EDITED BY: Dr. Roger A. Eyman
Where have all of the funds from the Fed's for the homeless gone?
Could it be that some of it has gone for political purposes?
With summer fully upon us and Mayor Web's new anti homeless campaigning in full swing, what is he doing to prepare the homeless here for the coming winter? Thanks to the mayor's new focus on tourism, the homeless are no longer permitted to sleep on the city streets in the downtown area or are they to be permitted panhandling privileges. It seems OK for the mayor to hire as many relatives as he has available for various city positions, even when some have to be created just for the relatives, what is our Mayor doing for the homeless who really need the help?
Neighbors' heat forces soup kitchen out
As reported by: By Virginia CulverDenver Post Religion Writer Friday was the last day for meals at the Catholic Worker soup kitchen. And it angers many of the regulars, which include the homeless and low income. "Why do the people in the condos around here want to shoo us away?" asked Nancy Newcomb, who does part-time clerical work. "Just because some of us are a little dirty or because we don't make a lot of money?" "What if those people in the condos needed a meal?" she asked, referring to the people buying $300,000 condos half a block away. The soup kitchen's lease with the Denver Catholic Archdiocese ends Aug. 31 and the volunteers who run the kitchen, at 1846 Logan St., haven't found a new home. Even though the rent is paid through August, the kitchen will bow to neighborhood pressure and close Friday. The archdiocese wants to do something else with the property, but officials haven't decided what, said spokesman Greg Kail. Soup kitchen workers have looked everywhere for a new home, said longtime volunteer Dorothy Tweedell, who's in charge of Monday meals.
"We had an offer of another place in Capitol Hill, but it would probably be the same as here,"
Tweedell said. "The neighbors won't want us." Neighbors at the present location have complained about the soup kitchen.
"We do have a few people who come in a little inebriated," said Marty Kane, who's in charge of Tuesday meals. "But we don't let them drink here and we figure a good meal under their belt will help the situation."
Some downtown churches have volunteered to house the kitchen, "but we'd kind of like to do our own thing," Tweedell said. The soup kitchen, as with all Catholic Worker House operations, doesn't require a thing from its clients. No praying, no worship service, no job training, no counseling - just food. "I'm going to miss this place," said Richard Reed, who waited for a meal Tuesday. "They serve a righteous meal here. The best food in town."
As he talked, Kane, a retired geophysicist, stirred 10-gallon pots of hearty stew in a sweltering kitchen. The menu also included chicken salad, lettuce salad, fruit salad, bread and cold drinks. "What bothers me is that everybody pushes the poor around," Kane said. "These people are American citizens and citizens of Denver. They're not transients. They're people." "I'm going to miss these people," said Tweedell, who has become acquainted with many of the clients. There are several other places that serve meals or sandwiches to the poor, but Catholic Worker has a reputation for good food and a large place where the people can visit or just come in to get out of the weather, before and after the 3:30 p.m. meal.
Catholic Worker wants to remain close to where the poor are, as well as to community clinics and shelters that serve the poor.
The soup kitchen's annual budget is $30,000, and a good portion of that goes for rent. Volunteers, churches and other individuals donate most of the food. No one receives a salary. Volunteers work from about 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. preparing and serving the food. Often teens from area high schools and churches help the regular volunteers. Before moving to its present location last September, the soup kitchen was at 2412 Welton St., where it operated for 18 years.
MIKE'S STORY
This story is about a man we encountered in Rock Hill South Carolina who had been a truck driver hit bottom and we will call him Mike. When I first met him we too were low on funds and working as security guards at a national warehouse and distribution center there. Mike first came into the plant looking for work one hot humid afternoon as the second shift was going on duty. Mike was about six three with a muscular build wearing faded blue jeans and an old green stained T-shirt. Since they were short a pallet stacker they put him to work that night. During the first break Mike came by the security booth on his way to the front parking lot to get a breath of fresh air and went to sit on a nearby grassy area. As I approached him I noticed a musty smell about his clothing and he related that he had been washing his clothes and bating in the moss bottomed stream under the bridge where he was sleeping every night. He had been begging for change to eat on and had managed to scrounge enough money to but an old sleeping bag from a thrift shop and that was home. I was not feeling that wonderful in the humid heat, which I had not gotten accustomed to yet and gave him the lunch, I had brought to work for myself. After inhaling the sandwiches he noticed everyone going back in from the parking lot and followed. I did not see him again the rest of that night as I went off shift several hours before he did. The next morning I went by the bridge where Mike said he was staying and did not see him so I parked in the distribution center parking and walked back to the bridge. After slipping on the wet grass on the path down under the bridge Mike was just coming up the path. I brought some old camping gear we had and some toiletries, coffee and caned goods and a canteen full of fresh water. We sat and talked for several hours in the cool early morning air. It was easy to see why his clothes took on a greenish tint. The stream bottom was covered with grass, as was the side. Mike had told me of the loss of his former job driving an eighteen wheeler after he had a serious accident involving a fatality in the Midwest. His wife had run off with their two children and another man and he had not heard from them since. He had been on the road and homeless for over four years and had hit rock bottom. Mike had never had much of a religious background, at least as an adult but was raised by Lutheran parents. As we sat there I prayed with him for healing and comfort which he seemed appreciative of. I took him to a laundry about a mile from where he was staying and he washed the few things he had. After his clothes dried we went to an army surplus store and I staked him to a small tent and a camp stove since he felt comfortable with staying under the bridge until he could save enough money to get an apartment. I took him by a truck stop about a mile from where he worked which was on a day to day basis and together we spoke with the manager. The manager agreed to let him have showers and bathroom privileges in exchange for a little cleaning and one meal a day. With that, Mike was fairly well set since he now had a tent to sleep in and keep the mosquitoes off and dry in the rainy spring weather and a place to shower. Every day for a month Mike walked back and forth to the bridge and since it was on State property and outside of any city limits there seemed to be no problems with his staying there. He would come by the security office every evening before going in to work to talk and arrange for any help he needed that I was able to provide him. Getting him to go to church however was another matter and it was not until weeks later that he finally started to go. In the meantime, he had saved enough to by an old junker car but he was a fair mechanic and was able to get it in good running order. Mike started going to church with a coworker and they in turn were able to get him into a small house with another man to share the rent and expenses with. By now he had been with the warehouse about ten weeks and was hired permanently. He really loved truck driving though and wanted to see if he could get back into that. Mike knew that I had to relieve the guard at the truck gate from time to time and check the tractor trailer rigs in and out and asked if I could inquire with some of the drivers about his getting his commercial ticket back. That I did do and the consensus of opinion was that he could since there were no charges levied against him for the fatality that occurred I his prior accident. Mike had now become a regular churchgoer and had really turned his life around with God's help. One day late that summer, he went to the SC drivers licensing office one morning and laid it on the line with them and they gave him the State booklets he needed to study to take the test. For two weeks he studied during every spare moment and talked the yard manager into letting him change jobs moving the loaded trailers in and out of the loading area and into the shipping areas to be picked up by the regular drivers. After about three weeks Mike came in late to work with the biggest grin I had ever seen on anyone's face. He had passed the SC exam, the written and driving and got one of the drivers to meet him at the drivers licensing office with his rig so Mike could take the driving test also. Within a month, Mike got another job driving cross-country with a major tucking company out of Pittsburgh. Mike was on the road when we left the area for Canada but he did keep in touch. He later found out that his wife also hit bottom and lost their children to a State Shelter in California and was able to get them back. Unfortunately, the wife had died from a drug overdose but Mike remarried a year after he found out and is now a terminal manager. Mike told me the last I heard from him that he had taken some courses from the Moody Institute in Christian Counseling and was now helping others who had become homeless and hopeless and lost their way to God. He said that the turning point for him was that day under the bridge when we first talked at length and I prayed with him. He knew that the Lord had touched him in a way that he would be just fine and he knew with His help that he would get his life back together.If you have a story to share, leave me e-mail at:
What is a homeless person?
There are several definitions for this term. The one the Federal and most State governments use is described by the Stewart B. McKinney Act, 42 U.S.C. § 11301, et seq. (1994), a person is considered homeless who "lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence and; and... has a primary nighttime residency that is: (A) a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations... (B) an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized, or (C) a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings." 42 U.S.C. § 11302(a) The term "'homeless individual' does not include any individual imprisoned or otherwise detained pursuant to an Act of Congress or a state law." 42 U.S.C. § 11302(c) This definition is usually interpreted to include only those persons who are literally homeless -- that is, on the streets or in shelters -- and persons who face imminent eviction (within a week) from a private dwelling or institution and who have no subsequent residence or resources to obtain housing.
This definition seems to serve more for research and statistical purposes than for humanitarian descriptions. It does however become somewhat problematic in describing rural areas where there are few if any shelters. People in these areas usually stay with relatives or in substandard housing in overcrowded conditions according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1996. They are nonetheless homeless.
DEMOGRAPHICS
A scan of recent newspapers in larger metropolitan areas reveals several trends emerging causing the homeless numbers to grow. One is the ever-increasing housing costs. In the Denver area for example the Denver Post recently revealed that the average cost for a home in the area was $239,000.00. The average persons income working in the services area falls substantially short of being able to qualify for this kind of hosing with wages in the $10.00 to $15.00 per hour range. To add to the problem, rents are burgeoning out of site. A recent article concerning the tenants of a small apartment had been paying $325 per month in rent. The new owner of the building announced that effective December 1, 1999 that the rents would be increased to $975 per month. As the economy continues to prosper the housing trends seem to be growing as well.
Low and in some instances even declining wages have put housing out of reach for many. A survey of rent in every state, a person making the minimum wage is can not afford to rent a one- or two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent. This was shown in the 1998 National Low-Income Housing Coalition study. To afford a two-bedroom apartment for a person working at the average minimum wage he or she would have to work about 75 hours based upon the federal definition of affordable housing at 30% of a person's income.
People caught in these situations usually have a choice of having a place to live or food on the table. More and more we see families living out of their vehicles. This lack of affordable rental housing combined with an increase in poverty is worsening each year as reflected in the already overcrowded shelters. What is even more alarming is the growing number of families with children facing these situations. Their numbers have also grown significantly over the past and are now the fastest growing segment of the homeless population.
According to a 1996 study by Shinn and Weitzman, families with children under the age of 18 constitute approximately 50% of the homeless population and are likely to be even higher in the rural areas of America although the Vissing study in 1996 shows that the majority of the rural homeless are single mothers. These women were usually homeless because of varying degrees of domestic violence. When the violence became intolerable they were forced out of their homes.
From a racial and ethnic standpoint, the US Conference of Mayors revealed that the total population of homeless was broken down as follows;
Asian 3%
Caucasion 32%
Hispanic 12%
Native American 4%
Negro 49%
These statistics are an average and vary according to the geographical area of the US from which samples were taken.
Other contributing causes of the problem include people suffering from mental illness, some of whom should be institutionalized. People with various types of addiction problems to drugs and alcohol add to the overall population.
For a listing of specialized resources click on the link below. There you will find listings for finding clothing, food and shelter as well as long-term housing. There is also an extensive listing of other resources throughout the US.
World hunger affects everyone. Link to the image below to help. It is free and participating sponcers do donate food items each time you go to this site.
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