I was listening to a story the other day regarding the increase in bad check writing that occurs pretty much anytime the economy takes a dump on heads of those of us hanging on at the bottom rung of our socioeconomic ladder.
It reminded me of the last time I passed a check I knew would have "insufficient funds" to cover it, and I recalled that when I'd written that check back in the early 90s, I was starting another spiral into homelessness and poverty due to the lack of "gainful employment" that paid a livable wage.
At the time, I remember thinking that the bank could kiss my ass because I needed the money not just a little bit, but desperately, as I had kids at the house that were going to go hungry if I didn't put some groceries on the table right NOW.
And then I started thinking about this kind of fundamental difference in thinking between those of us who've spent our lives poor and struggling, and those who've never had to worry where their next meal was coming from. My lovely significant other, is one of those "other" people and I can remember the first time we had overspent our monthly budget and were down to just $300 in our checking account, with about 3 days left till payday. She was so stricken with worry and concern that we could potentially become overdrawn that she moved a couple hundred dollars from our savings into the checking account just to make doubly sure we didn't.
Hmpf.
That we still had hundreds of dollars left in the account and just three days to survive on what tallied out to a $100 a day spending allowance would be reason for great joy in the lives of most of us who are poor. That we actually had any money in savings to move over to checking was, for those of us who know poverty on a first-name basis, a reason to fall to our knees and thank God, Buddha, Allah, The Great Spirit, and several of our "Higher Powers" for the bountiful blessing bestowed upon us!
For most folks who reside in poverty (and self was included in that cohort until just about ten years ago, which gives me 40+ years of experience there), we don't usually have the luxury of having "saved" money anywhere. We survive paycheck to paycheck, and most of the time, our paychecks aren't even really enough to cover the most basic of living expenses for us.
This is why we're often driving without insurance, even though we know it's illegal to do so. It's why we bounce checks, even though we know it's both illegal and costly to do so. It's why we put ourselves, our family and YOU at risk every day when we get out on the road in a car with bald tires and bad brakes in order to get to the job that doesn't pay us enough to survive appropriately in the first place.
And by appropriately, I mean paying us a wage that allows us to pay for the necessities of life as a working person, and I'm not talking here about the "wants," like maybe cable tv, or nice steak meal grilled for the family in the back yard (or, in most of our cases, on the balcony or in the "common area" of our "affordable" housing unit, if we're lucky enough to have housing) on a Sunday afternoon, or computer with an internet connection, or even a pair of jeans that don't have holes in - or stains on - them.
We've long ago forgone the wants in pursuit of the needs, and because we've been struggling to get those needs met, we think differently about them than perhaps many who've not had to toil till the cows come home to meet them.
It really boils down to acts of desperation by those of us who've been backed into corners - for whatever the reason - and are now fighting for our very survival. If this sounds overly dramatic, you've most likely never experienced real poverty. There's a hopelessness that comes with abject poverty that, until you've experienced it, you cannot understand. When someone operates under that mindset, their priorities, their ethics and morals have a very likely potential of changing. All bets on righteous human behavior go out the window and people shift to survival mode.
There is a brilliant book by Viktor Frankl called "Man's Search For Meaning" (formerly known as "Experiences in a Concentration Camp") and it describes the degeneration into a survival mindset that occurs to most folks who find themselves thrust into these situations undergo. It's not a huge stretch to think of the degeneration into serious poverty in a similar way.
What matters changes for people when they shift into survival mode, and they may do things they'd otherwise never do, justifying the action on the fact that they've got to do this in order to survive.
In prison, many people who have no future in our traditional society plot how they'll be able to make it once they are released. Nevermind that most of the plans they create are similar to those that landed them in jail in the first place; if you can't find a job that pays a livable wage due to the felony conviction you now have for an act you did when you couldn't find a job period, what's a person going to do to get by once the state isn't providing "3 hots and a cot" anymore?
It's a vicious cycle and the same thing also happens to those of us who may not be dealing with jail but have done things like bounce checks in order to feed a family or make a car payment in order to keep the car in order to get back and forth to work every day. Then the bank account goes away because you've bounced too many checks and now you're relegated to check-cashing stores that have interest rates and cashing fees that would make a mob loanshark blush. The piles of shit are everywhere and the more you try to avoid them, the more that pop up in front of your footsteps.
It's a wonder that there isn't even more crime and scandalous behavior than there already is.
And it's definitely a slippery slope. Once you begin your decent, any morals or ethics you have about your responsibilities to the larger society begin to shrink proportionally to the direness of your situation.
Then add to the mix stories about companies that don't pay taxes, politicians who want to cut the already bare bones assistance you might be eligible for, and meanwhile every time you go to the store or the gas station the prices have risen while your wages have shrunk or disappeared, and I think you've created the foundation that revolutions are built upon....
I understand the dilemma facing folks in LA county; it's the same dilemma facing everyone just about everywhere outside of those w gates and personal security guards who keep watch over their McMansion. We're all broke and drowning in debt, watching prices for everything skyrocket while seeing the general decline of a country hellbent on ending any social assistance to anyone but those who are so visible, costly and disruptive to the orderly facade our officials want us to believe is the real America that they have to find a way to rid the city of those people.
Since pesky questions are asked when homeless folks are found dead, they can't kill em, and locking them all up bring on still more pesky questions by those damned civil rights advocates, so instead they want to figure out how to move em out of sight, out of mind.
Okay, okay, I'm being a little dramatic here, but you'd probably be surprised at how close to the truth this actually is for many cities around our decaying country.
So I get that we have limited resources and need to triage. But here's the problem with triaging in this circumstance; those folks you pass over for more critical cases aren't often going to "heal" on their own. So while LA outreach and case management is running around slapping chronically homeless folks into housing (HousingFirst, we hope), those who remain behind on the streets wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
Several things happen to peeps during this long wait. The first is that folks get a bit of an attitude that "Joe" got some housing while they did not. The hidden message here is that the worse you are on the street, the more likely it is that you'll get housing.
Hmmmm.
The second thing to happen is that folks become...inured to life on the streets, it becomes familiar, and if not perfectly comfortable, tolerable to many. In effect, it becomes"normalized."
The third thing that happens is that the longer one is living homeless, the more likely it is that they'll pick up a charge of some kind from law enforcement. We don't take kindly to folks who live on the street and tickets are handed out to those folks more so than probably any other group in our cities.
Once a criminal record is added to the burden of trying to extricate oneself from homelessness, the fourth thing that happens to folks occurs; people lose any hope - and resultant drive - they may have had for ending their situation and returning to a housed lifestyle anytime soon. Resignation of the fate of homelessness occurs, and people lose their motivation to try and overcome the incredible barriers and challenges they see in front of them when they think about getting off the streets.
The irony here is that when the outreach worker passed them by for the guy who'd been on the curb the longest last year, that person who was passed by may have still had a half a chance at rapid recovery using a smaller amount of resources.
So the game to get "the crazy check" then becomes how to look thrashed disheveled while exhibiting the very worst behavior that will make you stand out among the crowd of homeless folks around you who are also seeking services.
Hmmm.
Is this what we're shooting for? I mean, is this what we're silently telling folks when we implement programs like the Vulnerability Index, targeting the most challenging, finding the persons with the biggest cost impact on our society? In order to get service from us, you've got to be bad off, and not just your garden variety bad off that applies to anyone experiencing homelessness, we mean really really bad off, with multiple issues of substance abuse, mental illness, physical disabilities and loooonnnggg periods of time living on the streets?
I don't know. I can sure understand why we want to target the most challenging of our folks out there, but aren't we in at least some sense telling folks to become this way before we'll provide them services?
The approach doesn't seem logical to me and I've often said that if we could catch many folks at the start of that spiral into homelessness, we'd be far more successful in getting them to change, remain housed and become integral members of our society.
Seems to me it'd also require a helluva lot less resources to accomplish this, and good granny grunt, if you could end their stint of homelessness before it stretches into years or decades, wouldn't you also save taxpayer dollars as well, since the demand for emergency intervention services would be far less?
Ah, but what do I know, anyway?
L.A. County to focus homeless services on most hard-core street dwellers
Supervisors agree to have county departments look at ways to increase permanent supportive housing and provide services that emphasize treatment for drug and mental health problems.
A man at Palisades Park in Santa Monica is among an estimated 48,000 people who are homeless on any given night in Los Angeles County. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times / April 19, 2011)
Los Angeles County supervisors agreed Tuesday to give priority to the most hard-core street dwellers when allocating housing and other homeless services.
"These are the people who need help the most," said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who proposed the motion with Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. "They are the ones who have been on the streets the longest amount of time.... [They] are the most in danger of getting sick and dying on the streets."
The proposal, adopted unanimously, is part of a plan recommended by business leaders that aims within five years to put a permanent roof over the heads of all homeless veterans and the chronically homeless by making more efficient use of existing resources.
Wendy Levin, a member of the Los Angeles Business Leaders Task Force on Homelessness, said Tuesday's motion takes an "essential and bold step forward."
The group's plan, called "Home for Good," proposes reallocating about $230 million in federal, state and local resources each year to pay for a rapid increase in permanent supportive housing, which includes counseling and treatment, for the most persistent street dwellers.
Although the chronically homeless make up just a quarter of the estimated 48,000 people who are homeless on any given night in Los Angeles County, they use a disproportionate share of services, including hospital emergency rooms and jails.
By focusing on housing these individuals, the plan's authors argue, the county will free up resources for other homeless populations, such as families and youth.
In December, the Board of Supervisors instructed county Chief Executive William T Fujioka to review the plan with county departments. His recommendations were included in the motion approved Tuesday. They include developing strategies to increase the number of available housing vouchers, ensure that services are available to those who are housed, coordinate with other public and private providers and make the most of available funding.
"There was concern expressed regarding the current economic climate," Fujioka said in his report to the board. "It is our belief, however, that it is the perfect time to work smarter, implement meaningful improvements and to develop strategies that are more efficient and that target our most costly consumers."
The plan reflects a growing consensus among homeless advocates that those who have lived on the streets the longest are more likely to accept counseling and treatment if they don't have to worry about where they will sleep that night. But this housing-first approach has been controversial politically.
Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich has complained about spending tax dollars to house individuals who continue to abuse drugs and avoid treatment, calling the approach "warehousing without healing." He proposed an amendment Tuesday — approved without objection — that requires services for those who are housed to emphasize treatment for substance abuse and mental health problems.
Sorry for all the graphs and charts and crap, but when I was buried in my graduate statistics course, the one thing that stayed with me more than anything else was that the power of graphs and charts to show people important information was immense and far more powerful than simply rattling off the stats.
As you can see from this post and the one below it, my Prof wasn't lying....
Ya know, what seems really clear - and it arises directly out of the information the very first graph provides us - is that as the tax burden has dropped significantly for the richest Americans, our country's financial condition seems to have grown worse proportionately.
Sorta puts a big ol stick right in the eye of that long discredited but continually repeated Keynesian "trickle down" theory, now doesn't it?
Click here for more charts on America's growing income gap.
"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes," billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley famously (and allegedly) sniffed. She wasn't entirely correct: The superrich do still pay taxes. The wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers pay 32 percent of all income tax collected by the federal government.
But the superrich don't pay as much as they used to—and thanks to a combination of tax cuts and preferential tax policies, their tax obligations can be less demanding than the so-called little people's. In fact, the very wealthiest Americans' tax burden has been steadily dropping for years, even as they've enjoyed astounding income growth not seen by the vast majority of Americans.
Tax rates for the wealthy have fallen substantially since they peaked in the 1940s. During the past 30 years, they have been cut at a much faster rate than middle- and low-income taxpayers'.
Just how much of a windfall are tax cuts for the wealthy? The extension of the Bush tax cuts passed last year will provide $146,000 in annual tax savings, on average, to each of the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans.
The superrich get an additional boost from relatively low tax rates on capital gains. Income from long-term investments, which makes up a larger portion of wealthier taxpayers' incomes than middle- and low-income taxpayers', is taxed at lower rates than wages.
Payroll taxes (deductions for Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance) are mostly paid by the bottom 90 percent of earners. When they're factored in on top of income tax, the gap between the tax rates at the very top and everyone else shrinks even more—so much that the effective tax rate for people earning more than $370,000 is nearly the same as for those earning between $43,000 and $69,000 a year.
Payroll taxes now make up nearly as much of federal tax revenue as individual income tax. Meanwhile, revenues from corporate taxes have decreased significantly over the past 50 years.
Corporations exploit various loopholes and tax breaks to reduce their IRS bills—perhaps none more notoriously than General Electric. Though the corporate tax rate is 35%, GE has paid nothing near that for nearly a decade.
Leona Helmsley's distaste for paying taxes eventually landed her in federal prison. But the rich have little need to break the law to avoid the tax collector. As Martin A. Sullivan of Tax.com recently calculated, a New York janitor making slightly more than $33,000 a year pays an effective tax rate of nearly 25%. And the effective tax rate for a resident of the Park Avenue building named after Helmsley, earning an average of $1.2 million annually? A cool 14.7%.
In the coming months, I think we'll need to refer our homeless clients to Republicans and their "Tea Party" fringe and supporters. Once the Inter-agency Council provides some clarification on exactly what other funding cuts have been made to programs like SAMHSA and Community Block Grant programs, we'll know who else we'll need to send their way, too.
And meanwhile, we'll keep spending money on wars, weapons and nation-plundering, while letting companies like GE, ExxonMobil, Citigroup, Bank of America, Chevron and who knows how many other major US companies to get away without paying a damned dime of taxes.
I guess rather then "Opening Doors" we'll either blow them off with some good ol heavy weapons, or get some of the fine accountants from our biggest companies to steal them for us.
If you're poor, keep an eye on the mail for some cake, but don't hold yer breath for a very large piece; we'll be lucky to get any frosting on our crumbs....
Last Friday, President Obama signed into law H.R. 1473 that provides funding to the federal government through September 30, 2011. As President Obama said upon reaching the bi-partisan agreement, "some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful. Programs people rely on will be cut back ... And I would not have made these cuts in better circumstances."
Despite the $38.5 billion in cuts, vital programs to the success of the goals of Opening Doors in general received flat funding. These related programs include:
$40 million increase for HUD's McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants program (a total of $1.905 billion);
Over 7,500 new housing vouchers for Veterans experiencing homelessness through HUD - VA Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program;
$116 million for Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) programs, equal to the FY 2010 level; and
$18.4 billion for Section 8 Tenant-Based Rental Assistance, enough to fund all existing vouchers.
Upon passage of the Budget, Washington Senator Patty Murray noted, "instead of being shut out, thousands of homeless veterans will receive new vouchers to find safe and secure housing under this agreement. Instead of being drastically cut, Head Start will continue to provide low income children with the same early learning advantages available to other kids. And instead of being turned away, women will still have access to local care for cervical and breast cancer screenings, prenatal care, and family planning services."
Funding geared towards implementation of the HEARTH Act in the President's Fiscal Year 2011 Budget was not allocated in the final bill. In addition, there was a $650 million cut to Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) which provide essential funding to communities across the country. Loss of critical funding for Community Health Centers, Rural Health Care Programs, SAMSHA, and a variety of housing programs at HUD provides the federal government additional challenges in its efforts to prevent and end homelessness. In the coming weeks, USICH will provide a full breakdown of the funding for homeless related programs in Fiscal Year 2011.
I don't often go in for "reality" TV, since my own experiences in life are more than adequate in providing entertainment, drama, humor, suspense and escape for me.
Added to this is the vicarious trauma I suffer on just about a daily basis as I work with folks still on the street, or as I create new training methods based on the shared stories I have from people I'm working with or hearing about from other outreach workers, case managers and program directors.
Suffice it to say, the reality I deal with every day is often far more riveting, interesting and sometimes painful than anything television might be able to provide me with.
But every now and then, as I'm working away and half-listening to the endless stream of noise emanating from my tv (I have it on from the moment I wake up at 5amish to the time I go to bed around 11pmish) something that's said catches my ear and triggers a listening response.
Such was the case this morning while listening to HBO's Taxicab Confessions program.
What caught my attention was a particular rider who was an African American man and who had such an impressive physique that the cab driver asked him if he "lifted trucks for a living?"
As soon as the man began speaking, I immediately liked the guy. His demeanor was...casual yet upbeat, positive, and he invited approaching in a friendly sort of way. It's a persona I try to wear when I'm in public as well and I guess when I see it in others, it makes me instantly feel connected to the person.
The driver and rider talked a while and the man began to explain to the driver some of the differences between white and black thinking on issues, race, and the reason black men have a difficult time with each other. I found him enlightening and interesting; definitely someone I would have enjoyed spending some time and chatting with.
Now about this time, I also had a couple of other things occurring in good ol real life, so I'm not positive what I'm about to tell you next came from the mouth of the guy I've just described, but I heard someone say (and I'm paraphrasing a bit here), "everything I've got I earned myself. No one gave me anything or did anything for me. I did it all on my own and I had to work hard for it."
Whoever it was that said this created an instantaneous recollection of memories for me that might best be described as watching one's life pass before their eyes right before they die.
I thought about my father, who disappeared from my life at age 4. I thought about my mother, who struggled to raise my sister and me as a single parent in the sixties and who, on her own and with no help from family, entered college, earned the first college degree of anyone in her family, and went on to become moderately successful as a Respiratory Therapist and department head for a major metropolitan hospital in the Philadelphia area. Her career was short-lived however, and when I was just 17, she suffered a cerebral aneurysm that left her hemiplegic and completely disabled for the remainder of her life.
I still vividly remember that day. I was trying to reach her to let her know when I'd be returning and learned from her employer that she'd been admitted to a hospital in Lansing, Michigan, was undergoing emergency surgery, and, according to him, she "may not survive it. " The rotten bastard wouldn't tell me which hospital she was at as he didn't want me to "bother" her, and I remember thinking as I slammed down the phone that if she died before I got a chance to see her, there'd be another death in Lansing that day, and it would be a slow and painful one, for sure.
I was picking apples in November at an orchard in Empire MI trying to earn a few bucks (about the tip of the pinky finger for those who know we Michiganders always show the "mitten" when we're describing our state) at the time and didn't even bother to return to pick up my few belongings from the migrant camp I was holed up in.
I hitchhiked out of Empire in a sleet storm and it took me two days to go from there to Lansing Michigan.
I slept that first night in an over sized dog house on the front lawn of a motel, too broke to afford a room. I was soaking wet and shivering my ass off, and sometime in the middle of the night I got so cold I decided to break into the maintenance room of the motel. I crawled in through a window, stripped down to my boxers and laid my soaked, icy clothes on the duct pipes of the furnace that was pumping heat into the motel rooms.
I caught a few winks in there but was scared shitless that I'd get busted for breaking into the place, and as soon as my clothes were dry, I slapped them on and headed back out onto the highway.
I arrived in Lansing that afternoon, unsure of where my mother was but bound and determined to find her. I located her at Sparrow after calling every hospital in a phone book at a local payphone.
I visited her in intensive care; she was on a ventilator and had what appeared to be a gazillion tubes poking out of every part of her body. Her head was bandaged and I don't think she was conscious, but I do recall her squeezing my hand as if to let me know she knew I was there.
I staggered out of that room a changed young man and for the first time in my entire life, began to wonder about my own survival. It was also the first time I experienced homelessness, since my mother was never going "home" in the sense that she was the homeowner and I was a child in that home, and I really had no place to go to at that point, nor did I have any resources available to me for food, transportation, communication or general survival.
By this point, I'd long since dropped out of school, having left that complete waste of my time at the start of 8th grade, and spent the days as stoned as I could get myself, while trying to deal up enough local cash to run small amounts of dope back and forth from Michigan to Florida. Truth be told I did have some definite dope selling skills but several problems are associated with this "skill set." First - and perhaps the most debilitating to those of us who enjoy consuming the drugs we're supposed to be selling - is that although profits were large, it was easy to smoke, snort and consume the profit margin in an unbelievably short period of time. Second, those skills don't get you very far when you apply for a job in the real world and are still years away from even a high school diploma.
I stumbled along, making bad choices out the ass, and finally, several years later while wandering in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I was told by a cousin that he'd seen my father at a convenience store on Division Avenue in Wyoming, MI. By that time, it'd been some 18 years since I'd last seen my dad and I'd already had a couple of kids myself and was well on my way to my first divorce. I'd moved back to Grand Rapids from a little shithole on the southwest corner of the state after working myself stupid at the world's worst job as a plastic injection mold operator and losing my relationship with my first wife in the process.
Excited at the possibility of rekindling a relationship with a family member I'd not seen since the earth began cooling, and doubly excited that I'd get to find out who my dad really was, I hauled ass over to the store to see if I could find him.
As luck would have it (and in my case, it was usually bad luck and this was no exception), he wasn't there when I entered the store but after a very brief conversation the clerk gave me the impression he knew my dad. I did what I thought was the next best thing and left my father a short note mentioning that I'd come back again to speak with him soon.
A few days later I was driving past the store and noticed the clerk I'd given the note to and an old man playing chess while sitting in front of a window of the store.
I pulled in, got out of my car and saw both men looking at me, then talking rather excitedly between themselves. As I began walking towards the door to the store, I saw the old man rise up, grab a cane and hobble off towards the back of the store. As I reached for the door, the clerk rushed over, locked the door and flipped the open sign over to "closed." He then also hightailed it back to the shadows of the store and I couldn't see either of them any longer.
I walked back to my car, dejected, heartbroken and devastated. My father had contracted polio when he was a child and he walked with a bad limp. Later in his life, he needed a cane, and the man who'd jumped up had also hobbled back to the nether regions of the store while using a cane. I had no doubt whatsoever that this gentleman was indeed my father.
I couldn't have been more than 22 at the time, and any free ride or parental assistance many of my friends got when they looked for a job, needed a car, or tried to figure out what they were going to do with the rest of their lives was pretty much not an option for me.
In fact, I would turn three shades of green with envy when one of my friends or acquaintances would suddenly show up in a new and nice car, pockets full of money while he or she began telling me about how their father was able to "get them in" at one of the high-paying factory jobs in the area. Everyone knew that if you wanted to work for a place like General Motors, Steelcase, or Keeler Brass, you had to have a family member employed there who could put in a good word for you with the HR department. These were the sweet jobs during that time; they paid well, had great benefits and once in it was pretty much a given that so long as you didn't really fuck up your job or your attendance, you could count on the "cradle to grave" employment path. Those jobs were only rarely open to the rest of us poor sods, and when a place like GM actually did do an "open hire" there were so many of us in line to get an application (pre-internet days gone by) that you knew your chances were slim to none that you'd ever even receive a call for an interview, let alone actually land a job.
One other thing that got me pretty pissed off was when someone would complain to me about how their father or parents forced them to tow the line, yet they'd pull up in a nice new car, courtesy of those mean and awful parents, and would have to leave early in to return to the apartment the parents had provided the first, last and security for in order to get up for work the next morning at a cush job, again courtesy of mom or dad.
A quick review of the ol family tree turned up nothing but dead branches and a couple of crab-apples. Clearly, I was relegated to navigating my own course on the path to the American Dream. I gave it hell, no doubt about it, but the steps had me stumbling, falling down repeatedly, and resigning myself to repeatedly picking myself up, brushing myself off and trying the path again.
Trust me, the road to success ain't easy to find without a good GPS, and there ain't a better navigation system in place than to have family members, role models and mentors who've traversed the highways before you and can fill ya in on the good exits and scenic routes to take.
Without them, you're likely to make some seriously wrong turns, take exits that lead you into the very depths of despair and poverty, and wind up on roads filled with potholes the size of McMansions. Don't bother looking for the driveway to your own McMansion on those roads either, because it'll be as out of reach to you as is a credit card, a bank account or a new car loan.
I probably made every mistake possible on my road to success. But one thing is damned certain at the present: everything I have today, I have because of my own hard work and lessons learned form the mistakes I made over the last half a century. About the only real break I think I ever received is the one that arrived in the form of the most beautiful woman who took a chance on me, at precisely the right time I needed her to.
This isn't a sniveling, "poor me" lamentation but rather an inspirational call to perseverance to all those folks out there who are doing it alone and who never got the map or tossed it aside because they felt they could do a better job on their own.
Success means different things to different people, but one thing I think that is universal is that achieving whatever your idea of success is can be a damned difficult journey if one is attempting to "go it alone" in today's complex and highly competitive society. The impact of positive role models and mentors cannot be underestimated, nor can the guidance and assistance from well-adjusted families. To be sure, some families are so dysfunctional that any children borne into them are probably better off without their influence, but for those kids lucky enough to have a loving, well-adjusted family around to help guide, nurture and direct them, they have the whole world at their feet and they are probably the luckiest folks on the planet, as well...
Yeah, screw them poor folk, they ain't worth the paper stamps used to be printed on, eh? This bit of zany logic from the same gang that said unemployment checks make people receiving them not want to find a job.
I can't understand people who can look out at hungry, broke, unemployed and scared human beings and not feel a pang of compassion and understanding. I'm even less able to figure out how some folks can look at the poor and the homeless and then consider making things worse on them. Worse yet are those cretins who think that somehow the pathetic existence entitlement programs provide for their recipients somehow makes those people less inclined to try and create something better for their lives.
Perhaps if these misguided individuals thought about using some of the money we currently spend on defense and corporate welfare, and maybe if they closed some of the tax loopholes that allow companies like ExxonMobile, GE, Google, Bank of America, Chevron, Valero Energy, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Conoco Philips, and Carnival Cruise Lines to pay not ONE DIME in taxes in their homeland, then maybe we wouldn't be in such a goddam mess in the first place.
And maybe if we stopped trying to be such imperialistic assholes in every country with a half dozen barrels of oil laying around, we'd be able to not only end the budget deficit but also begin to spend some money here at home on things that matter to those of us who are supposed to make up the system that is running roughshod, deaf and arrogant over us at the present time.
I'm frankly sick of this theater we keep seeing from the children in Washington, and I'm beyond tired of watching people corrupted by their own selfish greed. About all we can hope for, at least at this point, is to reach out in our own communities and do what we can for those near us....
House Ag Committee: Cut Food Stamps, not Farm Aid
Posted by MICHAEL CROWLEY Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at 12:27 pm
There has long been rare left-right agreement in Washington that multi-billion dollar federal farm subsidies are generally wasteful, mostly benefit agribusinesses, and should be slashed or eliminated. You'd think this would represent low-hanging fruit for Republican budget hawks looking to make quick cuts in federal spending. But the farm lobby and members of Congress representing rural states wield mighty power in Washington. So it's little surprise to see Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee urging Budget Chairman Paul Ryan not to make substantial cuts to federal farm programs.
But this time there's a twist: Lest those Republicans appear profligate, they have proposed one area for cuts--food stamps:
The only program the letter offers as a possible area for belt-tightening is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the food stamp program. The panel said it might not continue the boost in monthly benefits for SNAP participants when they expire Nov. 1, 2013. SNAP, which accounts for nearly three-quarters of the Agriculture Department's budget, got an across-the-board increase in monthly benefits under the 2009 stimulus (PL 111-5).
The temporary increase was slated to end fiscal 2018, but Congress already has tapped $14.4 billion of that increase to aid states with Medicaid, to help school districts avoid teacher layoffs, and to reauthorize and expand federal child-nutrition programs. As a result, the SNAP benefits increases will expire earlier than originally scheduled.
"Last year, Hunt's life took a downward spiral. His marriage ended, he dropped out of school and he began to have suicidal thoughts, his mother said. She said Hunt sought counseling from the VA and moved in temporarily with Wordin in California. Things seemed to improve for Hunt in recent months after he returned to his hometown of Houston to be near family."
Clay's story, unfortunately, parallels so many other vets' stories I've heard from the street.
I think what's most disturbing to me about his spiral and death is that he was a veteran who had a lot of resources available at his fingertips and didn't seem too afraid of both speaking out and advocating for himself. That he was driven to suicide by his internal demons and his divorce isn't surprising but what is is that he didn't seem to have as many of the barriers to obtaining help, nor did he seem to be as isolated as many vets can become, when he actually did himself in.
Heartbreaking, a huge loss for the veteran community, and an even bigger loss for those who knew and loved Clay.
My thoughts, prayers and heart goes out to his family and I hope that as agencies, services and advocates move forward in designing and implementing services, they look long and hard at what happened to Clay and see if there are ways in which we're able to intervene before it reaches the loss of life. Clay deserved it and so does every single person who risked their life for our country.
Ex-Marine, advocate kills self after war tours
By KIMBERLY HEFLING Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Handsome and friendly, Clay Hunt so epitomized a vibrant Iraq veteran that he was chosen for a public service announcement reminding veterans that they aren't alone.
The 28-year-old former Marine corporal earned a Purple Heart after taking a sniper's bullet in his left wrist. He returned to combat in Afghanistan. Upon his return home, he lobbied for veterans on Capitol Hill, road-biked with wounded veterans and performed humanitarian work in Haiti and Chile.
Then, on March 31, Hunt bolted himself in his Houston apartment and shot himself.
Friends and family say he was wracked with survivor's guilt, depression and other emotional struggles after combat.
Hunt's death has shaken many veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those who knew him wonder why someone who seemed to be doing all the right things to deal with combat-related issues is now dead.
"We know we have a problem with vets' suicide, but this was really a slap in the face," said Matthew Pelak, 32, an Iraq veteran who worked with Hunt in Haiti as part of the nonprofit group Team Rubicon.
After news of Hunt's death spread, workers from the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors met with veterans visiting Washington for the annual lobbying effort by the nonprofit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, or IAVA. A year earlier, Hunt had been with other veterans in dark suits calling on Congress to improve the disability claims process.
He had appeared in the group's ads encouraging veterans to seek support from an online network of fellow veterans.
Snapshots posted on Facebook reflect a mostly grinning Hunt. In one, he has a beard and is surrounded by Haitian kids. A second shows him on the Capitol steps with fellow veterans. There's a shot of him from the back on a bike using his right arm to help push another bicyclist who is helping to guide an amputee in a specially modified bike.
Friends and family say Hunt suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. But with his boundless energy and countless friends, he came across as an example of how to live life after combat.
"I think everybody saw him as the guy that was battling it, but winning the battle every day," said Jacob Wood, 27, a friend who served with Hunt in the Marines and in Haiti with Team Rubicon.
But some knew he was grieving over several close friends in the Marines who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"He was very despondent about why he was alive and so many people he served with directly were not alive," said John Wordin, 48, the founder of Ride 2 Recovery, a program that uses bicycling to help veterans heal physically and mentally.
In 2007, while in Iraq with the Marine's 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, Hunt heard over the radio that his 20-year-old bunkmate had died in a roadside bombing. Hunt later wrote online about sleeping in his bunkmate's bed. "I just wanted to be closer to him, I guess. But I couldn't - he was gone."
A month later, Hunt was pinned by enemy fire in his truck as a fellow Marine, shot in the throat by a sniper, lay nearby. Hunt wrote that seeing his friend placed in a helicopter, where he died, is "a scene that plays on repeat in my head nearly every day, and most nights as well."
Three days later, a sniper's bullet missed Hunt's head by inches and hit his wrist. He didn't immediately leave Iraq. His parents say Hunt asked to fly to a military hospital in Germany a day later so he could accompany a fellow Marine who was shot in both legs.
"I know he's seen some traumatic stuff in his time and I guess he holds that to himself," said Marine Sgt. Oscar Garza, 26, who served with Hunt in Iraq. "He was a very compassionate Marine, a very passionate person, one of the few people that I know that has a big heart and feels a lot of people's pain and makes it his own."
Hunt's mother, Susan Selke, said after Hunt was wounded, she'd hoped her son would get out of the military. Instead, he went to school to be a scout-sniper and went to Afghanistan. He seemed to do well. He was honorably discharged in 2009, married and enrolled at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
He was frustrated by the Veterans Affairs Department's handling of his disability claim. He also piled up thousands of dollars in credit card debt as he waited for his GI Bill payments. Hunt found an outlet to help improve the system by doing work with IAVA. He helped build bikes for Ride 2 Recovery and participated in long rides.
Using his military training, he went to Haiti several times and Chile once to help with the countries' earthquake relief efforts. He proudly told his parents of splinting an infant's leg, and after meeting a young orphaned boy in Haiti named D'James, tried to persuade his family to adopt him.
"If I had one thing to say to my fellow veterans, it would be this: Continue to serve, even though we have taken off our uniforms," Hunt wrote in an online testimonial for Team Rubicon. "No matter how great or small your service is, it is desired and needed by the world we live in today."
Hunt's friends say he was an idealist and voiced frustration that he couldn't make changes overnight. He also questioned why troops were still dying.
"He really was looking for someone to tell him what it was he went over to do and why those sacrifices were made," Wood said.
Last year, Hunt's life took a downward spiral. His marriage ended, he dropped out of school and he began to have suicidal thoughts, his mother said. She said Hunt sought counseling from the VA and moved in temporarily with Wordin in California.
Things seemed to improve for Hunt in recent months after he returned to his hometown of Houston to be near family.
He got a construction job, leased an apartment, bought a truck and began dating. He called friends to discuss the possibility of re-enlisting. In the days before he died, he hung out with friends, and he had plans the following weekend to do a Ride 2 Recovery bike ride. He even told Garza he couldn't wait to see him at a Fourth of July reunion with other Marines.
Then he was dead.
"Clay was always a fighter," Wordin said. "He was always a guy to stick things out and he basically quit life, and I was mad that he felt he had to do that at that particular time."
Hunt's friends and family count him a casualty of war - just like his buddies who died in the battlefield.
I did a webcast yesterday on criminal issues facing persons experiencing homelessness with a colleague and friend, Stephan Haimowitz, whose list of credentials and accolades is longer than my leg (Research Associate at Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University and provides training for the Department of Labor’s Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Program. Steve has worked for 30 years at the intersections of human service delivery, disability policy, and the legal system, in diverse roles including hospital administrator, class action litigator, research ethics consultant, state agency counsel, educator and program evaluator. He currently leads the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Project National TA Center funded the US Dept. of Labor, and is involved in efforts to end the misuse of restraint on people with mental illness, and to assist collaboration between behavioral health and criminal justice agencies).
Stephan is a helluva nice guy and no joke when it comes to being a real expert on issues facing those of us with criminal convictions. We had a blast doing the webcast, which I'm thrilled to say, was heavily attended and well received, from what I understand via the feedback we've received.
But my point here isn't to break my arm patting myself on the back. Rather, I received an email from a gentleman down in Phoenix, AZ who attended the webcast and although he himself is currently experiencing homelessness and is a veteran, he's been involved with the Capital Mall Fellows, which is a....well, I'll just quote the website, which can be found here:
The Capitol Mall Fellows (CMF) is a peer driven grassroots, civic and service organization whose members are mostly former penitentiary inmates, men and women who are or have been homeless. The CMF was formed to help build a safe and healthy environment by performing redemptive acts of service for local communities and those in need; and to act on public issues, policies and budgets that affect the lives of its members in the matters of employment, housing, education and social justice concerns.
The Capitol Mall Fellows is working with social service agencies to help end homelessness in the Capitol Mall and central city area. Members of the CMF have volunteered at a bicycle cooperative to acquire bicycles that will be used for employment, outreach and community service events. Capitol Mall Fellows support Arizona Interfaith Movement’s “Golden Rule in Action”, Valley of the Sun United Way’s “Project Homeless Connect”, City Feast- season of service and participate in legislative advocacy actions with Protecting Arizona’s Families Coalition (PAFCO), meeting with state and local social service agencies.
The Capitol Mall Fellows is a member organization of the Human Services Campus Leadership League. Members of the CMF has completed a five week “Peer Support Specialist certification” course conducted by Recovery Empowerment Network.
The Capitol Mall Fellows are currently working to find transitional living arrangement to help get homeless men and woman off the streets and into a clean and friendly environment while seeking employment.
Three members of the Capitol Mall Fellows have began an internship with the Arizona Organizing Project.
To learn more about the Capitol Mall Fellows and our projects to help our community, please call Runningdeer at (602) 850-7306 or (602) 577-5677 email me at Runningdeer.CMF@gmail.com
If you happen to be in the Phoenix area and are interested in connecting, by all means, reach out, I'm sure they'd be glad to offer what they can to you.
Many thanks to my brother RunningDeer, who's got the serious balls to create and attend to an organization while living himself on the streets. Keep fighting the good fight and I hope one day to connect in person.
Why, you may ask, would a child molestation case be highlighted in a blog that focuses primarily on homelessness? Because what we're seeing with this story is the beginning energy that initiates the spiral into not just homelessness, but most likely chronic homelessness.
These two young men may have done what amounts to an unforgivable crime in the eyes of many. If they are convicted, they will most likely receive at least some time, which, although difficult to overcome, doesn't close all the doors in society once they are able to return.
But the fact that this is a sexual offense changes the game. That it is a child molestation case changes it further and if you pay attention, you can hear just about every door that may have still been open to help an average convicted felon re-enter society slamming shut as a result.
These two young men will be required to register as high-level sex offenders, should they be ultimately convicted of the charges against them. As soon as their names enter that registry, they will immediately become stigmatized in ways many of us could never imagine.
This is not a defense of their situation, mind you, just an examination of the issues.
Once on the registry (see the national registry here; many states have their own local registries as well and Tennessee's can be found here), life as the offender once knew it is over for good. Obtaining housing becomes next to impossible and employment options dwindle to about nil as well. Agencies that provide services to many felons turn their backs on the sex offenders. Ditto for most family, friends, and former colleagues.
It doesn't take long for a sexual offender to find themselves broke, homeless and wandering our streets, hiding from vigilantes and his/her (women can molest as well) past.
Regardless of how you may feel about the sex offender's crime, a major problem arises as a direct result of this ostracism and shunning; how to keep tabs on someone who doesn't have a permanent address and has essentially disappeared from the public's view?
Living homeless is extremely expensive - for us, the taxpayers. A lot of numbers are out there describing the costs and as you might imagine, they'll fluctuate depending on what city you're reviewing, how long a person has been homeless, whether there are some additional factors involved (disabled, health conditions, etc) but it's generally agreed that the average chronically homeless person living on the street costs taxpayers about $40 grand a year.
That's a lot of money folks, and in and of itself this should be a reason we seriously work to find housing for everyone experiencing homelessness. Add in the risks of having a convicted sexual offender roaming free and unsupervised within our community and safety can be added to the cost rationale for ensuring sexual offenders have housing somewhere.
I'm not here to defend these alleged offenders. Rather, I'm merely pointing out that if we're hoping to begin mitigating the costs and damage that accompanies this kind of crime, we'd better consider all the ramifications and make sure we're able to deal with them in a holistic approach.
Leaving a sexual predator on the street is costly, dangerous and preventable. Let's hope we figure this out before these two men are released from whatever sentence they may receive if they are found guilty. That is, if they are able to survive their time in prison while wearing the"babyraper" jacket....
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – Two men in Murfreesboro are accused in the statutory rape of a 13-year-old boy.
Police told Nashville's News 2 the alleged sexual assault involved Jared Scott, 36, and Justin Mangrum, 22, and happened while the victim was performing in plays at the Center for the Arts last summer.
According to police, the two male suspects were employees at the non-profit organization located on College Street in Rutherford County.
"I think its shocking to investigators and the community as a whole," Murfreesboro Police Spokesman Kyle Evans said. "This is a place where children are supposed to be safe and learning the arts. Instead, they were taken advantage of by people who we trusted."
The teen told police he participated in sexual activities with both of the men at The Centers for The Arts and in the apartment the two men share at the Colony Apartments on Huntington Drive in Murfreesboro.
Investigators said the two men gave conflicting stories on what happened, but eventually Mangrum confessed to the encounters.
"We believe in the course of these sexual encounters, they were three party incidents," Evans said. "We believe they both had sex with the male juvenile at the same time."
Police also said they believe there are more victims in the community.
"We believe this happened before. We just have to find out who our victims are so we can put these guys away," Evans said. "We hope anyone who is a victim or parents who believe their child may be a victim, that they have a conversation with the children and give us a call if they still have those suspicions."
The arrests shocked neighbors of the two men at the Colony Apartments.
Martinez Malone is the father of an eight-year-old son. He told Nashville's News 2 his heart dropped when he heard about the arrests.
"I try to keep an eye on him, just to know that, like these children, how they are, like to roam around the buildings. That's just shocking," he said.
Roxanne Shirley picks her child up from the school bus at the apartment complex. She has four children.
"It is really disgusting," she said. "Because of that, you don't want your children to go out for sports, you don't want them to do any extracurricular activities, because you don't know who to trust."
Shirley said organizations need to do a better job of screening people who work with children.
"Before they go out for everything, I meet their coaches or teachers," she said. "I guess at some point, I have to trust their bosses are checking their backgrounds. "
Police said Scott was previously arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Both men posted bond and were free as of Monday.
The suspects were booked into the Rutherford County jail and are scheduled to appear in court next month.
Phone calls and emails to the executive director of The Center For The Arts were not returned.
"In Nashville if you are African-American, you are four to five times more likely to be murdered than if you are white."
"Colin Loftin, professor of criminology at the University of Albany, State University of New York, said that research has conclusively linked only one major factor to high homicide rates: poverty."
I absolutely empathize with the African American community. It's got to be heart-wrenching to watch the best and brightest of your upcoming generation cut down long before they've had a chance to live to their full potential.
Frankly however, I don't think the answer to "why" the community is seeing these kinds of death rates is that hard to arrive at here. While economists, psychologists and sociologists scratch their heads seeking explanations, my unfortunate but extensive experience of living much of my life in abject poverty can sum up what I believe to be a prevailing attitude pretty quickly, and in one simple sentence:
A sense of hopelessness breeds frustration and desperation.
It doesn't take an advanced degree to recognize just how difficult it is to continue surviving for folks who don't have many opportunities in front of them. Add to this the challenges facing those who seem to be oppressed, victimized and blocked by barriers everywhere they turn, add in a giant dollop of overzealous prosecution and persecution and the resultant stigma and further reduction of opportunities as a result, then guilt everyone out by claiming that if they just worked harder, they'd be successful, and you can begin to understand why people get angry, frustrated and depressed.
Finally, continue rubbing the noses of the poor into the excesses of the rich through advertising and media exposure while subtly inferring that if you aren't living thusly, you aren't part of the "great society," and I think it becomes a little easier to understand why people remain angry, disillusioned, discouraged and pessimistic.
Oh sure, folks on the wealthy side of the fence experience these things too, but I would argue they don't experience them nearly as much, nor do they experience them as a survival mechanism. Furthermore, for folks with access to money, the stressors seem transitory, one can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
But for those of us who live our entire lives in poverty, we must continually deal with the emotional roller-coaster of trying to survive. When emotions are charged for prolonged periods and one's situation seems dire and hopeless along with it, one's judgment becomes skewed towards the immediate moment. It's difficult to plan or think about the future when survival demands your focus in the present. This "living in the moment" tends to heighten perceived slights, wrongs, problems, and issues, and addressing them also demands an immediate permanency that many people who've never dealt with life on such an immediate plane may not understand.
Folks want solutions?
It's not going to come quickly, I'm afraid. It starts with a rebuilding of one's community and the things we value in that community. It provides people with pertinent educations that are equal across schools, real opportunities, mentoring, role models, examples of success along with a definition of success that isn't based solely on how much extra one has in disposable income. It involves paying people livable wages for the work they do, and creating sustainable, long-term employment opportunities for individuals, as well as making sure that everyone has access to this employment, and I mean everyone.
It's also about making the government less threatening and more of a partner in success; it should intervene on behalf of the individuals when folks go off-course, rather than against them, and it should strive to end the stigma that follows poor choices when one's debt has been paid.
It's about ending the sense of failure, loss and hopelessness and instilling them with pride and a willingness to participate in a society that values them and their contribution to it.
Until we as communities begin working in these directions, I'm afraid we're going to continue seeing exactly what we see today.
We reap what we sow....
Black homicides reach 'crisis' in Nashville
Nashville leaders seek solutions, call for community involvement
1:08 AM, Apr. 10, 201
Jacci McGee-Russell, left, mother of Marcus McGee, and his brother Ronald McGee prepare to take communion on April 3. "He was just an all-around good person," his mother said. / JOSHUA ANDERSON / FOR THE TENNESSEAN
Kim Maupin says she asked the judge to lock up her son Christopher Evans, who was 16 when he was shot and killed in 2008. "If they had locked him up, they'd have saved his life," she said. / SHELLEY MAYS / THE TENNESSEAN
It's a beautiful day outside, and Marcus McGee is smiling.
He didn't always smile. In fact, he rarely flashed that infectious grin until a girl told him he'd be more popular with the opposite sex if he loosened up a bit.
He always smiles now, next to an engraved message: "Marcus A. McGee. In God's hands."
Two men shot and killed McGee, 19, in 2008 as he closed the gas station where he worked.
After church every Sunday his family visits him at Greenwood Cemetery. They sweep off his grave marker and unclasp a brass lid revealing his photo.
"Look at him, he's smiling," says his mother, Jacci McGee-Russell, at his grave. "He was just an all-around good person."
Nearby are the graves of Kenneth Crawley, Christopher Evans-Hayes, Gordon Garrett, Lindbergh Thompson, Andre Veals, Tre mayne Woods, Wanda Kaye Henderson Hol den, Michael Goins, Linda Butler, Tyrone Collins, Brandon Muhammad, Tyrone Davis, Sean Holmes Sr., Alexandra Franklin, DarSean Campbell, Antoni Morton and Jerald Hicks.
All were murdered in 2008. That year, Tennessee had the nation's fifth-highest rate of black homicides, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Violence Policy Center. Nashville, with 42 black murder victims, had a rate higher than the state overall, and in 2009 its rate rose to surpass even Memphis'.
In Nashville if you are African-American, you are four to five times more likely to be murdered than if you are white. While the rate of white homicides has declined over the past several years, black homicides have increased, according to the latest data.
The victims range in age from a newborn who was beaten to death to a 54-year-old man fatally shot in his car on his drive home from work. Motives vary: abuse, domestic problems, drugs, gang activity, robberies. Some were students, parents. Others were gang members and drug dealers.
"We cannot wait until some prominent person gets killed or is the victim of a crime to wake up and say let's do something about it," said Metro Councilman Jerry Maynard. "This is a crisis, and we have to have ownership by the entire community."
A sense of hopelessness
Why are Nashville's black residents, particularly its black youths, at such risk? Answers are hard to find. Political, religious and law enforcement leaders rattle off a collection of possible reasons: geographic isolation, economics, Nashville's racial history, politics, the breakdown of families, a lack of father figures, not enough jobs or recreation. Some blame movies, video games or rap music.
"In our own city, we have kids that see the rest of the world on TV, they see it across the street. How do I get from where I am to graduate high school, to graduate college, to get a job?" said Metro Police Chief Steve Ander son. "The reduction in federal funding for police prevention programs, for police outreach programs, is also going to have an effect."
Colin Loftin, professor of criminology at the University of Albany, State University of New York, said that research has conclusively linked only one major factor to high homicide rates: poverty.
"Statistically, the big factor that's consistent over time and place is economic status. You have very, very few homicides in a middle-class population," he said.
Nashville's black residents are almost twice as likely to have incomes below the poverty level, 2009 census data show. The average African-American family of four with two children brought in less than $22,000 a year.
Leaders say a sense of hopelessness in the poorest areas of the black community dominates attitudes.
"Those are the ones that are dangerous," Maynard said. "Because they feel they have no future."
Some of Nashville's black victims in 2008 were victims of their own decisions.
Kim Maupin tried desperately to help her son. He didn't want to go to school and struggled with depression. He smoked pot, ran with the wrong crowd. By age 16, he had joined a gang.
"I actually cried to the judge, I asked the judge to lock him up," she said. "He violated several times, and if they had locked him up, they'd have saved his life."
Christopher Evans, 16, was shot dead Nov. 26, 2008, at Riverchase Apartments. Maupin remembers getting the phone call.
"People were saying, 'I'm sorry,' " she said.
Police don't yet know the motive for his murder.
Maupin remembers that her son loved to laugh and lived for family functions. She acknowledges that he made bad decisions. But he was still just a kid.
"There was another side to him," she said. "He had a lot of heart. I'm lost for words with what Chris was thinking."
And now, Christopher's 2-year-old daughter, Tianna, is being raised by a young, single mother.
Christopher's experience is not uncommon in Nashville's urban areas, said Bishop George Price, pastor at Bethesda Original Church of God and one of several ministers working with Metro police to counsel families touched by crime. He said many children grow up knowing little more than the small world around them, a world that includes drugs, prostitution and violence on a daily basis. Navigating those streets becomes an exercise in survival, and anything that aids that survival is quickly adopted.
"I am out here by myself. Here come the Bloods. The Crips. They say, 'We'll take care of you,' " Price said. "Nobody seems to care. Nobody loves me. Gangs tell you, 'We love you, be a part of us.' I'm gonna die anyway, so I might as well go this way."
Metro police have estimated that there are 2,500 gang members in Nashville.
'This is another world'
Lisa Crawley still lives at the J.C. Napier public housing development, just blocks from where she heard the shots that killed her son, Kenneth.
On Aug. 3, 2008, she was relaxing on her porch when she heard gunshots down the street. For some reason, her panic compelled her to run toward the commotion along University Court.
"When I got up there, someone said it was Kenneth," she said. "You know how people say your life can turn around in a second? My life changed dramatically. It's like your insides are empty."
Kenneth died the next day. He was 18.
He loved playing basketball and swimming. His mother misses grilling him cheeseburgers. She's scared to live in that apartment, but she can't find work and can't afford to move.
"About a week ago, somebody got shot over there, a young little boy. He was in bad shape," Crawley said. "I'm scared to go to the store in the evening."
Her son was killed while walking to his aunt's home. Police said it was probably a case of mistaken identity or "misplaced retaliation."
It is public housing developments like J.C. Napier, Sam Levy and James Cayce where much of this violence has occurred.
"The public in general doesn't realize this is another world you're driving by each day," Police Chief Anderson said. "There is another world that you don't recognize that needs your support, that needs your attention. They really don't understand what's going on in the inner city."
Metro police say most of Nashville's homicide victims knew their killers or had criminal records. But there are plenty of victims of circumstance.
Marcus McGee had been working at the Swifty gas station for only about
two weeks when he was killed. The job was to help pay for college. He was attending Nashville State Community College with plans to go into sports medicine.
McGee-Russell remembers the night of April 28, 2008, well. "My last words to him were, 'Marcus, be careful,' " she said.
He tried to run from the robbers and was shot in the back. The killers were never caught.
"He was working to go to college. Couldn't ask for a better child," McGee-Russell said. "He never gave me any trouble."
To lament only the "innocent" deaths is to ignore the larger problem, leaders say.
Gunbattles between rival gangs or drug dealers often lead to collateral damage. A 16-year-old was struck by a stray bullet May 21, 2008, on Acklen Avenue in West Nashville. A year later, Lauren Johnson, 16, was killed while sitting in her Bellshire home when a group opened fire on her street.
"If you don't do anything about this, this will spread to areas outside the pockets of crime," Maynard said. "Crime has no boundaries. You might find yourself on the other side of the barrel of a gun. Or your child might find himself in harm's way."
'They need love'
Hope for Nashville's black community right now rests mostly in a small group of faith-based groups and churches.
Last week, Nashville Inner City Ministry raised more than $230,000 at a two-day fish fry at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds to benefit Nashville's lost children. A good haul, but not enough when compared with the scope of the problem.
The group's executive director, the Rev. Lytle Thomas, has been working for more than 30 years with children in Nashville's most violent areas. He and his workers drive through those neighborhoods and pick up children for camp, after-school activities and tutoring. They help pay for food and clothes and help find jobs and counseling.
He said most of Nashville's at-risk black children grow up in broken homes, surrounded by danger.
"They develop a sense of survival so they make these decisions based on survival," he said. "People need to hear that they are worth something, that they are not worthless. They're growing up struggling, and they're growing up in hopelessness."
And yet, some children have overcome their surroundings.
Antwain Rucker, 18, lives in South Nashville and said growing up was not easy.
"You see a whole lot of drugs, violence, prostitution," he said. "Young kids, whatever they see, they pick up on it."
James Osborne, 18, still lives at J.C. Napier and sees those pressures daily.
"You grow up and with the thought that you should be what everybody else is," Osborne said. "You're constantly getting invitations to gangs, like it was an invitation to church."
And Tiffany Dixon, 34, who grew up in the Sam Levy housing project, sums up what Thomas believes is the secret to helping children escape lives of crime.
"When the kids come home from school, they're seeing gunfights. You're not comfortable in your home. You can't sleep by the window because you're afraid of getting hit by a bullet," she said. "They need love, they want to be accepted."
All-out effort urged
After McGee and Franklin were killed, community leaders called for a ceasefire, an end to the violence in the black community. The deaths continued, unabated, with a 31 percent increase in black homicides the following year.
"These organizations and the individuals, I applaud them for what they're doing," Maynard said. "But they're making brick without straw. They're trying to confront a problem that is comprehensive, and they don't have the resources necessary."
Maynard said the community needs a response akin to the one after last May's flood: an all-out effort.
"We didn't just have isolated organizations working. The city came together from the leadership of not only the mayor and the council, but everyone came together," he said. "Black-on-black crime is not a black problem. It's a Nashville problem because tourists will not come here, businesses will not come here. We will strangle economic growth if we do not come to a solution to this."
Back at McGee's grave, his family members talk about the good times they had together.
"I had 19 years, and a lot of parents don't get that. A lot of parents don't get a year," his mother says. "He's like a guardian angel for me."
The family pauses to take one last look at that grin. She bends down to get closer. Touches that smiling face.
That we still had hundreds of dollars left in the account and just three days to survive on what tallied out to a $100 a day spending allowance would be reason for great joy in the lives of most of us who are poor. That we actually had any money in savings to move over to checking was, for those of us who know poverty on a first-name basis, a reason to fall to our knees and thank God, Buddha, Allah, The Great Spirit, and several of our "Higher Powers" for the bountiful blessing bestowed upon us! 
