"On Monday (8/4/08), a bus will roll into town and park in front of Legislative Plaza. The people who work on that bus will connect anybody who is poor or lacks health insurance to 475 programs nationwide that may provide them free or low-cost prescription drugs."

"You don't need an appointment — just walk up. Bring a list of

the medications you need."

I will provide bus tickets (until I run out) to any Homeless person who needs to access this service on Monday.

Call me at 615-257-0382 or email me at findstevefast@gmail.com with contact info.

Also, I will be downtown on Saturday around 11am by the library.

And if you miss this service, don't sweat it - I can refer you to Health Assist, who will exactly same thing, but they will do it by phone. We've been working with them for a minute now and they've helped quite a few of my clients already....


Bus helps those who need meds | www.tennessean.com | The Tennessean

Bus helps those who need meds

By GAIL KERR • July 31, 2008

If you are a senior citizen, living on a fixed income, you need to know about this.

If you work for a nonprofit that helps the poor, you need to know about this.
Advertisement

If you are homeless, or close to it, or have no health insurance, you most definitely need to know about this.

On Monday (8/4/08), a bus will roll into town and park in front of Legislative Plaza. The people who work on that bus will connect anybody who is poor or lacks health insurance to
475 programs nationwide that may provide them free or low-cost prescription drugs.

The process is confidential, and takes about 15 minutes.

Rachel Hester, executive director of the Campus for Human Development, has been spreading the word to her homeless and poor clients. The Campus helps 4,000 people a year, and they get at least five or six requests every day for help getting prescriptions.

Other programs that help the poor have the same experience.

This is not painkillers or other addictive drugs. This is blood pressure medication, diabetes treatments, and any number of other medications meant to fight chronic illness.

"The need is growing," Hester said, particularly since Nashville General Hospital At Meharry closed its pharmacy and bus fare went up. People who cannot afford the drugs they need can now go through Bridges to Care, which provides pharmaceutical drugs for a $7 co-payment, which can be waived. Or, they can go to the Metro Health Department, which is near Elliston Place.

Kind of a long walk if you don't have a ride.

"Transportation is a major problem," Hester said.

Industry funds program

The "Help is Here Express" bus is paid for by the Partnership for Prescription Assistance, the charitable arm of the pharmaceutical industry. It will be at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Deaderick Street from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday. There are no drugs on board. It's stocked with laptop computers and people who will help.

The programs that provide the drugs vary. Some are drug companies that offer a limited supply of what they manufacture. Some are nonprofit organizations that focus on one area, like cancer treatment. Some offer drugs as part of experimental studies.

They have this in common: you can't get help until you apply for it, and that's what the bus is for. You don't need an appointment — just walk up. Bring a list of the medications you need. They'll log you on to a Web site or call a toll free phone number to figure out each individual's eligibility.

The bus tours around the country to draw attention to this program, obviously. But you can use any computer or telephone to apply.

The Web site is www.pparx.org and the phone number is 1-888-4PPA-NOW. The call center offers help in English, Spanish and 150 other languages.

Because chronic illness doesn't recognize income or language barriers.

"In Tennessee, we actually have more heat-related issues with the homeless than we do cold-related issues because the heat kind of sneaks up on you,"

I tell ya, the local Mission takes a lot of heat (no pun intended) about conditions and some of the activities by visitors at the facility but there is no doubt that they come running when people are suffering or in need.

when I see stories like this one it reminds me of just exactly what they're doing out there every day with people the many in our society has essentially given up on.

Last year the folks on the street could count on Tony Carter and the Homeless Task Force van to bring water to folks on a regular basis, but hard times and a lack of cash have forced Tony into his own "survival mode" and he's stopped his efforts for now.

By the way, I noticed a few weeks ago that they've recently installed a metal detector at the courtyard door to cut down (again, no pun intended) on the number of weapons entering the area.  I know from some of the guys who stay there that there've been an increasing number of fights, but I think this is more a sign of sweltering temperatures, which always make people more irritable than normal.

Of course, the fact that the population of people experiencing homelessness is exploding adds to the stress, since there is even more competition for scarce resources.  If you've never had to get up in the morning to walk five miles so that you could stand in line for two hours waiting on a bowl of cereal made with powdered milk and a cool shower, you may have a harder time understanding this.  

I know too that Pastor Ken has seen an increase in folks asking for help because I've sent a whole bunch of them his way.  I usually send them to Ken if they've never visited him for help before, since when you burn up the "one time assistance" help the church provides for things like ID, birth certificates and other assorted basic essentials, you can't go back anytime soon.  

Because many people on the street have no place to stash important papers or items and have a rather hard time holding onto ID and paper documents in general, they occasionally lose this critically important item.  One cannot go without ID for very long since it is required for just about every service available and not having one adds injury to the insult of being homeless in the first place. 

Additionally, a few local police officers apparently find it amusing or somehow enjoy adding additional hardships to folks by way of keeping their IDs when they are arrested or questioned, so I often must replace IDs for individuals two, three and even four times a year.    

Patrol To Help Homeless Beat The Heat

Posted: July 29, 2008 06:19 PM

Video Gallery <1> Patrol To Help Homeless Beat The Heat 2:31

MEmbers of the hot patrol prepare to pass out bottles of cold water

Heat Advisory For West Tenn., Hot In Nashville

Downtown Presbyterian Church Nashville Rescue Mission

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - It's hard to beat the heat in this hot weather especially if you don't have air conditioning.


To help out the homeless, the "hot patrol" went into action Tuesday afternoon.
It is comprised of people affiliated with the Nashville Rescue Mission and the Downtown Presbyterian Church.


Increasingly, people who are homeless are seeking assistance from the church and the mission.


The hot patrol springs into action when the temperature climbs to 94 degrees.
"When it gets hot like this, we'll go through a case of water like that in about five minutes," said volunteer Ed Grimes.


"In Tennessee, we actually have more heat-related issues with the homeless than we do cold-related issues because the heat kind of sneaks up on you," said Cliff Tredway, spokesman for the mission.


Bottle after bottle, the water goes fast.


"I was genuinely shocked," said the Rev. Ken Locke, pastor of the Downtown Presbyterian Church.


He knows more people are looking for help.
 
"But when you tabulate all the numbers up at the end of the month, it's just amazing and really sad to see it," he said.


The number of people coming to the church's free Sunday breakfast has doubled to 200 over the last month.


Locke wrote 100 checks for help this month compared to 50 in June. He doesn't know when things will get better.


"That's the scary part right now.  What is next month and the month after that going to look like? That's where I am really concerned," he said.


Right now, individuals such as Grimes want to make sure they help others beat the heat.


"They're grateful we're out here passing out water and that stuff," Grimes said.
The "hot patrol" passes out cold bottles of water and offers rides to the mission to rest in air conditioning.


Some of the food the Downtown Presbyterian Church serves is donated, but the church pays for the majority of what is served. Preparing the meals is into a budget buster.

"While the needed programs and services are costly, research indicates that the cost of ignoring homelessness is far greater. This far greater cost impacts social service organizations, the justice system, health-care providers — and especially those who are homeless."

The Downtown Partnership (DTP) has long been demonized by many on the streets here in Nashville for doing exactly what they are charged with doing - advocating for local area businesses and residents.

Coming from a job in Reno in which I was the Corporate Relations Coordinator for another non-profit, I couldn't understand why, since I knew from my previous experiences working with businesses and corporations that this was one of the best sources of financial and in-kind assistance around. I also knew that our current government was not going to step fully up to the plate, no matter how much we whined, screamed, cursed or yelled at them to do so.

This view has of course now been validated by the majority of our homelessness commission, including former Chairman Howard Gentry, who has gone on to the Chamber of Commerce in order to build the very relationships I believed should have been established long ago to help alleviate the suffering and end homelessness in Nashville, period.

What was most surprising to me when I began working here was that this was a resource that wasn't being tapped by those charged with caring for the well-being of those experiencing homelessness in Nashville.

I soon discovered that a small but vocal number of the homeless advocacy community had so thoroughly poisoned this well with toxic behavior, blatant lies and propaganda that the DTP was every bit as suspicious of those in the Homeless community as the homeless community was of them, and who could blame them? It works both ways, dontchaknow.

Now let me be clear here. The DTP and I don't always see eye to eye, but that is primarily because they have different interests and a constituency they must answer to. However, their end-goal is essentially the same as ours; getting people off the street.

Does it really matter if their rationales are different than ours for wanting this accomplished? My job is to make sure that we present effective, humane and compassionate ways of reducing the number of homeless people on the street in Nashville. When I am successful at this, the DTP, the business community, downtown residents and generally compassionate and concerned citizens all sit up and takes notice.

They also take out their checkbooks, and we need all the help we can get in ending homelessness in our community.

I continue to view the DTP as just another resource that should be used whenever possible by advocates in order to further our own effort at ending homelessness. To shun this potential funding powerhouse simply because you don't like some of their ideas for solutions is not only counter-productive but ignorant as well.

They don't care what works, they just want something to work, and when it does, they'll get behind it, side by side with the staunchest of homeless advocates.....


A concerted effort is needed on this issue | www.tennessean.com | The Tennessean

A concerted effort is needed on this issue

By TOM TURNER • July 28, 2008

Today's uncertain economic climate is contributing to an increase in homelessness throughout the country. Nashville is no exception.

While realizing that the causes of homelessness are complex, most agree some causes are unemployment, underemployment, alcohol and drug abuse and mental-health issues. Solutions are often complex and varied, but occasionally very simple.
Advertisement

Much attention was recently given to efforts by Metro Central Precinct Commander Damian Huggins. He identified several homeless individuals downtown who simply needed a bus ticket to improve their situation. One went to family in California for a job, one to work with family in Iowa, one to his mother in Maryland and another to California for better access to mental-health treatment. Three of them had no criminal record, and none had outstanding warrants. The Nashville Downtown Partnership bought the bus tickets — and removed an immediate barrier.

Many successful programs
The Metro Development and Housing Agency and the Metro Homelessness Commission (MHC) coordinate several larger-scale programs. Our community has many programs run by compassionate and creative people who are making a difference. These include Park Center's Will Connelly and Steve Samra, who connect homeless clients who have physical or mental disabilities to Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance. More than 100 people (a 98 percent success rate) are now receiving a steady income and health benefits because of this program. Urban Housing Solutions modeled their Academy on San Francisco's Delancey Street program. Seventeen people have been accepted into this self-help residential program for former addicts, convicts or chronically homeless. They will spend the next few years developing skills and transforming their lives.

Additional creative strategies and housing options are necessary. Affordable, permanent supportive housing offers the best chance (near 85 percent success rates) for a long-term solution. A University of Pennsylvania study documents that permanent supportive housing costs less than half of what service delivery alone would cost. By offering food and blankets to homeless people, faith-based groups and well-meaning individuals may keep them from going to shelters where experienced professionals offer help to those with mental illness or addictions. Also, homelessness is not seasonal. Churches that participate in the outstanding Room in the Inn program in cold-weather months need to be involved year-round.

Nashville needs a major cooperative effort involving social service agencies, judicial system, hospitals and faith-based groups to address the complex issue of homelessness. For example, health-care providers who now bear the financial brunt of providing this uninsured population with medical services could invest in less costly front-end solutions.

While the needed programs and services are costly, research indicates that the cost of ignoring homelessness is far greater. This far greater cost impacts social service organizations, the justice system, health-care providers — and especially those who are homeless.

Tom Turner is executive director of the Nashville Downtown Partnership and is a member of the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission.

"It is common knowledge that being approached by — or sometimes just being near — someone who is asking for money or is in an extremely poor state of hygiene is a condition people find objectionable."

Perception does play a key role in understanding homelessness; it's one of the reasons we started The Contributor. Unfortunately, one stupid act by one homeless individual can turn perception negative in an instant.

The key here is to isolate and address the individual without stigmatizing the entire population in the process. This is a lot easier said than done, especially when our media emphasizes the fact that a person is homeless in their reports.

I'm not sure why it matters so much to news personnel that the person is homeless, but matter it does and they make sure we know it, usually within the first few sentences of the piece.

If the media could report on some of the good things those experiencing homelessness have done in our community, it might help offset the level of negativity they create in the minds of the readers, but unfortunately, good new is boring and doesn't sell newspapers or television ad space.

I don't mean to demonize every person in the media and in fact, many of them work hard to bring us balanced and objective reporting. But I do hope that every person charged with shaping perceptions about homelessness recognizes the power they have to influence how another human being winds up being treated....



Perception plays key role in handling homelessness | www.tennessean.com | The Tennessean

Perception plays key role in handling homelessness

Today's Topic: Solutions elusive on homelessness

Our View

One of the best measures of character for Nashville is in the way the city handles its homeless population.

Various approaches apply to addressing homelessness. As the city sifts through all sorts of suggested remedies, its real intentions and motivations will determine whether Nashville is the quality city it likes to think of itself as being.

The motivations for decreasing Nashville's homeless population have become two-fold. They should foremost be to genuinely help the homeless in ways that can get them into sustained shelter. The other goal has become to clean up areas where homeless people tend to congregate. Finding homes for them solves both problems.

It is common knowledge that being approached by — or sometimes just being near — someone who is asking for money or is in an extremely poor state of hygiene is a condition people find objectionable. Those problems are most pronounced downtown, and downtown is where a focus has been put on attracting more dwellers.

The city is constantly seeking ways to solve the homeless problem in ways that can help everyone. It requires creativity, but most of all it takes deep compassion to understand the issues homeless people face every day and night. Some ideas for solutions sound unusual. But just as homeless people should not be judged before learning more about how they got in that circumstance, ideas for decreasing homelessness should not be judged before they're fully understood.

Police have been enforcing laws to preserve "quality of life" downtown. That has involved making or writing more than 500 arrests or citations for offenses such as aggressive panhandling, trespassing or public urination. Tent cities have been torn down. Hundreds of people have been offered help. Some have refused help.

Along the way, a downtown police commander asked homeless people what they needed, and some described scenarios of how it would help them to be in another specific city. The commander looked for donors to help make that happen by funding a bus ticket out of town. That came off in some ways as a plan to ship homeless people away. But by most accounts, it was well-intended help from the commander.

Handling homelessness demands tremendous sensitivity. Tearing down tent cities does not look like a sensitive remedy. The focus needs to be on what can be done to help. It makes perfect sense to assist someone with a bus ticket if that's what the person needs and desires, but that's not the answer for the vast majority of the homeless population in Nashville. What they need is a home.

Many Nashvillians do go out of their way to help people on the streets. Some people complain about panhandling. Some don't like the idea that a handout results in a homeless person buying a beer. But when a homeless person buys a beverage in a convenience store, that person is a taxpayer — as much a Nashvillian as the richest person in Nashville.

There will always be exceptions, and some people do prefer life on the streets. Most don't. Nashville should not want to be known for how it disperses a homeless population. It should be known for what it does to help homeless people be homeless no more. Each person has his or her own story. Each remedy has its own effects. How each case is handled helps determine the character of Nashville. Character is what determines if Nashville is a great city.

"This is probably the most people we've ever seen use emergency food assistance"

People will not endure hunger for very long - especially when food is as prevalent and abundant as it is in this country - before they begin taking matters into their own hands. I'll bet supermarkets in the area have seen shoplifting "soar" as well, too.....


Demand soars as donations decline at L.A.-area food banks - Los Angeles Times

Demand soars as donations decline at L.A.-area

food banks

By Jennifer Oldham,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

July 28, 2008

Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Ross Lopez, 50, waits for the food bank at Meet Each Need with Dignity, or MEND, to open its doors. People seeking assistance line up very early in front of the Pacoima facility. Donations to Southern California food banks are at record lows, while demand for assistance is steadily increasing in the wake of an economic downturn.

Job losses have hit the San Fernando Valley particularly hard as the economic downturn spreads beyond the poor and begins to affect middle- and upper-class families.

Food pantry operators throughout the Los Angeles region report that demand for free groceries has surged to the highest level in recent memory this summer as the sagging economy has hit not only the poor, but also middle- and upper-class families.

"This is probably the most people we've ever seen use emergency food assistance," said Darren Hoffman, communications director for the 35-year-old Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. "We're seeing people who were making $70,000 a year coming into a food bank for the first time. . . . They've used their retirement to pay their mortgage, and gone through their savings."

*
Photos: Hard times in the Valley

The organization, which distributes groceries to about 670,000 people each year through a network of more than 900 religious entities and nonprofits, watched demand increase by 80% this spring.

Steep job losses in the banking and entertainment industries, on top of the housing downturn, are reverberating particularly hard through the San Fernando Valley, leading to less work for janitors, waiters and others. The Valley has lost thousands of jobs in financial services, largely due to the failure last fall of Calabasas-based Countrywide Financial Corp. -- the nation's largest mortgage lender -- which laid off more than 20% of its workforce.

"We're seeing an increase in people who never would have asked for help in the past," said Joan Mithers, a director at SOVA Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, which operates three food pantries including its headquarters in Van Nuys. The agency served 5,605 people in June, up 28% from a similar period in 2007 and 46% over June 2006.

One recent day, Teresita Guzman was among those standing in long lines to receive food, clothing and other assistance at the northeast Valley headquarters of Meet Each Need With Dignity, or MEND.

Her eyes cast downward, Guzman tugged at her worn black T-shirt and recounted how her three teenage sons decided to hold off eating the corn flakes she brought home from a food pantry until she could afford to buy milk.

"I told them to wait until their dad gets paid," the 39-year-old Pacoima resident said through an interpreter. With construction work increasingly hard to find, the family can't depend on regular paychecks.

The one-two punch of a declining income of about $1,300 a month -- with half going to rent -- and higher gas and food prices forced Guzman for the first time this spring to visit MEND to pick up food for her family.

The Valley's largest charitable group aiding the poor, MEND serves about 46,200 people a month and has seen demand jump about 26% so far this year.

"There's a perception that the Valley is middle class and one of the richer parts of L.A.," said Marianne Haver Hill, MEND's executive director. "The poverty is very much hidden here."

But recent statistics underscore the fact that times are tough for people of all income levels who call the 225-square-mile Valley area home. Job losses in the Valley's signature industries, such as financial services and entertainment, pushed unemployment claims in May to a four-year high, said Dan Blake, director of the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at Cal State Northridge.

Local food pantry operators said some clients had exhausted savings and retirement funds and had their vehicles repossessed before they came for free food.

Yet as demand is climbing, food donations to charities throughout Southern California are at record lows, leading some organizations to face a tough choice: Should they feed each family less in order to serve more people?

"We're able to provide less food for the money we have," said Cambria Smith, president of the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council, a network of 18 pantries that primarily serves people living in the west Valley.

Food pantry administrators said they tend to give cereal and other scarce items to families first, in some cases leaving single clients without certain goods. They also refer clients to agencies in surrounding communities that haven't been hit as hard, and limit free grocery visits to once a month.

The federal government exacerbated food pantry shortages when it slashed two-thirds of the surplus food it donated to charities earlier this decade. In 2002, 42 million pounds of groceries were donated to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, and 60% of that came from the Department of Agriculture; in 2007, the organization received 35 million pounds of food, and the government's share of the donations dropped to 25%, said Hoffman, the agency's spokesman.

Supermarkets have also decreased donations by trimming the amount of food sold close to its expiration date and selling dented goods to discount outlets.

With fewer groceries available, many charities are scrambling to raise money to buy staples such as powdered milk. And prices for those staples are at 18-year highs.

At MEND, food bank director Gina Mirabella said her volunteers spend hours some days dialing grocers and food manufacturers requesting donations. She said she's even gone so far as to phone the toll-free number on cereal boxes and Canadian outlets asking for donations from their Los Angeles warehouses.

"I try to keep up by covering more ground, covering more stores, covering more merchants, covering more companies," said Mirabella, who said the workload is the highest it's been in her 20 years at MEND. "We come up short mostly on cereals and soups and canned meats."

In search of eggs, milk and other staples to feed her husband and three children, Maria Oliveros visited her neighborhood church in Pacoima recently, only to find that they were out of food. Sitting in a dirt backyard surrounded by a camper covered by a plastic tarp, a camper shell and several rusted storage sheds, Oliveros said two-thirds of her husband's paycheck pays for two rooms the family rents in a nearby bungalow.

What's left is barely enough to pay for gas, school uniforms and other necessities, she said, forcing her to seek free food for her family several times a week.

"Last year I would go to the church every once in a while, but now I go every Monday and Tuesday," Oliveros said through an interpreter. "It's very hard right now."

jennifer.oldham@latimes.com

"People who live at the bottom of those ladders die in great numbers, or they kill themselves because they're so messed up by those nine intersected systems of oppression."

I don't know about you, but I long ago gave up believing that our political system truly represents the "will of the people."

I used to think that from president to president, the changes that were implemented were so small as to be barely noticeable in the day to day drudgeries we poor folk endure in order to survive. Of course, as I moved through a boatload of poly sci courses in college and grad school, I began to understand that our Founding Fathers had intentionally created this slow, lumbering ship in order to thwart those "momentary passions of the day" because they realized people can sometimes be moved to act in very stupid ways when "excited" about a particular issue or problem.

Bush helped greatly in changing my perception that the system protected us from....less than intelliegent "deciders," but trust me, there were plenty of others before him that began breaking down the childesh understanding of what living in a republic meant.

And now, as perhaps the worst presidency in our history - and definitely the worst in my lifetime - draws to a close, I don't see either current presidential candidate offering much hope for those of us who are on the lower or bottom rungs of the socioeconomic ladder.

Same shit, different Prez...


Kate Bornstein: Change I Wish They Believed In

Kate Bornstein

Change I Wish They Believed In


Posted July 28, 2008 | 06:36 PM (EST)

We're months away from the big US election that will alter the course of war in the Middle East, health care for US citizens, and some provide relief from the economy we've slogging through. If a Democrat takes the White House, we'll likely see this country swing back to the Left -- but only just a bit, because the presumptive Democratic candidate is such a centrist.

The Republican candidate seems at heart to be centrist, but he's allowing himself to be represented further and further to the Right. So no matter which of the presumptive candidates takes office, life is still going to be hell for people who live out on the furthest reaches of the world's intersecting caste systems of class, age, race, gender, citizenship, looks, sexuality, religion, and ability.

In the upcoming months, there will be no substantive political discussion about relief from these nine authoritarian hierarchal systems of oppression. But our access to health care, shelter, education, and job opportunities depends on our positions on one or more of those social ladders. People who live at the bottom of those ladders die in great numbers, or they kill themselves because they're so messed up by those nine intersected systems of oppression.

During the long campaign to come, we'll hear some talk about race and age, sure. These are the badges of oppression worn bravely by the presumptive candidates of both parties. All the candidates did that. Mit Romney wore his badge of oppressed religion. Dennis Kucinich defied the accepted norm of good looks -- he must've been bullied as a kid. Senator Clinton wears her badges of gender and age proudly and with good grace -- as do the two remaining contenders for the position of leader of the free world. (Does anyone still call the US president that?)

Most of us wear a badge or two of oppression, and that's pretty much all we talk about. We fight for equity in the segregated arenas of our individual oppressions. But neither we nor the presumptive candidates are going to talk in any great detail about how our individual oppressions share a common source: the unconscious, obsessive greed of a decaying, isolationist, God-fearing, capitalist democracy that is today's United States of America.
I don't fear God. I'm afraid of the people who fear Him.

Look, republics and democracies are forms of government whereby the country is ruled by all the people. Everyone's point of view is taken into account before political decisions are made. That's how it's supposed to be. Everyone, regardless of race or religion or class, gender, sexuality, looks, ability, or age. But some people have figured out how to manipulate both republican and democratic forms of government so that the only folks who have a say in the running of our country are those who belong to a narrowly defined, more or less wealthy demographic.

It shouldn't even matter if you were a citizen of this country. If you live and work here, you should have some say. Is that so crazy? Of what value are our borders, in the face of global starvation and the millions of deaths on every continent, caused by easily curable diseases? Of what value are our national borders when the oceans keep rising on all our shores?

In a democratic republic, you should have some say if you're young, or black, or brown or homeless. You should have some say in the direction of our country if you're male, female or otherwise. It shouldn't matter a damn if you're a homo or a hetero. It might matter to your God, but it doesn't matter in a democratic republic. And speaking of God, everyone gets to say their piece, whether you're an atheist, a reform Jew, an orthodox Mormon or a fundamentalist Scientologist. The big deal in a democratic republic is not only that everyone has a say, but also that no one gets to boss anyone else around. Right? That's the bottom line of oppression: someone has assumed the authority to bully you around, and that's determining your quality of life.

How'd we ever come up with bullying as a social dynamic? Oh right ... we put that one together in junior high school. We learned to say "Be like us. Be just like us, or we'll make life miserable for you." Well, how long have the leaders of the free world been out of junior high school? Why are they still pushing forward a government that pays no real attention to life beyond their own welfare or the welfare of people just like them?

US politicians don't talk about class today. They talk about "the middle class" as if there was no such thing as a working class, a homeless class, a ruling class, an upper class and a class made up of everyone who lives on the extreme edges of our culture... an outlaw class. We're not going to hear the presumptive leaders of our democratic republic ever talk about how the "middle class" is part of an oppressive class system. If our political leaders aren't going to speak that deeply about class, then how can we expect them to embrace sex positivity, gender anarchy, or ending religious warfare?

What about race? This past March, Senator Obama gave his famous speech on race. He dove more deeply into the nature and extent of oppression than any politician of my lifetime. Brilliant talk, from the heart. That's when I started to like the guy. He was talking from a place of having been kept on the outside of things. I still have hopes for an Obama presidency, but I fear that speech was a one-off, to get himself off the racist hook of the Reverend White connection.
And age? McCain doesn't talk about what really happens when people in this country get old. Clinton never speaks of gender beyond man and woman. No one talks about sex... they only talk about marriage. And excuse me, but isn't it time to talk seriously about lowering the voting age in this country? Our nation's government doesn't stand up for youth--not where they need someone to stand up for them.

The good news is that the first generation of postmodern theorists and activists is nearly ready to flex its political muscle. Postmodern theory and queer theory are nothing more than non-destructive ways to take things apart -- and ways to put things back together again, better than ever. That's what needs to happen to our nation's government and culture: they both need to be dismantled and reassembled from the bottom up.

I'm calling on postmodern theorists and activists to enter this coming election process at whatever level you can, with the aim of forging a coalition and politic that includes the ever-expanding outer-edge of our erstwhile democracy. That's some change I can believe in.
I'm calling on the presumptive candidates to talk about the intersection of oppressions that's tearing our country apart. That's some change I wish they believed in.

I call on the presumptive candidates to pledge a cabinet position that brings equity to our nation's diversity and intersectional oppression. That's the kind of change I've come to believe in from I've learned in postmodern theory and queer theory.

How about you?

Nelson: "called on the justice system to ban Inglis, allegedly a 'prolific aggressive panhandler,' from the community for five years."

Apparently this is a common practice for Canadians who cause "troubles" in town and it looks like this isn't the first time Mr. Inglis has experienced forced ostracism: "Inglis has received a similar ban in Prince George, preventing him from entering the community for two years as part of his probation after being convicted for mischief and uttering threats."

By the way, ya hear that low buzzing in your ears? That's half of the residents and business owners of downtown Nashville wishing they could do the same to some of the more "prolific" panhandlers in our area....

'Aggressive' panhandler cooling his heels in jail

'Aggressive' panhandler cooling his heels in

jail


Mayor wants man banned from town
Joe Couture, The Province
Published: Monday, July 28, 2008

View Larger Image
Williams Lake Mayor Scott Nelson says his 'least wanted' resident should be banned for five years. Les Bazso, The Province

Williams Lake's "most wanted" is behind bars.

RCMP have arrested Robert Inglis, 27, Williams Lake Mayor Scott Nelson said yesterday.

"People obviously feel very comfortable now that he's been arrested and he's in jail," said Nelson, who has called on the justice system to ban Inglis, allegedly a "prolific aggressive panhandler," from the community for five years.

Williams Lake Mayor Scott Nelson says his 'least wanted' resident should be banned for five years.

"The people have said they were concerned about it. The RCMP have done their part by picking this guy up and arresting him and putting him in jail. The pressure and the eyes are now on the judicial system to really look after us," Nelson said.

Inglis appeared in court Friday, according to Nelson, who was there for the proceedings.

"The judge has remanded him in custody for a week . . . and he's allowed to get lawyer. And I think that's the right thing to do," said Nelson, noting Inglis is facing multiple charges including uttering threats and theft.

Nelson has called publicly for the judge to ban Inglis from Williams Lake for five years. Inglis has received a similar ban in Prince George, preventing him from entering the community for two years as part of his probation after being convicted for mischief and uttering threats.

Inglis has a long list of criminal convictions and Nelson alleges the man harasses, sometimes violently, about a dozen people a day in Williams Lake, many of whom are seniors.

"We know he is dangerous. We want him off the streets. Get him in jail, put him in rehabilitation," Nelson said.

He added the community will continue to go after other prolific, aggressive panhandlers, but stressed that only the worst will be targeted.

"We're not going after the young little kids here that steal one chocolate bar," he said.

"Prolific offenders are causing havoc, not only in Williams Lake, but in communities across the province. And those guys are going to be treated like criminals. They've got no respect for people and communities so we're going to start to treat them the same way that they treat us."

"...we have a vicious cycle: pain, a shutdown strategy such as depression resulting in immobilization, a fear of immobilization and more depression to shut down that painful fear."

Holy cow - a lawyer with a conscience?

Once you pick your jaw up off the floor hgowever, you may find that Mr. Levine appears to know what he's talking about.

Interestingly, the cycle he discusses here certainly isn't isolated to attorneys; many of the peeps I work with are caught in the throes of major depression - but this shouldn't be too surprising, since homelessness is a demoralizing, frightening and humiliating event for most. In fact, I challenge anyone to spend a few weeks living hand to mouth on the streets of any American city and then tell me they don't now suffer from some depression themselves...



Bruce E. Levine: Depressed Lawyers: A Little Help For My Friends

Depressed Lawyers: A Little Help For My Friends


Posted July 24, 2008 | 06:13 PM (EST)

Among the lawyers whom I have known, it occurs to me that the only ones I've liked have had bouts of depression. So when Dan Lukasik, lawyer and depression sufferer, invited me to write a piece for his lawyerswithdepression.com, I gladly agreed.

In Surviving America's Depression Epidemic, I explain how depression is neither a character defect nor a biochemical defect but a "strategy" for shutting down overwhelming pain. Given the level of pain in the lives of many lawyers, it does not surprise me that of 104 occupations surveyed by John Hopkins researchers, lawyers were the most likely to suffer depression, 3.6 times more likely than average.

Lawyers all too routinely experience the pain of injustice, the pain of the ugly side of human nature and the pain of money. For a sensitive soul, these pains can become insufferable. Some depressed lawyers, in confidence, tell me about another pain: interacting with soulless colleagues who maintain a "life-is-good" grin on their face as they swim through the day unmoved by the misery that surrounds them.

Many historians consider one depressed lawyer, Abraham Lincoln, to be the greatest U.S. president because of his critical thinking, wisdom and compassion. According to Joshua Wolf Shenk's Lincoln's Melancholy, the evidence is strong that by today's standards Lincoln would have been diagnosed with major depression. Support for this thesis rests not simply on the famous Lincoln quote, "I am now the most miserable man living"; and goes beyond the observation of Lincoln by his longtime law partner William Herndon that, "gloom and sadness were his predominant state." Shenk reports that Lincoln actually suffered two major breakdowns, which included suicidal statements that frightened friends enough to form a suicide watch.

Lincoln's propensity for gloom was widely known during his lifetime, but in an era when a dark temperament was viewed as neither a character defect nor a biochemical defect, it actually helped Lincoln politically more than it hurt him. Shenk points out that Lincoln's depression, "seemed not a matter of shame but an intriguing aspect of his character, and indeed an aspect of his grand nature."

In contrast, after depression was medicalized, George McGovern's 1972 vice presidential running mate Thomas Eagleton was shoved off the ticket because of his history of medical treatment for depression. This calls into question the contention that diseasing depression destigmatizes it.

Despite billions of dollars spent attempting to establish biochemical markers for depression, no such markers exist. This is why depression continues to be diagnosed via symptom checklists, not with lab tests, brain scans or any other biochemical means. And recently, psychiatry officialdom discarded the serotonin deficiency explanation of depression.

Is there a better model for both understanding and overcoming depression? There exists a great deal of research showing that depression is highly associated with overwhelming pain including the pains of loneliness, a miserable marriage, childhood trauma, poverty, unemployment, physical incapacitation and a variety of significant hurts and losses. Instead of viewing depression as either a character defect or a biochemical defect, depression is better seen as a strategy for shutting down overwhelming pain. Similar to the shutdown strategy of substance abuse, depression can also get out of hand and become a compulsion (a behavior not freely chosen).

Compulsive shutdown strategies such as depression not only shut down pain but can shut down our entire being. Hence the classic symptoms of depression: shutdown of energy; shutdown of the ability to experience pleasure including the shutdown of sex drive; shutdown of cognitive functions such as attention, memory and concentration; and sometimes complete shutdown and immobilization.

In modern industrial societies, immobilization is terrifying because it can lead to poverty, homelessness and institutionalization, so the fear of immobilization is quite rational. This fear is painful, and so we may use depression or other shutdown strategies to suppress it. Thus we have a vicious cycle: pain, a shutdown strategy such as depression resulting in immobilization, a fear of immobilization and more depression to shut down that painful fear. A major reason why I wrote Surviving America's Depression Epidemic was to provide a way out of that vicious cycle.

One problem for critically-thinking lawyers is that critical thinking is associated with depression. Studies show that moderately depressed people are more accurate in their assessments of an often painful reality than are nondepressed people.

There's more bad news for critical thinkers. Critical thinking can make it more difficult for standard psychiatric treatments to work. To the extent that one knows the truth about depression treatments -- that no treatment, including antidepressants, has been proven to be much more effective than a placebo -- it makes it more difficult to have faith in treatment. This lack of faith makes it more difficult for treatment to "work."

In reflecting on the empirical research on depression: my work with depressed people; biographies and memoirs of people who have experienced depression; and my own personal experience with demoralization, immobilization and despair, it is difficult to deny the power of what scientists call "the placebo effect" -- which is more commonly called "belief" and "faith." If one has faith in the efficacy of a treatment or approach, one's likelihood of overcoming depression increases. Lincoln, for example, came to have faith in humor and meaningfulness, which were two powerful antidepressants for him.

Many Lincoln biographers note that Lincoln told jokes and funny stories as a political tool to both disarm and connect, but Lincoln also used humor as an antidote for depression. Lincoln said, "If it were not for these stories -- jokes, jests, I should die; they give vent -- are the vents of my moods and gloom."

Lincoln also discovered the antidepressant power of meaningfulness. Though Lincoln shared with other politicians the trait of ambition, he also wanted his life to have genuine meaning, which he found first in attempting to stop the spread of slavery and then, when the political climate changed, in his Emancipation Proclamation.

Can meaningfulness provide lifesaving morale? In Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl describes a harrowing tale of his physical, psychological and spiritual survival in Nazi concentration camps. Frankl states that in the concentration camps, "The thought of suicide was entertained by nearly everyone." Frankl discusses the therapy he provided for two men who seriously talked about suicide: "In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them." For one man, it was a child waiting in a foreign country, and for the other, a scientist, lifesaving meaning was a series of books that no one but he could complete.

I wrote Surviving America's Depression Epidemic for critical thinkers who are pained by the injustices and dehumanization of modern society, some of whom become depressed and are failed by standard psychiatric treatments. While critical thinkers are more likely to experience depression and less likely, from my experience, to be helped by standard psychiatric treatments, the good news is that there are -- in addition to humor and meaningfulness -- other solutions for a depressed critical thinker with a soul.

"It's life-and-death stuff...The need is overwhelming,"

It's all too common that children in foster care are kicked to the social services curb when they reach adulthood, often leaving them in seriously dire straights with regard to housing, employment, and financial support. These kids are often left to fend for themselves and have none of the traditional family support that helps keep a roof over the head as the youngster begins his/her venture into independent adulthood. As you might imagine, the numbers of homeless youth in this category spike and there just aren't very many resources available to assist them. While that is slowly changing, the fact remains that beds in transitional youth shelters, while desperately needed, are often in short supply....

Homeless Shelters for Young Women

Thursday 24 July 2008

by: Naomi R. Patton, The Detroit Free Press

Detroit center helps women in move from homelessness.

Diamon Amos, 19, grew up in a middle class family but became homeless and began living at the Alternatives for Girls shelter in Detroit. (Photo: Susan Tusa / Detroit Free Press)

Diamon Amos grew up middle class with a pretty good life.

She graduated from King High School in 2006. She attended Wayne State University for a year, working two jobs at a restaurant and a shoe store.

"I never thought I'd end up in a shelter," said Amos, now 20 and living at Alternatives for Girls -- the only shelter in southeast Michigan for homeless young women ages 15 to 21. She is among hundreds of girls the southwest Detroit shelter has served since it opened in 1987.

"I like being here, but I don't want to stay here," Amos said about AFG, which she learned about from a woman at her church. Amos wants to return to college and become a social worker.

For now, however, she is among thousands of homeless young women in their late teens and early 20s nationwide who -- never a part of the foster care system -- find themselves on the streets without dedicated resources to help them.

"It's life-and-death stuff," said Amanda Good, AFG cofounder, president and chief executive officer, about the young women who leave dangerous or violent homes, poor homes, or because of family conflict.

Nan Roman, president and chief executive officer of the Washington-based National Alliance to End Homelessness, said the number of youths in this situation is "legally appalling" because many of them would be "clear candidates" for state jurisdiction.

One of the biggest problems facing this largely female demographic is that there are few shelters or agencies in Detroit or elsewhere in Michigan that are licensed by the state to house minors not accompanied by their parents.

"This should not be left to the homeless agencies," Roman said. "The homeless system is underfunded."

Good said AFG relies on vital support from groups like the Skillman Foundation and the McGregor Fund, but the economy means local, state and federal funding and fund-raising are "very lean." A few years ago, AFG received as much as $250,000 in federal block grant funding; this year it was $67,000.

"The need is overwhelming," she said.

Residents stay at the shelter from a couple of months in the short-term program to 18 months in the long-term program. The daily routine typically involves attendance at Transition to Independent Living class, where the girls learn how to create a resume, job hunt, pay bills and parent. Secondary school-age residents are required to attend school or get their GEDs.

"The message is, you have to be able to support yourself in a legal and safe way," Good said. "It's a culture of progress and adhering to goals."

Antonique White, 20, was relentless, calling to get into AFG for months. She dropped out of Murray-Wright High School months before her scheduled 2006 graduation and admittedly was "rebellious" with her mother.

"I just wish I would have listened," White said.

The mother of 1-year-old Jaiden and expecting another child in August, White has lived at the shelter for five months. Inspired by her stay, she now wants to go to college to become a social worker.

"Being here helps you stay focused," White said. "I want to get my GED ... get a job ... do something with my life."

PADDED BENCH AWARD: Village Kitchen

This is an absolutely wonderful way to give those who need a second (or third, fifth, ninth) chance some hope, skills, dignity, respect and a little cash.

We need more programs like this one, many more, in every city in our nation.... Chefs at Village Kitchen start from scratch - Los Angeles Times

Chefs at Village Kitchen start from scratch The women -- some just out of prison, others recently homeless -- have been given a chance to succeed, learning the techniques of fine cuisine at a Los Angeles cafe operated by a homeless center. Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times The cafe near downtown Los Angeles is staffed by 10 women, nine of them mothers, all of them recently homeless, imprisoned or both. By Scott Gold, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 25, 2008 Not long after Felicia Cuellar started working at The Village Kitchen, she began to suspect that the purple potatoes she'd been roasting had been dyed. The red carrots, too. Aren't carrots supposed to be orange? Indeed, most everything she knew about food she'd learned from the drive-thru. She didn't know the proper way to hold a knife, much less how to distribute butter in batches of scone batter to keep them from spreading out like pancakes in the oven. From her first day, however, Cuellar was an expert on the scale. She was so good, she barely needed one. Whatever the recipe called for -- 11 ounces of flour, 14 ounces of powdered sugar -- she'd squint one eye, size up her target, plop it on the scale and, more often than not, come pretty darn close. That's because back home in Lancaster, she'd used the same kind of scale for years. "To weigh dope," she said. If you like your sandwich with a nice story on the side, think about stopping in at the new storefront cafe at 1667 Beverly Blvd., just northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The cafe is the latest project of the Good Shepherd Center for Homeless Women and Children. Over the last 25 years, the organization has provided thousands with food, clothes, housing and counseling, all under the steady hand of Sister Julia Mary Farley, its founder and a saintly sort in local social work circles. Good Shepherd occupies nearly an entire block in a stretch of town otherwise peppered with cheap motels, union halls and lavanderías. Its latest addition is a $13-million building with 21 transitional apartments -- and this tiny cafe. The cafe is staffed by 10 women, nine of them mothers, all of them recently homeless, imprisoned or both. There are former addicts, dealers, thieves and old-fashioned down-on-their-luckers -- some of whom have eaten out of garbage cans -- being trained in classic cuisine and, on the best days, learning to love themselves again. "This is the answer," said B.J. Daniels, 51, a single mother who grew up in Long Beach and had a stable life until a transportation company furloughed her job three years ago amid budget cuts. Daniels stayed with relatives as long as she could, and then, out of options, landed at Good Shepherd. This summer, she signed up for a work program at The Village Kitchen, undergoing 80 hours of wage-free training. Now fully employed, she hopes to introduce some of her family recipes, including seafood gumbo, to the menu. "This is an expression of our pride," she said. "People will see that we treat them with care. I think that will make it prosper." The idea, said Pasquale Vericella, owner of Il Cielo restaurant in Beverly Hills and a longtime Good Shepherd board member, was to use the cafe as a teaching tool to give the women "a craft and a sense of belonging." But even the best ideas come with red tape and permitting snarls, so the cafe has been nearly 10 years in the making. It didn't get any easier once Executive Chef Jaime Turrey, a former Bay Area chef, was hired last fall. During much of the training and menu design, Turrey, 32, had only a shopping cart and a broom closet to store his equipment -- and many of his cooking tools, including muffin pans and his best knives, were taken from his own wedding registry. Many of the women, meanwhile, had no understanding of cuisine. What they did know about food -- making "prison tamales" with crushed tortilla chips wrapped in newspaper, for instance -- wasn't much help. Everything is made from scratch -- a point of pride but also debate; Turrey spent an hour last week demonstrating that fresh mayonnaise is yellow-tinged, not bright white like at the grocery store. Math was another problem; hand-written equations ("11 1/4 oz X 2 = 22 1/2 oz") are scribbled all over the kitchen. "I'm not training them for this job. I'm training them for their next job," Turrey said. "I don't want them to learn to pop something in the oven. I want them to be able to go to a nice restaurant and meet the expectations of that job from Day One. If the manager says, 'Blanche me some haricot vert' -- French green beans -- "they will know what that means. These women are ready for anything." By now, Turrey is mentor, brother, counselor. On a recent morning, one chef needed to send a postcard to the father of her child; the father had recently been jailed. Turrey made four calls to locate free postcards. As soon as he hung up, another chef brought over a batch of dough and asked him to test the consistency. He gave it a pinch and approved. The kitchen was humming. There were meatballs sizzling in a sauté pan, red and purple potatoes in roasting pans, and beets cooling in a huge bucket of ice. Chefs emerged from the walk-in freezer carrying cheese bread doughs and fresh tomato sauce, their breath still steaming from the cold. "You would never know," Cuellar said as she patted roasted walnuts into the frosting of a carrot cake. "What?" asked Kimberly Ferguson, 43, another chef. "You know," Cuellar said without looking up. "That we're convicts and stuff." Theirs is not a tale of unadulterated salvation. It would be too simple to suggest that working at the cafe has marked a clean break for everyone. There are women here who merely fell victim to a sorry economy. But there are also women who ripped copper wiring out of strangers' houses and sold it to buy drugs -- not all that long ago, either. There are gambling addicts who, when they appear to be contentedly shearing stalks of cilantro, are quietly fending off urges to make a run for a casino. Some don't regret what they did, only that they got caught. Some aren't convinced they won't do it again. Cuellar, 32, has a kind, easy smile and is a mother of three girls. She spends much of her time fretting because her oldest daughter just started dating boys. It's easy to forget when she's showing off pictures of her kids that she had her first taste of methamphetamine when she was in the third grade; a relative stirred it into her milk, and they stayed up all night making beaded earrings together. By 12, she was snorting it; by 16 she was smoking it. Cuellar began dealing to support her own drug use, then to make money -- gobs of it, which she spent as fast as it came in. She sold drugs to friends, to neighbors. She stopped paying cash at fast-food restaurants, just handed over a few crystals of meth instead. She sold to gangs, including white-power skinheads who presumably didn't think much of her Mexican-Native American heritage. "Just business," she said. After she helped savagely beat a man who had robbed her -- mostly to make sure that no one would think she was "weak," she said -- she was convicted of assault and sent to Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla for two years. She was recently released to a transitional treatment center in Los Angeles, where she was approached about becoming a Village Kitchen chef. A life like hers, she pointed out, doesn't get cleansed by baking a batch of muffins. But there is a sense here of new beginnings. Cuellar used to dream of building a massive house -- with no kitchen. No need for one of those. Now she's broke -- the government seized her assets -- and she's pretty much OK with that. She's hoping to work at a hotel restaurant back in the Antelope Valley. "I feel . . . I don't know . . . free or something," she said. "I never thought in a million years I would like this. But I do. It's cool. It's really cool." She turned back to her carrot cake. "This," she said, "is going to be beautiful."

A Toolkit on Performance Measurement for Ending Homelessness

A "toolkit" from the National Alliance to End Homelessness has been created and should become a major player in strategic planning for any agency or government interested in ending chronic homelessness in their area. The documents were added to their site on 7-25-08 and are an excellent source for strategic planning, program efficacy and resource identification. Definitely worth the time to download all the pdfs and check out each piece thoroughly.....

Date: 25 Jul 2008

National Alliance To End Homelessness

What Gets Measured, Gets Done: A Toolkit on Performance Measurement for Ending Homelessness

Author: Brooke Spellman and Michelle Abbenante, Abt Associates, Inc.

Files:

A Toolkit on Performance Measurement for Ending Homelessness (PDF | 1.83 MB | 68 pages)">A Toolkit on Performance Measurement for Ending Homelessness (PDF | 1.83 MB | 68 pages) Exhibit 1-1: Performance Measurement 101 “Cheat Sheet” (PDF | 56 KB | 1 page)">Exhibit 1-1: Performance Measurement 101 “Cheat Sheet” (PDF | 56 KB | 1 page) Exhibit 3-1: Sample Program Logic Model (PDF | 20 KB | 1 page)">Exhibit 3-1: Sample Program Logic Model (PDF | 20 KB | 1 page) Exhibit 3-2: Blank One-Year Logic Model Template (PDF | 10 KB | 1 page)">Exhibit 3-2: Blank One-Year Logic Model Template (PDF | 10 KB | 1 page) Exhibit 3-3: Blank Multi-Year Logic Model Template (PDF | 12 KB | 1 page)">Exhibit 3-3: Blank Multi-Year Logic Model Template (PDF | 12 KB | 1 page) Exhibit 4-1: Program-Level Reporting (PDF | 125 KB | 2 pages)">Exhibit 4-1: Program-Level Reporting (PDF | 125 KB | 2 pages) Exhibit 4-2: System-level Reporting (PDF | 22 KB | 2 pages)">Exhibit 4-2: System-level Reporting (PDF | 22 KB | 2 pages) Exhibit 5-1: Monitoring Progress on the Ten Essentials to Ending Homelessness (PDF | 25 KB | 2 pages)">Exhibit 5-1: Monitoring Progress on the Ten Essentials to Ending Homelessness (PDF | 25 KB | 2 pages) Exhibit 5-2: How to Calculate a System Outcome (PDF | 30 KB | 3 pages)"> Exhibit 5-2: How to Calculate a System Outcome (PDF | 30 KB | 3 pages)">Exhibit 5-2: How to Calculate a System Outcome (PDF | 30 KB | 3 pages) Exhibit 5-3: Sample Performance Measurement Framework (PDF | 21 KB | 2 pages)"> Exhibit 5-3: Sample Performance Measurement Framework (PDF | 21 KB | 2 pages)">Exhibit 5-3: Sample Performance Measurement Framework (PDF | 21 KB | 2 pages)

"Williamson County Democratic party is working with Operation Stand Down Nashville"

Way to put those "Dems don't support the troops" stereotypes to rest!

I'm the committee chairperson on the Agencies and Social Services committee for the event and while this is my first Standdown event, it's the 16th annual, I do believe, and the folks who're working on the festivities and services couldn't be a greater bunch of peeps, regardless of which side of the aisle they might sit on.

I'm looking forward to the event and a chance to lend a hand to so many of the homeless veterans in our community; I'm anxious too to check out how many folks show up. Last year they had 400+ homeless vets who came in for some help.

Incidentally, that's also a little more proof added to the pile debunking Wild Bill O'Reilly's claim there's "no homeless vets" in our country....


NewsChannel 5.com - Nashville, Tennessee - Democratic Headquarters Helps Homeless Veterans

Democratic Headquarters Helps Homeless Veterans

Posted: July 26, 2008 08:43 PM

FRANKLIN, Tenn.- Some people in Williamson County are giving back to the men and women who served our country. The Democratic Party headquarters in Franklin is collecting clothes for homeless veterans. And, it's not just older vets that need the help. Volunteers said soldiers returning from Iraq, and Afghanistan are being added to ranks of the homeless.

The Williamson County Democratic party is working with Operation Stand Down Nashville, they're a group that offers job training, mental health counseling, and housing placement for the homeless.

Achieving Your Dreams (and those of others, too)

A wonderfully uplifting "must-watch"....

YouTube's star lecturer dies at 47

(CNN) -- Randy Pausch, the professor whose "last lecture" became a runaway phenomenon on the Internet and was turned into a best-selling book, died Friday of pancreatic cancer, Carnegie Mellon University announced on its Web site.

Randy Pausch emphasized the joy of life in his "last lecture," originally given in September 2007.

1 of 2

Pausch, 47, a computer science professor, delivered the lecture, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," at Carnegie Mellon in September 2007, a month after being told he had three to six months to live because his cancer had returned.

The lanky, energetic Pausch talked about goals he had accomplished, like experiencing zero gravity and creating Disney attractions, and those he had not, including becoming a professional football player.

He used rejections he was handed when he applied for jobs at Disney to comment on the importance of persistence.

"The brick walls are there for a reason ... to show us how badly we want something," he said. "Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop the other people." Watch what Pausch did for his wife »

Starting with a joke about "a deathbed conversion" -- "I just bought a Macintosh" computer -- the educator went on to say that one of his childhood dreams was to write an entry in the World Book Encyclopedia.

"I guess you can tell the nerds early," he added.

Don't Miss

• Oprah.com: Life lessons with Randy Pausch
• Time.com: Randy Pausch, life teacher
• YouTube: Randy Pausch's 'Last Lecture'

An expert in virtual reality, Pausch did go on to write an encyclopedia entry on the subject.

He discussed his fondness for winning stuffed animals at fairs, showed a slide of them, then -- pretending to be concerned his audience would think the image had been digitally manipulated -- produced them onstage.

Donning silly costume items like a vest with arrows sticking out of it and a Mad Hatter's hat, he described working with students as a way to help other people achieve their dreams.

He also played down his own importance, saying that after he got a Ph.D., his mother took to introducing him as "a doctor, but not the kind who helps people."

The lecture has been viewed more than 3.2 million times since it was posted on YouTube in December.

Pausch co-founded the university's Entertainment Technology Center and was known for developing interdisciplinary courses and research projects that attracted new students to the field of computer science. He also spent his career encouraging computer scientists to collaborate with artists, dramatists and designers, Carnegie Mellon said.

The university's president, Jared Cohon, described Pausch as "a brilliant researcher and gifted teacher."

"His love of teaching, his sense of fun and his brilliance came together in the Alice project, which teaches students computer programming while enabling them to do something fun -- making animated movies and games," Cohon added. "Carnegie Mellon -- and the world -- are better places for having had Randy Pausch in them."

Pausch describes Cohon urging him to talk about having fun in his lecture, and telling him it's difficult because it's like asking a fish to talk about water.

"I don't know how not to have fun," he said. "I'm dying and I'm having fun. And I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left."

Pausch is survived by his wife, Jai, and three children.

"Investigators said the women were able to get Lortabs and tried to get Hydrocodone.... Wednesday morning all three women were behind bars."

Destroying a big chunk of one's present and future life for a couple of lousy Vicodins...

Just goes to show you that even the pea-shooters of narcotic painkillers has the potential to drive a person into absolute stupidity in order to feed the addiction. NewsChannel 5.com - Nashville, Tennessee - Three Women Arrested For Stealing A Doctor's Identity

Three Women Arrested For Stealing A Doctor's Identity Posted: July 9, 2008 07:54 AM NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Wednesday morning, three women faced a slew of charges for allegedly stealing a midstate doctor's identity to get prescription drugs. Police arrested Charity Watts, Tina Chambers and Kimberly McQuery, and charged all three with identity theft, getting prescription drugs through fraud and trying to obtain prescription drugs through fraud. Police said the women used the name and DEA number of a Springfield doctor when they called a Nashville CVS pharmacy. Investigators said the women were able to get Lortabs and tried to get Hydrocodone. They were arrested after a month-long investigation. Wednesday morning all three women were behind bars.

$1.5 Mil: "compensation for up to 268 individuals for damages they suffered when the city bulldozed homeless settlements in 2006, seizing and destroying their property."

268 folks divvying up $1.5 million - about $5,600 each. It's probably safe to assume that the individual person total will be more money than the combined total of all property lost or destroyed for everyone who suffered through this egregious but "official" vandalism.

Punitive damages are a bitch, no doubt about it, and I suspect this will give pause to city officials across the nation who might be contemplating similar "camp eradication" measures in their locales...

abc30.com: Homeless Lawsuit Finalized 7/25/08

Homeless Lawsuit Finalized

Friday, July 25, 2008 | 7:04 PM

more about "abc30.com: Homeless Lawsuit Finalized...", posted with vodpod

By Gene Haagenson

Fresno, CA (KFSN) -- A Fresno judge finalized the settlement of a lawsuit against the city of Fresno for how it handled the cleanup of homeless camps in the past.

Federal judge Oliver Wanger finalized the deal, giving the homeless nearly one and a half million dollars. The money is designed to compensate up to 268 individuals for damages they suffered when the city bulldozed homeless settlements in 2006, seizing and destroying their property.

The judge praised private lawyers handling the case for not taking any money, when they would have been entitled up to two million in legal fees.

The judge also blasted Mayor Alan Autry for criticizing the legal process, and said it was clear the mayor had no understanding of the law.
Story continues below
Advertisement

Attorneys for the ACLU praised the settlement and said the city could have settled much earlier, but chose to fight tooth and nail, only giving in when the case was about to go to trial.

The ACLU will share 750 thousand in legal fees with the lawyer's committee for civil rights.

The attorney representing Alan Autry objected to the judge's criticism of the mayor, but Judge Wanger said the mayors own criticism of the courts and attorneys were ill informed and uncalled for.

"Is the economy really that bad?"

Well, you decide....


Broke, Out Of a Job, and Homeless: This Week in the Economy
(Motley Fool)

Broke, Out Of a Job, and Homeless: This Week in the

Economy

By Morgan Housel July 25, 2008

1 Recommendation

Is the economy really that bad? Sure, everyone knows oil is tearing a hole in our wallets, banks are struggling to tread water, the auto industry is in shambles, and don't even get me started on housing. But, really, where's the line between an economic downturn and an economic calamity? This week provided us with some answers.

Here's the latest from the economic front this week.

Problem No. 1: Housing
Those waiting for a housing rebound sometime soon might want to grab a drink. Friday brought news that foreclosure filings surged 120% from the same period last year, pushing 220,000 homes nationwide into bank ownership last quarter alone. Meanwhile, Congress is moving toward legislation that paves the way to insure up to $300 billion in rocky mortgages and gives the Treasury Department the green light to prop up Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE).

Problem No. 2: Jobs
Initial jobless claims soared to 406,000 last week, one of the highest readings since the post-Hurricane Katrina downturn. Companies announcing job cuts this week include United Airlines (Nasdaq: UAUA), Wachovia (NYSE: WB) and Bristol-Meyer Squibb (NYSE: BMY). Keep a watchful eye on employment; it might be a chief indicator of just how dire the economy gets. When consumers get caught in a trap of either losing their job or simply worrying they're about to lose their jobs, wallets slam shut and the engine that drives our economy -- consumer spending -- runs out of gas.

Problem No. 3: Tax woes
Here's an unsettling thought: What might become the next irrational bubble in the midst of a downturn? Tax revenue. As the economy flourished and property values ballooned, state tax revenue in the past years came pouring in. Now that the economic tides have turned, state budgets are projected to fall some $40 billion short this fiscal year. No problem, you say, tax shortfalls never seem to hurt the federal government, right? States are different, since most are required to balance their budgets each year. All things considered, there're two ways to close the gap: cut spending, or raise taxes. Both solutions, of course, could be detrimental to consumers already scrambling to make ends meet.

Problem No. 4: Oil and inflation
Oil began to back off its highs reached earlier this month -- a welcomed sight for many. Prices hovered in the low $120-a-barrel range at the end of the week, comfortably lower than the march towards $150 a barrel seen a few weeks ago.

Great news for those on a hunt to rein in oil speculators: a CFTC allegation shows an obscure company called Optiver Holding may have manipulated oil prices. Bad news, though: their alleged scheme was reportedly small and took place well over a year ago. Meanwhile, a federal task force reported that supply and demand fundamentals alone could largely justify oil at $130 a barrel. Excellent news if you're ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) or Chevron (NYSE: CVX), bad news if you're a consumer wishing for cheap gas to return.

Problem No. 5: Banks gone bad
Despite staging massive recent gains, the banking sector as a whole isn't out of the woods by a long shot. The Federal Reserve reported this week that banks notched up borrowing from its emergency lending window to an average of $16.4 billion per day. Banks will likely swoop in on the Fed's emergency window for two reasons: either they need the capital, or they think someone will raid them of what they already have, a la IndyMac. Neither is very encouraging.

That's the latest for this week. Check back next Friday for the latest economic roundup.

For related economic Foolishness:

* I.O.U.nited States
* Bernanke's Complete and Utter Failure
* Some Chinese Guy Is Paying Your Mortgage