some form of identification is needed even to use the organization’s food bank.

“If you lose your access to the world, your identification or your cellphone, where people can contact you, it is devastating,” she said. “And just the fact that someone comes in and destroys everything you have — and it was on purpose. It wasn’t the wind, the fire or the rain.”

Whitlow said he planned to meet with Johnson today to check on the apology. He has insisted that the apology be written — even if there is no fixed address to send it to.

Two of the displaced men have taken shelter at a local trailer park, officials said. The whereabouts of the other two were unknown. that the accounts will help to stabilize families and communities. An IDA is a tax-exempt account into which qualified financial institutions deposit funds that match the savings of an individual or family enrolled in the program dollar for dollar, up to $500 per person per year. Across the country there are around 50,000 IDAs that states and organizations have created to help citizens save money for certain qualified expenses including spending towards a home, a business and education. The $1.2 billion over 10 years that this act would allot to such accounts would make IDA’s available to 900,000 qualified US citizens. Enrolled citizens must be between 18 and 61 years of age, and must have incomes that do not exceed $20,000 for individuals, $30,000 for heads of households, and $40,000 for married couples.

The individual holding the account can withdraw funds from the IDA after accumulating the goal amount, and taking an educational finance course. Qualified financial institutions that offer IDA’s will receive a tax credit to cover the administrative costs and matching funds.

Crackdown on homeless

Only $15 We will send your Streetvibes T-shirt to your door All proceeds benefit the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless and the Streetvibes newspaper. Call 513.421.7803 Page 4

Streetvibes

Las Vegas - It was a crackdown on the homeless.

Last month, Las Vegas City Marshals again tryed to clean up local parks and kick out everyone who has camped out.

It’s all part of an effort by the Mayor and City Council to clean up Huntridge Circle and Baker Parks. Mayor Oscar Goodman watched Monday as marshals made several arrests.

Three people were arrested for being at city parks before opening time. Five others were cited for trespassing on private property.

Marshals have also been training on a new ordinance that requires homeless people with mental illnesses to be hospitalized for three days.

The Firecat Review

Firecats are poor. As such, when we take a break from fighting rampant injustice, we know where all the cool cats and kittens go to get their DVD’s: the library. You want to spend 25 bucks for a new release with your honey, pick up a CityBeat. You want the down and dirty on the slightly less-thannew fares from the best free resource in the ‘nasty?

Firecats got you covered.

Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005 starring Miranda July & John Hawkes) Review by Firecats Blue, Turquoise & Lavendar Irreverent, ironic and real, this movie is a firecat fave. This indie film was funny in a dry way, sweet in a dark way and realistic. The movie had the flavor of such films as American Beauty and judging by the sassy discussion that broke out in the firecat lair about it, it’s well worth seeing with someone you know and like to discuss with.

Paperclips (2004 – documentary) Review by Firecat Blue This documentary explores a small, rural town in Tennessee as they try to explain diversity to their

children. To accomplish this, they have the kids collect 6 million paperclips to understand how many Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust.

This touching documentary sometimes leaped a bit high on the saccharine chart, but frequently captured some very emotional moments. One firecat complaint: not enough interviews with the kids at the heart of this project, which made it seem a bit insincere in its efforts to teach said kids, however infectious the enthusiasm of the adult participants.

Where Are We? (1991 documentary – directed

by Jeffrey Friedman & Rob Epstein) Review by Firecat Blue This documentary can only be described as bad.

Not just bad, offensively bad. Friedman and Epstein, hot off the success of their actually good documentary, “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt” are way out of their element as they travel through small town southern America as selfdescribed “tourists in their own land.” Their condescending approach to the people they meet show in every face on camera as their subjects uncomfortably look off to the side and politely try

to get them to go away. Friedman and Epstein ooze the snootiness usually reserved for 19th century anthropologists as they uncover the surface obvious: small town southern America is full of poor people who are homophobic, watch NASCAR, are racist, have babies young, love Elvis, have crappy knick-knacks, etc.

Unfortunately, they are too busy kissing their own butts to ever present more than stereotypes as they literally pop in front of people’s faces and ask them idiotic personal questions such as “what’s your greatest fear?” and “how much money do you make?” The only exception to this is when they focus on closeted Marines or people suffering from AIDS, which they portray very well with depth and compassion because they actually took the time to.

Apparently the library also has books now, so in salute, a book review.

The 48 Laws of Power (written by Robert Greene) Review by Firecat Turquoise This book is a must read for everyone. Actually, those who are power hungry needn’t read the book – no doubt they’re already operating under the Laws. This book offers an understanding of the actions of those in positions of power and those trying to attain it. With laws such as “never outshine the master” and “play the perfect courtier,” The 48 Laws of Power teachers the different tools of manipulation. Coupled with historical anecdotes, this book is sure to delight the Machiavellian megalomaniac in us all.

Let’s call the homeless heroes

by Brent Bodowsky The parades are over, the fireworks are stilled, and the politicians have finished their July 4 rounds. Why don’t we begin, here and now, the moral equivalent of the Berlin airlift to mobilize support, education, voluntarism and fundraising for causes and groups that serve the homeless veterans of America?

Let’s call them the homeless heroes, and to paraphrase President Kennedy, who said that we must do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard, make this pledge: Within 100 days of the inaugural of the next American President resolve that there should not be one homeless or hungry veteran in America and resolve that our commitment moves beyond that day until we banish hunger and homelessness from the land.

If we stand for anything, we stand for this, and if we fight for this, we will mobilize old friends and win new friends in every military family and house of worship in America.

Let our opponents talk their trash of treason; our real response should be to reach out with our hearts and our help in the spirit of national unity, standing with our young men and women who serve with courage and valor before the parades begin, and after the fireworks end.

Every day stories are written about a new generation of homeless vets who return from Iraq, joining hundreds of thousands who are without homes today, from wars fought before.

There are stories of disabled vets who don’t get the full support they deserve, or face a benefit structure that is stingy and unworthy.

There are new cases of relapse of post traumatic stress disorder, from vets who suffered in previous wars and have their problem re-emerge more acutely with the headlines of news from

Iraq.

When I refer to a new Berlin airlift, I mean a wholehearted commitment beyond any level that exists today from Congress or the Bush Administration; efforts from entertainers to light the sky with their talent and call to action; new alliances between progressives and the blogosphere with groups such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, Vietnam Veterans and groups serving those who return from Iraq and Afghanistan.

When I refer to the “moral equivalent” of a new Berlin Airlift, I propose a reaching out to the great religions and religious leaders throughout America, where progressives, the blogosphere and entertainers cross the great divide of our national divisions and seek reconciliation, unity and reaching out to build There are alliances in common cause. stories of Why not a higher level of hearings in disabled vets Congress and far bolder who don’t get proposals from our political leaders? the full support Why not teach ins and seminars in our they deserve... colleges and universities inviting the vets, groups that support them and religious leaders who stand against homelessness to make their case and issue their call to action?

Why not a direct airlift of entertainers, through the USO and to communities across the nation, in a historic industry-wide commitment that builds on good work being done today and rises to higher and higher levels at a time when these vets genuinely need and deserve our help,

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and a grateful nation will join our efforts with pride?

Why not a one week national road show or tour with leading Democratic heroes in war, John Kerry, Jack Murtha, Bob Kerrey, John Glenn, Max Cleland, Daniel Inouye, Wes Clark where they travel by bus or train to the community centers, campuses, churches and synagogues of the nation to stir the conscience and rally the support of an America tired of the politics of anger, bitterness and partisanship?

Thomas Paine wrote, we have the power to remake the world. We, here, today, have the power to remake our politics into a united endeavor of shared patriotism and purpose. Let our opponents play their politics of fear and demonization; let our answer be the answer of the countless entertainers who fought the Second World War on the battlefield or toured the world in support of the effort; and let our answer be the answer of the 101st Airborne memorialized so brilliantly by Ambrose in his Band Of Brothers.

We should stand by our heroes, because it is right. The American people will stand with us, because they will know that we are right.

They are America’s homeless heroes, our neighbors and our cause, and we have the power lift them up, if only we care, and act.

With the moral equivalent of an airlift of hope and support to those who serve, we will seek to achieve a long overdue airlift of integrity and honor to our political system, based on the highest ideals and aspirations of our democracy.

The parades are over, the fireworks are stilled, and the politicians have finished their July 4 rounds. Why don’t we begin, here and now, the moral equivalent of the Berlin airlift to mobilize support, education, voluntarism and fundraising for causes and groups that serve the homeless veterans of America?

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Collaboration weaves stronger safety net for city’s homeless Portland, OR - A year and a half ago, the city and county unveiled a 10year plan to end homelessness. The loftiness of the goal captured the imagination of Portlanders, even as it also invited skepticism.

But as months pass, and more of the city’s homeless move into housing, some of the initial skepticism is fading. One impressive thing about the plan to end homelessness is that it keeps Portlanders focused on housing the homeless in the summer, too, not just in the winter, when most cities traditionally gear up their efforts.

For obvious reasons, bad weather may tug on a community’s heartstrings more, but the reality is that many homeless people are more visible and easier to reach in the warm-weather months. So any city serious about ending homelessness has to be actively engaged in that task all year long.

One bonus of having a plan is that it requires social service agencies

to coordinate their efforts, something many resist doing. The caliber of collaboration achieved under the plan will be on display Tuesday at Memorial Coliseum, where advocates are staging Project Homeless Families Connect, a day of one-stop assistance for homeless families.

On any given night, it’s estimated that 600 families, including 870 children, are living in relatives’ basements, cars, campgrounds, garages or somewhere else that doesn’t qualify as a home.

In January, advocates staged a similar day of assistance for chronically homeless adults.

Volunteers thought they’d be providing eyeglasses, shampoo, socks, dental referrals, diabetic screenings, legal help and lunch to 500 or 600 people. More than 1,000 turned up.

Sadly, only 900 could be helped. Those who showed up with their possessions in shopping carts

had their photos taken with the cart to reassure them that their things would be returned, once the event was over. What coaxed others into Memorial Coliseum that day was the promise of veterinary care. During the day, 23 dogs and five cats got vaccinations, new collars and leashes, and basic medical treatment.

Lessons learned from the event open a sad window on the hazards and humiliations of living on the street. For instance, apples aren’t the best choice for lunch, organizers reported, because so many homeless people have dental problems that make biting down on an apple painful. The pet area in the future needs to have “a stronger crate for pit bulls,” organizers reported. And “we should offer haircuts and wheelchair repair.”

But the main lesson distilled from the January event is the one advocates all over the city already knew: Homeless people need help, beginning with decent housing.

Thanks to the city-county plan to end homelessness, advocates have never had better data about homelessness, or better results.

Since the plan was launched a year and a half ago, 805 chronically homeless people have been placed in housing. In addition, 507 families have been placed. The goal for this year is to move 390 chronically homeless people into housing; 145 had moved in by the end of March.

The retention rate is running about 79 percent, which is not too bad, considering the health problems and other vulnerabilities that made some of these individuals homeless in the first place.

Some continued skepticism about the city-county plan is in order.

But it certainly appears that Portlanders have good reason to be hopeful. In galvanizing advocates, coordinating resources and moving the homeless into housing, the plan is slowly and steadily helping to end homelessness.

In Worcester, suit filed over library’s homeless policy Worcester, MA - First the city launched a campaign to stop panhandling, urging residents to give to charities, not the people shaking cups on street corners and sidewalks.

Then came a proposal for zoning restrictions to keep homeless shelters out of residential neighborhoods.

But when the Worcester Public Library cut the number of books homeless people could borrow to two at a time — as opposed to the 40 books other residents could check out — book lovers in the city’s shelters decided to fight back.

Last month, three homeless patrons of the library filed a class action lawsuit in US District Court, alleging that the policy violates their constitutional right to equal access to public services. The plaintiffs include a homeless couple whose 8-year-old daughter seeks out the latest Lemony Snicket adventures, and a woman who fled a home where she was the victim of domestic violence.

The lawsuit has struck a nerve in Worcester. Many residents said the policy runs counter to the library’s mission to serve less fortunate readers. Librarians across Massachusetts are also watching the lawsuit: Other public libraries, such as the ones in Springfield and Fitchburg, impose their own limits on the number of books homeless patrons can borrow.

“It just goes against the spirit of what our country was founded on and just goes against the spirit of libraries in general,” said Dave McMahon , who runs Dismas House, a transitional shelter in Worcester that houses 13 ex-convicts, including one

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man who volunteered at the city but said the policy had helped curb library. “They were founded as the problem institutions to level society so A towering structure of light everyone could have access to yellow stone, Worcester’s library is materials they wouldn’t otherwise the largest in Central Massachusetts, have, and I worry about our library boasting about 120,000 cardhere in Worcester moving away from carrying members, more than that.”

700,000 visitors a year, and a The city describes the collection of 900,000 books, videos, restrictions as a practical measure to audiocassettes, newspapers, and prevent the loss of library books. magazines.

“The Several policy was put “The policy was put in place dozen members in place are homeless, because we’re losing items because we’re Johnson said. losing items to Many come to to people where we could people where cool off in the we could not air-conditioned not track them down,” said track them confines of the Penelope B. Johnson , the down,” said library. Others Penelope B. read in the city’s head librarian.

“The Johnson , the stacks or leaf city’s head through library has a fiduciary librarian. “The newspapers. responsibility to make those library has a “They have fiduciary total access to resources available to responsibility to the resources in make those the library, they everyone and the rules we resources can use the set in place are to do that.” available to computers, they everyone and can use all the the rules we set in place are to do resources we have on the shelves, the that.” newspapers, whatever,” Johnson The seeds of Worcester’s said. battle were sewn two years ago, Librarians require everyone when a city librarian noticed that applying for a library card to show a many of the library’s missing books picture ID. If the street address had been loaned to people staying in matches that of a city shelter, the city’s shelters. Unable to find the librarians impose the two-book limit. offenders, the librarian proposed the “It’s certainly a rational two-book limit to the board of response to a non-returned book trustees, which approved the policy. problem,” said the city solicitor, Johnson said she did not have data David M. Moore. on how many books had been lost But earlier this year, Suzette over the years to homeless patrons, Lindgren and David Moyer, who live

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in a shelter in Worcester with their daughter, Taylor , 8, were “embarrassed” to have their living situation publicly disclosed during a library visit, according to court papers.

Aided by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, Lindgren and Moyer filed suit, along with a third plaintiff, a victim of domestic violence, named Jane Doe in court papers, who lives in a city shelter.

On the streets and in the stacks last month, homeless people and others expressed disdain for the two-book limit for homeless people.

Sympathy for the policy was in short supply.

“I believe this is just another one of those things people do to get rid of homeless people,” said Lionell Thompson , a volunteer at PIP, a shelter in Worcester. “Today it may be limiting the number of books they get and tomorrow it will be not allowing them in at all.”

Bo Bulger, 30, a Worcester computer technician who said he checks out about a dozen books a month to use for home schooling his children, bristled at the rule.

“I think it’s totally ridiculous to limit someone because they’re homeless,” he said. “You see signs around the library that panhandling is not allowed. Hopefully they allow an education for the homeless.”

Anthony Brown, a homeless man, called the limit unfair.

“I come here every day to read, and sometimes I check out a book or two,” Brown said. “And I always return them.”

Selling Big Issue Japan: It reminds me of the Joy of Working (The Big Issue Japan)

by Yuko Iijima The interviewer commented “When I talk to Big Issue vendors I sometimes forget that at night they have to go back to their beds on the cold road.”

Mr. Eiichi Matsumoto is fifty years old and sleeps in front of a shop near Kawasaki station, where even at night the street lights are so bright that the place is well lit. “Bright places are safer because attacks are less likely to occur, so I am relieved. I don’t feel particularly cold as I’ve quite got used to it,” said Mr. Matsumoto, laughing.

Matsumoto became a Big Issue seller about three months ago.

He avoids the morning rush hour, preferring to sell from 4.30- 6.30 in the evenings where he targets people around Kawasaki station who are shopping for dinner or businessmen going home. Although he stands there for only a short time every day, he sells as many as fifty or sixty copies a week, because he pinpoints this time for good sales.

“A magazine’s front cover is important. When I see the reactions of passersby to the front cover, I can tell whether the sales will be good or bad” he says.

Now he has regular customers who buy every issue and there are also passersby who hand him a hot drink. He says that such friendly relations warm his heart.

Matsumoto became a Big Issue seller after a member of the Kawasaki Patrol Group who help homeless people in Kawasaki, told him about it. Kawasaki Patrol Group regularly visit homeless people and open their office for homeless people to wash themselves and their clothes.

It is also where Big Issues are distributed. The group and the homeless people themselves voluntarily clean up the parks and collect illegally dumped garbage.

“When I come to the Patrol Group office I feel reassured because there are co-sellers there. When I have sold out my stock I borrow copies to sell. And we give each other coffee and help each other to sell.”

Mr. Matsumoto was born in Omiya city, the last child of a family of six. “I am the last child. My oldest brother was already married when I entered elementary school. When my brothers and sisters bullied me I used to run to my mother. Without asking them for reasons she scolded them. I was Mother’s Pet! “After graduating from Middle School, I got a job at a cardboard box company. I worked in the manufacturing and printing section. But after I had been working there for ten years I wanted to learn a

skill that could be recognized anywhere.”

After quitting, Masumoto trained himself to be a professional gardener, lodging in his boss’ house.

After a while, he decided he did not want to continue with gardening and went to work in his father’s business laying foundations for buildings under construction. “My elder brother, who is a carpenter, took over the business.

I stayed in my parents’ house but after they died I felt uncomfortable there so I left the house and started a job as a day laborer which provided me with lodgings. At that time the economy was much better than now.

Daily wages were high.”

He was dispatched to different sites and his lodgings

changed accordingly. He continued like this for more than ten years. After that, the Japanese economic bubble burst and jobs decreased. As he was approaching fifty his physical strength was diminishing so he could not get jobs easily. This is when he found himself on the street.

Kawaski city gives out meal tickets to homeless people.

Masumoto received some of these tickets which were a help for him. “It was not that I was unwilling to work and if I had had a chance I would have worked. Work makes me move my body.”

He said that he is better at listening to other people’s stories than telling his own. When he talks to customers he tends to show a bright

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attitude and use polite expressions.

“After I started to sell Big Issue Japan, the biggest change I made was checking my appearance in the mirror because I am an advertisement for Big Issue. My customers always look at me so I must at least keep myself clean… I keep myself clean shaven.”

In the near future Kawasaki city will stop giving out meal tickets but they will provide free lodgings for people on the streets. They also plan on introducing jobs, “This is a time to find a job. I want to work again.

Selling Big Issue reminds me of the joy of working and I want to continue to sell the Big Issue,” said Mr. Matsumoto, a big smile appearing behind his glasses.

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Raising minimum wage provides $1,520 more annually Washington, DC: Raising the federal minimum wage to $7.25 per hour over the next 26 months would increase the annual earnings of the average full-time, full-year, minimumwage worker by $1,520, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Last month Sen. Edward

Kennedy (D-MA) offered an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization bill that would increase the minimum wage from the current $5.15 per hour to $7.25.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) offered an amendment to raise the minimum wage in the House Appropriations Committee and it was

approved by a vote of 32-27. It is pending in the House now.

The federal minimum wage is at its lowest point in 50 years. Congress has not raised the minimum wage in a decade. As of December 2006, this will be the longest time Congress has ever gone without raising the minimum wage.

Raising the minimum wage is

only the first step in helping families to make ends meet. The substantial share of minimum wage workers are adults making significant contributions to the total family income. In the early 2000s, fewer than one-in-five minimum wage workers was under the age of 20 and half were between ages 25 and 54.

Fewer Middle-Class Neighborhoods as Poor and Rich Neighborhoods Grow floods local markets with new, everUntil last month, Jim and INDIANAPOLIS — Middle-class neighborhoods, long regarded as incubators for the American dream, are losing ground in cities across the country, shrinking at more than twice the rate of the middle class itself.

In their place, poor and rich neighborhoods are both on the rise, as cities and suburbs have become increasingly segregated by income, according to a Brookings Institution study released last month. It found that as a share of all urban and suburban neighborhoods, middleincome neighborhoods in the nation’s 100 largest metro areas have declined from 58 percent in 1970 to 41 percent in 2000.

Widening income inequality in the United States has been well documented in recent years, but the Brookings analysis of census data uncovered a much more accelerated decline in communities that house the middle class. It far outpaced the decline of seven percentage points between 1970 and 2000 in the proportion of middle-income families living in and around cities.

Middle-income neighborhoods are down 10 percent in the Washington area.

It’s happening, too, in this prosperous, mostly white middleincome Midwestern city where unemployment is low and a vibrant downtown has been preserved. As poor and rich neighborhoods proliferate, the share of middleincome neighborhoods in greater Indianapolis has dropped by 21 percent since 1970.

“No city in America has gotten more integrated by income in the last 30 years,” said Alan Berube, an urban demographer at Brookings who worked on the report.

“It means that if you are not living in one of the well-off areas, you are not going to have access to the same amenities — good schools and safe environment — that you could find 30 years ago,” he said.

“This is about upward mobility and class. Until the 1970s, middle-class blacks and other minorities often had little choice about where they could live,” said Kotkin, the author of “The City: A Global History.” He added: “They usually had to live close to lower-income people of their own race. Now, if they can afford it, they can move to higher-income neighborhoods.

Dollars trump race. Many choose not to live around poor people.”

“We are increasingly being bifurcated on an economic basis,” said Paul Ong, a professor of public affairs at the University of California at Los Angeles. “It has taken a big chunk out of the middle.”

In Los Angeles — the most hollowed-out metropolitan area in the country over the past three decades — the share of poor neighborhoods is up 10 percent, rich neighborhoods are up 14 percent and middle-income areas are down by 24 percent.

The Brookings study says that increased residential segregation by income can remove a fundamental rung from the nation’s ladder for social mobility: moderate-income neighborhoods with decent schools, nearby jobs, low crime and reliable services.

For people who do not want to put up with aging, troubled neighborhoods and have the means to do something about it, escape is remarkably easy — in Indianapolis and across much of the country.

The housing industry in the Midwest and the Northeast routinely

larger houses. In greater Indianapolis, more than 27,500 houses were constructed between 2000 and 2004, even though the population grew by only 3,000.

In the process, older houses and many older neighborhoods — such as McCray’s — have become as disposable as used cars.

In a pattern that is the mirror opposite of what is happening in the Midwest and Northeast, there is a chronic undersupply of housing in many cities on the West Coast. But it, too, has contributed to a decline of middle-income neighborhoods, said Berube, the Brookings demographer.

He said rapid population growth in cities such as Los Angeles and Seattle combines with rigid geographic and legal restraints on construction to limit housing supply.

In Los Angeles, for example, the population grew by 11 percent between 1990 and 2002, but the number of housing units increased by just 5 percent.

That has pushed up the price of housing in mixed-income neighborhoods. Gentrification often pushes the poor away to lessdesirable suburbs.

In Indianapolis, it is an abundance of housing that lures the middle class out of established neighborhoods.

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 Page 8

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Lynn Russell lived with their 1-yearold son, Adam, in a middle-income neighborhood called Irvington on the city’s near east side. The area of restored historic houses is 20 minutes by car from downtown, where they both work as bank executives.

But the Russells, who have another baby due in the fall, were worried about mediocre test scores at nearby public schools. They were also concerned about safety. A mass killing — seven people shot in their home — took place this month not far from their former house.

Carmel, where the Russells just bought a house, is not a close-in suburb. About 45 minutes north of downtown at rush hour, it is one of the fastest-growing communities in greater Indianapolis. Schools are among the best in Indiana, and housing is abundant and, by national standards, extremely affordable for professional couples. The Russells bought their four-bedroom house on half an acre for $230,000.

Urban planners complain that exurbs such as Carmel are bleeding cities of the middle class. But Jim Russell said he and his wife have made “the logical choice” by moving to an upper-income neighborhood that is safe, comfortable and better for their growing family.

NYC moves to break up homeless encampments

by Sara Kugler NEW YORK - Hundreds of homeless people living in encampments under highways and bridges and next to train trestles will be aggressively urged to leave the streets, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said last month The city’s Department of Homeless Services has found 73 areas — difficult to reach and mostly out of sight — where some 350 homeless people have set up encampments and communities. The majority are in Manhattan.

Outreach workers will

“humanely, respectfully and firmly” encourage them to stop living on the streets and take advantage of city services like housing assistance, substance treatment programs and shelters, the mayor said.

“We’re going to let them know that their days on the streets must come to an end, and we’ll secure and clean up the places where they’ve been bedding down to make sure that they won’t be occupied again,” Bloomberg said in a speech before the National Alliance to End Homelessness in Washington, D.C the text was given to reporters in New York.

The People’s Republic?

(Spare Change News, USA) The Cambridge, MA Police Department may have violated a street vendor’s First Amendment rights when they arrested him on June 13 and charged him with obstructing a Massachusetts Avenue sidewalk.

Gary Kibler, 54, a formerly homeless man who now lives in Allston, and his associate, Kenneth O’Brien, who is currently homeless, had set up a stand on the sidewalk in front of the Yenching Chinese restaurant and the J. August Company at 1324 Massachusetts Avenue, where, for approximately three hours that day, Kibler had been selling used books for $2 each to passersby.

At around 2 p.m., four Cambridge police officers, led by Sgt. Paul Oppedisano, approached the bookstand and told Kibler to dismantle the display. According to Kibler, one of the officers said he could move the stand to Central Square as an alternative location.

Kibler refused and was arrested at 2:14 p.m. for allegedly violating Subsection C of Cambridge City Code 12.08.020, according to a police report that was made out by Officer Darin Cromwell and obtained

by Spare Change News. Kibler was released later that day on $40 bail, with a court appointment the following day. At his arraignment, Kibler said he attempted to get the charges dismissed with prejudice, on the grounds that his right to free speech had been violated, even though his court-appointed defense lawyer attempted to get him to plead out of the charge. He refused, and was given until a hearing on June 19 to prove that the case should be dismissed.

He planned to do extensive research on his case over the weekend, but was apprehensive about his chances. “The burden of proof is on me,” Kibler said.

Subsection C, the ordinance under which Kibler was charged, states in part that “no permit shall be granted for encroachment of such merchandise, counter, platform or other apparatus or structure to exceed more than twenty-five percent of the width of the sidewalk.”

The table was set up next to a lamppost, directly in front of the street’s curb. According to measurements taken by SCN, the three-foot-wide table on which the books were located encompassed approximately nine percent of the 28and-a-half-foot sidewalk on which it stood.

The aforementioned charge is a civil violation, but Kibler was also charged with a criminal violation against “good order” under Chapter 272, Section 59 of the Massachusetts General Laws. The law allows police to arrest anyone who is in willful violation of a city or town ordinance without a warrant. Kibler, then, received a criminal violation for committing a civil offense in the city of Cambridge.

The second issue at hand, according to the vendor, is an alleged violation of his constitutional rights, under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to sell printed material in public without a permit.

Kibler and O’Brien made an arrangement whereby O’Brien procures the books, and Kibler acts as the vendor of the books. Kibler says he agreed to sell the books for O’Brien due to financial reasons.

“The basic reason I need extra income right now is for medical

An estimated 3,800 people live on New York’s streets and in its subways, according to 2006 figures from the city’s annual homeless head count. Officials say the number dropped from last year’s 4,400, and Bloomberg has set a goal of reducing it to 1,465 by the time he leaves office in 2009.

Thousands more homeless people stay in city shelters each night.

The most recent count, from a night last month 31,861.

Bloomberg aides said this new approach to homeless encampments will not involve law

enforcement, which has a controversial history in the city.

Bloomberg’s predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, was known for zerotolerance tactics that often involved threatening arrests and sending police to break up homeless communities.

The teams of outreach workers will not include police officers or anyone forcefully removing the homeless, mayoral aides said. They will make repeated visits to encampments with the goal of relocating people into assistance programs.

expenses, since Mass Medical doesn’t cover dental and I need extensive dental care,” Kibler said.

O’Brien, a native and homeless Cantabrigian, also has reasons for setting up the stand. “I’m trying to not have to panhandle anymore, and a book business might be a way out,” he said.

Kibler and O’Brien believe the First Amendment protects their right to sell books and other printed material in public without obtaining a permit. “Getting a permit is asking me to suppress my freedom of speech,” Kibler told SCN. There is precedent for this argument in New York City, where so-called “First Amendment vendors” sell merchandise related to the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment on the streets.

According to Sean Basinski, director of the Street Vendor Project in New York City, the First Amendment protects the right to distribute printed material such as books, and in New York City specifically, the law does not require “First Amendment vendors” to acquire a permit or license of any kind.

The same is true here, according to the Cambridge Licensing Commission.

“We tell people that you don’t need anything from us, if you’re selling things that are protected under the First Amendment,” said Elizabeth Lint, the CLC’s executive officer.

Jason Weeks, executive director of the Cambridge Arts Council, which licenses street performers and artists, agreed with Lint, and assumed that for a vendor selling books on the street, the only charge he could have brought against him would be for obstruction of a sidewalk.

“The understanding I have is that free speech includes books and flowers,” Weeks told SCN. Officer Frank Pasquarello, public information officer for the Cambridge Police Department, was not interested in debating the First Amendment.

“We don’t make the laws, we just enforce them,” he told SCN. Amanda Darling, marketing manager for the Harvard Book Store, which is located two blocks from Kibler’s stand, expressed sympathy for his arrest, but concern over future sales rivalries.

“If someone does have a permit to sell books on the street and they set up near our store, we are of course concerned about what is essentially new competition,” Darling wrote in an email to SCN. According to O’Brien and Kibler, the vendors, this is a developing issue. As soon as they are able to retrieve their books from the police, they plan to set up the table again – in the exact same location. O’Brien also alluded to an expansion.

“There are plans for at least two more tables in [Harvard] Square,” he told SCN. “My book table will be a hodge-podge of coffee table books and signed, first editions – what you would call an upper-end table.”

And the Cambridge police will be ready.

“We’d be more than happy to arrest him again,” said Officer Pasquarello.

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Gentrification - It Ain’t What You Think

by Jonathan Diskin, Professor and Thomas A. Dutton, Professor and Director, Miami University Center for Community Engagement in Over-the-Rhine

Any development in OTR will change the neighborhood, but gentrification systematically facilitates a ‘class transition’ that marginalizes current (and recently displaced) residents from decision-making processes, and from defining and capturing a fair share of the benefits of development.

Equitable community development, in contrast, focuses on development that, as its first priority, enhances the capabilities of existing residents and local institutions. Such e Equitable development certainly includes developing market-rate housing and homeownership opportunities, among other forms of housing differs in its organizing principle. The key tenet of equitable community development is to foster development that enables current residents to reap benefits they value and to be integrally involved in development decision-making. The focus is on fairness and on a sociallyjust distribution of benefits, supported by democratic involvement of local residents and community-based institutions with long ties to the neighborhood.

The problem with gentrification is not that it produces no benefits for low-income residents of OTR but that it does so in a way that fails the test of fairness, despite

Not so long ago Thomas Denhart controlled about a 1000 units of subsidized low-income housing in Over-the-Rhine (OTR), far more than all the community based non-profit housing groups in the neighborhood combined. So it was quite ironic to hear Mr. Denhart, in fine form and to great applause at an April 4th public meeting on development at Memorial Hall, extol the virtues of 3CDC’s market-rate housing based development strategy for OTR. It seems we are all for gentrification now.

We evoke Mr. Denhart because his comments convey, we believe, a commonsense consensus that market-rate housing and public spending that draws wealthier residents to OTR should be favored above all other forms of investment as the paths to a mixed-income neighborhood. This is a strange moment in Cincinnati, where terms such as “mixed-income housing” and “economic mix” enjoy near-universal purchase across a multitude of competing interests and groups. Yet their meanings are loose and slippery, allowing gentrification to be pursued at all costs as a Over-the-Rhine has the capacity to strategy to address povertystricken communities of color honor the history of its current like Over-the-Rhine, “impacted” by a “concentration” of lowresidents; to stay focused on income housing and social services. defining and distributing benefits Our concern is that a failure to distinguish between of development in ways that help alternative forms of development will lead, by local residents and institutions default, to development via gentrification as services and develop their capacities more fully. subsidies for wealthier inmigrants to OTR squeeze out services and subsidies for current lower-income residents. the intention of those who see it as Already a good amount of policy, the best way to help the poor in investment spending, and marketing OTR. For decades inner-city and planning rhetoric favor neighborhoods in the industrialized development by gentrification. We cityscapes of the United States have our doubts about the presumed suffered from middle-class out congruence between gentrification migration, job loss, segregation, and mixed-income development, and increased homelessness, in-migration argue for a more inclusive and fair of poorer populations zoned and conception and practice of discriminated out of other development in OTR. Fairness and neighborhoods, the fiscal pressures of inclusion are not automatically an aging infrastructure and declining delivered by gentrification. tax bases, and city neglect. Public In general terms, we define and private investments focusing gentrification as development that bringing new, market-rate residents to privileges the interests of new OTR will likely increase amenities residents over those of existing ones and safety for all residents of OTR. by targeting subsidies, public policy These are real benefits, but incentives, public service amenities, the extent to which the poor enjoy and marketing-rhetoric toward them, they are spillover effects of higher-income potential residents and investments and policy changes those who develop market-rate directed principally at new, higher housing. income and higher status residents.

They are benefits that only trickle down—what the late John Kenneth Galbraith defined as “feeding the sparrows through the horses.”

Because gentrification is, by definition, a strategy focused on providing incentives to new residents and those who facilitate their inmigration, it of necessity directs primary benefits to those new residents and their agents. It does not provide a fair share of benefits to existing residents who receive only general, indirect benefits by virtue of sharing the neighborhood space.

They are to consider themselves lucky bystanders to a process that has little to do with them directly.

The problem here is not only the distribution of the benefits of new investment, but the types of benefits that are dictated by the needs of new residents. Thus, resources needed by existing residents to improve their lives, to enhance their own development and that of local institutions are forced back in the queue, behind the requirements of those who are positioned as the “right stuff” to lift up the neighborhood. The message to long-time, low-income residents is, you will benefit in the longer run as those who are already more prosperous than you, get direct benefits and subsidies simply because they move to your neighborhood.

Gentrification has indeed become the dominant logic of development in OTR though the term itself is not embraced by key players.

From Cincinnati’s “Housing Impaction Ordinance” that pressures all new development to be marketrate, to 3CDC’s focus on marketrate development, to the punitive efforts to control and police poverty and homelessness through the Panhandling Licensing process we see that almost all the eggs of public policy, public-private investment, and the rhetoric of development are in the basket of market-rate development.

Coupled with the decline in buildingbased Section 8 and the more restrictive environment for producing low-income housing, a clear shift has been effected toward a development by gentrification strategy.

Toward More Equity As gentrification becomes more pervasive and property values in OTR rise, there will be marketbased displacement as rents rise.

Housing and land markets tend to cluster uses by income, taste, and function. Markets segregate uses in space and thus are very unlikely to produce a mixed-income neighborhood except as a brief transitional form. We are not against private investment and market activity in OTR. But a sustainable mixedincome neighborhood requires that markets and private activity be balanced with public policy, continuing housing subsidies, and a longer range set of mechanisms for

equity and mixed-income. Again, prices, in time, will mitigate against an economically diverse OTR and it is incumbent on all who value diversity to plan for diversity even while private market activity is increasing and playing an important role in bringing investment to OTR. If central city land values rise and OTR becomes the ‘bohemian’ or ‘chic’ neighborhood that, development boosters have long envisioned, OTR will be reduced to a few “lifestyle” enclaves for those who like some aspects of urban life, but who want to organize a sanitized public realm and be protected from unpleasant public experiences.

Further, we cannot leave questions of equity and fairness to a point later-on in the development process. In the future, there will too many “facts of the ground,” as the Israeli’s say about their developments on occupied territory, too many entrenched interests to change the rules of the game. Finally, it is important to recognize that many, too many, people in the United States cannot afford housing (and other goods) on their income. Thus we should honor, not denigrate mercilessly, the tradition of selforganization and outreach to the least well-off among us in OTR. Markets are powerful incentive directing guides, but an equitable, diverse OTR that honors its recent past must be a mix of market and non-market forms of housing and uses of space. It is important at the outset to pay close attention to what development with equity entails and to build it into the ground rules.

Over-the-Rhine has the capacity to honor the history of its current residents; to stay focused on defining and distributing benefits of development in ways that help local residents and institutions develop their capacities more fully. To achieve this rare, worthy outcome, we must have clarity about our intentions as well as specific and thoughtful mechanisms for defining and distributing benefits of development. This requires public and private leadership. This prospect for a sustainable, diverse neighborhood will be lost if we rely on boosting markets alone and simply keep our fingers crossed that everyone’s interests will be served in the end.

It is important to recognize that public policy and the state in all its functions operates today in a more global and a more ‘neoliberal’ context than in the past. Today the state, at all levels, is under pressure to privatize assets, and, as geographer Neil Smith argues about national states, to reframe “themselves as purer, territorially rooted economic actors in and of the market, rather than as external complements of it.”

The transformation of state and local governments in the above directions does not bode well for areas like Over-the-Rhine. Can cities

Cont. Next Page...

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in today’s global conditions protect mixed-income neighborhood is those most marginalized or who have rooted in this possibility of a plural fallen below the reach of the market? public space not completely managed The evidence does not suggest so. by commercial interests, a space As global forces play themselves out where strangers mix and create in the United States, “urban policy no something unique and unscripted. longer aspires to guide or regulate the This is part of the reason why any direction of economic growth so reasonable strategy for development much as to fit itself to the grooves in OTR should encourage new already established by the market in residents from diverse backgrounds. search of the highest returns, either We would add, however, that the directly or in terms of tax receipts” (Smith). Thus in Cincinnati, like many cities, “realestate development becomes a centerpiece of the city’s productive economy” (Smith), facilitated by a new integration of state and corporate powers. This is not a case of the state withering in the face of the market. The state is acting Over-the-Rhine, Winter and asserting itself, but according to a market logic benefits of a more diverse OTR, of itself, resulting in what sociologist publicity, of living in a stimulating, Andrew Barlow calls “the private pluralist place, are benefits equally investment state.” valuable to existing residents. If Such trends make poverty in existing residents and local institutions the US intractable, where “poor are squeezed out or culturally and people find themselves cut off from economically marginalized as the entry-level jobs, stripped of condition for development, their government social services like health interests will have been sacrificed so care and housing subsidies, and others can leverage property values. forced to endure horrific conditions in The Future? crumbling public schools, all under In five to ten years we hope the mounting presence of police and to see in Over-the-Rhine a truly prisons” (Barlow). As these diverse mixture of peoples, cultures, conditions worsen, an increased classes, and races, living within reliance on the use of repressive conventional and alternative forms of force, such as the military, the police, property tenure, from market-rate and prisons will ensue in order “to condos to below-market apartments maintain social order and to manage to cooperatives to renter-equity those without a stake in the global programs, with business and economy” (Barlow). entrepreneurial enterprises that cater The increase in inequality in to a spectrum of incomes and tastes. the United States and the use of While we understand the drive for repressive force indicate, as more market-rate housing and do geographer Don Mitchell notes, a indeed see it as one element of priority for order over the right to be equitable development in OTR, we in public, and that it is a difficult time caution against market-rate to call the state to its more humane, development has become an end in inclusive functions. But the itself. We do not believe that markets importance of truly plural public will produce the diversity and spaces, a precious resource in economic mix so widely claimed as a today’s world, demands it. We hope common goal. to avoid what scholar Henry Giroux We challenge 3CDC and city calls the “corporatization of civil officials to make equity for all in OTR society”, wherein the commons, more than rhetoric and to make it the public realm, and a democratic guiding principle of development sphere vital for fostering public strategy, backed by real practices debate are severely diminished by and programs. Market-rate housing commercialization. will be part of the package, but must Ironically, we believe that not become an end in itself that part of the appeal of OTR as a obscures our focus on defining and

allocating benefits of development in a way that enlarges the capacities of local residents and organizations.

In order for development to be equitable, we would need an accounting and monitoring system that tracks the rise and fall of property values and demographics in the neighborhood in order to ensure a just distribution of benefits from development and to avoid a

strengthening democracy are also first principles here. To that end we can make sure that people have a voice in defining the nature and distribution of benefits that are likely to flow from development, including increased property values. As Policy Link puts it, equitable development connects the quest for full racial inclusion and participation to local, metropolitan, and regional planning and

photo by Jimmy Heath

patchwork of wealthy, isolated enclaves amid deep poverty in OTR. In addition to a serious effort to gather information to inform decisions, we need to be able to direct some of the benefits of rising property values, local incomes, and investment opportunities to local residents.

Policy Link, a nonprofit research and capacity building organization that consulted with the OTR Comprehensive Plan working groups in 2002, has compiled an impressive database on equitable development policies and practices.

Their ‘best practices’ focus on multiple forms of land tenure, including land banks, cooperative housing, and public policy that puts teeth into anti-displacement without deterring private investment (www.policylink.org).

We must not be shy about advocating for substantial housing subsidies and land that will not circulate on the market. We need a mix of market and non-market, and the creation of a public space that recognizes the contribution and legitimate right to belong for existing residents. This is especially important as substantial numbers of Section 8 buildings are converted to marketrate and the environment for building new low-income housing gets tougher and tougher. The guidelines for a mixed income neighborhood agreed to in OTR Comprehensive Plan are useful in this respect.

Increasing transparency and

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development. It is grounded in four guiding principles: the integration of people and place strategies; reduction of local and regional disparities; promotion of “double bottom line” investments; and inclusion of meaningful community voice, participation, and leadership (http://www.policylink.org/ EquitableDevelopment/default.html#).

This is a big challenge, but the possibility exists to guide the market and to create a diverse, plural public space, few of which exist anywhere in the world. The fact that our real-estate market is not subject to the same kind of insane bubble as in other places gives us the hope of proceeding in a more thoughtful way to both encourage the benefits of market development while not allowing market incentives to resegregate the neighborhood along class lines. The older mix that cities used to support is a relic of an economic structure whose time has come and gone. We can work toward a new, 21st century mix. We will only get there if we are clear that we must be inclusive from the beginning and not postpone benefits for long suffering residents of OTR until some future moment when the market has done its work.

Buy Streetvibes Page 11

Streetvibes Vendor Code of Conduct All Vendors Sign and Agree to a Code of Conduct Report Any Violations to GCCH - 421-7803 1. Streetvibes will be distributed 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 25 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 go to the individual vendor.

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

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: 75 Cents (75 cent profit goes directly to the vendor)

Homeless Coalition

25 Cents

Printing and Production: 25 cents (this cost does not cover expenses)

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About the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless and Streetvibes.... earned. This program has helped 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 selfsufficiency 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

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

On the other hand, Streetvibes is an award-winning alternative newspaper and part of the international street newspaper movement. Focusing on homelessness and social justice issues, Streetvibes reports the often-invisible story of poverty in our community. Streetvibes is also proud to include creative writing, poetry, articles, photography and interviews written by homeless and formerly homeless individuals. Streetvibes enjoys a loyal reader base that respects the honest portrayal of the joys, sorrows, and challenges facing the people of Cincinnati.

Streetvibes is a member of the:

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

Where Your Dollar Goes...

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

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

Streetvibes

Homeless Man Stabbed Multiple Times Houston, TX - A homeless man was stabbed multiple times in southwest Harris County.

Deputies said the 54-yearold man was attacked under a bridge on Alief Clodine Road near Highway 6 at about 10:30 p.m.

Sunday.

Officials said the man walked to a convenience store on Highway 6 near West Bend Drive where he collapsed.

The man was taken by helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital. Officials said he is in serious condition.

No arrests have been made.

Action on the Minimum Wage in the Senate and the House Coalition on Human Needs, Wasington, DC In the Senate. More than 80 percent of Americans favor increasing the minimum wage to $7.15 an hour and a majority live in the 20 states that have raised the minimum wage above the federal $5.15. Despite this overwhelming support, two separate amendments to raise the minimum wage in the Senate were defeated on June 21. Both amendments were offered during consideration of the Defense Authorization bill. According to pre-determined procedures, both would have required 60 votes for passage. The first, proposed by Senator Kennedy (D-MA), was voted down 52-46. The second amendment, proposed by Senator Enzi (R-WY), failed 45-53.

The amendment proposed by Senator Kennedy would have raised the minimum wage to $7.25 over the next two years, an increase of $2.10 above the current federal minimum wage of $5.15. Kennedy’s amendment would also have extended the minimum wage requirement to the US territory of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which is currently

exempt from the requirement and has a minimum wage of $3.15. Eight Republicans joined all of the Democrats in supporting the amendment.

Senator Enzi’s amendment would have increased the minimum wage only to $6.25, and also included “poison pills” that would undermine worker rights and reduce incomes. The Enzi amendment eroded the Fair Labor Standards Act by ending protections for the 40-hour work week. Employers would be allowed to avoid paying overtime if two weeks of work did not exceed 80 hours, even though employees worked more than 40 hours in one of the weeks. In addition, Enzi’s amendment undermined the minimum wage tip credit.

According to Senate reports, Senator Kennedy will try to add his amendment to other legislation moving through the Senate sometime this year.

In the House. An amendment to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 over the next two years was added to the House Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill in the full committee on June 13. Rep. Hoyer

(D-MD) proposed the amendment, which passed by a vote of 32-27 with the support of 7 Republicans.

The addition of the minimum wage provision and disputes over funding levels has stalled the bill.

On June 22, in an effort to get a minimum wage vote on the House floor, Democrats attempted to add the amendment to another appropriations bill: for Science/State/ Justice/Commerce. This time the Republicans who’d supported the amendment on the earlier bill withdrew their support. The amendment failed, and the bill went to the floor without the minimum wage provision. However, on June 28 when the bill came to the floor, Rep. Obey (D-WI) offered an amendment to raise the minimum wage to $7.25

by January 2009. Obey withdrew the amendment under objections that it violated the House rules for legislating changes on an unrelated spending bill. The strategy of the House Democratic leadership is to continue using appropriations bills and votes on the rules setting the parameters for their consideration as mechanisms for bringing up the minimum wage.

In other action related to the minimum wage, during House consideration of the estate tax bill on June 22, House Minority Leader Pelosi (D-CA) raised a procedural issue saying, “It is inappropriate to consider this bill until the Republican leadership schedules a vote on an increase in the minimum wage, which they are now blocking.” A vote was then taken to block proceeding with the estate tax vote. It failed 182236. All but ten of the Democrats present voted for the Pelosi motion.

No Republicans voted with her.

House Majority Leader Boehner (R-OH), in reversing an earlier statement, said that the minimum wage would come up for a vote in the House this year. The Democratic leaders believe that if a Republican bill does come up it will be similar to the Enzi bill offered in the Senate.

For more information, see “Most Americans Now Live in States That Have Raised the Wage Floor” by Michael Dimock, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, April 19, 2006

On the Road: ‘Birmingham Battles’

by August Mallory (Street Sense, USA) (August Mallory, one of Street Sense’s vendors is visiting other cities in the USA. He writes about the homeless situation there and his personal encounters.)

As I begin this story from Birmingham, Alabama, I must explain why I focus on issues in the Deep South, where homelessness and poverty rank the highest in the nation.

As one gentleman once explained to me, it’s the Jim Crow attitude that is still there, only it is institutionalized now.

As much as I try to understand the hardships that the homeless in our nation face, I still cannot believe the hatred and discontent and the insulting behavior and the grudges that the homeless have toward one another.

It is early Saturday afternoon and as I make my way to the Jimmie Hale Mission, in downtown Birmingham, I see many homeless men sitting around outside, waiting to check in. So I decided to wait with them, and I have a good conversation with a few of them. I was expecting to hear quite a few rude and arrogant remarks, but believe it or not, these men were quite polite and friendly.

But many expressed their anger and frustration at the system that was supposed to assist them but only drove them deeper into the rut they were already in.

And it is this matter of red tape and bureaucratic behavior by the city and the federal government, in the Deep South, that triggers the

hostile grudge against the system and toward each other.

As dinnertime rolls around, I listen to some of the men talk about how they are harassed by the local police, who do body searches. One man was telling how he was just standing talking to two other men and a patrol car pulls up on him and the officer gets out and demands ID because he was wearing military-type fatigues. The officer wanted to find out if he was AWOL. I don’t know where that officer had been the last several years, but the military no longer uses the phrase absent without leave. You are now considered an UA – an unauthorized absentee. Police departments take note of this!

Update your information!

However, moving on, after dinner we prepared to bed down for the night, and after the lights were out, it is still chatter, chatter, chatter, until a staff person orders us all to keep it quite. Finally, silence.

The next morning is Sunday, and I am very anxious to see the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. I make my way to Kelly Ingram Park, and I spot the church. For those who are not familiar with the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, this is the church that was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan on Sunday, September 15, 1963. Four young girls died in the bombing. As I was speaking with an older gentleman there, he gave me the details. He saw the whole incident. As I look around the park, I notice a marble and bronze statue

Georgia: the three cities in the south of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. I that were the center of attention end my conversation with this man, during the civil rights years. and he directs me back downtown, I am thinking today that to the corner of 19th Avenue North. despite the laws that were passed There was a reason to go there. On during those days and after, why May 14, 1961, civil rights freedom haven’t conditions for the homeless riders were enroute from Washington improved? I guess it still goes back to New Orleans to protest against to institutionalized Jim Crow. To court ruling that decreed that a bury the racist past of Birmingham segregated public transportation was and places elsewhere will take much not unconstitutional, it was ok. They work. For America to become a were met by the Ku Klux Klan and whole Nation will take much work. mobbed, beaten and kicked savagely For America to care for its poor and while the Birmingham police just homeless will take even more work. stood by and watched.

American says it a caring nation, and As I am reading a memorial if this is true, then let’s show it. plaque on the site, a woman shouts This is my story from out and says, “I remember that!” I Birmingham. nearly jump out of my skin, and as I turn to face her, I Survey Participants Wanted ask, “do you remember this?” She says that she was You are invited to participate 19 years old when it in a brief survey on hate happened, and she was crimes and violence against proud of all the students. homeless persons. Go to: They stood their ground well. http:// She goes over all the details of that day in 1963. I just www.surveymonkey.com/ take a deep breath and s.asp?u=870921968238Y silently thank those students Your input will help the for their courage.

National Coalition for the And I thank that lady for her information, and make Homeless direct our advocacy efforts. The results of this national my way to the Brother Bryan Mission to chat with people survey will be released to general there. But enroute I meet public and media in late August. another homeless gentleman Please contact NCH for information who told me more of the concerning the rising incidents of horrifying events that took hates crimes and violence against place in the 1960s in homeless persons at Birmingham, Montgomery, www.nationalhomeless.org Alabama, and Atlanta,

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Under The Sun Jonah in Nevada

by Bernard Howard

He did not go to Nineveh.

He went instead to the west.

When the bus broke down outside of Reno, he took that for a sign and hitchhiked into the city.

Two beers, four beers, he watched the work of the strippers.

Six beers, eight, he had become such a curse a pair of bouncers grabbed him at each arm and launched him into the street.

Ten beers, a dozen and he was swallowed by oblivion and lay cramped in the belly of amnesia for three days.

He woke in the desert with the sun straight above him like a spike.

His skull was drumming and his mouth was caked with salt.

His backpack had been stolen and some fist had gifted him with bruises above his eye and in the arcades of his ribs.

His face and arms were blistered by the withering sun.

He stared at the empty road and tried to conjure which way would take him back to where he had derailed.

Aching, broke,

I hate the sun I love the rain.

To soak in water not bake in sweat.

I feel the rain when it’s falling down.

Despise the heat that you bring around.

We have no grounds in common to relate.

Your lighted cycle only seems to burn.

Like rain drops I have fell in life.

Some drops were short and others were long.

Seems like you rise when things are bad.

To show a hatred or make me sad.

But my thoughts are much bigger than you.

I can ignore everything you try and prove.

Sometimes I fall, but when I rise.

It’s not the sun that I despise.

I wish our views could share a start.

To answer the reason we can’t get along.

Beneath the Surface

Homeless

by Octavia I am hungry and cold I wonder will I get a home I hear my family laughing I see food on the table

One check away

by James Chionsini twinkling stars can’t keep you warm when you’re sleeping in the park till he break of dawn newspaper pillow and a plastic tarp watching for he pigs that come out after dark

I want a nice little home I am hungry and cold

I pretend to sleep in a bed

lost your job got jacked and robbed your landlord said that’s not my prob doctor bills kill you can’t afford the pills now you’re shaking heart breaking drink as much as you spill

I feel warm covers

waiting on the first to quench your thirst alleviate the discomfort of an asphalt earth trying to find a shelter to get some rest but nowhere seems safe without a knife proof vest

I cry because I don’t have a home

if you could just get back to square one start to heal the disease that’s got you on the run feeling invisible going insane scowls and nightsticks fall like rain

I touch the bed I lie in I worry will I ever get a home

I am hungry and cold

I understand I don’t have a home I say I will get a home I dream to have a home I cry because I have don’t have a home I try to visualize a home I hope I get a home I am hungry and cold

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Streetvibes

by Renee Hoboken is a city of beauty and at night it is a city of lights. Beneath all the beauty and lights it is a city full of people who are striving to survive, who have lost all hope with the system and only find strength in those who can relate or those who are in the same situation or predicament and find comfort in knowing that they are not alone no matter how lost, lonely or forgotten they may be.

Life Story

by Cleon (Pee Wee) Hughes I remember when I was young I did some things I should not have done You must understand it was hard for me Cuz there were no presents under my tree.

Just bills unpaid, starving for days and My grades were far from A’s Being a thief just to eat What would you do if you were me?

Made it to Jr. High, I don’t know how I done that.

I guess my teacher didn’t want Me to come back.

Shoes was bummy, Shirt was too That’s when I started hangin With a hungry Crew.

First it was steal’n Then drug deal’n And in the 10th grade I was mak’n a kill’n Cuz I remember starving at night Now there’s steak With the beans and rice Now there’s Guess Jeans And fresh K-Swiss And being broke, man I do not miss My Mom used to say Have faith in Jesus OK then, Why did Daddy leave us?

It’s hard to have faith When you’re stuck in the moment And on top of that My feet kept grow’n Put the drugs down And pick up a book Take a look around I mean take a GOOD look I really think there is something miss’n Cuz don’t nobody look up to a politician How bout the pastor?

Going to church, people just laugh at cha Then a man stepped in my life And this man was for real You don’t have to do dirt Cuz you was dealt a raw deal He said you’re just like a puppy You been led astray Here read this book And it will show you the way Now I’m 35 And have new beliefs Jesus paid for my sins And I have the receipt

Understand

Walking Through Paradise with a Friend Who Doesn’t Believe

by Robert Leech

by Leo Luke Marcello

It would be so damn cool to live underground Where no liquor store, gun runner or dope dealer can be found No electricity, no sunlight to brighten your day Just the dim lights of candles to show you the way No worrying about gung-ho police, or crossing the street No sense of direction, you just follow your feet No more bullshit government, or the president’s lies You just go from tunnel to tunnel as time flies And what do you do when you come to a dead end?

It’s simple, you just turn around and start the same process over again All this sounds weird, and you wonder where it will stop But soon as your ass get hungry, you’ll find your way to the top I guess some people say living underground is real cool But if you think you can do it without coming to the top You are the world’s biggest damn fool.

At the end of the path you expect nothing, a clearing perhaps and then pure air, no trace of animal droppings, insect bites, just an opening in the trees, an end of the path cleared before us, a suddenly treeless empty plain, not even the sounds of birds chirping.

Here is the story that you desire.

There will be no suffering, no cross.

Everyone you love will feel good.

Around each neck a chain with a rock, instead of that man on a cross.

You would celebrate the caves of birth.

Naming the Logos

by John J. Brugaletta

Though trees are ragged, every building’s plumb.

We see the world and wish it fit our mind The way a grapefruit’s segments fit their rind, But quarks and toadstools only leave me dumb.

The word I most desire will never come.

For me, there are rocks and blood, nails and broken bones, but I am not alone in this. We are all within this one suffering body of life, Christ, so long as we breathe, but there is a window, a clearing, an opening in the wall, a way out of the cave.

Someone has shown us the opening by passing through it first and now calls us along this way.

I will meet you in that clearing, friend.

Whatever we go through, we’ll go through.

We will sing together in Paradise where we have begun to sing even now.

Tell me why earth should intersect with hay.

And what have oaks to do with apple trees, Or cactus blossoms with the needful bees?

Does thinking know, or does it only play?

The phrase I want to say I never say.

The homeless

by Don Foran

The best the world contains is so remote, My hands fit nothing and my lips are dry.

I take two breaths, then on the third I die.

We’re most precise at what our words connote.

The only name I love eludes my throat.

Ten men clamber out of the creaking van, Their sweaty bodies meeting a kiss Of cool night air.

They drift, silently, sullenly Toward the darkened church.

Mattresses lie, two or three to a room, Along walls decorated with children’s Drawings and almost casual crucifixions.

Carl, Eddie, Jake and the others Throw their worn packs and bags Onto the makeshift beds, and John, It’s always John, is first to ask If he can have his sack lunch now, Not in the morning as we had planned.

“Sure,” I say, almost as anxious as he To assuage this remediable hunger.

Several echo John, and soon all Are feasting on pb and j; apples, celery, And other healthy fare remains on the table, But they’re happier now, even communicative.

One thanks me for setting a new pair of white socks On each mattress. Another offers a juice cup To a friend. “Lights out!” Rick calls at ten, And no one argues, no one hesitates. Sleep Knits once more the raveled sleeve of care, Obliterates the hurt, soothes the jangled nerves.

Tomorrow will be another day, Another cheerless day embroidered With small triumphs, fragile dreams.

Streetvibes

Page 15

569-9500

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 241-5525 Mission Garden St. House 241-0490 Joseph House 324-2321 (Veterans) St. Francis/St.Joseph 381-4941 House 661-4620 Mt. Airy Center Volunteers of Amer. 381-1954

SHELTERS: Women and Children YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter 872-9259 (Toll Free) 1-888-872-9259 921-1131 Bethany House 762-5660 Salvation Army Welcome Hse. 859-431-8717 Women’s Crisis 859-491-3335 Center Grace Place Catholic Worker 681-2365 House Tom Gieger Guest House 961-4555

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

OTHER SERVICES: AIDS Volunteers of 421-2437 Cincinnati Appalachian Identity 621-5991 Center 231-6630 Beech Acres Center for Independent Living 241-2600 Options Churches Active in 591-2246 Northside Cincinnati Health Network 961-0600 Community Action Agency 569-1840 381-4242 Contact Center Center for Respite Care 621-1868 241-2563 Emanuel Center Freestore/ 241-1064 Foodbank

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

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

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

HOUSING: 977-5660 CMHA Excel Development 632-7149 241-0504 Miami Purchase OTR Community Housing 381-1171 721-8666 Tender Mercies Dana Transitional Bridge 751-9797 Services, Inc

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

or Want to Help?

Need Help would like to Fransiscan Haircuts 381--0111 Goodwill Industries 771-4800 Coalition for the Homeless 421-7803 Hamilton Co. Mental 946-8600 Health Board Mental Health Access 558-8888 Point Hamilton Co. TB Control 946-7601 Healing Connections 751-0600 Health Rsrc. Center 357-4602 Homeless Mobile 352-2902 Health Van House of Refuge Mission 221-5491 IJ & Peace Center 579-8547 241-0490 Justice Watch Legal Aid Society 241-9400 Madisonville Ed. & Assis.

271-5501 Center Mary Magdalen House 721-4811 Mercy Fransiscan at St John 981-5841 McMicken Dental 352-6363 Clinic NAMI (Mental Health) 948-3094 621-6364 Our Daily Bread Oral Health Council 621-0248 Over-the-Rhine Soup Kitchen 961-1983 Peaslee Neighborhood 621-5514 Center Project Connect, Homeless 363-1060 Kids People Working Cooperatively 351-7921 St. Vincent De Paul 562-8841 Services United For Mothers 487-7862 721-7660 Travelers Aid 721-7900 United Way VA Homeless 859-572-6226 Women Helping 872-9259 Women MIDDLETOWN/HAMILTON (Butler County) 863-3184 St. Raphaels 863-1445 Salvation Army Serenity House Day Center 422-8555 Open Door Pantry 868-3276

August 2006

10 Years in Publication!

Gentrification - It Ain’t What You Think Page 10

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