Streetvibes July 2006 Edition

July 2006

STREETVIBES New Hope for the Homeless?

by Pat Clifford, General Coordinator, DIC, Cinti, Oh Are some of the homeless hopeless? Can housing be found for people who have been on the streets for years?

People often see homeless individuals when they are driving downtown. Sometimes under bridges. Sometimes sitting on curbs. The “regulars.” The “long timers.” Pitied by some, reviled by others, they are the chronically homeless. The question is: can the chronically homeless be helped and live in our city with dignity? Or are they too far gone to change.

The first question one may ask is how many chronically homeless are there in Cincinnati and what percentage of the homeless population do they comprise. Often it is thought that almost all those who are homeless go without housing for a long time. Not true, according to the Cincinnati – Hamilton County Homeless Management Information System. “The myth is that most people that are homeless are homeless for a long time.

The numbers don’t bear that out,” according to Steve Knight, who has worked with the homeless for years and is now Shelter Coordinator for the Drop Inn Center. He says that the average stay in a Cincinnati homeless shelter is approximately three weeks. Families typically stay longer, but most homeless individuals stay about two weeks. How many of the homeless qualify as “chronically homeless?” Statistics show that about 352 at any given time qualify, about 26% of the homeless population.

If that is the case, why do those images come to mind whenever one thinks of the homeless? Perhaps because they are more visible.

Whenever someone drives downtown, the image they take away is one of the panhandlers on the

Cover Story

street corner. Unnoticed are the people working day labor or waiting in line for a landlord.

Regardless of whether the long term homeless comprise the majority of the homeless or a relatively small amount, what can be done about meeting the needs of this population rather than demonizing them? Cincinnati has tried many methods. Some have succeeded, some have not.

Is law enforcement the solution to chronic homelessness? Cincinnati City Council just passed permanent legislation to require panhandlers to obtain a license through the City. The Cincinnati Police Department just completed a month of sweeps for nuisance crimes targeted toward removing criminals from the streets of Over-theRhine. During that period, Over-the-Rhine residents were quoted as saying that the streets feel much safer, drug dealers are now off the corners and that people can walk without fear of being shot.

However, did these efforts impact the number of homeless? The Drop Inn Center disputes that a large segment of its population was involved in the recent sweeps. Police claim that fifteen percent of those caught in the sweeps were homeless. Shelter officials counter that the number is more like five percent. “The records show that 95% of our residents were not involved in criminal behavior so far this year. I think that’s a pretty telling statistic,” says Knight. Also according to shelter officials, the shelter’s nightly census also remained level for the period of the sweeps, showing that these efforts, while they may have made the neighborhood feel safer, did not have an impact on reducing homelessness What then is to be done about the long term homeless? Researchers and homeless advocates think they have the answer: Put them in

housing. That is hard for many to believe. How can one place someone who has been homeless for years, many with multiple physical and mental disabilities, in an apartment among the general population? Isn’t that unsafe? The difference lies in the support that comes with the housing.

The term “supportive housing” is unfamiliar to many, but cities across the country are embracing this housing as a solution to homelessness. In Denver, for example, their Mayor has called for the creation of over three thousand units of supportive housing and calls to aid their “Denver’s Road Home” effort are advertised on banners in their downtown area. In Chicago, a non-profit group called Lakefront SRO has developed thousands of units of supportive housing in their downtown area, including a “supportive housing” high-rise in the trendy South Loop. New York City even has a supportive housing complex in the Times Square district.

According to Amy Harpenau, a licensed social worker who works daily with the long term homeless, “The key is to remove the barriers to housing that traditionally block this population from entry.” Barriers like high rents, sobriety requirements and background checks are what have kept this population homeless. In their place, groups have added high levels of supportive services that encourage people to reduce risky behavior, implement heightened security precautions and refer people to the medical and treatment services they need.

What do residents and community leaders feel about this housing being located in their neighborhood. We can look to Columbus for an answer. When the Columbus Community Shelter Board was looking at creating 100 units of

Hope... cont. on page 2

Cincinnati Police Profiling Homeless Individuals

Cincinnati, OH – Melisa, Henry and Charley, three area homeless people, were awakened in their camp at 7:30 a.m. June 13 by Cincinnati Police who took their photographs, social security numbers and dates of birth. When they asked why this was happening, they were told it was in case they became the victims of crime.

This action was not isolated. Over a month ago homeless youth in Over-the-Rhine reported being detained by officers, photographed and having their personal information written down before being sent on their way. They were walking down Vine Street when this happened, and they were not charged with any violations.

Police are giving mixed justification for their actions. At the Southeast Sector, sponsored by Downtown Cincinnati, Inc. (DCI), the Cincinnati Police announced that they were going to start photographing homeless people so that they are “on file” in case a crime is committed. Mixed reports have been given as to whether the concern is with homeless individuals as the perpetrators or victims of these crimes.

Either way, homeless rights advocates are calling this an outrage. “This is a gross violation of civil rights and profiling to the highest degree,”

stated Georgine Getty, executive director of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. “This is merely one part of a systemic campaign to harass and degrade people experiencing homelessness.”

Melisa became homeless on August 26 when fleeing from her boyfriend who frequently hit her. Melisa had unsteady employment at a call center, working 4 hours a day, at most, if work was available. In August, her boyfriend drank away the rent money and she found herself homeless. She stayed at two separate shelters, but was forced to leave one because of time limits.

She voluntarily left the other because she did not feel safe there. Melisa suffers from mental illness and takes anti-depressants. In the homeless camp, she found an environment where she felt supported. Her boyfriend, Henry, is working with a case manager and plans to have an apartment by the end of the month.

Melisa stated that she “hated this” and that she felt “very violated and discriminated against.” She added that if she had robbed someone, she would be staying

at a hotel, not living by the river in a makeshift camp.

Homeless Campers, Melisa and Henry

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 Kelly Carr - VISTA Andy Lawrence - AHA Coordinator John Lavelle - VISTA Melvin Williams - Reception Susan Smith - Volunteer Streetvibes Jimmy Heath, Editor Photography Georgine Getty, Berta Lambert

Cover Homeless campers being interviewed by local TV news for police harassment story

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

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Hope... cont. from page 1 supportive housing in their downtown, they met resistance at first. However, that resistance soon dwindled once the project, called Commons at Grant, was up and in operation.

In April of this year, a coalition of developers, homeless advocates and service providers including the Drop Inn Center presented a concept to City leaders to bring Supportive Housing to the area. They sought a site that had a secure entry, an enclosed courtyard, office space for counselors and between 20-35 units for living. The group pointed to a potential site: a vacant home for the blind located at 1505 Elm Street. Business groups, led by the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation or 3CDC.

balked at the proposal, saying that it would jeopardize potential development. As of the end of June, talks were stalled with no timeline set.

Can supportive housing be the solution for Cincinnati’s homeless? Some advocates feel that it can, however it is clear that education needs to be done.

Harpenau comments, “This type of

housing has not been attempted here.

There is a lot of skepticism.”

However, there is a cost to doing nothing. Long term homeless individuals wait for long periods in crowded emergency shelters because no appropriate housing exists. They are under bridges, line park benches and wander the streets, waiting for hope.

Police Harass Homeless at Community Dining Hall Portland, OR - In late June, Copwatch (a national civil rights organization) received several calls from homeless clients as well as workers at St. Francis Dining Hall, located near SE 11th and Stark streets in Portland, Oregon. St. Francis serves dinner for the homeless nearly every day.

Callers complained that police were asking Latino-looking folks for their papers, giving out tickets for “offensive littering” over cigarette butts, and in general asking people if they had ever been arrested in Portland.

On July 1, the Workers Organizing Committee held a bilingual meeting, letting people know that the police are not allowed to ask “are you legally in this country?”

Testimony was taken at that time from numerous people who had been harassed by police, mostly by the provocative Officer Mary Wheat.

Apparently, neighbors are unhappy with St. Francis. Lieutenant Donna Henderson said the police are just responding to complaints. The only specific incident cited by police was a female neighbor taking a picture of a homeless man (not a great idea) who was upset that he put his hand up to her camera. The woman says he touched her.

Later, while a copwatcher was talking to a Euro-American homeless man, Wheat interrupted the conversation. She said she’d seen the man dealing drugs before. When asked why she didn’t arrest him, she said “I was after the Hispanics, I was undercover.” When we showed surprise at her comment, she added “I can say whatever I want, it’s my constitutional right.”

Mr. and Ms. Homeless Downtowner

Mr. Homeless Downtowner

Ms. Homeless Downtowner

Name: Hustle Man Hometown: Cincinnati, Ohio Neighborhood: OTR Occupation: Honest Hustler If I could do something different: I would: run for Mayor I can’t stand it when: people stereotype and judge Favorite interest: Conversing with people Favorite spot in Cincinnati: Clay and 14th If I won the lottery: I would give it all away Place I’d most like to visit: Disney World Happiness would be: Changing this community What I like most about Cincinnati is: my mother What I desire most but are afraid to go after is: the stars My life’s philosophy is: staying comfortable.

Name: Julie Hometown: Cincinnati, Ohio Neighborhood: E-town Occupation: Streetvibes vendor If I could do something different: I would: be a Social Worker and an Advocate for the homeless I can’t stand it when people: don’t try but then complain Favorite interest: spending time with my daughter and grandkids Favorite spot downtown: Washington Park If I won the lottery I would: Help people and then go to Disney World Happiness to me would be: the world in perfect harmony with love, trust, and understanding Place’d most like to visit: Africa as a volunteer What I like most about Cincinnati is: the Zoo and all the recreational activities for the children What I desire most but am afraid to go after: Nothing My life’s philosophy: You can pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but you have to want to try.

Streetvibes

Homeless News Digest

Compiled by Jimmy Heath

Reality TV star Sharon Osborne saved a homeless teenager from spiraling into despair with the help of British royal Prince Charles’ PRINCE CHARLES’ charity, The Prince’s Trust.

England - Osbourne was devastated by the plight of Danny Howarth, who had been kicked out by his mother’s new boyfriend, forcing him to live rough on the streets. But Howarth enrolled on a course organized by The Prince’s Trust, and under the watchful eye of Osbourne - an ambassador for the initiative - he started to rebuild his life.

Osbourne invited Howarth into her and husband Ozzy’s mansion in Buckinghamshire, England, last month, spending time talking through his problems and plans for the future.

She says, “Danny is a loving, bright, but vulnerable young man who has turned his life around with the help of The Prince’s Trust. ”Next time you pass a homeless person remember most of them aren’t there because they’re addicts. They’re there because of emotional problems at home - they’re not wanted or loved and have no money, so they end up homeless on the street. “Don’t turn your face away from them - they’re young people who need our help.”

In Washington some D.C. residents are trying to stop the construction of a 170-bed homeless shelter along Georgia Avenue in Northwest.

Washinton, DC - Officials with the privately run Central Union Mission want to move the shelter from the Logan Circle area because the current building is antiquated.

But opponents of the shelter say the area along Georgia Avenue already offers housing and services for the poor, including a Salvation Army branch.

They’re also worried the shelter could harm efforts to revitalize the neighborhood.

Instead, they’re pushing for more outdoor cafes, restaurants — and even a drug store.

Central Union’s new $15 million shelter would include a drug rehabilitation center, a chapel and a cafe that will provide breakfast and dinner for the homeless.

In Edmonton, Canada a body found near the Shaw was discovered by homeless man.

Canadian Police and medical examiners investigated the scene of a body found last month, where the body of a woman was discovered in some bushes east of the Shaw Conference Center.

Cops have labeled the woman’s death as suspicious, though a cause of death, as well as the woman’s identity, won’t be known until an autopsy .

The woman is believed to be in her 30s or 40s and is possibly aboriginal, police said.

Insp. Dennis Pysyk said that although the woman was found in an area frequented by homeless people, it’s premature to conclude she too was homeless.

After finding the woman between two trees in a largely grassy area south of Jasper Avenue at 96 Street, the man went to a nearby home, where residents phoned for an ambulance, said acting Sgt. Steve Zielie.

In 2004 a survey conducted by city social agencies recorded nearly 2,200 people describing themselves as homeless.

In warmer weather, the city’s river valley becomes dotted with homeless campsites.

Park rangers started counting homeless camps in the river valley in 1999. That year they found 62 camps. The figure rose steadily until 2003 when it reached 451. A year later it had dropped to 234.

A spokesman for the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness said the woman’s death serves as reminder that being homeless is dangerous to people’s lives.

“This is just a warning call again that we are still not making the progress we need on this issue,” Jim Gurnett said.

“It’s not just an unfortunate situation – it’s an actual life and death situation not to address homelessness in this city.”

Homelessness or substandard housing played a role in at least 32 deaths in Edmonton last year, the coalition found.

Ele Gibson, the resource development director for the Bissell Center who participated in calculating that figure, said she believes the number of homelessness-related deaths is actually much higher.

Inadequate shelter leaves people at greater risk of violence and health problems and restricts access to health care, she said.

Police from homicide and the forensic identification section are

assisting in the investigation, which is standard.

Cops are asking anyone with information about the woman’s death to call the EPS or Crimestoppers.

Possible homeless man’s body found in Boston Boston, Ma - The condition of the body suggests the man had been dead for a significant period of time, said David Procopio, a spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney’s office. There was no evidence of foul play, he said.

Authorities said the man was 69 years old with ties to the Quincy area, but did not release his name pending notification of family.

The body, which was found by an employee during a routine check, was turned over to the state medical examiner for an autopsy.

Conley Terminal is a container facility for the Port of Boston.

On a day of remembrance, several volunteers are working to make sure one group isn’t forgotten.

Federal Way, Washington State - Members of the All Saints Lutheran Church worked on Memorial Day, preparing 50 sack lunches for the area’s homeless population.

“The homeless people still need compassion and support,” coordinator Cheri Staples said.

She said the church, along with several other local churches, is part of the Federal Way Community Caregivers Network.

Typically, she said, the network prepares a community supper for the homeless every Monday at Steel Lake Presbyterian Church.

The network’s president, Doug Johnson, said the group also hosts community suppers on Thursday nights at Calvary Lutheran Church.

All Saints church members are responsible for community suppers on the fourth Monday of each month where Staples said about 40 people were served.

The church got a first-hand look at the homeless situation when they met Randy, a homeless man who began attending services three years ago, Staples explained.

“We realized they’re still one of God’s children and they still need love,” Staples said.

When Randy passed away, Staples said the church felt the need to do more for the homeless and joined the Caregivers Network.

“It just opened our eyes that there are more Randy’s that need help,” she said.

The lunches were prepared at All Saints Church, Staples said,

Streetvibes

before they were transported to Steel Lake Presbyterian Church.

Johnson said the community suppers are just part of what the Caregivers Network does to help those in need.

The Caregivers Network also provides rent assistance for families at risk of losing their homes.

“We think it’s critically important,” he said.

For any number of reasons, be it an auto accident or a medical emergency, families can find themselves pushed to the financial brink, he said.

“You find yourself where you can’t quite make ends meet,” Johnson said.

Families can quickly run the risk of eviction from their apartments or homes, he added. Once they’re evicted they’re practically homeless.

“That’s kind of the breeding ground for homelessness,” he said.

The group’s work to help others in the community is a reflection of the community as a whole, Johnson explained.

“It’s a powerful statement about our commitment to people in need,” he said.

A former U.S. solider living in some woods in DeLand, Fla., was ambushed by four teens in the city’s third attack on a homeless man, according to news reports.

Deland, - Fl - Police said Bill Railsback, 51, was drinking a beer at a homeless camp when the teens jumped and began to beat him.

However, Railsback fought back and injured at least one of the attackers.

Railsback believes he broke one of his attacker’s arms during the scuffle. He said his attackers were ages 16 to 20.

Detectives are questioning hospital employees and hospital workers to see if one of the attackers was treated for an arm injury.

The attacks are happening in remote locations in woods. “This is the third assault on a homeless man in DeLand since March.

“Six weeks ago, they beat up one of our elderly homeless so badly that he has permanent brain and eye injuries,” First Untied Methodist Church member Linda Brown said.

“They could very easily kill someone and I think that is of grave concern.”

In April, four Holly Hill teens received 22 to 35 years in prison for beating a homeless man to death.

The First United Methodist Church in DeLand is offering a $1,000 reward for information concerning the attack or the identity of the attackers.

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American Revolutionary (Real Change News, USA) Timothy Harris Activist-historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz uncovers the beating heart of America.

Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz has been around. In the mid-sixties, she was in South Africa, working with the underground African National Congress. Upon her return to the United States, she challenged New Left sexism to become a leader in the newly formed radical women’s movement. From there, she took a brief detour though a Weather Underground-like revolutionary cell before turning up, in 1973, in South Dakota at Wounded Knee. Her work in indigenous movement-building led her to human rights work at the United Nations, where she became involved in mediating the conflict between the Miskitu Indians and the Sandinistas in the early ’80s.

Her latest book, Blood on the Border: a Memoir of the Contra War (South End Press, 2005), completes a trilogy of historical memoirs that seamlessly blend the personal with the political and explore the world stage through the viewpoint of one of its more politically engaged actors.

Blood on the Border offers a harrowingly personal view of the tragedy of the U.S. war on Nicaragua and its divisive role in the American Indian movement. Previous memoirs include Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Verso, 1997), an examination of the suppressed radical history of the Midwest and being raised poor in rural Oklahoma, and Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975 (City Lights, 2002). Dr. Ortiz is a professor of ethnic studies at California State University East Bay. RC: Much of your activism has been through the United Nations and the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. How do you view

the prospects of the U.N. now as a force for international justice?

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: I think the indigenous movement has been extremely important in refocusing things, and in challenging the United States and the European powers.

There has also been the Women’s Decade [the ’70s], and South Africa leading the non-aligned nations.

Most people think that the U.N. not passing the go-ahead for the Iraq war was all about France. That wasn’t it. A hundred and thirty countries didn’t support it, led by South Africa and the non-aligned movement. South Africa has been really important in kind of reviving the non-aligned bloc. That was always the majority of the U.N. And that’s what the U.S. was really fighting — not communism, not the Soviet Union, but the whole formerly colonized world.

RC: You say that indigenous movements may be our best hope for avoiding nuclear and ecological catastrophe. Why is that?

Dunbar-Ortiz: Because we’re in the heart of the empire, the Indian movement here is important beyond numbers ideologically, to really analyze what the United States is. It’s only if you look at it from the Indian point of view that the truth is revealed, under all that propaganda about the founding fathers and democracy and all that. It just becomes a naked empire when you look at it from the beginning.

There’s a lot of work on the part of indigenous people, who are fighting for life or death as peoples. I’ve always felt it will come down to the Andes and Central America. It’s in the subconscious of U.S. imperialism, and that is the heart of everything. Their influence spread up to the Great Lakes and into Canada and to this area.

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This was a huge civilization. And the beating heart of it is Mesoamerica. And the same for South America, and the Andes, and the great civilizations there.

So it’s like, you know, just “kiiiilllll that thing,” and keep it killed. I would not have predicted, myself, 10 years ago, that there would be a militant, socialist, native person president of Bolivia. I could not have imagined that. I would have said someday, maybe, but this is remarkable.

And in Ecuador, and Peru is moving toward that too.

RC: You’ve drawn this line that extends from the colonialist Indian wars to the policy in Central America and to what we’re involved in now. What is the common denominator there?

Dunbar-Ortiz: I know it doesn’t come down to just John Negroponte, but that sort of symbolizes or reflects the whole pattern. From Vietnam to the present, you can follow John Negroponte’s career. He was a political officer in Saigon in the ’60s, as was Colin Powell. We had Rumsfeld and Cheney in the Ford administration.

There are 18 people, right now, engaged in the Bush administration, who were involved in the Contra war. Negroponte was the U.S. ambassador to Honduras, and he micromanaged the Contra war.

One of George W. Bush’s first appointments, in February 2001, was John Negroponte to be the ambassador to the United Nations. I tell you, it just took my breath away, because I thought, “This means something.” I just knew that it was going to be something terrible.

This is what this man is for. Then he was made the first ambassador to Iraq, after the invasion, and now he’s the National Intelligence Chief, over the CIA, the FBI, the NSA. I’ve come to see that it’s partly the fragility and weakness and poverty of Central America that makes it necessary for the United States to keep hold of it. Because how would it look to the rest of the world if the empire’s weakest link were to break out? All hell breaks loose!

RC: You talk about some parallels with Vietnam, where the CIA exploited some of the indigenous people: arming the Montagnards, for example, and how they exploited that rift in Nicaragua as well.

Dunbar-Ortiz: Yeah. And of course, in Iraq. The divide and rule. It’s an old colonial method of control, and throughout Africa there are civil wars going on now that are still remnants of British, French, and Belgian colonialism and U.S. neocolonialism. And then, the secret war in Laos, organizing the Hmong.

This is really what frightened me. Because I cared about the Miskitu Indians. If they did get involved with the CIA program, it could decimate them. Before the big Indian Movement, although it was just beginning, the Sandinistas would have just slaughtered those people. That’s basically what the Pathet Lao did and that is what the Vietcong in Vietnam did, because they were working with the enemy.

I was able to get a lot of insight from Ralph Mcgehee, who had just retired from the CIA and wrote a book called Deadly Deceits. I got to meet him in New York, and described to him what was going on, and he said, “I wrote that plan. I worked with organizing the Hmong. It’s going to be a terrible tragedy if it doesn’t get stopped.” So he also talked to the Sandinistas.

Revolutionary cont. next page...

Homeless Man’s Story Becomes Book, Movie CHICAGO - It was just a movie set, but in a moment it showed Chris Gardner where he’d been - and how far he’d come.

There with actor Will Smith - who was playing Gardner, a former homeless man turned millionaire - Gardner stood in what looked like the train station bathroom where he once slept a quarter century ago.

Suddenly he was overcome with memories of teaching his 2-year-old son to never, ever open the locked bathroom door, no matter how hard someone pounded on the other side.

It didn’t matter that he now had three homes - one a condo in New York’s Trump Tower - or that he’d gone from selling his own blood to buying Michael Jordan’s car.

“I had to get out of there,” he said.

The story of how the 52-year-old Gardner did just that: climbed out of homelessness and became a millionaire stockbroker with his own 15employee Chicago firm, is being turned into a motion picture, due out in December.

It’s also the subject of Gardner’s own justreleased book, “The Pursuit of Happiness.”

The unique spelling of “happiness.”

Even in the realm of rags-to-riches tales, Gardner’s story is unique.

Take, for example, the events that led to his descent into homelessness.

A medical supplies salesman barely making enough money to support his girlfriend and baby, Gardner had one of those Hollywood moments in a San Francisco parking lot in 1981 when he spotted a man looking for a place to park his red Ferrari.

“I said to him, ‘You can have my (parking) place but I’ve got to ask you two questions. What do you do and how do you do it?”’ recalled Gardner.

The man was a stockbroker.

Gardner didn’t know a single stockbroker or even what one did.

But the man said he made $80,000 a month - $50,000 more than Gardner made a year.

Gardner found a brokerage firm willing to hire him and quit his job.

But when he showed up for work he learned the guy who’d hired him had been fired.

Gardner’s job was gone.

Then, days before a scheduled interview with Dean Witter, a loud fight with his girlfriend brought the police to his door.

The next thing Gardner knew they were asking him for $1,200 to clear up some unpaid parking tickets.

They may as well have asked for $12 million. Gardner spent 10 days in jail.

When he was released, his girlfriend and son were gone.

He had no money, no home and the only clothes he had for his job interview the next day were the ones he wore to jail.

How was he going to explain showing up wearing jeans and paint-splattered Adidas shoes?

“I couldn’t think of nothing that could top the truth,” he said. He went with that and got the job.

A few months later came a knock on the door of the boarding house where he was staying.

“It’s my ex and, guess what, she doesn’t want the baby any more, here.” he said. “The boarding house does not allow children. That’s how we became homeless.”

Some nights they stayed in a $25-a-night hotel, a park or under his desk at work. And a few nights were spent in an Oakland Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station.

“I had to teach my little boy how to play a game and the game is called SHHHH,” he said.

“That means no matter what anybody says on the other side of that door, no matter how much noise they make or what they threaten, we ain’t here, OK?” Finally, they moved into a homeless hotel in San Francisco, run by Glide Memorial United Methodist Church.

“There were no keys, so every day you take everything with you,” said Gardner. “For a year, I’d take my son, his stroller, a big duffel bag with all his clothes in it, my briefcase, an umbrella, the biggest bag of Pampers in the world, one suit on my back and one suit in a hanging bag and we’d hit it every day.”

When it rained, he covered the stroller with plastic sheets he’d picked up from dry cleaners.

Gardner told his co-workers nothing.

He also distinguished himself from others who turned to Glide for food and shelter.

“If you saw a man with a child, that was rare, incredibly rare,” said the Rev. Cecil Williams, Glide’s pastor. “I remember discussions about him, about how that man really loves that boy because he won’t let him get away from him, he won’t push him aside.”

Day care took a huge chunk of his meager stockbroker trainee salary, and it took Gardner about a year to save enough to move himself and his son into their own home. From there, his career blossomed, and in 1987 he opened his own firm in Chicago.

Today, signs of his success are everywhere, starting with an office that includes a gleaming desk made of a DC-10 tail wing, African art work, boxing gloves and photographs autographed by Muhammad Ali. Sharing space with pictures of his adult son and daughter are photographs of Gardner with Nelson Mandela, and a vase full of dirt that Gardner brought from Mandela’s yard after visiting the former South Africa president.

He no longer has the Ferrari he bought from Jordan.

Gardner, who never went to college, has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to education, writing checks for as much as $25,000 to teachers, janitors, bus drivers and others who work at schools.

Gardner is focusing much of his attention now on South Africa, trying to persuade major investors to invest $1 billion there - an effort praised by South African officials.

“In the current state of our economy, creating an investment fund is critical,” said Yusuf Omar, South African Consul General in Chicago, who recently stopped by Gardner’s office.

For Gardner, helping South Africans pull themselves up makes perfect sense.

“Everything I’ve learned working on Wall Street, 25 years is to be able to make a difference in the lives of a lot of people and we all make money, it (doesn’t) get any better than that,” he said.

Revolutionary...

who say you have to have these democratic elections. Well, here it is. And then they say, “Well, the people can’t be trusted” (laughs). Or, “Chavez is a dictator.” Just repeat that enough and people will believe it.

But no matter what the opinion is here, to invade all those countries is not like invading Central America. They’re afraid to invade Cuba because of the resistance. I mean, they could, of course, destroy Cuba. But they would take a lot of U.S. lives. They would fight until every person with a gun — and everyone has a gun — was dead. And they know that. That’s why the U.S. hasn’t invaded Cuba. It seems like it would be so easy. Not so easy, and then you think of these massively populated places….

So, there’s not a lot they can really do, except they can try to assassinate Chavez, and I’m sure they are. And maybe they will succeed, and maybe it will even set back that movement, but it’s in so many places, now. There’s a momentum.

So… I think they’re kind of up against the wall. And it’s sort of scary, in terms of this talk of using nuclear weapons and all, but they’re getting desperate. And so I think it’s a pretty dangerous time for the whole world. We’ve got to get a sense of the urgency here.

RC: When most people think about revolutionaries in America, I think they visualize something like the Weathermen and decide pretty quickly that that’s not really for them. So what does a more sustainable revolutionary politics look like?

Dunbar-Ortiz: It has to be like we saw on May Day. That’s a revolutionary spirit being revealed. And it has to be positive, in the sense that there is life ahead — these are young people.

There is life worth fighting for. Every human life is precious, and not this dreary, “We just gotta get rid of this thing because it’s a monster.” We have to believe in ourselves as human beings. I think there’s a widespread depression in our movement these days, and even in the Black movement. And in the Native movement in the United States there has been so much questioning.

Young native people it’s amazing, when I meet them. And a lot of young white people, too.

But not masses like we saw on the streets—I mean, that was a representation of practically every Latino young person in this country, and many of the older people. And they’re fighting for us, too, but we have to get involved in it to make it bigger.

Join it, instead of thinking we have to lead it. Join in this revolution! It’s happening, get involved, you know?

from previous page And it was hard. I mean, the Sandinistas, they were nationalists, and it’s been the Achilles’ heel of revolutions in Latin America, especially in the Andes and Guatemala, where the majority of the people are indigenous, that they haven’t been able to break through this nationalism, which assumes a unitary idea of the state. In the Mexican Revolution, they could idolize the Mestizo and Raza Unida and the great fusing of the indigenous and the European into a new race. But there were still Indians there. And many thought it would be better if they just disappeared and joined the Mexican state. And that’s been the attitude. I think you see that changing now with Evo Morales’ election.

RC: Given the U.S. governments past intolerance of liberation movements, it’s hard not to be fearful for the progressive governments that are emerging now in Latin America.

Dunbar-Ortiz: Well, you know, what really surprised me is that it would ever be possible again, after Chile, for revolutions to come to power through election. And I think that’s remarkable work that’s been going on there. And it just slams the United States in the face. They’re the ones

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L.A. decision tolls a bell for Portland’s policies on homeless (Street Roots, USA)

by Monica Goracke On April 14, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision, Jones v. City of Los Angeles, holding that Los Angeles may not punish involuntary sitting, lying, or sleeping on public sidewalks “that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and in that city.

While the court explicitly limited its ruling to Los Angeles, relying heavily on statistics and evidence of the lack of shelter for homeless people there, cities across the country, and Portland in particular, will take note. “Human beings are biologically compelled to rest, whether by sitting, lying, or sleeping,” the court said. To criminalize such conduct, when it is involuntary and inseparable from the status of being without a home, is to violate constitutional protections. Yet Portland, along with many other cities, has enacted and enforced laws that implicate not only constitutional but also human rights concerns. As the Ninth Circuit recognized, we should not punish people for life-sustaining behavior that is unavoidably linked to their homelessness.

Skid Row, an area covering 50 city blocks just east of downtown Los Angeles, was the focus of the case brought on behalf of homeless people who were arrested or cited for violating Los Angeles’s ordinance.

With the highest concentration of homeless individuals in the United States, it is “a place of desperate poverty, drug use and crime,” according to the court. This concentration is no accident: the city of Los Angeles has had a deliberate policy to concentrate and contain the homeless in Skid Row since at least the 1970s. Skid Row has space in SRO (single room occupancy) hotels, shelters, and other temporary or transitional housing for 9,000 to 10,000

people a night, but approximately 11,000 to 12,000 individuals live there.

This means that more than 1,000 people are unable to find shelter each night. The court also noted that in all of Los Angeles County, there are almost 50,000 more homeless people than available beds. As Los Angeles officials admitted, this 1,000-person deficit is “severely large.”

What is the magnitude of homelessness in Portland? As a smaller city, Portland has lower overall numbers of homeless people, but its rate of unmet need is almost the same as Los Angeles’: 27 percent for Portland, compared with 30 percent for Los Angeles. The onenight street count conducted on Jan. 26, 2005, covering Multnomah County and the cities of Portland and Gresham, found 2,355 people sleeping outside, in a vehicle or in an abandoned vehicle. 1,020 people had been turned away from shelters that night – very close to the number in Los Angeles. These numbers are much higher than the previous street count from March 15, 2004, which found 465 people turned away.

An accurate determination of the number of homeless people in Portland is very difficult, but the City’s 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness estimates that in Multnomah County, 16,000 to 18,000 people experience homelessness annually, and 4,000 people experience homelessness on any given night. This number tries to take into account the “hidden homeless” doubled or tripled-up in other households, staying out of sight or otherwise missed by the counters.

“Human beings are biologically compelled to rest, whether by sitting, lying, or sleeping,” the court said.

CityBeat recognizes Jimmy Heath, Streetvibes Editor help others through his advocacy,

writing and photography. Heath and his coworkers at the Greater Cincinnati, Oh - CityBeat, Cincinnati Coalition for the a local alternative newspaper, Homeless, which publishes recognized Jimmy Heath, Streetvibes, help others tell their Streetvibes editor, as the “Best stories and find dignity Unsung Activist” in its Best of Cincinnati through meaningful work.”

2006 issue. The article CityBeat also stated, “Jimmy Heath, recognized the Greater editor of Streetvibes, Cincinnati Coalition for the local newspaper of the Homeless’ newest the homeless, is an activist who board member, Bob Jimmy Heath Newman, who understands the streets achieved the title “Best Civil Rights of Cincinnati. He’s been there, Lawyer” for his landmark case that living as a homeless person, in prevents Hamilton County Over-the-Rhine, lost to drugs and Municipal Court from jailing people alcohol, and is still working there today - recovered and working to for being unable to pay fines.

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When you consider that the average length of homelessness is 21 weeks, and the average wait to get into a publicly-funded shelter is four to six weeks (up to 10 weeks in the winter months), the word “crisis” begins to seem woefully inadequate.

In Los Angeles, as in Portland, increasing rates of homelessness mean that homeless people are more visible in public than ever before. Laws prohibiting the obstruction of sidewalks and streets have been used to move people along, including those who have few or no other places to go. The Ninth Circuit sharply criticized Los Angeles’s ordinance as “one of the most restrictive municipal laws regulating public spaces in the United States.”

The ordinance prohibits sitting, lying, and sleeping in or on any street, sidewalk or other public way at any time of day or night within the city limits. The court distinguished LA’s law from similar ordinances in places such as Las Vegas, Seattle, and Portland which, it said, do better by requiring that some type of inappropriate conduct be part of the crime other than just sitting, lying, or sleeping in a state of homelessness.

While the court’s reasoning in criticizing the Los Angeles ordinance was sound, a closer look at Portland’s laws, along with evidence of how they are enforced, would have shown that it cannot be so easily distinguished.

Portland’s two ordinances prohibit “camping” on public property and rights of way, and obstructing public sidewalks in a large downtown area.

While the enforceability of the sidewalk obstruction ordinance is very much in doubt after a late 2005 ruling by the Oregon Court of Appeals, this ordinance is still used verbally by police and private security officials to move homeless people from sidewalks, although it is limited in time from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The camping ordinance, as written, is not just about pitching a tent on the bus mall. It can be – and often is – used by police to cite people for simply sleeping in parks, under freeways and other outof-way places, with so little as a bedroll or a piece of cardboard beneath them.

Just as in Los Angeles, homeless people in Portland often lose all their belongings when police cite them for unlawful camping. The

Streetvibes

camping law is enforced both day and night, even though many homeless men and women sleep during the day because it is so unsafe for them to sleep on the streets at night. Although Oregon state law requires 24-hour notice to homeless people who are in violation of camping laws, officers sometimes stage surprise raids complete with a work crew to remove and destroy homeless people’s personal property. Losing the few possessions you have – a blanket, clothing, but especially documents such as an ID or birth certificate – can be debilitating, to put it mildly.

When homeless people in Portland are arrested, prosecuted, and lose their belongings for the crime of sleeping outside when they had nowhere else to go, it drives them even further into hopelessness and poverty.

The Ninth Circuit’s decision contains two important legal principles. First, it found that the homeless plaintiffs in this case had standing to challenge a law that criminalizes their involuntary conduct even though not all of them had been actually convicted under that law.

When people are arrested, jailed, fined, and prosecuted for violations of a law, the court found, they are subjected to the criminal process and therefore can challenge the law under the Eighth Amendment’s cruel-andunusual punishment clause. Second, the decision finds, based on prior cases establishing that people cannot be punished simply for being poor or homeless, that the government cannot make criminal those acts that are “involuntary and inseparable from status” – specifically, physically resting in a public place when there is no other way a human being living in the city of Los Angeles who is homeless could meet this fundamental need. The court’s distinction between Los Angeles’s sweeping ordinance and the more limited laws in Portland, Seattle, and other cities is likely to be read as foreclosing similar challenges.

However, the court’s reasoning clearly applies to some aspects of local laws.

Portland has a 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness that acknowledges the destructive effect of laws criminalizing behavior that homeless people are forced to engage in, such as sleeping or sitting outside, because they are homeless. For individuals, a criminal record of any kind makes it difficult to find housing and employment, which are so essential to escaping homelessness.

For the community, criminalization imposes an enormous financial, physical, and psychic toll. We should not treat homeless people this way not only because it is costly, but because it is inhumane. We must find a better way.

Voice Mail Becomes Lifeline for Homeless Program Washington, Dc - Mabel McNair, who was once homeless, is enrolled in a culinary arts class and plans to take advantage of a new District program that will provide a free voice-mail service to low-income individuals and the homeless.

McNair, 49, lives in transitional housing in Northwest Washington and is midway through a 12-week training program sponsored by D.C. Central Kitchen. Her goal is to land a job by the time she graduates.

She uses a prepaid cell phone and pays $10 for 50 minutes.

“That goes quickly,” she said.

“I know it would benefit me,” McNair said about access to free voice mail. “There are a lot of jobs that come through the school.”

Community Voice Mail, a national program, will make 350 voice-mail boxes available to lowincome and homeless individuals in the District at no cost. People who want to enroll in the program will be asked to work with a social services case manager who will make the service available as part of a client’s overall plan to find a job or to move out of a shelter or transitional housing. Each person enrolled will receive a private District phone number that is connected to a voice-mail box.

The number can be used only to check messages.

Staff members take messages at shelters or other places where the homeless and lowincome live, but sometimes individuals don’t return to the shelter every night, Litzenberger said. In addition, enrollment in social services programs, such as food stamps and Medicaid, often requires follow-up and private voice mail is critical, Litzenberger said.

“Nowadays, things like voice mail and e-mail are not luxuries; they are necessities,” he said.

Community Voice Mail, designed by a Seattle-based nonprofit organization, explains its mission through the motto “turning phone lines into lifelines.” The nonprofit group collects testimonials, including a story from one user in Minnesota who said she got a job simply because she could put a phone number down on an application.

Jennifer Brandon, executive director of Community Voice Mail, said the group began the program more than a decade ago and serves 46,000 people across 37 cities annually. During Hurricane Katrina, Community Voice Mail provided phone numbers to evacuees. The District will be the 38th city in the program. The group plans to expand to Fort Worth this summer.

“It’s a tool to help people get on their feet,” said Terry Lynch, executive director of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations, a nonprofit group of 44 churches throughout the District that does social service outreach and funds programs. A member church, St. John’s Episcopal, near Lafayette Square, where many homeless people congregate, gave $15,000 in start-up funds for the project.

The District and the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District also contributed funds for the program.

D.C. Central Kitchen, a nonprofit organization that provides meals for the homeless in addition to running the culinary training program, will notify other nonprofit groups about the voicemail service.

Brandon said she first met Robert Egger, chief executive of D.C. Central Kitchen, two years ago to talk about the program.

“This is exactly the kind of partner we need,” Brandon said.

Streetvibes

Survey Participants Wanted You are invited to participate in a brief survey on hate crimes and violence against homeless persons. Go to: http:// www.surveymonkey.com/ s.asp?u=870921968238Y Your input will help the National Coalition for the Homeless direct our advocacy efforts. The results of this national survey will be released to general public and media in late August.

Please contact NCH for information concerning the rising incidents of hates crimes and violence against homeless persons at www.nationalhomeless.org

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Drop Inn Center Update Also, analysis of the same Homeless Not Lawbreakers, Crime Stats Misleading

by Pat Clifford, General Cordinator, DIC, Cincinnati,Oh

data shows that 95% of Drop Inn Center residents have not been arrested at any point during this year.

Only those 93 individuals out of

Just because arrest records contain the Drop Inn Center address does not mean that those charged actually reside at the Center.

That is what an analysis of arrest and shelter records from January 1, 2006 – May 22, 2006 has shown.

According to Cincinnati Police Department records, 286 individuals with the Drop Inn Center address have been arrested this year so far.

However, Drop Inn Center records show that only 93 of them had, in fact, been residents during that time period. Therefore over 67% of those arrested with our address were not really our residents.

1,767 total residents so far this year have been charged with any crime.

Therefore, analysis of the data shows that Drop Inn Center residents are not significantly contributing to crime in the Washington Park area. In fact, our stats show that the Drop Inn Center is committed to transforming people’s

lives and is working to minimize residents’ length of stay. 40% of Drop Inn Center residents have an average stay of two weeks or less.

We are calling on the Cincinnati Police Department to meet with Drop Inn Center staff to reduce the use of our address, 217 W. 12th Street, when there is no proof that they have actually stayed here. In this way, we will close a potential loophole for actual criminals to falsify their place of residence. It will also, provide a realistic picture of the vast majority of our residents, who are struggling to get back on their feet with our help.

In addition, the Drop Inn Center is asking for a hearing before the Cincinnati Law and Public Safety Committee to highlight our partnership with law enforcement and the success of our programs designed to promote and support positive behavioral changes for our residents.

down to small cities like DeLand,” said Linda Brown, who runs a Florida - In Orlando a year teens terrorized homeless men about daytime shelter in DeLand. “The ago, a homeless man pleaded in vain 30 miles away in broad daylight in attacks by youths are random and for his life as a group of teenagers downtown DeLand. senseless.” beat him to death at his campsite in Philip Tarbell was walking on Seven days before Tarbell’s the woods of Holly Hill.

West Voorhis Avenue in the afternoon first attack, four other teens robbed a The attackers have since April 19 when five teens started pair of homeless men on the same been sentenced to decades in prison, following him. The youths lobbed a street, hitting them with a steel pipe. but the homeless are no safer, 4-inch piece of cinderblock at his The teens were arrested and charged advocates say. head. The impact fractured his face. with attempted robbery and battery.

Violence stalks the streets He can no longer see out of his left DeLand police said it was and the woods where they sleep, and eye. unusual to have two attacks against the biggest threat is from teenagers.

“I saw a piece of the the homeless reported in the same From 1999 to 2005, there cinderblock coming at my head, and week. A review of the city’s police were 472 attacks on the homeless, when I ducked it hit my eye,” said records found five attacks against the which resulted in 169 deaths Tarbell, 56, who bags groceries at a homeless during the past year. nationwide, according to the National supermarket and has been homeless The National Coalition for the Coalition for the Homeless in for two years. “There was so much Homeless says such attacks are not Washington, D.C. Nearly two-thirds blood, I thought I was going to die.” unusual; 86 were reported last year of the attackers were between 11 and Ten days later, he was and 105 the year before.

19 years old. mugged by a homeless man who “This is only the tip of the The same week that Michael forced him to hand over his day’s iceberg,” said Michael Stoops, Eugene Roberts’ four killers stood wages. executive director. He said the before a judge to learn their fates in a “Attacks on the homeless are group’s statistics represent a fraction Daytona Beach court, two groups of a national problem that is filtering of the incidents because they are collected from media accounts, not police Berta’s Art Corner reports, which often do not identify victims the homeless.

Many homeless people do not report crimes committed against them because of mental-health issues, substance abuse, fear of retaliation or frustration with the police.

A 2003 University of Central Florida survey of 100 homeless men in Orlando and 800 homeless women in Orlando, Tampa, Miami and Peace symbol, (Global Nuclear Disarmament), Liberty and Jacksonville found

Homeless at high risk for attacks

Central, Over-the-Rhine

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that 90 percent of the men and 78 percent of the women had been physically assaulted.

“The homeless live in a very high-risk environment and are especially vulnerable,” said Jim Wright, a UCF sociology professor and a member of the board at the Coalition for the Homeless in Orlando. “Their ability to self-defend is often compromised by alcohol, drug or mental problems.”

Florida, which ranks second behind California in the number of homeless people, had the highest number of attacks last year, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.

The Holly Hill teenagers who killed Roberts on May 25, 2005, admitted beating the man just to have something to do. Classmates later told the Orlando Sentinel that “bum bashing” was a common game.

Homeless advocates think there is a correlation between the violence and the proliferation of “bum videos,” available for sale online, in which homeless people are coerced to perform degrading and dangerous stunts including fighting each other for drugs, money, alcohol or food.

“A lot of young people are Internet-savvy and view these videos,” Stoops said. “The word is out. The homeless are the only minority group in America you can pick on and get away with. If there was a Jewfights.com, there would be a national outcry.”

Don Sanz, a DeLand psychologist and Stetson University professor, said teenagers who attack the homeless are not normal.

“There is a lot of violence, anger and anxiety in our society,” Sanz said. “But people who are attacking the homeless — whether they are teens or not — have a personality disorder or are psychopaths who don’t care if they injure another human being.”

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, DBoca Raton, proposed classifying violent acts against the homeless as hate crimes, so offenders would face stricter penalties, but the legislation has stalled awaiting the results of a federal study.

Wexler’s bill was prompted by the Jan. 12 bludgeoning of a homeless man — captured on video — by three teens in Fort Lauderdale.

“The attack in Fort Lauderdale brought home to people all over the country that violence against the homeless is increasing,” Wexler said. “They have no homes, no doors to go behind. Many have medical, physical or psychological challenges. They are defenseless and deserve our protection.”

Working, but still homeless Louisville, Ky - It wasn’t long ago that Jennifer Haysley was a methamphetamine addict who slept wherever she could find a place to crash, with friends and family and strangers — even living out of an exboyfriend’s car when she had nowhere else to turn.

Now the 25-year-old former exotic dancer works full time as a cook for Bristol Catering and heads home each day to a two-bedroom apartment as part of a Society of St. Vincent de Paul program that offers transitional housing for the homeless.

Haysley is among the more than 3,000 people, according to the Louisville Coalition for the Homeless, who last year made up Louisville’s

working homeless, a growing segment of the estimated 11,251 men, women and children who received homeless services in 2005.

The coalition, an umbrella agency that coordinates 27 service providers and other members, says the 2005 report indicates that more people in the city’s shelters and programs are employed — but working for low wages. “A lot of them work but they work minimum wage, so as long as we pay just $5.15 an hour, they’re going to be homeless the rest of their life,” said Sister Mary Kathleen Sheehan, director of the St. John Center on Muhammad Ali Boulevard, which serves 160 to 200 men each day

Got The Vibe?

More than one-quarter of the homeless surveyed said they were working part - or full-time jobs, up slightly from the year before, the report says. One-third of those workers earned less than $10 an hour.

That’s less than the $10.83 an hour a worker needs to rent an average two-bedroom apartment in metro Louisville, according to the coalition.

It’s likely that Louisville’s total homeless count is much higher than the census shows because those who didn’t seek services or who were turned away because shelters were full weren’t counted — nor were about 1,000 Hurricane Katrina

evacuees who received homeless services.

Marlene Gordon, the coalition’s executive director, said she’s particularly concerned about the rise of women military veterans. That group rose to 40 in 2005 from one the year before.

In December, Louisville’s homeless programs were awarded a record $5.5 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. About $1.7 million will finance permanent housing.

“It certainly would help us with resources that we need,” Gordon said. “Cities that have made big strides in ending and reducing homelessness are places with dedicated funding.”

NSA Has Massive Database of Americans’ Phone Calls USA Today - American telecommunications giants AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth exceed media activists’ worst fears by illegally facilitating the National Security Agency’s creation of “the largest database ever assembled in the world,” to consist of “‘every call ever made’ within the nation’s borders.”

“The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans—most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime.”

Contrasting this news with telecom corporations’ current bid to “strip away Net Neutrality

protections so they can become benevolent overlords of the World Wide Web.” Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth maintain networks that reach into the homes and businesses of tens of millions of Americans. These companies built this access to our private lives— and the billions in revenues that come with it—on a “bedrock principle” of consumer protection.

Now, that they’ve sold out this trust to help the government monitor ordinary Americans, how credible are their claims that no Net Neutrality safeguards are necessary?

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

This beautiful, original artwork depicts the vibrant role that Streetvibes plays in downtown Cincinnati and neighboring communities. Created by local artist and activist Mary Ann Lederer in collage form, this colorful 18" X 10" reproduction can be yours to own for only $10. Commemorating Streetvibes 100th issue, proceeds from this limited time offer will go to support the Streetvibes Program and Vendors.

Buy Streetvibes From Badged Vendors Only!

Streetvibes Vendors are required to sign a code of conduct and agree to abide by all the rules of the Streetvibes Vendor Program. If a Vendor misrepresents or breaks the rules, she/he may be removed from the Program. See page 12 for rules and regulations on Vendor conduct.

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

Visit the Greater Cincinnati Coaltion for the Homeless website at - http://www.cincihomeless.org Visit the Streevibes archives at - http:// www.cincihomeless.org/content/streetvibes.html Streetvibes

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Dying For Nixon, Dying For Bush

by Paul Rogat Loeb “I didn’t want to die for Nixon,” said a man I met recently in a Seattle park. He’d served on military bases in a half dozen states, and then had a car accident just before being shipped to Vietnam. “The accident was lucky,” he said. “It was a worthless war and I didn’t want to go.”

I agreed. I admired those who fought in World War II, I said.

We owe them the debt of our freedom. But to die for Nixon’s love of power, fear of losing face, deception and vindictiveness—to die for him was obscene. Nixon’s war, the man said, had nothing noble about it. And neither did Iraq.

What does it mean to die in a war so founded on lies? Bush may lack Nixon’s scowl, but he’s equally insulated from the consequences of profoundly destructive actions. He came to power riding on the success of Nixon’s racially divisive “Southern Strategy,” which enshrined the Republicans as the party of backlash. He won reelection by similarly manipulating polarization and fear. Like Nixon, he’s flouted America’s laws while Paul demonizing political opponents. His insistence that withdrawing from Iraq would create a world where terrorists reign echoes Nixon’s claim that defeat in Vietnam would leave the U.S. “a pitiful, helpless giant.”

While Bush assures our soldiers they fight for Iraqi freedom, and to “make America safer for

generations to come,” 82 percent of Iraqis, according to a British Ministry of Defense poll, say they’re “strongly opposed” to the presence of American and British troops, and 45 percent justify attacks against them.

This creates what psychologist Robert Jay Lifton calls “an atrocitycreating situation.” Lifton first used the phrase during Vietnam. He now uses it to describe a “counterinsurgency war in which US soldiers, despite their extraordinary firepower, feel extremely vulnerable in a hostile environment,” amplified by “the great difficulty of tracking down

Loeb or even recognizing the enemy.” This sense of an environment out of control has seeded the ground for Abu Ghraib and for massacres, at the villages of Haditha and Mukaradeeb, already being compared to My Lai. Former Army sniper Jody Blake recently described his unit keeping extra spades on their vehicles so that

Useless Equals Good

by John Siscoe The Theory of the Leisure Class

by Thorstein Veblen Dover Thrift Editions, 1994 Seattle, Wa - Thorstein Veblen, the American economist and social critic, was born to Norwegian immigrant parents in 1857. He taught for most of his academic career at the University of Chicago. Veblen was a gruff man who did not brook contradiction. He was also a bit of an oddball; his house was a perpetual mess and he had a fondness for clothes made out of paper. He also had a fondness for the faculty wives and his reputed inability to keep his hands to himself led to his dismissal from Chicago in 1906. He continued to teach and to publish, but ultimately died in obscurity in 1929.

Veblen is remembered today for his first and most successful book The Theory of the Leisure Class, which is both a scathing indictment of materialist consumerism and a very

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funny satire on human folly. When it was published in 1899, it ignited a furious controversy, for it amounted to a direct attack on the established values of what Mark Twain termed the Gilded Age — a time, not so unlike the present, when a small number of Americans became enormously rich and lived lives of remarkable ostentation. These fortunate few, and those who strove to emulate them, are the slowlymoving targets of Veblen’s ridicule.

Veblen analyzed American society as essentially consumerist, obsessed with wealth, material possessions, and the desire for leisure. In such a society the more expensive and useless an object or activity is, the greater its cultural value and the more mesmerizing its hold over the imagination. Veblen is especially perceptive of how flaunting wealth is a demonstration of power, and how economic decisions are often irrational: driven by fear, envy,

if they killed innocent Iraqis in response to an attack with an Improvised Explosive Device, they could throw one next to the corpses to make it appear those killed were preparing a roadside bomb.

Last December Bush called the Iraqi election “a watershed moment in the story of freedom.” But if our invasion and occupation has created a watershed moment, it’s one whose rivers of resentment and bitterness may poison the global landscape for decades to come. And when Bush talks of promoting freedom, the world sees the freedom of America to do whatever we please, no matter how many nations oppose us.

America’s Vietnam-era leaders made much of their embrace of freedom as well, while overthrowing elected governments from Brazil to Chile to Greece.

The war they waged in Southeast Asia killed two to five million Vietnamese, plus more deaths in Laos and Cambodia. And as with Iraq, those making the key decisions were profoundly insulated: Out of 234 eligible sons of Senators and Congressmen, only 28 served in Vietnam, only 19 saw combat, only one was wounded and none were killed. In Iraq, as we know, the chicken hawks led the march to war, and the sole Congressman or Senator with a son who initially served was Democrat Tim Johnson, who the Republicans still attacked as insufficiently patriotic.

While the sons of Republican Senator

Kit Bond and three Republican congressmen have since also volunteered and been deployed, most who initiated this war have never been intimately touched by it.

Counting Eisenhower’s first deployment of soldiers and CIA agents to Vietnam in support of the French, Kennedy’s further commitment, and Johnson’s major escalation, the United States fought there for over twenty years. We’ve now been in and out of Iraq for nearly forty years, since the 1963 coup when the CIA first helped the Baath Party overthrow the founder of OPEC. (And intervening in Iran since our 1953 overthrow of the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh, who we replaced with the dictatorial Shah).

With the administration promising no immediate end in sight, Bush now tells us it will be up to “future presidents” even to consider withdrawing our troops. Who wants to be the last man or woman to die for George Bush?

Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association, and winner of the Nautilus Award for best social change book of the year. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org. To get his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloebarticles

and blind hope. The Theory of the Leisure Class made a profound impact on the study of economics, for after Veblen, few would be so brave (or so foolish) as to study economics in isolation from social or cultural factors.

But while Veblen deserves a lasting, if modest place in the history of economics, his real accomplishment lies in satire. The Theory of the Leisure Class is a send-up of human vanity and pretensions, and there’s scarcely a page in the book where one of Veblen’s shafts doesn’t strike home.

Veblen’s diction and the shape of his sentences are late Victorian academic, but his observant eye is timeless, and this makes his book as lively and as pertinent today as when it was first published.

Veblen loved the useful and the inexpensive and he would have been delighted to learn that The Theory of the Leisure Class has now been republished by Dover in their Thrift Classics Series, making the

entire book available for the price of a ritzy cup of coffee. Dover has published nearly 500 titles in this format and they represent some of the best bargains in publishing.

Thorstein Veblen, paper clothes and love affairs aside, deserves to be among them.

John Siscoe is the proprietor of Globe Books in Seattle. He can be reached at johnsiscoe@zipcon.net.

Streetvibes

Don’t be Squirrelly!

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A Mother’s Words - the Futility of Death

by Dr. Steve Sunderland audience of 600. The mother had Cinti, Oh - Cindy Sheehan, also attempted suicide but was saved. peace activist, grieving mother of a This point provided the opportunity “murdered child,” and eloquent for Sheehan to discuss her own spokesperson for humanity, came to feelings of suicide since the death of Cincinnati last month. She opened an her son, the “murder” she called it, amazing program organized by Cathy and what stopped her she suggested, Roma, director of MUSE, was a combination of caring about Cincinnati’s Women’s Choir, and also her remaining children and “still featuring MUSE and peace activist believing in hope and justice.” and singer, Holly Near. Prior to her Her talk had three major speech, I had a chance to introduce points: myself to Cindy Sheehan and express A. “George Bush is not the gratitude for her coming. She is a problem, but the symptom. Why are pale woman, reddish hair, and the people and the Congress looking deeply tired. She couldn’t following him in his mad and violent have been friendlier. The church we leadership?” She elaborated on what were in was filling, her phone was she saw as the ownership of the ringing, and her eyes looked kindly government and the media by big but distracted, a storm within a storm. business, calling it a form of If there were critics of her “fascism.” This take over, she position on the war, or the way she chose to frame the issues in terms of grief and murder, they were not visible. Again and again, we gave her rousing cheers of support and even some standing ovations. What she said was almost too painful to hear. Cindy sat on a raised chair, on a stage in the front of the church, her tired voice gathering strength and humor as she spoke. Her talk was framed Steve Sunderland by a story of a woman, a “good friend,” who was recently believes, goes on due to the apathy arrested for giving her daughter an and consumerist addiction of overdose of medication. “What Americans who would rather drive would cause a mother to murder her their SUVs than live with a fair and child?” she asked in her simple and more balance approach to resources. plaintive voice to an attentive The President’s justification of the

war amounts to “revenge’ for those who have been killed on September 11 and thereafter in Iraq. She asked: “Why would I want anyone, Iraqi or American, to die because my son was killed? Who wants this mission other than the “War Party?”

B. “What can we do to bring our own hearts to peace?” Sheehan elaborated that peace in our own hearts starts the peace process, builds strength and overcomes both “bitterness and hatred.” “I am full of anger but not bitterness and hatred about my son’s death and the war. I believe in the future of hope and justice.” She spoke of the futility of more death, especially for families directly engaged in the war, be the families of American soldiers or the mothers and fathers of Iraqis. .

C. “I seek what Gandhi called, ‘heart unity.’ My heart is connected to the Iraqi mother of the son who killed my son. And, my heart is connected to the Iraqi mother who my son may have killed.” She elaborated on these shocking points, tears streaming down her face, gasping for breath, pausing for her and our benefit, the death of her son now so vivid and his responsibility as a soldier so horrifying. We must remember them and work for their memories to be reminders of peace.

“I think there is a Buddhist story,” she said in conclusion, “that a person dies two times: first, when they biologically die and second, when they are forgotten. My son will never die, and the Iraqis will never die because I am going to use the rest of life to remind the world of their lives.” We rose to

our feet as one group of fellow grievers, our hearts opening and breaking and hoping for healing. So much was said and left unsaid as we stirred in her and our common pain.

The beauty and power of the grief linked us together, going beyond the imagination and into a space of connection that defies words. We knew we heard a tough speech, very difficult to deliver and almost unbearable for those who had a family death of a veteran. Yet, the grief weighed down and up, falling across faces and into hearts that were now open to this woman who wanted us to share in her story by stopping the violence toward other children.

She spoke from a fundamental value, a citizen of the world of war calling out for the stopping of the killing of anyone. She spoke as someone not expecting herself to see a happy ending to this conflict; rather, she suggested that there will be many more widows, families without peace, and more grief to come unless there is a widespread commitment to transforming the heart of violence into peace. Her grief was moving on her, threatening to engulf her into a step back into hopelessness, triggered by not only tiredness, insults, and rejection of her basic themes. She seemed to be teetering on the edge of a reality about how easily the human condition can kill thousands of mothers’ sons and daughters. How many more times could she ask out loud, for herself and others: “Why is my child dead?

Controversy Over City Commissioner’s “Homeless” Email ORLANDO, Fla. — An Orlando city commissioner’s email is creating quite a controversy over Orlando’s homeless.

The email from an aide to Commissioner Patty Sheehan refers to group “feedings” of homeless people and a new effort to move them away from Lake Eola.

“I just felt it was a little slimy, a little underhanded,” said homeless rights activist Cooper Brinson.

The email, written by Commissioner Patty Sheehan’s aide, Chase Smith, was sent to eight business owners in the Thornton Park neighborhood, talking about Sheehan’s proposed ordinance banning wellintentioned volunteers from feeding the homeless there each Wednesday afternoon.

The intent of the ordinance, Smith wrote, is to try to move the large groups of homeless out of downtown and create less of a “situation” for the businesses and residents, potentially resolving many of the “post-feeding issues that everyone’s experiencing” downtown.

Brinson said the group giving out the food, Food Not Bombs, needs a helping hand from city leaders and not the boot.

“They’re just pushing the problem away to another place so they don’t have to look at it,” he said.

But it isn’t so cut and dry.

Ask people who live or own businesses in the area and they tell a much different story.

“Their set of rules on the street isn’t our set of rules,” said Robin Stotter.

Stotter plans to open a new restaurant right on the park in three months. Over the past three months, he said, the homeless population has exploded.

“When I come to work every day, I have to get people out of my front door. I have to get ‘em out of the stairs getting down,” he said.

“They come into the building during the day. I found two people doing heroin in my bathroom.”

Stotter fears a recent rise in neighborhood crime is scaring customers away.

It’s an argument blurred by the rhetoric in an email whose own author admits is a bit strong.

Eyewitness News spoke to Sheehan’s assistant who wrote the email and, while he said he does regret the choice of words, he does

not regret the message that something has to change in the park and anyone who wants a say should show up at a public meeting.

Sheehan’s proposed ordinance would move the permitted location for the so-called “feedings” to an area near city hall.

“Don “Don’’t Leave Home W ithout IItt Without

Streetvibes

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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)

Page 12

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.

Letters

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.

Send your letters or comments to Streetvibes, 117 East 12th Street, Cincinnati Ohio 45202, or email to Streetvibes@juno.com

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Streetvibes

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-than-new fares from the best free resource in the ‘nasty?

Firecats got you covered.

Snow Falling on the Cedars (1999 – Scott Hicks, starring Rick Yune & Ethan Hawke) Review by Firecat Blue About 20 minutes in, I fell asleep out of sheer self-preservation. The inside of my eyelids were literally more entertaining. There was something about a forbidden love between and

entire 15 hours in two or three days.

Of course if you favor more boy on boy action, I recommend Queer as Folk, also found at the library. I give The “L” Word two paws up.

Japanese American lady and a white dude and maybe there was also a murder. Also, I think it was a period drama because a lot of people were wearing hats. It was soft lit and slow with lots of “interesting” trolling-forOscars angles and lighting. This one’s not worth the wear and tear on your library card.

The “L” Word (Showtime Series, starring Jennifer Beals, Erin Daniels, Mia Kirshner, Karina Lombard, Leisha Haily, Laurel Holloman, Katherine Moennig, Pam Grier) Review by Firecat Lavendar This friend-incestuous Lesbian drama is emotional, heart-warming and many times laughable because of its lesbian clichés. If you like soap operas and appreciate queer culture then you’ll love it and may even become a little obsessed, watching an

9 Good Teeth (Documentary starring Mary Mirabito a.k.a.

“Nana”) Review by Firecat Blue Filmmaker Alex Halpern, pretty sure his 104 year old Nana is going to kick it soon, pulled together a sweet, funny, slightly morbid view of the 5 foot matriarch from Sicily.

Nana steals the show, revealing family secrets, intrigues and brushes with infamy via the mafia and Beat poet Jack Kerouac. A decent – and fair- view of family complications and resolution, this is definitely worth a watch.

The Meaning of Food (2004 PBS Documentary) Review by Firecats Blue, Turquoise & Chameleon This series focuses on the human relationship with food featuring three parts: Food and Life, Food and Culture and Food and Family.

Nicely filmed in easy to digest 5-10 minute segments, this documentary appealed to our special brand of Firecat ADD. We liked the Culture one the best. The host was slightly annoying, but likable enough and not a major focus. Highlights included stories on the final meals of death row inmates, a Booyah festival in Minnesota, a Kalache contest and a Samoan funeral.

Supersize Me (2004 Documentary starring Morgan Spurlock) Review by Firecat Turquoise Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock commits to eating nothing but McDonalds for 30 days straight. For lack of a better word, it was awesome. Definitely not a slam against Micky D’s, though you may never view those tasty fries the same again. Don’t be put off by the fact that it’s a documentary, it’s the most entertaining documentary I’ve ever seen. I’d recommend this move to anyone who has ever eaten at McDonalds, who eats fast food on a regular basis or is concerned about their health. Oh wait, that’s pretty much everyone. 3 paws up!

Prior Month Caseloads Reflect Disaster Food Stamp Program FRAC - Food Research and Action Committee - www.frac.org Caseload trends in late 2005 were affected by the temporary disaster Food Stamp Program relief in the wake of several hurricanes, relief that

by December was on the wane.

A positive feature of the Food Stamp Program is its ability to meet increased need, whether due to economic changes or disasters. For information about the Disaster Food Stamp Program, go to http:// www.frac.org/html/disaster/ disaster_index.html and http:// www.frac.org/Press_Release/ 07.21.05.html

Three states with large numbers of those affected by the hurricanes– Florida, Louisiana, and Texas—accounted for nearly 3.4 million of the 3.8 million person increase between August and November 2005. Also ranking in the ten states with the largest percentage increases between August and November 2005 were three other states disproportionately impacted by hurricanes— Mississippi (hit by Katrina), Georgia and Arkansas (both reportedly serving large numbers of hurricane evacuees).

Not reflected in the caseload figures was additional nutrition assistance provided to many regular food stamp households affected by the hurricanes. Many households already enrolled in the program received replacement allotments to help cope with their food losses.

Additional nutrition assistance also was provided to hurricane victims through the school meals programs, Child and Adult Care Food Program, and WIC Program.

The significant food stamp service to hurricane survivors was due to a combination of factors: the

Man beaten in 3rd attack on homeless in 3 months DeLAND, Fl — Police are investigating the third attack on the homeless by teenagers in as many months, but authorities have nothing to link the seemingly random and senseless beatings.

“It could be just a stupid, juvenile prank,” DeLand police Cmdr. Randel Henderson said last month. “We’re not downplaying this by any means. These things can tend to escalate. ”Last month, Bill Railsback was drinking a beer in a wooded lot on East Howry Avenue when, he said, a group of four men, about 16 to 20 years of age, beat him with no warning or words, police said.

Railsback, 51, suffered some scratches and told police he thought his attackers received the brunt of the beating.

“He did fight back,” Henderson said of the military-trained

man. “He believes he injured the arm of one young man.”

Police contacted local hospitals to see if anyone has come in with a broken arm, but nothing turned up so far.

Police said it was unusual to have so many attacks on homeless people.

In April, there were two attacks on the homeless in the span of a week. Philip Tarbell was walking on West Voorhis Avenue in the afternoon of April 19 when five teens following him lobbed a 4-inch piece of concrete block at his head. The impact fractured his face, and he can no longer see out of his left eye.

Seven days before that, four other teens robbed a pair of homeless men on the same street, hitting them with a steel pipe.

The three attacks occurred within a two-block area.

He said police will remain vigilant in the area where Railsback was beaten, a place where the homeless commonly congregate and set up camps.

But Henderson said these attacks seem spontaneous and without a clear motive.

From 1999 to 2005, there were 472 attacks on the homeless nationwide, which resulted in 169 deaths, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, D.C. Nearly two-thirds of the attackers were between 11 and 19 years old.

The area’s most high-profile homeless attack ended last year with the death of Michael Eugene Roberts in Holly Hill. The frail man was beaten May 25, 2005, on three separate occasions by a group of teens with logs, fists and sticks.

Streetvibes

entitlement structure of the program which allowed it to respond quickly to deep and urgent need; strong leadership from political appointees and career officials at the US Department of Agriculture; key efforts of state governments; efficiency of the Electronic Benefit Transfer delivery system; and outreach and advocacy by non-profit groups.

The teens, who now are between 15 and 19 years old, were sentenced in April to prison terms between 22 and 35 years.

Homeless men and women are particularly vulnerable to crimes against them because they represent an easy, visible target and often lack a place to retreat for safety and protection, Henderson said.

Several clients of the Agape Clubhouse in DeLand, a daytime homeless shelter, said there is a group of teens that have threatened several homeless people in downtown.

“They have ‘No Fear’ tattoos on their arms and necks,” said John Fowler, 48. “There’s a lack of respect with teenagers today.”

Police did not know anything about the group.

One woman who has lived on the streets of DeLand for three years said that many of the homeless have to look out for each other to prevent the attacks.

“We have to stick together,” she said. “These kids think they are better than us.”

Page 13

Where I’m From

by Joyce Robinson I’m from a place where there is beauty all around.

I can see it in the people and in the phenomenal beauty of nature.

It gives me a sense of appreciation that life is for me.

When I smell the fragrance of roses penetrating through the air, It makes me wonder just exactly where I’m from.

When I’m surrounded by trees and all kinds of exotic birds, I even imagine sometimes what it would be like just to fly.

I’m from just the ordinary and not at all from the extraordinary.

High up in the morning when I begin to rise, I feel the horizon, which makes me laugh and smile.

It even gives me a shine just in time to dine, I don’t need to have my table set with all the resplendent, Or silverware and all the rest of the fancy stuff.

I’m from a place where I couldn’t sleep at night.

Taxi cabs and buses running all through the night, Tranquility once before I could not understand but, Just to know it now is exactly where I’m from.

I’m from the stars that only I can know I glow like the sun as the new day moon.

I’m happy just to be me and free I am indeed.

From Stagnation To Motivation On Into Revelation

by Joyce Ann Robinson We the people who are made so harmonious and so sweet, it is givin to us as an ocean so deep, and river’s so wide and mountains so high and valleys so low, streams so freshly flowing with all of God’s Blessing’s of delights.

Even blazing fire which so for the better to be used wisely. For some of us we may pass up our Blessing, simply because we use our brains for a little while. Like a sink faucet we turn it off and on.

We use our heart as if black coal is being added to continue to burn with hatred and all the rest of the evils that follow with it.

We use our hands as if they were maintenance tools lying around never to be used and, for our torso bodies is concern. We use it like an old tree log just to decompose. Especially when we are able to do a lot more with it.

We use our gender for self-control as if it takes the place of our resources and even to selfdestruct. It has become one of our major concerns in our society today. This is one of the reasons that a lot of us go through the waters, the floods, and even sometimes the fire. Some of us carry with us a great deal of sorrow, famine, and affliction. Most of us take our feet to places they should not go.

We will always come across stumbling blocks in our live’s but, many will have plenty of them if they continue not to follow in a more clever path through life’s journey.

We most not never forget the (Blood) not, the blood in which we see lying in the street’s when we go around self-destructing one another.

Murdering our mothers, our fathers and our children.

We need to draw closer to God, and in Jesus’s name and remember that it is His Blood that has healed and still heals and always will only, if we let him take control of our live’s.

We may be able to plan our future but, only God knows where He wants us to go, what He wants us to say and, who He wants us to be, so leave room in your life and in your heart’s and let God lead you and remember, every knee must bow and every tongue must confess that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior.

Page 14

I Will Never Be Homeless I will never be homeless, It won’t happen to me.

I will never be homeless, Anonymous I’m doing so well, don’t you see?

The law locks up the man or woman I have a good job, a nice house and a car, Who steals the goose from off the common I have everything I need to go far.

But leaves the greater villain loose I am not like those Welfare bums, Who steals the common from off the goose.

To whom prosperity never comes.

The law demands that we alone You know, the ones who don’t want to work, When we take things we do not own Any kind of physical labor, they shirk.

But leaves the lords and ladies fine All they want to do is drink, Who take things that are yours and mine.

Some are not clean, and they stink.

The poor and wretched don’t escape Then, I see a man, lying in the street, If they conspire the law to break; A tattered coat around him and no shoes on his feet.

This must be so but they endure But, I sense that something is wrong, Those who conspire to make the law.

That somehow, this man does not belong.

The law locks up the man or woman So, I decide to stop to say hello, Who steals the goose from off the common And ask him why he fell so low.

And geese will still a common lack He once worked on a street called Bay. Till they go and steal it back.

Making good money every day.

Then, one day his job was gone.

He was told, “just go on home.”

He soon just didn’t care, His purpose in life no longer there.

He lost his family, his home, and his car.

In just a few months, he fell so far.

So here he was, on the street, With a tattered coat around him and no shoes on his feet.

Then I saw the lines on his face and the pain in his eyes, I will never be homeless, will I?

Streetvibes

BrokenGlass

by Evanne Fisher I’m so Angry I slam the door The glass breaks.

It falls to the floor Like sleet from the sky.

Like the shattered pieces of my life, The broken glass lies at my feet As I look down, I see all of my hopes and dreams Splattered there amongst The glistening pieces of glass.

I reach down to pick up the pieces of my life, The glass cuts my hands, Blood everywhere Dripping Flowing into the vast darkness Where I’ve chosen to live.

Writers!

Submit your Poetry to STREETVIBES email your writing to Streetvibes@juno.com

One check away

“DEAR JUDGE”

by William Moore ORDER IN THE COURT, I’VE BEEN ORDERED TO COME TO COURT IT’S THE 3RD TIME, I’M BOUND TO DO SOME TIME FOR AN OPEN CANTAINER, SLEEPING IN THE PARK AFTER DARK. AN OPEN CANTAINER, A HUNDRED AND SOMETHING DOLLARS ”DEAR JUDGE” HOW CAN I PAY THIS WHEN I DONT HAVE NO JOB”?

BOY, WHOS THE ONE GETTING ROBBED?

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

The homeless

by Don Foran 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.

Shutter Speed

Harold

by JH Who is the man that staggers in the park?

The old man, with gray hair…

The poor gentleman that lives in a flea-bag hotel.

The man that reminds me of my father, my dad…

He’s tall and thin.

Had an egg-sandwich for breakfast.

In his tiny room, downtown.

This thin man, this papa, the gray-haired guy, staggers in the park, on a brutal, hot day…

He sits on the bench, with his counterfeit friend, and he falls on the ground, with the heavy limpness of a cruel torture.

On the asphalt, in the shade of the trees, this old man falls.

The deception of life, and the deny of death.

I feel the spirit of this man, myself, on the ground, the hot, cruel asphalt…

by Jimmy Heath

Key West Sunset Celebration

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 would 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

Want to Help?

Need Help or 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

July 2006

10 Years in Publication!

Cincinnati Police Profiling The Homeless

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