"According to Huggins, crime in the areas around Tent City is up 21 percent over the last year, even though it has declined by 18 percent across the Central Precinct."

It's a statistical argument that can - and usually does - gain traction in the community, and it doesn't bode well for the future of the camp.....

Tent City dwellers return despite plans to evict

Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 12:00am

By Nate Rau

 

More than a year after plans were put in motion to evict residents of the downtown homeless encampment on the Cumberland River called Tent City, crime for the surrounding areas is actually increasing.



Responding to concerns of downtown residents, Central Precinct Commander Damian Huggins circulated an e-mail to city leaders showing crime rising around Tent City. According to Huggins, crime in the areas around Tent City is up 21 percent over the last year, even though it has declined by 18 percent across the Central Precinct.

What’s more, Huggins said police presence is up 128 percent around Tent City.

“I submit to you that the unlimited occupancy policy and current efforts in Tent city be re-evaluated and reconsidered at the earliest,” Huggins’ email said.

Huggins called attention to a series of sensation incidents involving homeless individuals in and around Tent City. One particularly incendiary incident involved two men attacking each other with a hammer on the Tent City property, according to Huggins.

In general, Huggins said the individuals being arrested by police are chronic offenders, with some having upwards of 200 pubic intoxication arrests.

The increase in criminal incidents has coincided with the Metro Homelessness Commission working diligently to provide direct services to Tent City residents. In the last year, the 25 of the regular 32 residents were found housing by the Homelessness Commission.

The commission’s chairman, Erik Cole, said homeless individuals re-occupied Tent City during the summer months when the weather was warm. Cole said those living in Tent City required direct social work services at a rate higher than the commission could provide them.

“In order for it to improve, long-term, we must support the good work that our police officers are doing by bringing active social work to the situation — meaningful case management, treatment options, and, eventually, housing,” said Cole, who is the District 7 Metro Councilman. “Everyone agrees that a revolving door of arrests, dismissed sentences and return to the streets is ineffective.”

Huggins correspondence was driven in part by an increased number of complaints from area residents, who detailed in letters to Metro leaders the problems they’ve encountered with homeless individuals around Tent City.

Huggins proposed identifying the “permanent” residents of Tent City and gradually finding them transitional housing, while barring other individuals from taking up occupancy at the encampment.
Cole said he was concerned at the continued criminal incidents at the site, but said solutions are complicated. He cautioned against closing Tent City all at once, arguing that another such encampment could easily pop up at another downtown location.

“Over the past year, the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission has been actively working to address the impact of homelessness downtown, and county-wide. But real solutions take time. And they take money,” Cole said. “We recognize that downtown residents face challenges daily and that the situation downtown needs to improve.”

Activists for the homeless and indigent residents of skid row briefly shut down a Los Angeles City Council meeting Tuesday, shouting from the audience their frustration that the meeting was moving too slowly.

From folks camping in the Mayor's yard in Seattle to L.A.s disruptive group at the city council meeting to Nashville's continual advocate support for local camps to Florida's fight for homeless rights, folks have had enough of endless talk about how to "fix" the homeless "problem" and are tired of waiting for their city officials to get off their duffs and do something about this nightmare we call the economic crisis here in the U.S.

We're really growing tired of the talk, people.  We've watched as the Obama administration has bailed out the big guys; we're now stamping our feet just like they did and we are demanding that those in power start listening to us.

I can assure you that folks are really fed up and they aren't going to take much more....

Homeless activists delay L.A. City Council meeting

An impatient group of protesters, there to oppose a city initiative that has deployed more officers to skid row, interrupts with shouting and heckling. The session eventually resumed.

Activists and the homeless disrupt a council meeting Tuesday while marking the third anniversary of Police Chief William J. Bratton's Safer City Initiative, which they say has brought overly aggressive policing to skid row. The protest began when the council deferred public comments to continue a discussion on the city's budget deficit. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times / September 29, 2009)

By David Zahniser

September 29, 2009 | 8:34 p.m.

Activists for the homeless and indigent residents of skid row briefly shut down a Los Angeles City Council meeting Tuesday, shouting from the audience their frustration that the meeting was moving too slowly.

Council members had been discussing whether to continue the hiring of new police officers when a group organized by the Los Angeles Community Action Network began shouting "Public Comment Now" -- a reference that the council was taking more than 90 minutes to get to the public comment portion of the agenda.

The group came to City Hall to speak about their opposition to the Safer City Initiative, which has resulted in the deployment of dozens of officers to skid row. The shouting drowned out remarks by Council President Eric Garcetti, who warned group members that they would be removed by police if they continued to shout and heckle other speakers.

Council members awkwardly sat in their seats as the protesters held upside-down U.S. flags and chanted "Shame on You."

Behind the council chamber, a dozen officers gathered in the hallway but did not emerge. After roughly 10 minutes, the meeting resumed. At about noon, activists from the group began testifying on Safer City, saying that the program had resulted in the harassment of skid row residents and an exodus of the homeless out of the area.

"In cities across the country, people with nowhere to live have done what many would have thought unthinkable before the economic crisis: moved into tents."

I'm not sure what CNN has been smoking, but the economic crisis isn't the progenitor of tent cities.  Lousy wages, outsourced jobs,  lack of affordable housing, poor or nonexistent insurance and the resultant feeling of failure at one's own existence has created conditions ripe for poverty, destitution, mental bankruptcy and tent cities all over this country.

And there's no end in sight....

Homeless find temporary haven in tent camps

• Story Highlights
• Tent camps for the homeless are springing up in cities across the nation
• Camp residents say tents offer safe haven as streets are too dangerous
• Life in the camps far from easy and never permanent
• Authorities and camp residents often at odds over camp locations

updated 10:03 a.m. EDT, Tue September 29, 2009

SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) -- In cities across the country, people with nowhere to live have done what many would have thought unthinkable before the economic crisis: moved into tents.

A camp resident sleeps in his tent in Seattle, Washington. Residents say the camp offers them a haven.

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Tent camps once associated mainly with the "Hoovervilles" of the Great Depression are springing up in places as varied as Sacramento, California; Nashville, Tennessee; Pinellas County, Florida; Providence, Rhode Island; and Seattle, Washington.

The camps have often led to standoffs between local governments that say the camps violate housing ordinances and homeless rights advocates who argue that people struggling to get back on their feet need a permanent place to stay.

There are no definitive numbers on how many people have taken to living in homeless camps. A recent annual report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development showed an increase in homelessness among families while overall rates of homelessness stayed roughly the same.
But those numbers are only the initial waves of what could be a larger crisis, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

"This data is the canary in the coal mine," Nan Roman, the alliance's president, wrote on the group's Web site. "Homelessness is a lagging indicator of economic tides, so there is concern that this new information could foreshadow sharp increases in homelessness in the future." Watch as a CNN journalist spends days in a tent camp »

A year ago Terry Bailey, his wife and two teenage sons lived in Montana, where he worked as a truck driver for construction companies. But when the construction work dried up, the Baileys were faced with an onslaught of bills and no income.

"We are hard-working human beings that just can't make enough money to survive," Bailey said.
In a last-ditch attempt to avoid going bust, the Baileys moved to Seattle, where they heard there were jobs. Instead they found a high cost of living and few opportunities. City shelters, Bailey said, were often full and split up the family. The streets, he said, were too dangerous. Watch how homeless camps are multiplying »

With nowhere else to go, the Baileys found Nickelsville, a homeless tent camp named after Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, who camp residents claim has tried repeatedly to shut the camp down. The camp has roughly 80 residents and offers a safe haven for those without homes.

"This gives us a place where we can stay as a family," Bailey said. "We can stay together, we can prepare our food. We can live as a community with people who are in the same situation as us."

Before a homeless person can move into the camp, their names are checked against a county list of sex offenders to keep predators out. Drugs and alcohol are also prohibited, camp organizers said.
Camp resident Gregory Lewis said his drug addiction kept him living on the streets for years until he moved into Nickelsville. The camp, he said, helped him to get clean and "saved his life."

But life in the homeless camp is far from easy and never permanent. Residents live in cramped camping tents and in the last year have been forced to move nine times. The camp's latest location -- at a waterfront park overseen by the Port of Seattle -- may be closed down Wednesday as camp residents and city officials engage in their latest faceoff.

Port officials say the camp violates city codes. The officials add that they have tried to find the camp's residents another place to live. But Lewis said the camp is holding out for a permanent location.

"A lot of ... us want to be quote unquote 'normal,'" Lewis said. "I would like to be a contributing citizen to society with a good job and eventually help people like myself. When I am on the bus you wouldn't know I am homeless."

“The motels have become the de facto low-income housing of Orange County,”

At least Orange County provides motel rooms as "transitional housing" units for folks on the street; Nashville does not. Frankly, if you find yourself homeless in Nashville, you've really only got two options now; the local Rescue Mission or a tent down on the river.

Because transportation here is expensive (4.85 for an all day bus pass) and the services most needed and utilized by those experiencing homelessness are scattered willy nilly throughout the city, any temporary housing must be located on or near a bus line. This of course eliminates a lot of housing options, and when MTA shrank its service area, this problem became even greater.

Additionally, because the annual point in time homeless count does not include motels and hotels, we miss these individuals, further skewing our results. That said, I'd much rather have someone get a safe place to crash for the night and a good hot shower than I would be able to count them on a bus bench somewhere.

It would just be nice to have a small fund available that we could access to temporarily house folks on an emergency basis. We could then simply use the records for disbursing those funds to count who's in a motel for the night and we could capture at least a part of those numbers, as well as providing folks with a wonderful respite from the street.

Who knows, we may see something like this arise out of the new HPRP money slated to hit on October 1.

Meanwhile, the scramble for affordable housing continues nonstop....

As Jobs Vanish, Motel Rooms Become Home

By ERIK ECKHOLM

Published: March 10, 2009

COSTA MESA, Calif. — Greg Hayworth, 44, made a good living in his home state, California, from real estate and mortgage finance. Then that business crashed, and early last year the bank foreclosed on the house his family was renting, forcing their eviction.

Enlarge This Image

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

The Garza family has been living since October in the Costa Mesa Inn, where 9-year-old Celine shares a bed with two younger brothers, toys and schoolbooks piled on the floor.

Multimedia

Audio Slide Show

Instead of a Home, a Motel Room

Enlarge This Image

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Local officials estimate that 1,000 families who live in motels in Orange County, Calif., go uncounted in federal homeless data.

Enlarge This Image

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Paris Andre Navarro, 47, and her daughter, Crystal, 11, have been living at the El Dorado Inn in Anaheim, Calif., for three years. Ms. Navarro said the $241 weekly rent makes it hard to save. 

Now the Hayworths and their three children represent a new face of homelessness in Orange County: formerly middle income, living week to week in a cramped motel room.

“I owe it to my kids to get out of here,” Mr. Hayworth said, recalling the night they saw a motel neighbor drag a half-naked woman out the door while he beat her.

As the recession has deepened, longtime workers who lost their jobs are facing the terror and stigma of homelessness for the first time, including those who have owned or rented for years. Some show up in shelters and on the streets, but others, like the Hayworths, are the hidden homeless — living doubled up in apartments, in garages or in motels, uncounted in federal homeless data and often receiving little public aid.

The Hayworths tried staying with relatives but ended up last September at the Costa Mesa Motor Inn, one of more than 1,000 families estimated to be living in motels in Orange County alone. They are among a lucky few: a charity pays part of the $800-a-month charge while Mr. Hayworth tries to recreate a career.

The family, which includes a 15-year-old daughter, shares a single room and sleeps on two beds. With most possessions in storage, they eat in two shifts, on three borrowed plates — all that one jammed cabinet can hold. His wife, Terri, has health problems and, like many other families, they cannot muster the security deposit and other upfront costs of renting a new place.

Motel families exist by the hundreds in Denver, along freeway-bypassed Route 1 on the Eastern Seaboard, and in other cities from Chattanooga, Tenn., to Portland, Ore. But they are especially prevalent in Orange County, which has high rents, a shortage of public housing and a surplus of older motels that once housed Disneyland visitors.

“The motels have become the de facto low-income housing of Orange County,” said Wally Gonzales, director of Project Dignity, one of dozens of small charities and church groups that have emerged to assist families, usually helping a few dozen each and relying on donations of food, clothing and toys.

In the past, motel families here were mainly drawn from the chronically struggling. In 1998, an exposé of neglected motel children by The Orange County Register prompted creation of city task forces and promises of help. But in recent months, schools, churches and charities report a different sort of family showing up.
“People asking for help are from a wider demographic range than we’ve seen in the past, middle-income families,” said Terry Lowe, director of community services in Anaheim, Calif. The motels range from those with tattered rugs and residents who abuse alcohol and drugs to newer places with playgrounds and kitchenettes. With names like the Covered Wagon Motel and the El Dorado Inn, they look like any other modestly priced stopover inland from the ritzy beach towns. But walk inside and the perception immediately changes.

In the evening, the smell of pasta sauce cooked on hot plates drifts through half-open doors; in the morning, children leave to catch school buses. Families of three, six or more are squeezed into a room, one child doing homework on a bed, jostled by another watching television. Children rotate at bedtime, taking their turns on the floor. Some families, like the Malpicas, in a motel in Anaheim, commandeer a closet for baby cribs.

The Garza family moved to the Costa Mesa Inn in August, after the husband, Johnny, lost his job at Target, his wife, Tamara, lost her job at Petco, and they were evicted from their two-bedroom rental. Their 9-year-old daughter now shares a bed with two younger brothers, their toys and schoolbooks piled on the floor. The couple’s baby boy, born in April, sleeps in a small crib. Rental aid from federal and county programs reaches only a small fraction of needy families, said Bob Cerince, coordinator for homeless and motel residents services in Anaheim, who estimated the families at more than 1,000.

President Obama’s stimulus package may give hope to more people and blunt the projected rise of families who could end up in motels and shelters, said Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness in Washington. The package allows $1.5 billion for homeless prevention, including help with rent and security deposits. Schools have made special efforts to help children in displaced families stay in class, and some send social workers to connect families with counseling services and food aid.

Wendy Dallin, the liaison for the homeless in one of Anaheim’s seven school districts, said that in the last three months she had learned of 38 newly homeless families, bringing the total she knew of in her district to 376. About 48 of those families are living in motels, Ms. Dallin said, with the rest in shelters, renting a room or garage, staying with relatives or living in cars. At the same time, in California’s budget crisis, some school social workers are being laid off.

By necessity, most cities here have been lax in enforcing occupancy codes. Still, a source of turmoil for motel families is a California rule that after 28 days, residents are considered tenants, gaining legal rights of occupancy. Some motels force families to move every month, while others make families stay in a different room for a day or two.

Many motel residents have at least one working parent and pay $800 to $1,200 a month for a room. Yet even those with jobs can become mired in motel life for years because of bad credit ratings and the difficulty of saving the extra months’ rent and security deposits to secure an apartment.

Paris Andre Navarro, 47, knows how hard it can be to climb back. She and her husband used to have good jobs and an apartment in Garden Grove, near Anaheim. But they have spent the last three years with their 11-year-old daughter in the El Dorado Inn.

The bottom fell out when her husband’s medical problems forced him to leave his job as a computer technician and her home-care job ended. They were evicted and moved into the motel, and she started working the night shift at Target.

Last year, when Ms. Navarro’s husband started a telemarketing job, they thought they might escape. That hope evaporated when her hours at Target were cut in half. What with the $241 weekly rent, the cost of essentials and a $380 car payment, they cannot save.

“Now we’re just living paycheck to paycheck,” Ms. Navarro said.

Their daughter, Crystal, tries to sound stoical. “What I miss most is having a pet,” she said. The motel does not allow pets, so she gave away her cat and kittens.

Greg Hayworth, whose family has spent six dispiriting months in the Costa Mesa Inn, tried working in sales but has had trouble finding a lasting job. Paul Leon, a former nurse who formed the Illumination Foundation to aid motel families, has promised to help with a security deposit when the Hayworths are able to move out.

Mr. Hayworth’s teenage daughter has had the roughest time because of the lack of privacy. She is too embarrassed to take friends home, and is uncomfortable dressing in front of her brothers, who are 10 and 11. Not long ago, she was attacked at school by classmates who mocked her for living in a motel.

“I’d promised my daughter that we’d be out of here by her birthday,” Mr. Hayworth said. “But that came last week, and we’re still here.”

“It really hurt me the other day,” he added. “My son came home and asked, ‘Are we homeless’? I didn’t know what to say.”

An earlier version of this story contained an erroneous hyperlink for the Project Dignity’s Web site. The correct Web address is projectdignity.org.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: March 19, 2009
An article on March 11 about homeless families living in California motels, using information from Greg Hayworth, a member of one such family, referred incorrectly to Mr. Hayworth’s educational background. Mr. Hayworth neither graduated from Syracuse University nor ever enrolled there.

Why People Experiencing Homelessness Are Afraid of the Police....

This video actually aired back in February 2009, but it's just so egregious that it deserves to be kept alive and prominent because it provides such compelling evidence of police brutality.

It's a sad truth, but those on the street know this kind of "justice" is routinely meted out by some officers, especially when no one is around to keep tabs on them.

Don't mean to throw all police under the bus here; just providing proof that some of them should be screened better and terminated on the spot when their conduct is unbecoming an officer of the law.

When they've been found perpetrating acts like this one, criminal charges ought to follow the pink slip....

the dolls "offer valuable lessons about life"

Like what - it's okay to spend a hundred bucks on a piece of plastic while kids starve under the nearby freeway viaduct?

Not really sure whether "Gwen's" circumstance actually teaches kids "valuable" life lessons, but one thing is sure, it's providing the American Girl company some great - and free - publicity about their products.

Perhaps if American Girl came out with a "can't survive on a minimum wage job because affordable housing is non-existent in our cities and inflation has reduced the value of pittance pay to pathetic levels" doll, I'd feel more inclined to believe they were actually teaching some lesson(s) to our children. 

 This doll has a "limited" run and will end soon.

Too bad we can't say the same about homeless children......

Flap Over "Homeless" American Girl Doll

Some Observers See It as Awareness-Raising, Others Fear It Sends Wrong Message; And Where Do Proceeds Go?

• Photo "Gwen," American Girl's "homeless" doll  (CBS)
  

(CBS)  American Girl dolls are expensive and extremely popular - among the most sought-after toys among girls from ages four and up.

Each doll comes with its own storyline, and a relatively new doll is causing quite a stir.

"Gwen," which debuted this year, is portrayed as being homeless.

In an accompanying book and movie, "Chrissa Stands Strong," a friend stands up for Gwen against bullying classmates.

"I think (a 'homeless' doll is) a good idea," one mother shopping in an American Girl store told CBS News Correspondent Hattie Kauffman. "It kind of shows awareness to what's going on in the world."

"I think it's really a good idea, because homelessness affects everybody, at different economic levels," Herb Smith, president of the Los Angeles Mission, remarked to Kauffman. "I actually think it's a good teaching tool."

Not so fast, say some homeless advocates, such as one who observed to Kauffman that she finds "the whole concept to be extremely disturbing. It's not a doll I would ever buy for a child."

There are between 7,000 and 10,000 homeless children in L.A. alone, Kauffman notes, and it's doubtful many, if any, could afford Gwen's $95 price tag.

One homeless woman in a shelter Kauffman visited said Gwen touched her heart when she saw the doll in its box.

The women praised the doll, Kauffman reports, until they learned Gwen isn't a fundraising device for the homeless.

"I don't even see why you would make a homeless doll, anyway," one woman said to Kauffman, unless it was being used to raise money to help charities aiding the homeless.

American Girl says the dolls "offer valuable lessons about life," and it is "disheartened that there has been any confusion over our fictional characters." The company adds that, while no proceeds from sales of Gwen and related offerings go directly to help the homeless, it has given almost $500,000 since 2006 to HomeAid, a national nonprofit group that tries to help the homeless find housing.

Another concern of some advocates for the homeless is that the dolls could send the wrong message to kids. Tanya Tull, president of Beyond Shelter, says she's "afraid that they're going to pick up the idea that it's OK, that it's an accepted segment of society that some children are homeless and some children are not."

Gwen is a "limited edition" doll, only slated to be available for a few more months.

"Americans pay much more for coverage than citizens of any other nation, yet we are ranked 37th in health-care quality and even lower in availability. Some former Soviet and Southeast Asian nations offer better coverage; even Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate."

Mega-kudos to Richard here for putting this in language those who are easily able to afford private healthcare insurance can quickly understand....

Don't the uninsured deserve some concern?

By Richard Aberdeen • September 26, 2009

Tennessee Voices

Some historians claim disease has wiped out more people than all wars combined. Yet, in spite of the known historical record, Americans continue to ignore the inevitable consequences of contagious disease; consequences including significant preventable illness even for those with health coverage, large productivity losses and national leading to global plague.

Some plead we should care about the less fortunate, while others pretend private care is preferable, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.




Today, Americans pay much more for coverage than citizens of any other nation, yet we are ranked 37th in health-care quality and even lower in availability. Some former Soviet and Southeast Asian nations offer better coverage; even Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate.


More than 45 million U.S. residents have zero health care; at least 80 million more have highly inadequate coverage. More and more citizens with expensive plans are being refused coverage for expensive problems. Every week, more citizens lose employer-paid care and retirement benefits, including long-term coverage for less healthy retirement years.


Depending on the provider, 11 to 30 cents of every dollar spent on private coverage goes to overhead not related to care, while less than 5 percent for government-sponsored Medicare does, even though Medicare helps the oldest and sickest among us.


Very plainly, private health care as we now have it is not the solution.


Politicians on both sides of the charade continue to pretend they care about America's security, while continuing to ignore our immediate health-care reality. Whether or not we care about our neighbor is only part of a larger equation, because disease knows no boundaries. Children of the poor can, have and will infect children of the wealthy. Medical facts clearly demonstrate that private coverage is no guarantee against contagious diseases.


In reality, less than 1 percent of U.S citizens can afford to pay for their own catastrophic needs. All forms of private health insurance are "shared responsibility" programs, dependent on the majority of those covered to remain healthy, while majority pay-outs go to the sickest minority.


Yet, right-wing media pretends coverage is not a "shared responsibility," that we should all take care of our own selves.


People who claim this have never faced $250,000-per-year cancer treatments on a working- class income. And they clearly don't understand their own financial jeopardy if they were to lose coverage.


Or what can and will happen to their own children if their neighbor's children remain uncovered. Scientists claim our planet is overdue for a major disease epidemic, while history clearly dictates that all of our politics, education, science and weapons won't protect us against the onslaught of disease. And Congress and the media are clearly failing American citizens by not instructing us accordingly.


Is it fair to say that citizens who do not push for immediate affordable and adequate health coverage for all people residing permanently or temporarily within our borders are decidedly unpatriotic? Is it fair to say they don't even care about their own children?

You decide.

"These people simply vanished."

A close friend who works in homeless services sent me a couple of stories today, and he prefaced those stories with a disclaimer that his gut just got a weird feeling abut the whole hing. 

Okay, except that I happen to know to trust this person's gut instinct pretty much always. 

So I read the first story, and I'll let you do the same:

America's "disappeared": The homeless of the big cities

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jul 8, 2009, 00:18

(WMR) -- They were always seen by all who passed by, broke and idle in a number of Washington, DC, parks and grassy nooks. After 9/11, however, they began to disappear and in large numbers. They were the familiar faces of Washington's homeless.

From Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, to Virginia Avenue across from the State Department, and Franklin Square, amid the city's glass and steel towers housing DC's power elite to tony Georgetown, many homeless people, both those truly down on their luck and those who were mentally ill, began to disappear.

As one Washington homeless advocate told this editor, These people simply vanished.

The disappearance of homeless people from the streets of Washington began under the administration of Mayor Anthony Williams and continues in force under that of Adrian Fenty. Both African-American mayors, Democrats but beholden to deep-pocketed land developers in a city that rarely elects Republicans to office, began to quietly make it tougher for the homeless to survive in the nation's capital. Last year, Fenty announced that the Franklin School Shelter at 13th an K Streets would be phased out, leaving the homeless residents of that shelter little choice but to move to the streets.

Last August, a number of homeless activists picketed Fenty's home over the plans to close the Franklin shelter. WMR was told by one spokesperson for the homeless that one of the protesters, John McDermott, has also now vanished. The spokesperson added that there are many cases of people known to live on the streets of Washington simply disappearing without a trace.

Some major cities, including New York and Atlanta, have been discovered to be dumping their homeless residents on other smaller towns and cities. Others threaten their homeless with prison unless they leave town with usually a one-way bus ticket provided.

However, there is no evidence that Washington, DC, has been dumping homeless on other cities or paying their transportation out of town. The homeless spokesperson interviewed by WMR said that DC's homeless are simply vanishing without a trace. DC officials in charge of the homeless are very tight-lipped when asked about the fate of unaccounted for homeless in the city.

Although the best-case scenario is that these unfortunate people have, in fact, been relocated to other areas, the spokesman ended the interview on a chilling note. He said with federal camps and a high demand for any usable body parts by the lucrative transplant industry, he feared the worst may have befallen some of DC's invisible residents.
END

Okay, so this is weird enough, yes?   Then my friend passed slong the one directly below to me, saying it "creeped me out" after he'd read it.  

Probably just a coincidence....

Yeah, that's prolly it....

Just a big ol ko-inkydink...


But I gotta tell ya, it creeped me right out too, right after I read it, and I'm still a whole lot creeped out by it, too....



Mayors, rabbis arrested in NJ corruption probe
Thu Jul 23, 2009 4:32pm EDT

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NJ mayors, rabbis ensnared in probe
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By Edith Honan
NEWARK (Reuters) - Dozens of New Jersey politicians, officials and prominent rabbis were arrested on Thursday in a sweeping federal probe that uncovered political corruption, human organ sales and money laundering from New York to Israel, officials said.

The 10-year investigation, dubbed "Operation Bid Rig," exposed influence-peddling and bribe-taking among a network of public officials and a separate multimillion dollar money-laundering ring that funneled funds through charities operated by local rabbis, said the U.S. Attorney's office in Newark, New Jersey.

The cast of the 44 arrested featured Hoboken, New Jersey, Mayor Peter Cammarano, who took office three weeks ago in the industrial city visible across the Hudson River from New York.

Others accused were mayors of nearby Secaucus and Ridgefield, state Assemblymen, a deputy mayor, city council members, housing, planning and zoning officials, building inspectors and political candidates.

"New Jersey's corruption problem is one of the worst, if not the worst, in the nation," said Ed Kahrer, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's white collar crime and public corruption program in New Jersey, who has worked on the investigation since it began in July 1999.

"It has become ingrained in New Jersey's political culture," he said, calling corruption "a cancer."

Central to the investigation was an informant who was charged with bank fraud in 2006 and posed undercover as a real estate developer and owner of a tile business who paid off officials to win project approval and public contracts in northern New Jersey, according to documents in the case.

The public officials stand accused of taking bribes for pledging their help getting permits and projects prioritized and approved or steering contracts to the witness.

"CULTURE OF CORRUPTION"
In scenes that could have been lifted from the hit TV series "The Sopranos," about New Jersey organized crime, they met in diners, parking lots, even bathrooms, officials said.

"The politicians willingly put themselves up for sale," said Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra. "The victims are the average citizens and the honest business people in this state. They don't have a chance in this culture of corruption."

The public corruption uncovered by the informant led him to the separate money-laundering network by rabbis who operated between Brooklyn, Deal, New Jersey, and Israel, authorities said. They laundered some $3 million for the undercover witness between June 2007 and July 2009, authorities said.

"These complaints paint a disgraceful picture of religious leaders heading money laundering crews acting as crime bosses," Marra said. "They used purported charities, entities supposed set up to do good works as vehicles for laundering millions of dollars in illicit funds."

HUMAN KIDNEY SALES
Rabbis accused of money-laundering were Saul Kassin, chief rabbi of a large Syrian Jewish synagogue in Brooklyn; Eliahu Ben Haim, principal rabbi of a synagogue in Deal; Edmund Nahum, principal rabbi of another synagogue in Deal; and Mordchai Fish, a rabbi at a synagogue in Brooklyn.

The probe also uncovered Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn, who is accused of conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant. According to the complaint, Rosenbaum said he had been brokering sale of kidneys for 10 years.


"His business was to entice vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 which he would turn around and sell for $160,000," said Marra.

Several of the public officials were accused of taking bribes of just $10,000, authorities said. Cammarano, at 31 the youngest ever mayor of Hoboken, was charged with taking $25,000 in bribes, including $10,000 last Thursday.

Most of those accused were arrested in a sweep across New Jersey by more than 300 federal agents early on Thursday and were slated to appear in court in Newark throughout the day.

The first 12 of the defendants, including Cammarano, appeared shackled before U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo. Cammarano rocked back and forth in his chair but betrayed no emotion.
They were granted bail ranging from $100,000 to $500,000.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols and Ellen Wulfhorst; Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

"Usually what will happen is I'll get a request for a food box and somebody will roll in in a vehicle that's not in a state of disrepair or old, but I'll look and see that it's full of clothes,"

I spoke to the AP for about 45 minutes a couple of weeks ago, and we discussed the increasing use of campgrounds as "temporary housing"  for folks who'd rather not consider themselves homeless but merely "in transition."

After I hung up, I sweated for days about how they might use some of the quotes I'd given them, because you just never know what direction the media is going to take a story until the thing airs. 

Glad to see it was just something simple and pretty much innocuous.....

Houseless, not homeless stay at Tenn. campground

By TRAVIS LOLLER (AP) – 5 hours ago

LEBANON, Tenn. — Terry Lee Ballard holds a sign when he goes looking for work in front of hardware stores. It reads: "No job. No food. Almost homeless."

He's almost homeless because he lives at a campground in a tent with a roommate, two cats and a dog.

Drive through Timberline Campground about 30 miles west of Nashville and it's difficult to see the difference between Ballard's campsite and some of his vacationing neighbors, but a closer look reveals he and others aren't here by choice.

The campground welcomes people who have lost their homes but not their desire to keep their families together, out of homeless shelters and off the streets.

Ballard, who at 52 has worked as a songwriter and construction worker, tries to make the best of his situation. Outside a mesh window of his tent, an electric air conditioner blows a cool breeze into the nylon dome, which can heat up like a greenhouse under the Tennessee sun. Wooden pallets covered in carpet scraps cover the floor of the tent keeping his bed, coffee maker, electric two-burner unit and toaster oven off the sometimes soggy ground.

"The cool thing is, it's a place to live and I don't feel homeless as long as I have this," said Ballard, whose behind on campground rent payments. "But we're about to lose this."

Neil Donovan, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said many people like Ballard move to campgrounds when they find themselves without permanent housing.

Campgrounds offer more independence than homeless shelters, which often have strict rules, he said. And they allow families to stay together, where most shelters are segregated by gender.

Many people like Ballard move to campgrounds when they find themselves without permanent housing but soon wind up on the streets, said Neil Donovan who is the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

But some campgrounds frown upon being seen as this type of host.

Timberline is different. Manager Tammy Page hasn't kept count but knows the number of people moving here for economic reasons has increased over the past year. Rent is $325 a month for a site big enough to hold a camper and picnic table. The rate includes water and electricity plus laundry facilities, showers and access to a pool.

Page maintains a small food bank in the office, and has school supplies to give away to children. Donated clothes are kept in the laundry room if campers need them.

Social workers and volunteers from local charities frequent the sight, so much so that a little girl who saw a reporter interview her mother asked, "Momma, is that our case worker?"

Tennessee's unemployment rate has increased to 10.7 percent in July, in part because of the loss of construction and manufacturing jobs. The state consistently ranks high in bankruptcies, and was 8th nationally in mortgage delinquencies at the end of the second quarter, according to numbers provided by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The Renaults, a family of six, live next to Ballard.

His tent used to be their home but they passed it along when good Samaritans who read about their financial troubles in a local newspaper donated a small camper to the family.

Tammy Renault lives there with her husband Troy Renault and children ages 17, 16, 4 and 2. They were in a nice lease-to-own house in the Nashville suburbs before her husband lost his job as an assistant project manager for a construction company.

Then the family was evicted.

"We rented a storage building and we had a tent for camping," she said. "So I said, 'Let's go camping. Let's go take a vacation.'"

Steve Samra, who works in homeless outreach in Nashville, said he has been seeing more and more people like the Renaults.

"Usually what will happen is I'll get a request for a food box and somebody will roll in in a vehicle that's not in a state of disrepair or old, but I'll look and see that it's full of clothes," he said.

Although Timberline has seen better days — paint on the office and clubhouse is peeling and the tennis courts are weedy, without nets — many residents feel lucky to be here. The campground is safe. It's next to elementary and middle schools. And there's room for children to run around and play.

Since Tammy Renault moved here in June, she has become a sort of campground mother, dispensing advice and offering help to other residents. In August, she and her husband organized a fundraiser to help pay the rent owed by Ballard and others who were falling behind.

She said her fellow campers have become an extended family. On a recent afternoon, they prepared a shared meal from donated food. One person brought a rack of ribs. Another cooked the meat. Another made mashed potatoes.

"I can honestly say I've never shed a tear about being out here," she said.
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Photo 1 of 3
In this photo taken Sept. 13, 2009,Troy Renault, left, and Tammy Renault, right, play with their sons Ty, 4, top, and Z, 2, bottom, at Timberline Campground in Lebanon, Tenn. Troy Renault lost his job as an assistant project manager for a construction company and then lost his home. The campground, unlike some others, welcomes people who have lost their homes but not their desire to keep their families together, out of homeless shelters and off the streets. (AP Photo/Frederick Breedon)

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Visiting Reno And - Weirdly Enoough - Enjoying Life's Hardships

Some of you know that I came to Nashville from "the biggest little city in the world" approximately three years ago, and I call Reno my real home.  Exact dates are hard for me to remember; that is a price I believe I pay for the years of hardcore drug abuse I put my peanut-sized brain through.  But after spending 20+ years in and around Reno Nevada, I packed up my few belongings, said goodbye to my family and friends, and followed my better half across the country to the great, albeit sweaty, city of Nashville.

Nashville been bery bery good to me, to steal a line, and I haven't gone "home" in three years now, so when my daughter called me with problems in her personal life, I din't think twice about coming to her aid.  It was a wonderful feeling to be able to do that, by the way, since for most of her formative years, I was nowhere to be found.  Not by conscious choice but it is certainly true that I chose the poverty that comes with most drug abuse and this ensured I had little money to do much else.  I never would have been able to jump on a plane at a moment's notice, fly to another city and rent a hotel and car, and then be able to afford to set up house for my daughter without batting an eye.

Sobriety, college and Nashville have given me all these things and more, so I owe her - and the many people inside her limits that I consider friends - such a huge debt of gratitude and appreciation I believe I'll never be able to repay it.

We got into town early yesterday, with little thanks to American Airlines, whose plane took a circuit board crap at the gate in Nashville and left us an hour behind.  We had 20 minutes to make it from the C concourse at Dallas Ft Worth to the A concourse, so we went running through the  airport like OJ Simpson in those old Hertz commercials and made our flight with just seconds to spare, I kid you not. 

We landed in Reno at about 1045am and of course, my daughter was gone trying to arrange some last minute help with the move I made possible for her, so Dorothy and I spent most of the afternoon 30 minutes west, up in the Sierras.

We got back to the hotel, made contact with the kids and after speaking for the next several minutes about the situation, we have our plans nicely laid out for today and should be able to have my lovely but unhappy at the moment daughter into her place this afternoon, seeing as how she got some additional help on board. 

OSDN Opens Her Doors for the Day

Operation Stand Down Nashville opened its doors yesterday and invited the public in for an Open House to show off the new digs and let the good people of Nashville know what we're doing behind those walls.

The event was very well attended, with folks from a number of different agencies and organizations attending.  The food was plentiful, thanks to the talented hands of Front Desk wizard Richard Eaton, and the place looked as spiffy as a boot camp barracks right before inspection!

We are all extremely proud of our new home, but more importantly, we are proud of the things we are able to do for those veterans who put their lives on the line defending all of us.  It's what gets me up off my butt every day and sends me fighting into rush hour traffic to get to my office.

If you came to visit us, thank you so much for stopping by!  If you missed us, we're sorry and hope you'll get a chance to stop by one day soon; we'll be happy to show you around and tell you what we do!

CNN Visits Tent City

Lordy, I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but CNN was in town yesterday, filming at Tent City.  I spoke to several folks who were involved with the coordination of the crews and who provided interviews and I'm telling you, this camp has gotten more attention than you can shake a stick at.

The piece will air sometime next week; that's what the CNN crew told the peeps involved, and those folks are really hoping the message that comes across isn't so much the lifestyle choices of the camp but rather the incredible and urgent need for additional, affordable housing.

I'm really hoping that Obama gets this part of the message soon, whether it comes from CNN or not, because without it, I'm telling you, hundreds of thousands of folks are going to be royally screwed and cities around the country are not going to be able to stop tent cities from forming, no matter how hard they try.

"Paramedics discovered a large wound to his throat as well as stab wounds to his body. He had also been badly beaten. "

Don't matter what country you live in, if you're homeless, life is dangerous on the streets....

(UK)
Pair charged with attack on homeless man
By Chris Greenwood, Press Association

Two people were charged today with slitting the throat of a homeless man in a horrific street attack.

Police believe Jodie Dobby, 22, and Sonni Dhillon, 19, were behind the violent assault in Isleworth, west London.

The victim, named locally as 46-year-old Owen Allen, was found lying in a bush with serious injuries by firefighters called to a small blaze nearby.

Paramedics discovered a large wound to his throat as well as stab wounds to his body. He had also been badly beaten.

The attack took place in Mill Plat, a short distance from West Middlesex University Hospital, at about 9pm last Friday.

Mr Allen remained in hospital today, where his condition was described as stable.

Dobby, of no fixed address, and Dhillon, of Cardington Square, Hounslow, will appear at Feltham Magistrates' Court later today.

They have been charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

Only the most clever and creative signs are going to get people to let go of their precious spare change.

Holy Taco put this up back in August and I had hoped to see it elsewhere, but it's so good I thought it deserved another share.....

25 Awesome Homeless Guy Signs

August 17th, 2009 | 03:17 pm

 Now days, being homeless is more competitive than ever. Only the most clever and creative signs are going to get people to let go of their precious spare change. This makes for some pretty awesome homeless dude signage.