The Homeless - Articles - Zimbio

Being homeless on Cape Cod is no picnic

Fri, 1 Nov 2008 19:16:00 GMT

posted by michaelannb
The first homeless person I ever met on Cape Cod was more than 15 years ago, when my daughters and I were camping at Nickerson State Park. He was on crutches, a carpenter hurt on the job, and he and his wife had been moving from campsite to campsite.

"I'm not really homeless," he told me. "Nine months of the year I rent a house in Orleans. But the other three months we have to go somewhere else, because my landlord can get in one week what I pay her a month."

Back in 1990, Nickerson's was first-come, first-served; there was a two week maximum on how long campers could stay. But in this family's case, the rangers looked the other way when they'd re-register and move their tent and gear to another site. To me it seemed tedious but doable.

Fifteen years later homelessness on Cape Cod has gotten bad enough that rancor runs high between the business community and the homeless and providers. A public hearing in Hyannis earlier this week resulted in some name-calling, with Cynthia Cole, the head of the Businesss Improvement District shouting, ""Why don't you go back to work?" at a homeless woman, and a homeless man telling a homeowner whose house had been broken into (she assumes by a homeless person) to "Take a valium." Cape Cod Times. Other residents consider the homeless to be "washashore" people attracted by a Field of Dreams-- the "if you built it, they will come" state of being that can only be ended by eliminating services for homeless people.

Homeless providers say the shelters in Hyannis are very low-key and that shelters are not the problem. Indeed, it seems to be a small number of street people, maybe twenty, on whom complaints most focus. Homeless single people with severe mental health or addiction prolems are not welcome at most shelters. But shelters are full and many people on the street just have nowhere to go. The Leadership Council to End Homelessness on Cape Cod and the Islands has counted 43 family members and 64 individuals living who are homeless and unsheltered.

Hyannis businesspeople want homeless services "decentralized," saying Hyannis bears a disproportionate share of the responsibility. Of course this is the mantra of every metropolitan area, many of whose citizens seem to think that if the shelters disappeared, homeless people would disappear also.

Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, who was in Hyannis yesterday to announce a $2 million, five year grant to assist the region with its Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, suggested cooperation rather than conflict might serve the region better. Mangano's focus for the last six years has been on "Housing First"-- get the chronic users of homeless services into housing and provide supportive services to help keep them stabilized. A few communities, like my home city Springfield, MA, have started working to integrate "crisis" homelessness into their "chronic" homelessness plan. All possible successes, however, begin with a supply of affordable housing, scarce everythere but rare on Cape Cod.

Joe Burns, a columnist with the Bourne Courier, remembers growing up a in working class neighborhood of storefront businesses with apartments upstairs, row housing and railroad flats It was a real neighborhood and it was affordable for regular people. But those neighborhoods are gone, and the mention of affordable housing sends ripples of fear through the homeowning community. That fear is built on on the grey, sprawling, almost prison-style affordable housing that was the federal model for so many years. Burns calls for a "back to square one" approach that uses what would now be called "smart growth" to build affordable housing and community at the same time.

Affordable housing is housing that has a realistic relationship with the average family income in a given area, something that even within the current downturn in property values is not often found on the market. Affordable housing is the foundation of our economic pyramid, one that is straining as a result of the economic imbalance at the top

In the past 25 years housing prices have increased tenfold. Family incomes haven’t come close to keeping pace. And as incomes shrink as the result of inflation, salary freezes and unemployment, the disparity grows greater. And as it does it’s becoming increasingly clear that there that there is no “them” there’s only “us”— the seniors on fixed incomes and shrinking retirement funds, the families trying to meet mortgage payments while the value of the earnings and their home decreases, the single parent trying to rent a house with financial assistance that pays only a pittance of the actual cost, the growing number of jobless and homeless. Every man, woman and child hurt by years of corporate greed and federal incompetence and irresponsibility. It’s you and me drowning in a sea of unaffordability.

Photo from Cape Cod Cyclist's photostream at Flickr.Atom

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Shipping containers for Tent City?

Fri, 15 Nov 2008 14:30:00 GMT

posted by michaelannb

Stone Soup Station is reporting that a donor may be bringing ten shipping containers to Nashville's tent city to Nashville's Tent City. I've been trying to keep up on some of the great re-use ideas for shipping containers, which would otherwise sit in rail and shipyards, rusting away. Check it out.Atom

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Homeless man found dead in Northampton

Mon, 11 Nov 2008 12:19:00 GMT

posted by michaelannb
Yesterday morning I checked the news and found an article by Fred Contrada at the Republican about a homeless man found dead in Northampton. His name was John Paul Kozlowski and apparently he'd been sleeping out in the Meadows,.

I asked my sister, a former staffer at the Warming Place, if she knew him.

"I thought he'd gone to Alaska!" she exclaimed.

I hope to find out more about Mr. Kozlowski in the coming days. If anyone knows more, please respond.

Meanwhile I continue to wonder where the area's homeless people will be spending their days this winter.Atom

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Eclipsed by national politics, homeless murders still unsolved

Sat, 9 Nov 2008 13:32:00 GMT

posted by michaelannb
Police in Long Beach, California have identified the last of five people found shot to death in a homeless encampment the weekend of November 1st, but the motive and the perpetrator remain unknown. Police became aware of the murders when they received an anonymous phone call, and they are hoping the caller will come forward with more information.

One of the two women who was murdered was not homeless, but spent considerable time at the encampment.

In Los Angeles, police are still looking for the persons who set John McGraham on fire on October 9. Mr. McGraham was well-known and well-liked in the Rampart area. More than 300 of his family and friends gathered the week after his murder for a memorial service, and showed a slideshow of photos of different stages of Mr. McGraham's life, including his last job as a bellhop for the Ambassador Hotel.

The Los Angeles City Council has authorized a $75,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators.

In an unusual move, John Walsh of America's Most Wanted is featuring the case of John McGraham on his show. His site tells a longer story of Mr. McGraham's life and death.

Photo: John McGraham as a child.Atom

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Help hide the homeless: Northampton aims for anti-panhandling law

Fri, 25 Oct 2008 15:14:00 GMT

posted by michaelannb
It's not too hard to pretend that poverty doesn't exist in Northampton, MA, if that's what you want to do. Street kids tend to blend in with college kids, hhe housing projects are tucked far away from downtown; and a scattering of tents by the railroad tracks aren't visible from the highway. Just about the only time poverty and homelessness is really in your face is when you're approached by a panhandler.

Thus the City of Northampton is getting ready to pass an anti-panhandling law which, while not banning panhandling outright, prohibits asking for money while sitting on a park bench or standing on a corner, or asking anyone while they are waiting in a line, or within fifteen feet of a public telephone, bus stop, bank or ATM. You also can't be within five feet of a building entrance or fifteen feet of a parking meter or overpass. What's left, you might ask? Not much. And if you break this restrictive law, you can be fined from $50 to $300. This makes a lot of sense-- you don't have money so you are fined-- and if you don't pay the fine, then what? More unnecessary criminalization. The Daily Collegian covered this story well earlier in the week.

Why ban panhandling? I can hear the downtown business people talking about how panhandling drives away businesses. Beyond that, many people are uncomfortable when asked for spare change. Well, then, just say no!

My own rule is, one person a day. I live too close to the margins myself to do more than that. But as tight as my own budget it, at least I have an income.

Arise member Caty Simon has formed a group in Northampton called Poverty is Not A Crime. That group, plus the Freedom Center, the ACLU and Social Change in Mind are all fighting this ordinance. If you live or shop in Northampton, call Mayor Claire Higgins at 413.587.1249 and let her know: help homeless people, don't criminalize them. Leave panhandlers alone!

Photo by Emily Grund/CollegianAtom

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