Thank you Del for helping all of us to understand and foster true community!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Bq5sIUt38&feature=youtu.be
6 THINGS I WANT YOU TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT BEING HOMELESS IN AMERICA - BY JAYDA SHUAVARNNASRI.
It’s been long overdue that I’ve written about my time in D.C. doing the Homeless Challenge. Life moved on once I came back, and before you know it I was on a flight to Bangkok, still sharing my experience here and there and trying to process it all at the same time. And of course, that right there perfectly reflects my privilege of not actually being homeless.
http://nationalhomeless.org/guest-post-6-things-want-understand-homeless-america/
"The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development "does not even count most homeless children in their statistics because they exclude most children who are not living in shelters or on the streets. The HUD statistics allow the agency to claim it is making progress on reducing child homelessness when the opposite is true, but worse, HUD's definition fails to help hundreds of thousands of children in need. In fact, a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that HUD's definition exacerbates problems for kids."
"In 187 cities across the country, there has been an uptick in every kind of ordinance aimed at making it illegal to be homeless, such as banning people from lying down or having possessions with them as in Fort Lauderdale, FL; prohibiting people fromsitting or lying down on sidewalks, such as in Honolulu, HI; or making it illegal to sleep in public, such as in Palo Alto, CA. Manteca’s ban on encampments is widespread, as 34 percent of cities have bans on camping in public, a 60 percent increase from 2011."
http://www.nationofchange.org/2014/11/11/california-city-bans-homeless-sleeping-outside-leave-thats-choice/
"People experiencing homelessness keep pets for all the same reasons housed people do: love, companionship, and a sense of purpose. In many cases, they find ways to provide beyond adequate care for their companion animals."
http://www.homelesshub.ca/blog/why-do-homeless-people-have-pets
BART Police are arresting people for sleeping in the BART stations. This has to stop !!
All human beings have the RIGHT TO REST !
On Saturday November 8th the Coalition on Homelessness led a SLEEP-IN & PICKET to call for an end to BART police harassment of people sleeping in the transit stations.
The BART Police Department has been embattled almost since its inception, with bad publicity flowing directly from poor decisions and horrific incidents.
We are facing an unprecedented housing crisis in San Francisco. Instead of recognizing the crisis and coming up with effective solutions, BART has chosen the tried and failed route of rousting, citing and arresting.
Join The Coalition on Homelessness to end BART Police harassment!
We want to continue to put public and media pressure on BART to stop their racial and class-based profiling and policing and call for a California Homeless Bill of Rights that ensures all Californians have a right to rest.
For more information contact The Coalition on Homelessness - (415) 346-3740
By Gary Blasi
Across the United States, many local governments are responding to skyrocketing levels of inequality and the now decades-long crisis of homelessness among the very poor ... by passing laws making it a crime to sleep in a parked car.
This happened most recently in Palo Alto, in California's Silicon Valley, where new billionaires are seemingly minted every month – and where 92% of homeless people lack shelter of any kind. Dozens of cities have passed similar anti-homeless laws. The largest of them is Los Angeles, the longtime unofficial "homeless capital of America", where lawyers are currently defending a similar vehicle-sleeping law before a skeptical federal appellate court. Laws against sleeping on sidewalks or in cars are called "quality of life" laws. But they certainly don't protect the quality of life of the poor. Read more HERE.
Very astute and thoughtful essay by Claire Bain:
Megan and I had a wonderful time with Diamond Dave last Friday on Mutiny Radio. Enjoy. There is some amazing music by the North Carolina Songsmiths and Diana Gameros!
http://podcasts.pcrcollective.org/DiamondDave/DiamondDave-20141024.mp3
Due to the final game of the World Series, tomorrow's event will be changed. Instead of having a formal event, Megan and Christopher will be painting "Home' signs at night in ATA. The final game of the World Series will be on the radio. Stop on by. Buy a sign. Root for the Giants! Thursday's event will still go on as schedule.
Really thoughtful analysis by Claire Bain posted on ATA's blog. Check it out! We highly recommend it!
Inspired by the heart warming generosity demonstrated yesterday by the purchase of "Home" signs for two organizations that are home to communities (San Francisco Skate Club and The Marin Interfaith Street Chaplaincy), Megan and Christopher will be having a special offer through the end of the month of October. If you purchase a sign for an organization in your neighborhood that is a home to a community, you will receive a limited edition, not for the public, hand painted 4"x8" 'Home' sign! Just click on the "Buy Now" link and show your support not just for our three partner organizations, but an organization that is 'Home' to your own community!
After years of harassment by the police, homeless Angelenos and their allies fight back.
"We are not just numbers. We're persons."
Oa typical day, St. Anthony's, a soup kitchen in San Francisco, serves up to 2,400 meals. Though the city is in the midst of an economic boom, the line for the dining room is often so long that guests have to wait in a nearby auditorium.
POEM BY MARINA LAZZARA
A cup of chicken rice soup and half a sandwich
Bothers the complexity of the drought
And eighteen months left of water, far king
On the other side of the state line. Within
Me sometimes there's weird vibrational breakdowns
And machines and lights or buses just stop
Digesting and the slight sound of my own voice
In my ear is alarming and familiar and surreal
Don't move away
I'm here sitting at this cafe
Waiting for you
Drinking beer
Watching homeless women
Comb their mermaid hair
In alleyways of a dive, but your news
Instructs my gut, a pit I would have swallowed
Had I known the small noon minutes
Would be so hot on Fulton Street
Although here in depth to all kinds of weather
just presence
The threat of the ending of the field of the stretching of the
Threat of the ending of the field of the stretching of the
Threat of the ending of the field
Wide open arms around the bottom of the sky
Lift the rise into the set, the tiger colors
The stash of reality I keep in each palm
Wavering as to not wanting
How the alley mermaids turn their hair into lunch
How this great divide forces the nutrients to absorb disparity
the moving on and the made to move on or the
safe enough portions for daily intake
the FDA did not consider in reports
Today or yesterday, it doesn't matter that you'll move away
I have mouths to feed if the lights would just stay on
Great, big giant mouths to feed if the lights stay on
masticating mouths
Occassionally spitting up lunch to make room
For more of you
Please read the following article from the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/ten-facts-about-homelessn_b_5977946.html
Thank you Daniel for interest in the project and helping to get the word out even more!
You can read the full article here: http://blog.sfgate.com/inthemission/2014/10/08/in-a-storefront-home-artist-explore-homelessness/
San Francisco's Tenderloin district has the highest concentration of homeless persons (44%), comprises the highest proportion of residents living in poverty (69.7%) with a per capita income of $14,556 compared to San Francisco's average of $73,802, and of the population 16 years and older, 47% are unemployed.
We have reached out to three of the new innovative businesses - Twitter, Zendesk, and Yammer - that are part of the Central Market CBA and who have voiced that they want to work with organizations in the community that are addressing the struggles of homelessness. We are working with three organizations - two in the Central Market/Tenderloin area - the Gubbio Project and Coalition On Homelessness, as well as At The Crossroads Street Youth Support that serves homeless youth throughout SF - to help raise awareness and educate around the realities of homelessness, while helping to raise money to support these critical organizations. So far we've heard nothing back ... we'll keep trying.
A new apartment building opened in downtown Los Angeles Wednesday, offering a community garden, library, running track, art room and exercise facilities to tenants.
Though it may sound like standard trappings for the city's elite, the complex houses exclusively homeless residents.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/star-apartments-los-angeles_n_5961558.html