invisible homeless kids

HUD Homeless Policies = Child Abuse and Neglect

2012-02-15T09:10:00.000-08:00

Maybe I've stared at too many faces of little ones through the eyes of my cameras.

Maybe I've sat on the edge of lumpy mattresses in crappy motel rooms, surrounded by the squalor that comes from too many people crammed into too small space for too many desperate nights listening to heartbreaking sagas.

Maybe I've shared too many WalMart parking lots with too many families who find safety in the security cameras as they cuddle together for warmth in their cars.

Maybe I've talked to too many youth, some with another generation in tow, who ask me what should they do, where can they find a safe way to escape life on the streets.

Maybe I've grown impatient with waiting...for lawmakers and bureaucrats to wake up--or quit denying--the abysmal dearth of housing assistance (much less affordable and safe options) and other vital safety net programs. (Reminder, the US offers about $144 Billion in home-owner housing subsidies compared to a measly $34 billion housing assistance.)

Maybe I'm carrying around guilt knowing that I was complicit in this homeless family and youth debacle, not intentionally, but by default, for my years running shelters that pretty well ignored the needs of our future--the children and youth, unwitting products of their pathetic upbringing, who become adults, productive or not.

Maybe...but I can no longer be part of the silent--or not-loud-enough--conspiracy.

For years, this nation has blatantly ignored the dire peril that millions of families and youth find themselves in year after year. We had to fight to remove barriers to school for kids without homes (kids now numbering 1 million). We have, for years, been fighting with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the often-hapless agency charged with providing decent affordable housing and homelessness assistance, about including children and youth in their focus (as inadequate as it is).

HUD's newest regulations forcing homeless families/youth to PROVE their homelessness (as if people are clamoring to get into shelters??!) are a horrendous burden to families/youth and shelter staff. Check out this 3-min. video explaining the latest absurdity.

The few groups that continually side with HUD, likely out of fear that the slice of the tiny pie that funds their worthy efforts will get decimated, sadly spread fear and deception like Homeland Security--painting the scene of evil resource depleters coming after what amounts the crumbs from the federal budget table. (Here's a rebuttal to their argument. pdf)

And my friend Barbara Duffield offers these reminders:

a) HR 32 does not mandate that kids identified through four programs are served; it simply makes them eligible and allows communities to make assessments of who is most in need at the moment; b) doubled-up and motel kids are among the most vulnerable, and HUD’s regulations make it impossible for them to be served; today’s homeless kids are tomorrow’s homeless adults

Someone explain to me: when have the feds ever given money to a legitimate cause when advocates haven't fought for it? It sure hasn't been HUD's homelessness assistance programs. I know. I've been in this work too long. Programs serving families--and even worse for youth-- are few and too far between. And HUD makes it seem like families and youth either don't exist or they don't count, I'm not sure.

Where is the outcry about the slash-and-burn of our nation's housing budget (read this illuminating and easy-to-comprehend report, pdf)?

Having otherwise decent human beings arguing against pulling out all stops to help this most vulnerable and ignored segment of the homeless population--a segment that dwarfs the single adults so disparagingly labeled "chronic" as in a disease--well, it's either a lack of conscience or a lack of awareness of the dire conditions facing families and youth.

In an ongoing effort to convey the desperate situation facing families and youth, a panel of experts--homeless children and youth who know the perils of living without a home and without shelter--addressed Members of Congress in mid-December. Their compelling and heartbreaking stories illustrated beyond a doubt the level of suffering common to families/youth in motels, doubled-up with others, or in other non-HUD-homeless states.

But what happened? The so-called homeless advocates that have vehemently opposed bringing HUD's definition in sync with other federal definitions ratcheted up their rhetoric dismissing the suffering of the kids in the various non-HUD states of homelessness. Fortunately, the subcommittee headed by homeless kid champion Judy Biggert (R-IL, my congresswoman) passed HR 32, The Homeless Children and Youth Act, which now heads to full committee.

And about the same time, at a national conference of homelessness service providers, the anti-HR 32 rhetoric spewed.

I will not apologize for hammering hard on this issue. Nor will my stalwart band of colleagues (with a growing network of agencies) working hard to get Congress, HUD and the nation to acknowledge--and address--what boils down to federally-sanctioned child neglect.

If we "can't afford" to go all-out to help those in all kinds of homeless situations, if we (from our positions of relative comfort) deem some homelessness tolerable, if we don't demand that resources be immediately and adequately marshaled for the millions of precarious and/or un-housed people in this country, than I'd say we're suffering from a severe and unconscionable lack of compassion.

My conscience pushes me to do everything possible to help. What about yours?

Contact your member of Congress if she/he is on the House Financial Services Committee (view committee list)
Urge their support of HR 32. Sample letters here.
Challenge nay-sayers who insist this nation cannot care for our homeless kids.
Do something to help.

At least you'll be able to look at kids like this with a clear conscience.

Tired of the BS from 'Advocates'

2012-02-04T14:07:00.001-08:00

Photo (C) Pat Van Doren

I worry that things are so screwy that we'll "eat our young" as we all scramble for a piece of the dwindling, vulnerable federal human services pie. It seems that a group of so-called advocates and unenlightened legislators are poised to do just that--"eat" homeless kids by depriving the majority of them of assistance otherwise available for homeless kids staying in shelters.

Gosh, this homeless definition issue is getting so drawn out that it makes me shake my head in wonderment. I dug through my email trash to look at what the young-eaters give for reasons to oppose forcing Congress to help more homeless kids. Shameful. I'll let their words speak for this atrocious form of advocacy.

IfHR 32 (The Homeless Children and Youth Act) were enacted, children who are now defined as homeless, including thosewho are fleeing domestic violence, living in dangerous situations, or literallysleeping outside, would be forced to compete for scarce resources with millionsmore who have the advantage of a more stable apartment or house to sleep inevery night.

As NAEHCY Policy Director Barbara so adamantly points out, "Defining a problem by the funding currently available to address it is nonsensical. Congress needs to know who and how many people are without housing in order to devise effective solutions. A narrow definition of homelessness does nothing to reduce the number of people living without their own homes. It simply gives policymakers an unrealistic view of the scope of the problem.

I'd be even more caustic. Continuing a failed policy of counting homeless people, spending money and volunteer/staff time each year to do so, to produce the absolutely bogus AHAR (Annual Homeless Assessment Report...or the capital of Ahar County, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran) is irrational and unconscionable. Furthermore, the last thing we need to do is confuse Congress on matters of poverty.

... HR32, if enacted, would expand the definition of homelessness to include anadditional 2,351,762 low-income housed children each year, who, although theirhousing may be poor, are not literally homeless (my underline).

The esteemed Barbara Duffield rebuts, "H.R. 32, will not require communities to spend HUD funding on doubled-up and motel families and youth. It simply gives them the flexibility to do so when these families and youth need HUD homeless services...Vulnerability determinations must be done on a local, individual basis, after gathering as many facts as possible. Congress is not in a position to decide the relative vulnerability of individual children and adults in communities across the county."

My good friend Pat LaMarche took a swing at this issue in her Christmas HufPo column following the testimony of 6 supremely courageous and articulate kids who testified to Congress about the agony of homelessness (the non-HUD kind). She gets it. She ran a shelter for a few years.

And I'd add that the time and energy we've spent on this issue is time wasted. Not so much for policy-wonks but for families and youth being excluded from possibly getting emergency assistance. How can you look a kid or a desperate parent in the face and say they're not homeless enough...when they are as homeless as the next person, and possibly suffering abuse, among other common experiences? Not "literally homeless"? That reference pushes me over the edge. When do we get to splitting hairs over who's homeless, more homeless, most homeless? I can't even go there. Nor should they.

Had I not just witnessed the debacle between The Susan G. Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood, I'd think our advocacy wars were unusual. In case you missed it, here's the powerful and poignant response on this life-threatening issue as courageously and vociferously offered by Linda, a woman whose own experience with breast cancer gives her the right to weigh in, which she did. Catch her last line.

I'll be looking for an outraged parent or kid who is willing to go on record like Linda did about the atrocious behavior of "advocates" and public officials that think our pathetic level of assistance directed to the crisis of homelessness is enough. But until then, I'll close with some thoughts of my own...

To pretend that you have any comprehension of the anguish, agony and hopelessness of homelessness is absolute bull shit. To shy away from a united and forceful campaign to begin to relieve millions of people in this country from the sufferings of homelessness makes me disregard your efforts entirely.

If you wish to act upon this outrage, check the HEAR US website, Compassion Epidemic, Hot Alert!

Counting Homeless Kids--Do They Count?

2012-01-17T13:54:00.000-08:00

In a couple nights countless teams of volunteers and staff across the country will fan out and count the uncountable--homeless adults and kids for HUD's annual "Point in Time" count. It's a gallant effort. But too bad it's a misguided one.

3 sisters in Reno, NV bemoan their plight

You see, and this is where it gets confusing, the definition of "homelessness" is different depending on the federal department using it. And HUD, the primary source of funding to address homelessness (albeit inadequately), has a very narrow, inaccurate definition that excludes lots of kids and families.

Why does this seemingly obscure issue rate a mention? Well, since the beginning of the federal McKinney (now McKinney-Vento) homeless programs in 1987, Congress--the body that decides funding for agencies--has been, well, confused. I suspect they think all homeless people are, well, bums.

Now I'll be the first to dispel the myths about homeless adults, having run shelters for 15 years. Homeless adults need and deserve all kinds of help. It's not--nor should it be--"us vs. them" when it comes to funding. But the level at which families and kids have been excluded is obscene.

Camping in NW Oregon. 3 girls and parents.

Families, and youth on their own, often need to be "creative" when it comes to finding a roof over their heads. Shelters, if their community has any, are typically full. Doubling up with others, couch surfing, motels, and campgrounds become stop-gap precarious solutions. I've seen families in tents on the edge of town, in campgrounds (freezing with no access to heat), in vans and cars, and in no-tell motels that wouldn't be appropriate for anyone, much less kids. (Watch CBS 60 Minutes segment on families living in cars.)

Clearly, Congress, federal (state and local) bureaucrats and policymakers just don't get it. Which is why some of us worked hard to facilitate a Congressional hearing on homeless kids by courageous homeless kids. (See it)

Here's something people don't realize about numbers:

Schools have identified (2009-10 school year) nearly 1 million students without homes. (This is probably 1/2 of the actual homeless student population--they're hard to identify.)
That doesn't include an estimated 2-3 million youth not in school (and not with parent/guardian)
Nor does it include younger siblings (infants-5 year old), a number that could easily hit 1 million.

Do the math. Probably something near 6 million KIDS.

So, when HUD reports a mere 650,000 or so homeless people counted in these PIT tallies, and Congress responds in kind with chump change for homeless programs, well, it's infuriating. And it's wrong. Which is why I got a little, umm, testy when being interviewed on CNN last month.

An effort is afoot in Congress to change the definition. Yep, it will increase the numbers. But at least we won't continue to be stumbling in the dark, ignoring reality.

And HEAR US is working with a small group of people to shine a LED spotlight on the ultra-ignored segment of the homeless population, homeless infants and toddlers. Littlest Nomads we call them.

Seems to me that it's time to have a big ol' camp out in front of the Capitol. It will make it easier to count the growing number of people without homes. Then what will the excuse be?

Storm Cloud Darkens for Homeless Children

2011-12-12T09:22:00.000-08:00

Ever since I became aware of homelessness, from the early 1980s,I figured it was, at least in some part, about money.

I knew people didn’t care much for the homeless men andwomen being seen more and more on streets of cities across the country. Mediadepictions of these frightening bedraggled “street people” began theperhaps inadvertent campaign to demonize people without homes. It worked. Ifyou ask people to describe homeless persons, you’ll see what I mean.

My memory goes back to Mitch Snyder, a DCactivist who took up the issue, going head-to-head with federal officials andeventually backing President Reagan into a corner as Snyder fasted almost to deathon the street across from the White House to get the government to do something. They did, passing the McKinney Act in 1987. I met Mitch. Hisdetermination and conviction impressed me. I became involved with advocacyalong with running shelters, an essential combination, I believe.

Back then, homeless adults were the visible and predominantmanifestation of homelessness. At the human service agency where I worked,we began to see a few families, but they were rare. As time passed, into the 90s,families trickled into our emergency overnight shelter. Looking back, we didn’tdo enough for the families, but we tried our best to make sure they had shelter,pathetic as our efforts were.

After the drastic changes to our dysfunctional welfaresystem, some of us feared the worst for the families too shattered to move intoself-sufficiency. But the economy was somewhat functional, and things didn’tappear as dreadful as some of us thought, although signs were brewing likestorm clouds.

Throughout the 1990s, we began to notice different—invisible—formsof homelessness. Sure, we were seeing more families in our shelters, but whenwe (IL Coalition to End Homelessness) examined the issue of homeless familiesstaying in motels in the Chicagoland area, we were shocked. Across the 8 collarcounties, families were scattered in no-tell-motels and some of theless-expensive chains. We released areport on what we found. It was a storm warning. No one heeded it.

Instead, Congress went about quietly tinkering with programsserving homeless persons. They made it harder to qualify for subsidizedhousing, and reduced HUD’sbudget dramatically and tragically. They funded software to track and counthomeless people (only those deemed “chronic”) and reshaped how communitiesorganized to address homelessness into mostly dysfunctional “Continuum of Care”alliances.

Anti-welfare sentiments contaminated programs designed toserve people in poverty. Bad credit became a good reason to deny people housingor a job. Prisons, overflowing, turned people out to a world where the label “excon” meant less than human.

One bright spot…. After considerable advocacy, the McKinney-VentoHomeless Education Act passed in 2001, implemented in 2002, guiding schoolseducation for homeless children and youth. It’s been an uphill climb, butprogress is being made, despite some recalcitrant educators.

Then the seismic changes of the 21^st century hit.And when the economy nose-dived in 2008, the first group to explode on thepoverty and homelessness scene was families and young people (without parent/guardians). No surprise.

And along the way, the National Alliance to End Homelessness(NAEH) received sizable funding to provide technical assistance for HUD. Benignas that sounds, it ties NAEH to HUD. So this “advocacy” group becomes, in myopinion, a lapdog to the agency that needs a dog nipping at their heels, notdrooling in their lap. In the process, NAEH has become a vehement opponent ofexpanding the homelessness definition to include families and kids.

One obvious result of this “partnership,” HUD’s homelessnessnumbers are astoundingly low, NAEH proudlyreported in June. Gee. Not bad for a country in the economic sewer. Notreal, but let’s not confuse reality and glee.

The US Department of Education reports almost 1 million identified (likely that many more unidentified) homelessstudents. It doesn't include younger ones--our Littlest Nomads. Here arethe stats. Read ‘em and weep for the million kids who have nohome. If watching TV is something you’d rather do than read dry, depressing governmentreports, thislink connects you with the recent CBS 60 Minutes account about families livingin their cars. Not to be denied—the reality that millions of kids, some infamilies and some on their own, are homeless in America. If you're so inclined, take in 4 minutes of kids talking on our HEAR US documentary, My Own Four Walls.

Seems to me it’s time for NAEH to resign as voice ofhomeless persons. Conflict of interest has gotten in their way. The kids atThursday’s hearing will make that perfectly clear. It remains to be seen whowill listen and care.

Disappointing That I'm Not Disappointed

2011-12-09T12:43:00.001-08:00

Never a shortage of topics to spew about. I just read the description of looming changes in the way homeless families and youth will be treated by HUD, the agency our federal government charges with overseeing programs to end homelessness.

I have to scream, on behalf of all who will undoubtedly be harmed by these changes,

WHAT???ARE YOU FRICKIN' NUTS??? ARE YOU JUST PLAIN STUPID OR IS IT MEANNESS?

Having run a shelter for many years, I am painfully aware of the too-little-staff syndrome that causes shortcuts to be taken, some potentially harmful. I'm also painfully aware of things on the other side--those needing help, families and youth, who are in a traumatized crisis mode, hitting brick wall after brick wall. Well, HUD has just thrown up a huge brick wall. For what?

The issue surrounding the definition of homelessness (my previous blog), a benign sounding topic if you've ever heard one, is huge. HUD and some so-called national advocacy groups have belligerently fought to protect their absurdly narrow definition of homelessness that boils down to the individuals who fit the stereotype of homelessness--the bedraggled man or woman with multiple maladies. In reality, that's probably about 10% of the homeless population, but it's the segment that some folks love to hate. Their position boils down to: we don't have enough resources, let's not expand the definition to others needing a piece of the pie.

Backing away from pushing for more resources and better policies is, in my humble opinion, a chicken-shit way of advocacy. Co-opting your organization's mission to get government money, as at least 1 homeless advocacy group has done, destroys their integrity, but it gives them the money to buy influence.

HUD doesn't get enough money to meet the needs of even a small percentage of homeless people. Since the late 1970s (not mentioning the president who took over then), HUD funding has been brutally slashed (fact sheet). No surprise, as mental hospitals started shutting down in the early 80s, ostensibly to "better serve" these beleaguered adults in local communities, these poor souls got, um, lost on the way. Thus was born modern bulk homelessness.

Predictably, some of these individuals in their dire situations, plus the growing homeless veteran population, didn't endear themselves to elected officials. Their bedraggled appearance and eccentric behavior fed stereotypes of crazy people on the streets. In true "trickle-up" tradition, shop owners complained to mayors, who turned to county officials, to state, and to feds. Well, let's make their lives miserable (and fast-track them into prison), slashing services and housing assistance budgets seems to be their response. And so it went, spiraling to families, teens, and anyone else that might find themselves in the tough spot of poverty.

Seeing the vigor that HUD and its cronies put into fighting those of us who want to expand the definition, I'm not surprised the new regs (spell check shows the correct spelling as "dregs," an apt translation) are so brutal. They impose impossible standards of proof (pdf) upon both homeless persons and the shelters wanting to serve them.

Next week, a determined group of advocates will face members of Congress and ask them why they feel compelled to further harm homeless families and youth. Harm. That's a mild word for those who have been through so much. Those traveling with me to DC will not be soft on their elected officials. I'm going to stand back and let them have the voice and visibility that may convince some lawmakers of the pending disaster.

Seems to me it's time to have a big Occupy camp-out on the lawn of the Capitol. Just don't put HUD in charge of who can stay there. They'll call in the riot police to keep out the moms and kids.

Back-to-School Nightmares Rampant for Homeless Parents

2011-11-16T11:06:00.001-08:00

You don't get it until you live it.

The reality of shelter life is...impermanence; where will we end up? Add this to the day after day awareness of their parents preoccupation with seeking employment, overcoming the despair that poverty invites or banging your head daily to live with seriously limited resources, and feeling isolated because as much as we don't want to feel ashamed of our circumstances...we suffer the judgmental slings and arrows from school personnel and all the jabs and jeers of those automated letters and voicemails. [Paula, mom in a homeless situation with her son]

Paula nails it. She and her son have been homeless for a couple years after experiencing brutal and long-lasting abuse from her ex. It's a common tale, I know. But let's not ho-hum it. What they're dealing with is anything but ho-hum.

The simple act of her 12-year-old son (a cool kid!) getting to school is causing massive distress. Trauma in abundance lingers like a storm cloud over their lives. Her ex-spouse sounds like a scary monster in a horror movie. The "protection" system--the courts/law enforcement--appear to be anything but helpful. The danger of the ex returning to wreak havoc is plausible. And the school appears to be dismissing her like a piece of junk mail.

Paula's trying to get her son on the school bus, but the shelter they're in seems to be a tad too close to the school, by .2 miles according to my calculation. Her son, according to what she's shared, gets bullied by kids along the sidewalk and on school property. He's dreading school, certainly the act of walking to/from school, which is contrary to his intelligent, enthusiastic manner that I've seen.

I've talked to a couple lawyers familiar with the rightfully-touted McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act. Although MV isn't as obvious as some of us would like, it does give schools leeway in situations like this--where barriers exist for kids' attendance and success in school. Other creative, legit ways of getting around the obvious school transportation issue also exist.

I spoke with the principal who assured me that they do everything possible for kids--all kids--at their school. I'd like to believe him. But the proof will be evident if this boy can hop a bus.

I'm waiting to speak with the district's homeless liaison. Paula indicates no one's ever connected her (or other families she's spoken to) with the liaison, who is supposed to be the point-person to avert these kind of stumbling blocks. The lack of attention to this issue is quite evident to this astute mom.

The good news is, if districts are willing to invest minimal money and precious time, we have some great tools to help districts better understand and address myriad issues facing students in homeless situations:

HEAR US offers 2 great videos (DVDs), My Own Four Walls, and on the edge.
We have a free video that can be watched online, REACH, that explains how to make M-V work, even if you're behind bars.
We also have Pat Van Doren's powerful set of children's books and adult books on homelessness, mine (Crossing the Line: Taking Steps to End Homelessness) and my friend Pat LaMarche's missive, Left Out in America.
And a great new video by my friend Patricia Julianelle has school officials explaining (in user-friendly 8-min. clips) how this law, one in which I was quite involved in getting passed, works so well. The McKinney-Vento Act in Our Schools hits the nail on the head.

I dunno...with all the information available, it seems like schools wouldn't create barriers when it comes to opening school doors and encouraging success of our nation's most promising (and growing class) of scholars--kids in homeless situations.

I'm willing to be the tutor for this district. I'd bring in experts like Paula and scads of other parents that could educate the educators. With the unprecedented growth of homelessness, we better kick into gear how to best cope with it before we see an Occupy Schoolyard movement.

Compassion Call-Out!

2011-10-14T05:42:00.000-07:00


Oregon Family Campsite, Photo by Rob Finch, 11-2007

All across America, as weather shifts into the raw winter chill, record numbers of families are turning to the "great outdoors" for their new homes.

This photo, by friend Rob Finch (Oregonian), gives you a peek at what passes for camping for families with no other place to stay. Once they lose their homes--for a variety of reasons--and discover that their town has no shelter, the shelter is full, or the shelter doesn't allow intact families, they get, um, creative, and camp. Rob and I followed this family around for several days during a raw, rainy November. They had "camped" for about 6 months on the wooded edge of a church property.

This camping is far different than state parks or private campgrounds. Families tend to set up their tent (if they're lucky enough to have one) and tarps (a cheap essential to extend their living space and to cover their firewood and belongings) in remote places--thick woods--close enough to sources of food and other essentials but out of public view. They don't want child welfare agents, police officers or nosy do-gooders finding them.

They lack access to any basic hygiene facilities, i.e. bathrooms. They're always being invaded by critters large and small, and camps like this lack any way to be safe and secure from 2-legged predators.

Weather is always an issue. Water--in its many forms--is both a luxury (fresh drinking water and water to bathe with) and a menace, soaking blankets, clothing and food. Cold temperatures become brutal. Hot temps make living miserable. Wind and snow are "bonuses," making life even more miserable.

Food--especially nutritious offerings--tends to be scarce. Storage of food vexes even the most determined camper--rats, raccoons, and chipmunks always get their way. Lack of refrigeration presents logistical challenges. Cooking is an art that Jamie Oliver would learn from. Cooking space sanitation? Forget it. Food supplies are meager because pantries often hesitate to give food to people who have no address. What they give is often impractical for campers.

Health care? Nope. Sickness, yup.

School--if they're lucky the kids will get to/from school. Can't say much for the quality of their attendance or participation. Nutritionally and sleep deprived, hygiene-deficient, and insecure kids don't make the best students.

And in this testy environment, we're finding families with kids of all ages. Homeless camps used to be just for the crusty "hobo" types, those escaping or rejecting life as most people know it. But now, in this day of uber-prosperity for the lucky ones, the unlucky ones fall through the big crack. Emergency shelters are turning away families in record numbers. Families with nowhere to go and nobody to help them turn to the great outdoors.

I don't know how people can sleep knowing that moms, dads and kids are huddled under tarps and tents, lacking heat, lacking civilization, lacking any way to get out of this mess on the outskirts of most communities. Everywhere I go, even in the affluent Atlanta suburbs, homeless families "camping" is epidemic.

Occupy Wall Street (and many other efforts nationwide) could benefit by the numbers of families and single individuals setting up camp. They could bolster the numbers of people on the streets because they live on the streets. And if we don't get things turned around, unrealistically before the brutal cold sets in, we're going to have homeless children and parents dying on the streets.

Pathetically, and embarrassingly, at the same time of this record ravaging homelessness, record numbers of vacant houses sit and rot. Now if someone can't figure 2+2 and decide homeless families and empty houses are in many cases a good combination, well, we're dumber than we look.

If you want to help, check out the HEAR US Compassion Action Guide on our home page (http://hearus.us). Plenty of opportunities to make a difference, including a link to vote for the HEAR US CITGO $5000 gas card prize.

HUD--the Homelessness Creation Agency?

2011-10-02T13:57:00.000-07:00

My good faith gets shaken on a regular basis, and when it involves the US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, aka HUD, it really flaps wildly. What I'm yammering about is a policy that leaves a formerly homeless family damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Tina, the courageous mother I've written about over the past couple years, and her 6 young boys, live in a modest house trailer in Las Cruces, NM. First I blogged about the family's bleak situation after I found them living in a 13' beater-camper-trailer--mom and her 5 baby boys. Stimulus money came about, giving communities funds to help move families like Tina's into housing. Then I blogged about the difficulties finding a landlord to rent to this large family. She finally found the landlord with the trailer. But...

Her next struggle came transferring into Section 8 (subsidized housing), not because she wasn't in need or qualified (she got through the eye-of-the-needle exam at the HUD-regulated public housing authority), but because...she has bad credit. Yup. Bad credit.

In her previous married life, she incurred a penalty of about $5,200 for unreported income with the public housing authority. She was in the process of getting her then-husband reinstated on the lease (he apparently talked her into it after putting her in the hospital), and Tina's brother moved in before being okayed by the PHA. Tina and her kids left her abusive ex, but now she gets saddled with that past debt--a barrier to keep her and the kids from qualifying for public housing.

Hubby (now ex), 1/2 the gene pool, apparently doesn't have to assume his share of this debt. Mom and kids struggle mightily, comply with copious regulations, scrimp and scrape to keep together and out of the shredded child welfare "system," and she's got to pay the whole $5,200. It gets worse.

HEAR US negotiated a payment plan and found donors to help pay off the debt, Tina and her boys got their Section 8 certificate allowing them to stay in their humble trailer. Then, the Las Cruces housing authority diligently does an income review and finds, gasp, that $180 a month is being paid on the prior debt by HEAR US so Tina and the kids wouldn't be homeless. According to HUD regulations, they need to factor in this money--that Tina never touches--into her income, more than doubling her rent.

Tina protests, attends a hearing and is shot down. I write to the old HA and ha-ha. They shoot me down, claiming HUD regulations. So now, after all this time--mid-2010 till now--Tina, saddled with the care of her 6 little boys (try to get a job under her conditions), has no way to increase her income enough to pay the increased rent that HUD says she needs to pay because she's lucky enough to have someone paying her past debt with the old HA so she and her 6 boys won't be homeless in Las Cruces.

How's that for stupid? Now, without being able to pay the money both housing authorities are demanding, this family teeters on the precipice of homelessness in a city that has no emergency shelter for families. So then, for want of about a $2,000 balance on the past debt and $100 a month on the current housing, this family will get churned up in the same system that found it in its heart to bail out rich bankers, hedge fund traders, and the rest of the sleazy bums.

The ex--father of 4 of her children--may get stuck with half the debt in a pending divorce agreement. But HUD will factor that into Tina's rent, raising it further. This gets dumber and dumber as I type.

HEAR US will again try to collect money to help Tina and the kids, fighting for a change of policies in the meantime. It feels really sleazy sending money to a housing authority that's making life this hard on her, but she has no option--other than the unacceptable one of homelessness. If you want to donate, here's the secure link. It's tax-deductible. We don't take a penny and it all goes directly to pay that stupid debt.

My delirious hope out of all this...that we get to a point where HUD agrees to "do no harm" for Tina, and for scores of other housing-vulnerable decent human beings in this country--that would be the majority of us. Sigh.

Michigan Tourism Slogan--the Canary in the Coal Mine?

2011-08-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

Michigan, with their miles of dunes along miles of Lake Michigan and Chicago area pols hot-footing it down sandy sidewalks in picturesque vacation getaways, spends good money for their catchy new tourism slogans, now Pure Michigan, from Great Lakes, Great Times, and Say Yes to Michigan....

No matter, because the more popular signs in the beleaguered Wolverine State, tarnished by the tanking of the auto business and what was left of commerce, now feature for sale by owner, for rent, and closed signs. Michigan can teach us something. They've increased their tourism budget to attract people to the once-popular vacation land. (One would wonder who's getting all the money...but that's another topic for another blogger I hope.)

Sadly, the state once known for beaches, tulips and cherries is now close to dying. Because the symptoms are little—as in kids—few pay attention. While nationally the number of kids in poverty (household income $22,000 or less) has reached an alarming (to some of us) 25% according to Kids Count 2011, the number of kids in Michigan living in poverty soared 64%, with 75,000 kids added to the already dismayingly high numbers, which includes over 20,000 homeless children.

Take a look at the years since I've been on the road under the HEAR US banner--since November 2005. Way back then MI had 459,000 kids living in poverty. The number now is 520,000 (for 2009, the latest data reported). That's quite an increase.

I'm not a number cruncher, but the availability of detailed data in this respected report got my attention:

249,000 kids in extreme poverty (that's 1/2 the measly, inadequate poverty rate).
709,000 kids living in households spending more than the acceptable amount of 30% on housing
735,401 kids getting free or reduced lunch
340,169 babies and toddlers (0-4) receiving WIC (Women, Infants and Children).

Enough data. Look up your own state. Get locally appalled.

(This is where the rabid nay-sayers chime in and say women shouldn't have babies. We should cut people off the benefit trough and let them fend for themselves. Stick a sock in it.)

Folks up in MI aren't just sitting around pining (bad pun) about these problems. The MI League for Human Services offers suggestions:

Here in Michigan we should focus our attention on:

Expanding programs, such job training and postsecondary education for unemployed and low-income parents and the Earned Income Tax Credit to supplement low wages; these programs promote economic success for families.
Implementing programs and disbursing funds that help more families negotiate the foreclosure process; Michigan has $498 million in federal funds to help families in foreclosure.
Enacting the reforms, such as including part-time workers, to the unemployment system that would recognize the changes in the world of work and bring another $139 million of federal funding into the state.
– Jane Zehnder-Merrell

Yeah. That's gonna happen with Gov. Snyder whacking away at anything that resembles human services.

For those applauding Guv Ax-Assistance, let me point out the hard truth. Ignore human needs today and pay more tomorrow. It's a lesson that needs to become the new Michigan slogan.

I'm so outraged about this and every other state's skyrocketing poverty I hardly know what to say or do. I can cry for the kids, but that won't help. So the small band of us working hard to make sure kids get an education, even if they don't have homes, will continue our efforts.

Not to get all scriptural, but The poor shall inherit the earth comes to mind. Hmmm. That makes a great slogan for MI tourism. Wonder what they'd be willing to pay me?

When Times Get Tough, the Tough Get Tougher

2011-08-02T13:12:00.000-07:00

The "Evil Diane" is coming out in me. Expect nothing less after the latest round of budget bamboozlement. I'm plotting our next strategy to help homeless families survive what is bound to be more than the common "hard times."

So, here's my idea: We, the advocates for kids who signed this letter begging our Prez and congressional leaders to have mercy on vulnerable kids, form an ad hoc committee, "Share the Shack," or something like that, to pursue non-traditional housing options in our communities. Texas families give us a perfect prototype, let's call it "Sharing the Bling."

A recent NYT article reports on a trend of building playhouses for the kids. Not just any kids, kids of mega-rich parents, like Ms.Schiller, who's husband is (ahem) an oil company exec. Here's a partial description of their daughter's playhouse: "the two-story 170-square-foot... vaulted ceilings..., hardwood floors and a faux fireplace with a fanciful mosaic mantel. The little stainless-steel sink in the kitchen has running water, and the matching stainless-steel mini fridge and freezer are stocked with juice boxes and Popsicles. Upstairs is a sitting area with a child-size sofa and chairs for watching DVDs on the 32-inch flat-screen TV. The windows, which all open, have screens to keep out mosquitoes, and there are begonias in the window boxes. And, of course, the playhouse is air-conditioned."

To do justice to these playhouses you need to read the article, which adds, “I think of it as bling for the yard,” said Ms. Schiller, 40. Some people might consider it “obnoxious” for a child to have a playhouse that costs more and has more amenities than some real houses, she conceded. Obnoxious? Nah. So far beyond it that I can't come up with a word.

OK, here's the idea. Get maps pointing out bling locations. Give them to local desperate families that have no homes. Provide transportation to the bling-address. Let them move into these nice playhouses. Let the money-endowed families pick up government slack, providing for the families' food, medical, child care, education, and so on. This will end the need for the seemingly endless "Stuff the Bus" projects to provide basic school supplies for income-deprived kids.

For those communities that lack bling, connect with the profit-laden builders constructing these mini-mansions and ask them to find some local trees for homes. I'm sure we'll have enough to go around (trees and families in need).

Best to get hopping on this project because bad weather is just around the corner. We'd hate to have shelter-less families littering the landscape.

Seems to me we have enough to go around. We just need to be creative about prying it from those who have it and sharing it with the growing urchin class.

Who Are the Tough Ones?

2011-07-23T11:35:00.000-07:00


Homeless mom and son doing laundry and showering at a campground.

Dueling political parties make the news. Obama, Boehner & Co. standing tough. But that's not where the real toughness lies.

The toughest people in this country are those trying to survive and to help their families survive. I just heard from a young mom that I've known for about 20 years. She, her husband and their son live in a trailer in the south. Modest living by all accounts.

Her husband just got sick and is unable to work. She's fighting a kidney stone, carpel tunnel syndrome, depression, migraines, and probably a bunch of other things. Their little boy (for now) is OK.

She's going for outpatient surgery for the kidney stone and will report back to work the next day. "I've got to. We need the money," she stoically shared with me. "Our furnace needs replacing. Our winter heating bills are $600. My husband's grandparents, on a fixed income, took a loan so I could have this surgery. We can't get food stamps, even though our income is now $100 a month."

Could you cope with that load of tough stuff? I wouldn't trade places with her for anything. Her big fear is rejoining the ranks of homeless families, knowing from her childhood what that was like. That's when I met her--she, her mom and siblings stayed at the shelter I ran.

In another part of the country, a beleaguered mom with 6 young boys is trying to make ends meet. Her meager budget of child support and welfare isn't enough to cover their essentials. Logistically, she can't get a job--child care and transportation alone would break her. And besides...what jobs are out there? She's $1,000 behind on her water/gas bill. She's looking down the road to back-to-school time and knows she'll need money for her boys to be ready for school. Her beater truck guzzles what she can't afford. Electricity. Gas. Water. Kids' shoes. Food. Such choices.

These are 2 families. I'd bet my lunch money millions more like them gallantly struggle to survive. They're tough. Bootstraps long frayed, they have unlikely prospects for escaping their bleak situations. Sure miracles happen...but, really, in today's world?

We have money. The "we" is our country. Not just government either. A Baptist church in Orlando just collected millions to help homeless families. That's just in compassion-challenged Orlando.

On July 4th, in backyards, towns and metro areas across this country, bazillion bucks went up in loud smoke as we celebrated (?) our nation's birthday. We spend billions to pamper pets (as opposed to providing adequately for them). We chug billions worth of beverages that harm us. We devour billions of bad food. You get the point.

And the Dems and Reps duke it out over our nation's fiscal policy. But they don't give a rat's ass about the families struggling to survive, like the households I mentioned and the millions more like them.

If nothing else, we should channel our respect to where it's deserved--the countless invisible s-heroes and heroes who continue to struggle to keep their families' bodies and souls together. Spend 4-minutes listening to young experts on what it's like to be homeless, our My Own Four Walls documentary trailer. You'll understand and be inspired.

Seems to me that we should revise our tax code so Good Samaritans could get tax credits for bolstering the frazzled safety net of families across our country. Then we'll need to learn a tough new way of living--helping our neighbor without government intervention. It's shutting down. Of course, that will make the tax code irrelevant. Sigh.

It Really Is About the Children

2011-07-01T05:55:00.000-07:00

These young children enjoyed the book Sarah gave them.

About 15 years ago, my friend, Pat Van Doren, started a project, It's About the Children. Pat and her effort are now part of HEAR US Inc., our unconventional effort to prick the nation's conscience about the invisible homeless children and youth population.

Recently I've traveled coast-to-coast, filming for our new Littlest Nomads project. We're trying to sound the alarm about the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of little babies and toddlers growing up without a home during their most important time of development.

Sarah Benjamin, a McKinney-Vento funded homeless early childhood teacher and advocate from Long Island took me around to families in her program willing to let me "invade" with my camera. These kids, whose families had experienced various forms of homelessness (doubled-up, in motels, in shelters), benefited immensely by once a week "home" visits from Sarah and her colleagues. Despite high mobility, families had a strong link and continually received valuable resources, guidance and support to keep them involved in their toddlers' vital development. Witnessing the interaction between Sarah and the families touched my heart!

On an entirely different, disturbing level was the recent report of no increase of homeless persons during this brutal recession. Disturbing? You betcha! The National Alliance to End Homelessness reviewed the Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) that Congress receives from HUD. I dunno. Leading the NAEH press release with No Increase In Homelessness Despite the Recession strikes me as a tad, um, delusional.

I've never had much use for the AHAR-generating Point-in-Time counts, the late-January best-faith effort to enumerate homeless persons in communities receiving HUD funding. One reason--they tend to totally overlook the invisible homeless family and youth population. And they ignore the many communities not receiving HUD funding. Even the Government Accounting Office took issue with these reports and related topics last year, citing rampant confusion in HUD's efforts.

NAEH staff, HUD and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness,
Congress and our President should be made to listen to this traumatized
baby wailing on this church floor (aka homeless shelter of the night).

Congress gets AHAR and feels "good" about HUD's progress. NAEH touting HUD's success is, in my humble opinion, disingenuous at best.

Homelessness--for adults and children--is traumatic and not acceptable. And the half-ass way this nation has been pretending to address it--the McKinney-Vento Act of 1987 signed into law 24 years ago--the abysmally under-funded, discombobulated, bamboozling "approach" to "ending homelessness," is a travesty at best.

Whatever M-V success--and some has occurred--is commendable. But don't think that these accomplishments have reached coast-to-coast or in any way solved the problem. And for every family or individual who gets the well-intentioned, sincere help returning to a place to call home, or gets an education, countless others fall into the vortex.

Homeless programs are an easy target for the ruthless budget-balancing-bobble-heads wanting to rob from the poor and give to the rich. But it doesn't have to be that way.

I invite--no, urge--you to join me and tens of thousands of like-minded concerned Americans to urge President Obama to take a stand that will protect our vulnerable infants, children, elders, and others from the otherwise inevitable budget slashing. Co-sign Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) letter.

Seems to me the message Pat Van Doren created years ago is even more essential today. It's About the Children...or we'll all be sorry.

We've Failed Little Farmers

2011-05-21T16:27:00.000-07:00

Plant it and it will grow, at least in places like Eugene, Oregon. But this progressive, verdant community just learned that a valuable asset, the one place little kids can be during the day to escape homelessness and to learn how to be healthy, happy kids is closing. (read the story)

I witnessed the thrill of 3 - 4 year-old toddlers learning the basics of agriculture from Farmer John who every year volunteers to come to First Place Kids Center to give these little ones the all-important lesson of how food gets to our mouths. They attentively knelt at his side near the raised bed plots behind First Place Center and listened, dug, planted and watered their choice of greens. They inspected the blueberry bushes together, excited about the soon-to-emerge succulent berries.

Sadder than a drought or blight, these love-planted crops will have no knee-high farmers to reap the produce of their efforts. Twenty or so little ones are being booted to the streets by cruel budget cuts. Their cutting-edge day care center that focuses so specially on unique needs of highly-mobile and homeless toddlers, an at-risk population growing like weeds in affluent America. will close their doors on June 3rd. (My 1-min. YouTube video)

Few have paid attention to the fact that homeless toddlers are the largest percentage of this nation's homeless population. This bumper-crop is being neglected in their period of vulnerable growth--when experts say vital developmental occurrences will happen or not--the groundwork for productive lives. We've tossed these little kids under the budget bus.

A combination of local funding cuts from a beleaguered United Way and federal/state support was the one-two punch for 1st Place Kids Center. Now Eugene's homeless families--who must cope with the summer closing of their church-based overnight shelter--now have no safe, nurturing place to plant their little ones while these parents go to work, look for jobs, comply with welfare-mandated appointments, seek housing, etc. They'll walk around town, toddler in tow, navigating weather, municipal codes, and societal restrictions and cope somehow with babies with colic and diaper rash, toddlers with flu and fits, and with every parent's need for time away from crying babies.

These "Littlest Nomads" will learn from the streets. They'll ask about their spinach plants, the blueberries and strawberries hanging on their stems, neglected as these little ones. How do you explain that no one is harvesting this hopeful crop? ACTION: Ask Eugene's Mayor Piercy to intervene before these families learn that their precious little children don't count. Sign this petition.

Seems to me someone has some explaining to do. Why do we pretend to care about nutrition and nurturing when we find it so easy to let these resources go to seed and weed? When will these kids matter? When will we care about spending our money on development--of potential and possibilities--instead of punitive poverty penalties that we've gotten so used to distributing?

Homeless Kids of All Ages Thrown Under the Budget-Busting Bus

2011-05-16T18:20:00.000-07:00

The longer I stayed to film at First Place Kids Center in Eugene, OR, the more furious I got. Nothing about this center's pending closing makes any sense. But what does nowadays?

If you think budget cut talk is a bunch of hype, think again. I hear and see worthy efforts being stymied or slashed to death, as is this kids' center, everywhere I turn. The carnage hits all age brackets and all on the poverty spectrum. My bias--it's the little kids that have the most to lose. That's certainly the case for Eugene's "littlest nomads" without this first-class daycare program.

The kids lose. They're in the most crucial development stage of their life. Stimuli, learning opportunities, socialization, nutrition, structure, stability...all of this and more are what they need lots of, in a safe, clean environment. Sorry, despite best effort of parents and shelters, those environments usually lack what these kids need.

Parents lose. Ever try to look for a job or housing with a 3-year-old? Do you feel guilty when you can't provide a decent meal, clean diapers, or just some quality time with your little one? Have you ever spent a rainy, chilly day in a beater-car with your little one(s)? I'll stop here. You get the idea.

We lose. When kids show up to school, they should be school-ready. But kids don't become school-ready magically. It takes loving effort--lots of it--like what I saw at the Kids Center (1-min. video I shot). When kids aren't school ready, their chances of success--at school and life--diminish. You can figure what happens then.

I'd like to be an optimist, but these are not the days for Pollyanna. These are days for Diane the Fire-breathing Dragon. The daily litany of drastic cuts on local, state and federal levels targeting these kids, and the rest makes me agree with my friend Pat LaMarche who penned a powerful HuffPo piece about politicians' contempt for the poor. I can't figure another way to take this. You can tell me if Pat/I are wrong.

Seems to me that we should have been paying closer attention to the riots in Egypt. The injustice they were fighting against, the have-lots' contempt for the poor, is the same thing we're seeing here. The difference--we elected these contemptible hypocrites. You can figure out what needs to be done....

Connecting the Dots: How Homelessness Happens to Families

2011-04-25T19:44:00.000-07:00

"Nick" and his parents lost it. Their house. They knew it was coming, but teetered on denial until the sheriff's knock jarred them into reality. Shoving their most precious belongings into a storage unit that advertised $1 for the first month, they left the bulk of their stuff in the house--their home for 2 years.

Where do we go? began a "game" of musical chairs, but instead of chairs, couches and crowded guest rooms. No family lived in the area, but friends offered to help. As with company that stays too long, or rubs the host family wrong, Nick and his parents ended up bouncing around, a lot. Tension abounded. Sleep and normal eating routines crumpled. Resolve shredded. Obviously the $1 deal on the storage unit would require more money--lots.

Nick yearned for the relative peace and routine of his 3rd grade classroom. His parents were too embarrassed to tell the school about their troubles. Nick tried to keep it a secret. It was a tough one, especially with his best friend, Charles.

The doubling-up got old. Nerves frayed. His parents argued. Their friends resented the intrusion of Nick's family. Nick acted out in school. The teacher knew something was wrong, but Nick never let on about his family's nomadic life.

Getting Nick back and forth to school was a challenge. The car was on the fritz. Nick's mom worked irregular hours at the laundromat. Nick's dad helped a friend on a home improvement project, generating a little cash and perhaps good will. Nick's attendance, normally steady, faltered. Tardy. Absent. Tardy. Sleepy in class. Irritable.

This is how homelessness seeps into lives that previously seemed impervious to such "social ills." Now these ills are epidemic. Our nation didn't do well before this last 3-4 years of bubbles bursting and Wall Street winning. But now...it's about to get a heap worse, especially if the budget butchers have their way.

Despite rhetoric on both sides of the crocodile-filled aisle in our nation's Capital, whatever ends up being the federal budget priorities, it will be too little too late for Nick and his family and countless others like them.

The "countless" part is important to the big picture. One reason why Congress doesn't get shook up about homeless families is they don't have a clue about the scope of this problem. Nick and his family wouldn't count as "homeless" because they're not in a shelter. No matter that they have no home and their town has no shelter.

When they don't count, they don't add to the numbers that Congress says they need before prioritizing an issue and tossing money at it. Homeless families, youth, and many adults don't count. So we don't have a problem?

A modest effort is being made to boost Congress' awareness. A bipartisan bill has been introduced that pushes the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to change the way they define homelessness. It's a start...if it passes. A few members of Congress have a clue. You can involve your legislator by signing this petition:

Urge your Senator and Representative to co-sponsor the bill to strengthen the definition of homelessness. CLICK HERE to make homeless kids count.

Nick and his family will turn to a shabby motel on the outskirts of town. Their tensions will escalate. Their resources deteriorate. And the family will fall apart. Nick will lose interest in school and will refuse to attend. His parents will be too dysfunctional to get him to do otherwise.

Do you see where this goes? Down the drain. Another family shattered by homelessness. Listen to these kids (4-min. trailer, My Own Four Walls, a HEAR US production). If they can't convince you that we need to help, no one can.

Nick and his family could have been helped with school issues. The federal law, McKinney-Vento, guides schools in assisting families and youth who have lost their homes, at least as far as education. Nick may have been eligible for transportation, school lunches, supplies, etc. (Watch the HEAR US video, REACH, an 11-minute simple explanation of the homeless education law.)

It seems to me that we've got to connect the dots for our lawmakers Sign the petition. Imagine the surprise if Congress started hearing about this--a real issue. DOT-DOT-DOT DASH-DASH-DASH DOT-DOT-DOT...SOS anyone?

Beyond A Crisis: U.S. Family Homelessness

2011-03-10T08:09:00.000-08:00

I didn't need to watch Sunday’s 60 Minutes piece on homeless families. But I did, along with my 90-year-old mother, my brother and his 14-year-old son, and my brother's significant other. She cried. I raged. Mom shook her head sadly. Mike and his son didn't say much, but were subdued.

CBS did a decent job on the surface issue, letting kids say how hard it is to live this nomadic existence. Their parents rose above the understandable shame and allowed the audience to peer into their erstwhile "normal" lives. And so far, online comments haven't sunk to the sewer-like level of frustrated blame and distorted interpretation of the story. (Though columnist Jay Ambrose seems to be confused, writing that "As virtually any historian can tell you, the average poor family today -- especially as defined under law -- is easily better off than many families considered well off in the Depression years." Huh?)

This wasn't a "feel-good" story. Some points need reiterating:

A family of 4 at the poverty level earns less than $22,000. (Joe might want to do a math-reality course to see what less than $22k --gross--buys today as opposed to the Depression days.)
The poverty rate for children in our country is nearing 25% by the (understated) government standards.
This is the fastest and largest fall from middle class that we've seen since the Depression, an unprecedented jump from 14 million to 16 million, with no signs of abatement.

Those are statistics. But more painfully than the above statistics are these stark realities for the families in Seminole County and invisible families across the country:

Often families face the dilemma of homelessness and head for the local shelter (if their area has one)--only to be split up because the shelter only allows (typically) women with kids (boys under the age of 12, which varies).
Families not willing to split up, or wanting to keep their pet, or having a parent who works a job outside the shelter's curfew, often bunk with a friend/family member until that becomes untenable then they move into a motel at the steep price of $150+ a week.
Families "stuff" often ends up in storage and lost because it's sold when they cannot pay the storage fees. Stuff lost includes important identification and other documents, pictures, and personally valuable items.
Areas around these unsupervised, unsanctioned "homeless shelters," a.k.a. motels, frequently deteriorate and become unsafe for the families and others. Drugs and prostitution are common at many motels. So are lice, scabies and bedbugs.
Space inside the motel room is inadequate for one. Multiply that by the number in the family and you get the idea that this is not a vacation.
Food, especially nutritious meals, becomes a logistical and expensive nightmare. Just think of the steps in buying, storing, cooking, serving, and cleaning up in the average motel room.
Hygiene and space become serious detriments for infants and toddlers who require special attention and activities to develop into healthy children.

We ignore the dark, growing cloud of poverty negating well-intentioned and expensive education efforts. We toss a crumbs to low-income housing, far too little to make up for the past 30 years of shortages, during a massive housing crisis that tosses middle-income families to the streets. We slash resources for health care, mental health services, child care, family support. We bought into lies that "welfare queens" are causing our nation’s fiscal woes, not the wealthy robber-barons of corporations and Wall Street.

Seems to me we need to admit what we’re doing: We toss our kids under the national-budget bus, ostensibly to balance the budget--or more truthfully, to give huge subsidies to oil companies and other wealthy interests. Can we at least admit we have a problem?

HEAR US Inc. has been invited to testify at a congressional briefing on homeless children on Weds. March 30, 11-noon at 1300 Longworth House Office Building, Washington DC.

HEAR US will screen on the edge on Weds. March 30, 6 pm - 7:30, 2325 Rayburn HOB, Washington DC, open to the public, free.

Their Playground--and Home--Gone

2011-02-19T04:59:00.000-08:00

The parking lot was their playground. Now it's gone, thanks to an apparent deal between the Congressman, Georgia's majority Senate leader and an assumedly hapless mope.

The Oglethorpe Inn, off the exit ramp in the decimated carpet industry town of Calhoun, GA, is like one of thousands of nondescript motels peeking at our nation's Interstate highway system. Gordon County, sitting in northwest Georgia, where 1 in 10 school children are reported to be homeless, has no shelter for those without. So the 2-story motel became "home" for about 80 people who lost the keys to their own places.

And now the kids and their families are forced to involuntarily check out of their 12' x12' abodes to search for a safe place to sleep, do homework, play, and keep their stuff. Good luck with that.

According to an Atlanta Journal Constitution story, the previous owners of the motel, a partnership between the area's congressman and the state's lead Republican senator, Tich Hospitality, took out a $2.2 mil loan to buy and rehab the motel, but payments apparently stopped and they turned over ownership to Mr. Edens. The local bank is suing the legislators for, ahem, nonpayment.

If Mr. Edens is the same guy we heard about while we were in Calhoun a couple weeks ago, he was trying to help "guests" of his motel according to Shawn, one of the guys staying there. Shawn spoke of kindnesses shown to people who couldn't always pay on time. That was before Mr. Edens disappeared like a Wisconsin Democratic lawmaker.

While Pat and I were parked outside the Oglethorpe, I noticed several kids playing in the parking lot. Hmmm. Not vacation time. Talking to Shawn and Dan, two guys who know homelessness firsthand, they confirmed that several homeless families lived in the motel, along with a bunch of single adults.

Kids can adapt to many circumstances. Resilience is a good thing. Testing that resilience, forcing them to move yet again, to leave their playmates in this inadvertent community, might be pushing it. Worse yet, when the community has no shelter, it can only get very ugly for the kids and adults.

Seems to me the assumedly well-off legislators who may have profited by their seemingly sleazy dealings could step up and put a roof over the heads of their again-displaced constituents. That might assure votes in the next election.

Burning Crisis In America--Ignoring Poverty

2011-01-06T12:06:00.000-08:00

Smoldering out of sight and out of mind in this attention-deficit country is a disaster far exceeding the media attention it gets--fatalities due to house fires. Over 1,600 men, women and children died in residential fires during 2010. Most deaths receive a mere blurb in the local paper.

Poverty in America bloggers Rich and Elizabeth Lombino called attention to the ongoing post-Katrina humanitarian disaster in New Orleans, tragically underscored by the recent fiery deaths of 8 homeless youth trying to stay warm in an abandoned building. I've hammered on the 9 lives lost in Starkville, MS attributed to "hard times," the 3 women and 6 little kids crowded together in an apartment to avoid life on the shelter-less streets. For all our hammering and yammering, few will pay attention to this poverty-related loss of life.

If you have the stomach to look at the US Fire Marshal's fire fatality report, you'll notice a pattern: lots of fires in manufactured homes. Trailers. As one who lives in a trailer, an Recreational (ha!) Vehicle, I am frighteningly aware of their vulnerability, and I'm not coping with abject poverty and the multitude of issues accompanying life in the much-maligned trailer parks.

Fire is one issue. Legal and illegal evictions are others. Hopewell, VA is the scene of a massive trailer park eviction leaving residents with few options besides homelessness. The substandard condition of these tin can homes is yet another story. Trailer residents struggling with poverty can't afford upkeep, much less home heating oil.

We've long given up on the idea people in this country are entitled to a decent, affordable place to live. We let people struggle to survive in substandard conditions--crappy trailers, abandoned buildings, tents, the great outdoors. We stereotype and disparage "street people" and ignore the house-less reality of human beings --including homeless families with young children--as told by 3 parents in a Christmas day NPR story.

If a 1,600 passenger plane crashed, I'd like to think we'd pay attention for a short time anyhow. Is it the lack of value we put on some people's lives?

When possible unsafe conditions led to deaths of 32 infants since 2000, we recall cribs. That's the right thing to do. I'd suspect not many wealthy families live in trailers or abandoned buildings. So we (as a nation) don't give a rat's ass about those who die trying to keep warm because they're not wealthy. Congress won't get involved. We have too many other "priorities."

Home heating prices are soaring. Rents skyrocketing. Evictions and foreclosures spiraling. Fire and carbon monoxide fatalities surging. (I'm running out of verbs before I'm running out of reasons that people are losing housing.)

While Congress is poised to slash programs serving those most vulnerable in our country, most of us feel powerless. One way to have a slight, though important, impact on poverty policies is to rattle the cage of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the body that issues an annual "report" on homelessness. I've decried this document as a bogus waste of time and money. It bamboozles the mayors, media, and mainstream public by distorting homelessness statistics. It's inaccurate, but since media look for a homelessness story around the holidays, this drivel fills the gap. Even the astute Maria Foscarinas of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty got pulled into seeming to validate the report.

Will you sign my petition to urge mayors to either strengthen their reporting or skip it?

Seems to me that our national strategy of ignoring poverty hasn't worked. Maybe it's time we all sit around the campfire outside the U.S. Capitol and roast marshmallows over campfires fueled by burning bogus reports.

Land of 'Yes Ma'am' and Tragedies

2010-11-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

Deep South manners are the same, no matter the state. "Yes ma'am, and ya'll come back" punctuate most sentences. Such is the case as I paid my fee at this little campground outside Starkville, MS, where I await my meeting with Mayor Parker Wiseman to talk about what's happened to protect desperate families that lose housing.

Last December, fire swept through a 2-bedroom apartment in Starkville, taking the lives of 9 people crowded into the dwelling. Six children under the age of 6 and 3 women perished. Cause of the fire? Hard times.

After blogging about it, I met with Mayor Wiseman earlier this year when I was crossing Mississippi. Why not, I thought, because someone needs to make sure these women and kids didn't die in vain. My organization, HEAR US, collected money to help with burial costs. He graciously agreed to meet me, and by chance the Alderwoman who represents the family's district happened to be at City Hall, so she joined us.

We talked about resources and need. Mayor Wiseman had done his homework and was appalled at the gaping holes in the safety net. I wasn't. He vowed to bring stakeholders together to strategize how to, as best as possible, avoid this tragedy in the future. I vowed I wouldn't forget his promise.

So I'm back. The economy has gone through another shellacking, or drubbing, or whatever you call it when the rich get theirs and nothing is left. Mississippi, according to a recent re port issued by the National Center on Family Homelessness, ranks 41/50 on the problem of child homelessness. Their stats are a year-old. Things continue to spiral downward.

Winter hasn't hit with its bone-chilling fury, and when it does, the thousands of people in MS who can't afford heat will do what any of us would do--figure out how to heat our humble abodes by any means possible. And this problem is certainly not limited to Mississippi, as reported in this story about a recent Florida fire that killed five children.

I'm not sure how polite I can be today. I'll try. But when the economic tailspin causes budget cuts, I know where those cuts fall--to those who have no power to fight for their stake. In cities and towns across America families teens, and single adults have no place to call home. On the other side of town, some families have multiple homes. And houses sit vacant, emptied by the foreclosure debacle that has upended life across our land. The folks from NCFH have a plan. It requires political will. Harrumph.

Sorry for being a radical (no, I'm not really sorry), but I think when we have housing surpluses we should make sure people in our communities are housed. That's an approach that needs to be certified by government. So I'll ask.

Seems to me we've tolerated seeing homeless families and poverty far beyond the point of tragedy. I'd suggest one gauge: if your family was on the brink of homelessness, what would you want? Don't accept less. Yes, ma'am. Ya'll come back...we'll see.

Let's Roast (Some) Politicians on a Stick

2010-11-13T14:46:00.000-08:00

Sitting in a campground in my awesome Tillie work space, I tend to look out the window quite a bit. That's one of the perks of my "corner" office. So today as I slogged through some boring, but necessary, admin tasks, I found myself checking out the young woman with a little boy across the way.

No camping gear or motor home, just a beater-car, its insides brimming with stuff. They parked at the vacant campsite and made their way up to the shower building, reversing their path soon thereafter with wet hair and a change of clothes. Hmm...I thought....

A few minutes later I noticed her going back and forth to the little faucet (see photo), bending over, as the little guy sat calmly on the trunk, entertained by something. My curiosity got the best of me and I took a break from my computer, wandering out to the trash barrel between our campsites.

"H-e-e-y-y," I uttered in my best Louisiana drawl. She looked up, the little boy smiled. I figured she's walked by Tillie, my home/office on wheels, and couldn't help but noticed the abundant and obvious signage proclaiming my cause. "So I know I'm seeming to be nosy, but I'm wondering if..." and she cut me off.

"We're not homeless," she adamantly professed. "We're just out here because we like the quiet and the trees." I just nodded non-judgmentally and agreed with the quiet and trees thing. But peering into her car, I gathered she was something more than a nature-loving mom. Maybe the dripping undies and outies drying on her car windows provided the clue. Or the chunks of firewood on the car floor, purchased from the guy who drives through hawking his campfire ingredients.

I subtly explained my role in life, and she nodded in agreement that belied her first sentence. I wanted to say "I'm not CPS (child protective services)," but I just said that I'm from Illinois and I work around Lafayette quite often. I told her a bit about our newest documentary, "on the edge," featuring 7 women who were homeless, including mothers from around here.

Maybe it's the time she spends with her little 7-year old cutie, but soon she shared a whole lot of her story. Although displaced by Katrina 5 years ago, that was only secondary to the storm that hit her life. The sperm donor, aka the boy's father, did as so many men do, turn from lovie-dovie to intimidating beast shortly after she gave birth. Their eventual split was evidently abetted by her mother-in-law. Her parents are in the area, and it seems they provide some support.

"Andrea" appeared naive and bright throughout our extended conversation. "Ben" continued contentedly writing on blank pages of a little tablet, then turned normal, raiding the remnants of the Halloween candy she generously offered me. Her story spilled out as he romped obediently, not straying far from mom.

After Ben was born, and the marriage shredded, she bounced around, avoiding what she thinks homelessness is by racking up huge credit card bills staying in motels when she can, otherwise staying with friends (the classic form of homelessness among families). The pittance of child support is barely worth the intrusion she endures from the state's child support Gestapo. Ben, obviously bright, attends school regularly, with Andrea grousing about the school's no-tolerance policies for tardiness. She proudly boasted that he has only 3 of the allowed 5 tardies this semester. Quite impressive given their highly-mobile circumstances.

She rues the day she put the father's name on the birth certificate, not realizing that it means that she's tied to him, for better or worse, by virtue of this bureaucratic web. She applied for Medicare, but quit when they demanded information about the boy's father, her sex life, and other intrusions known well by women in poverty. Ditto for child support expectations. She'd move away, but cannot without creating a huge to-do.

Her goal today was cooking hot dogs and marshmallows by the campfire, but as stress-laden women (and men) often demonstrate, intentions aren't enough. She forgot the hot dogs and marshmallows, and asked if I minded "fire-sitting" while she ran to the nearest store. I capably pointed her to the neighborhood grocery up the street from this wooded haven. She yanked down the laundry as not to drive down the street with her bra and undies hanging on the window, and Ben hopped compliantly into the child seat in the back, the only vacant spot in this ancient escape vehicle.

I offered paper plates and tongs which Ben came over to get. He gazed admirably at my humble but adequate home on wheels. I felt uncomfortably affluent in light of their bleak situation. He's bounced over to say a sweet "thank you" a couple times, and returned the tongs, all nice and clean.

This crazy country, where we provide more for animals--strays and pets--than we do for families. We listen to clueless politicians rant about undeserving children shackled with preexisting medical conditions. We vote for budget hawks who promise everything and threaten the remaining shreds of the safety net. We shake our heads when we see stressed parents struggling to pull life together enough to not appear negligent.

What can you do? Fair question. Sign my petition expressing outrage about the insane proclamation about insurance. Get a copy of on the edge, watch it and share it. Lend a hand at the local shelter (if your area is lucky enough to have one), or send them a donation. Drop off diapers and wipes, or pull-ups at the pantry. Tutor a kid. Or just be aware the next time you're in a campground, and offer tongs and paper plates.

Seems to me that those who have so little can teach us so much. My gratitude for my lot in life expands significantly after these chance encounters. My intolerance for disregard of true family values--the kind that say parents with kids should have all kinds of help as they navigate the bumpy path ahead--also increases. Andrea and Ben provide fuel to my fire, confirming my belief that homeless families are everywhere. Time to roast marshmallows on the front steps of the Capitol.

(Too) Great Expectations?

2010-10-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

Although I don't have time to spend getting involved in what is always a vortex of chaos and stress of homeless families, sometimes I do it anyhow. I'm in the midst of not one, but two, um, challenging conundrums right now. Plenty of lessons to be learned....

Situation 1, Melissa A and her family of 5 young kids (10 YO - 7 months) crammed precariously in a motel in DuPage County, the 23rd most affluent county in the country.

Homeless since July after job loss and inevitable bailing before eviction, this stalwart 24-year-old mom is in the process of redefining "wrecking ball lives." I've hung with her on a few occasions, enough to give me deep admiration for how anyone can manage to juggle incessant wants and needs of her tribe while battling what seems to be the evil forces with little-to-no money.

The latest, it appears renting a car for a credit card-challenged friend 2 months ago as a favor has returned to haunt Melissa. Friday, when checking her precarious bank balance, one fed by meager unemployment checks, she heard a horrible message: "overdrawn by $2000." In shock, she checked into it. Apparently, the car rental company I'll call "hurts" decided to snatch her money to repair what they allege is $2500 damage to the car. According to Melissa, she received NO NOTICE of this pending action. And she's quick to point out that if she inadvertently tries to use her credit/debit card when she lacks funds, the transaction is denied.

I don't know all the facts. And, having signed several car rental agreements laden with lawyerly language printed in tiny type, it's not hard to imagine she signed away her life, tenuous as it is right now. And the hurtful car rental company smelled blood.

To be continued...

Situation 2, my friend Tina and her 5, soon to be 6, boys in Las Cruces, NM. Last we left Tina, she and her boys moved from the minuscule 13' camper into a "real" home, a 3-bedroom single-wide trailer. It had to feel like paradise. This move took an act of God. During it all, she and her little guys endured oppressive heat, bone-chilling cold, and ever-growing claustrophobia as they rode out a seemingly endless bureaucratic trail to end their homelessness.

Tina, about to give birth (take your little comments about her pregnancy and stuff them in your judgmental arse), is looking to the future, 2 months and counting, when her rental agreement and stimulus-fund housing payments are kaput. Now what is she going to do? She flung a text message my way in hopes that I could bring about a miracle.

Part of her unworthiness, according to the local public housing agency, is a $5205 past due balance in another state, where she and her ex lived before she fled. She can't rent from the Las Cruces housing authority unless this balance is paid. She has no way of paying that.

OK, I understand responsibility, but why is it at the expense of a mother and her children, and not her ex? And why are we willing to spend considerably more than $5205 on the damages that will occur to this family (think medical bills, just for starters) in a town that has NO EMERGENCY SHELTER for families? Can anyone besides me see the tragic folly in this?

We are society. It's not "them," the bureaucrats or elected officials. We are responsible for what happens to people in our communities. Involving bureaucrats and elected officials is essential. And we, their employers, must do that. We've allowed rules and laws to overcome common sense and realities, and then wonder why we have such a mess.

Neither mother is an evil person. Nor do they have resources adequate to care for their families. We can condemn their multiple pregnancies all we want, but that does nothing to help. Melissa and kids are at the mercy of rapidly depleting donations that HEAR US has been collecting. Tina and crew are riding the declining wave of federal stimulus funds designed to prevent families from being homeless. These are just 2 of what I can assure you are hundreds of thousands....

HEAR US--yours truly--and Laura Vazquez, media professor at Northern Illinois University, have created a perfect enlightenment tool, "on the edge," a 60-minute documentary featuring 7 women's stories of homelessness. Melissa and Tina would have fit right in. The stories resonate with the realities of countless families nationwide. Urge our leaders to watch "on the edge" by taking 30 seconds to sign this petition. If you have an extra 4 minutes, watch the trailer.

Seems to me we need to inspire and enlighten our President and those responsible for devising our nation's homelessness policies and practices. And if 30 seconds is too much to spend, well, I'll take my judgmental thoughts and....

NIU documentary maker Laura Vazquez shines light on the faces of homelessness in America

2010-10-15T06:02:00.001-07:00

NIU documentary maker Laura Vazquez shines light on the faces of homelessness in America

2010-10-15T06:02:00.000-07:00

NIU documentary maker Laura Vazquez shines light on the faces of homelessness in America

Shocking Reality is the Reality for Low-Income Moms

2010-09-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

(Oh, my poor neglected invisible homeless kids blog...so sorry. Hope you're catching my Friday posts on Change.org Poverty in America)

The ongoing saga of Melissa and her family continues to enrich me with, um, shocking experiences. Tonight's phone conversation--her kids squawking kid-like in the background, me enveloped with Tillie-peace--was about lots of things, but mostly money. In the 2-1/2 weeks since our paths have crossed, HEAR US has raised about $2000 to keep her afloat, one step from joining the ranks of millions of homeless families. She's more than appreciative, and is trying her darndest to make it work.

First off, afloat is relative. She and her 5 kids are in a modest motel "suite" for $55 a night. It's better than the streets, for sure. And it's better than the rotating emergency shelter program. Imagine, if you can, schlepping 5 little ones (10, 5, 4, 2, and 6 mo.) in/out of shelters--7 p.m. to 7 a.m., in and out of her beater van with astronomical gas, maintenance and insurance costs, and not knowing if they'd even be able to stay, with shelter overcrowding so common.

Anyhow, the shock...came to me when she said how much she had to pay for formula. Her little guy needs to eat. To be blunt, she can't produce breast milk. So formula is the answer. She told me his formula was $300 a month. I thought she did the math wrong. She didn't. Here's ubiquitious WalMart's pricing (http://www.walmart.com/ip/Enfamil-Gentlease-Lipil-Powder-Formula-24-oz-Can-4-pack/14234644?findingMethod=rr#Q%26A+Exchange). Follow the link. Scroll down. More shocks....

"Financing" is offered on purchase of $250+. Couple cases of formula (not even enough to get you through the month) and diapers and wipes to catch the outgoing, er, by-products. That will get you over the $250 mark easily. Bill Me Later "service," aka payday loan substitute, is brought to you by the fine folks of EBay. More about this scheme/scam some other day... and onto the next shocker....

Not knowing anything about baby formula, I got busy looking. Doesn't WIC provide formula? Yup. Melissa had been on it, but missed an appointment with her unplanned move interrupting her mail delivery. Next opportunity is not for another 6 weeks. Looking at some official explanations about WIC (Women, Infants and Children), the government effort to keep babies nourished, I was yet again shocked. In 2000, formula sold for about $3-4 a can. Now it's over $25?? (http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/September04/Features/infantformula.htm) Holy cow! What's with that? Another story for another day...back to moms...

So babies need to eat. Poor moms. Yeah, poor moms who don't get WIC. Decide between paying the rent and paying the baby formula hucksters. I'd bet my lunch money I'd be shocked at diaper prices too. Poor food pantries try to supplement the inevitable gap in nutrients for babies if donors come forth. Not every family can get to the pantry. I vaguely remember hearing about retailers locking up formula to prevent theft. This could explain it. So we'd lock up the mom caught stealing formula to feed her baby. Now, that is outrageous...which makes it fit in perfectly with today's totally out of balance realities.

Babies, in their most formative phase of their lives, depend on good nutrition. I'd question a product that is primarily corn syrup solids, but that is yet another story for another day. Formula, too expensive for anyone but wealthy families to afford--unless you're getting WIC, which is subsidized by taxpayers, mostly none the wiser about how these companies set up monopolies and jack-up prices that the goverment pays, ransom I'd say, so babies can have a half-chance to grow up sort of healthy.

Seems to me we're being bamboozled, and poverty-stuck parents are being robbed every time they plunk down their hard-earned money to buy a drink that will nourish their babies. Robbing the poor to give to the rich. Where have we heard that before?

What Do We Expect?

2010-08-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

My plan to sit down in my 87 degree motor home and complain about the heat was disrupted by a brief email from a friend here in Naperville, an Illinois city ranked as one of the nation's most family-friendly cities.

diane, there's brief video news clip at this link showing i heard like 2400 or 24000? people nearly rioting in line for public housing applications in georgia yesterday.if you get permission, use a clip of this as part of documentary as it walloped me as to how serious america is underwater

In just that brief moment I was connected to thousands of desperate people in the Atlanta area, and the invisible millions across the country.

In Atlanta right now, 9:00 p.m., it's 93 steaming freaking hot degrees. I join most people who grumble mightily when it's hot, cold, windy, foggy...you get the idea. People standing on a hot asphalt parking lot for hours or days...now that's something to complain about.

Let's get one thing out of the way right now. For those who use this as an opportunity to paint the pushing and shoving during this application distribution with an ugly black racial brush, let's just use our vivid imaginations and picture any race and/or class of people desperate for what is going to be given away (much less a CHANCE to get a vital housing certificate that would greatly relieve your housing cost burden and perhaps improve the environment you and your family live in), set you for hours or days on a brutally broiling parking lot in an extremely overcrowded and unorganized setting, hmmm....wonder what would happen?

We all get a little crazy when forced to stand in line for 5 minutes in an air conditioned McDonald's! What if it could mean something better for our families? People tough it out. Incredibly, over 75% of the entire population of this beleaguered town of about 40,000 may have gathered for this event.

Section 8 certificates are like gold for the ever-growing income challenged population in our previously wealthy country. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development oversees the Section 8 program on the broad level. Local housing authorities deliver on the community levels, with citizen board members appointed/elected to supposedly oversee the process.

I'm sure I would get boo's from the crowd (that are probably too poor to have Internet and read blogs) by asking if this is a well-run public housing authority. Most PHAs I've encountered are infuriatingly abysmal, and I'm not depending on them for my housing. Another story for another post.

The fact that the applications for vouchers haven't been made available for 8 years in this income-ravaged area, well, I'd suppose things could be a tad, um, insanely difficult in many households, not to mention the homeless families. Remember, these applications are just the 1st step. They have to be reviewed and applicants must be able to crawl through the eye of a needle to qualify. Even people with bad credit are winnowed out. When my friend said "America is underwater," she ain't kidding.

So much galls me about this display of blatant disregard for the "customers" of this tax-payer funded housing service organization that I am, well, hot. To hear the head of the EPHA say she thinks they did a good job considering...well, I'd have her head on a platter, or at least make her stand in the heat among a riotous crowd for a few days if I were the mayor. To that point, here's the city of East Point's official form for reporting problems. If you're as outraged as I am about how our sisters and brothers were treated in this process, take a few moments and share your feedback with Mayor Earnestine Pittman. Ask her to go up the food chain to Congressman Lewis and find out how to get more housing certificates.

Seems to me that if we have this wonderful (sometimes) tool called the Internet, we could do a better job making it work for the good of people. Writing this post, with my sweaty fingers sticking to the keyboard and perspiration cascading down my face has been good therapy. Next month when I'm in the Atlanta area, I might just see if I can meet with East Point's mayor and the EPHA director. I want to hear their secret for staying cool in these hot times.

Could It Be?

2010-07-24T07:42:00.000-07:00

As the ever-growing ranks of homeless children and youth continue the tragic upwards climb, some glimmers of hope need to be nurtured, much like the damp kindling in a campfire.

Last month, from what I imagine to be the dark DC basement where the Government Accounting Office (GAO) probably operates, a hugely-significant report was issued. This document validated what many of us have been saying for years--that the too-narrow definition of "homeless" confuses Congress, and worse, keeps too many families, youth and individuals from getting the life-saving help they need.

Vindication isn't what we're after, though I'd have to admit it feels good. Some of the so-called (and unnamed in this post anyhow, but look in my previous posts if you're curious) national advocacy groups had fought a change of definition. One Senate staffer told me it would "open a floodgate" if we increased the number of homeless people by changing the definition to what I and others believe is reality. We're not there yet--but having an official government publication on our side helps.

The other glimmer of hope comes from an unlikely place--Congress. The newly-formed Congressional Caucus on Homelessness has the potential to generate more comprehensive discussion, perhaps leading to action, on this long-ignored issue afflicting millions in our country.

One of the caucus chairs, my Congresswoman, Judy Biggert, recently spoke at the premiere screening of "Homeless: Motel Kids in Orange County," a new documentary airing on 7/26 on HBO. As the title suggests, the richest county in the country has kids, with their families, living in motels. I previewed the film and, despite my vast experiences with families in motels, I was aghast at what I saw.

At the DC screening the other night, Judy Biggert addressed the bipartisan, diverse audience assembled. Her remarks pave the way for progress on this solvable plight. Maybe I'm reading too much into her comments,

"...join me in sharing our passion with others, and pushing Congress to redouble its efforts to ensure that homeless kids have access to secure, stable housing and the same educational opportunities that millions of Americans take for granted."

What can you do? A few things quickly and easily:

Sign this petition urging HUD to revise its policies regarding housing assistance for homeless families often denied because of arbitrary decisions.
Join our Facebook campaign for our upcoming EPIC Journey and
Sign up on the HEAR US website for the newsletter that will keep you posted on legislative and other activities.

Seems to me, given the unprecedented gridlock gridding and locking immobilizing our national policymakers, that perhaps our hopes rest in the little children, leading the adults to realize that if we don't do something to change our destructive trajectory we're doomed.

Tree Houses vs. No Houses: Is it Right?

2010-07-05T06:25:00.000-07:00

I spent the July 4th holiday at a parade like countless other Americans. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, which I don't do well, I volunteered to take pix for my sister and brother-in-law's builder who wanted their 54 Chevy (or do I need to say Chevrolet?!) to pull his float. It was a beautiful day. The town of Blowing Rock, NC, quaint and vibrant, had people lining the streets, in some places 10-deep, to see this modest parade. Yet I was troubled....

First off, the white-faced crowd belies the reality of multiracial America. Where were people of color?

Most ironic for me, however, was the tree-house. Me, the voice in the wind on behalf of children without houses, accompanying a well-built domicile that will land in a stately tree in the builder's backyard, an instant mecca for neighborhood kids. I'm not begrudging these kids their house, but I wonder what it will take to make sure all kids in America have a house, a secure modest place, to put their heads at night?

The latest grossly understated homeless government figures on the plight of homeless children, teens and adults reminds me of the pathetic attempts by BP to mask the dreadful reality of how much oil spills from the gushing Gulf well. Well, it's not so bad. Like hell. Even 1 family is too many. Millions--unacceptable.

The Obama administration just released "Opening Doors," a revised plan (pdf) on addressing skyrocketing homelessness, and they at least mention families, albeit minimizing the quantity that lack a place to call home. Furthermore, the resources to carry out the plan, well, let's say we'll have to wait and see. But if your family was the one experiencing homelessness, a wait-and-see attitude would be impossible. Outrage, yes. Patience, no.

Millions of kids this summer are spending their time dreading each day instead of splashing around in a cool pool. Their parents struggle for survival, and the kids pick up on that, absorbing anxiety instead of enjoying childhood. Night-by-night "plans" of where to sleep, day-by-day agendas of where to hang out, worrying that "back to school" time will be a battle because of a lack of permanent address. More and more kids are traumatized by homelessness and poverty...and some kids, by virtue of birth and "luck," will have a place to call home, and a refuge in a tree to boot.

Seems to me that strengthening the human infrastructure of America should be the first task on our national agenda. Spending our nation's dwindling resources destroying countries and killing in the name of peace haven't proven effective for them or us. And it makes a lousy excuse that fails to explain why some kids have tree-houses and some have no houses.

Good-bye Mary Lou! We'll Miss You!

2010-06-24T11:44:00.000-07:00

Homeless kids across the nation never met Mary Lou Cowlishaw. But they'd love her.

This school-marmish unpretentious woman served as an Illinois State Legislator from Naperville for 20 years. She died yesterday, 6/23/10, after a battle with cancer.

Over 16 years ago Mary Lou led the charge to make sure homeless kids could get an education, bucking the trend to ignore this issue. As a Republican lawmaker in an affluent community where the local district threw up a significant barrier for homeless kids, she didn't need to engage in this controversy, but she did.

A small group of us, including photojournalist Pat Van Doren who took Charlie's picture (right), developed the concept and campaign behind "Charlie's Bill," which ended up becoming the much-acclaimed IL Education for Homeless Children Act. Mary Lou grabbed the reins and was the relentless sponsor, successfully navigating the bill with a bipartisan team of lead sponsors through a pathetically dysfunctional legislative session back in Spring of 1994.

Mary Lou didn't stop there. I'd get an occasional phone call from her, with her distinctively deep voice commanding my attention. She'd float a story by me, and I'd find myself listening despite the chaos wafting around me, a constant reality of my homeless shelter director duties. At the end of the story she'd leave me with a thought or a challenge.

In the Summer of 1998, my friend called and suggested that newly-elected Congresswoman Judy Biggert (IL, 13-R) should tour Hesed House, where the homeless shelter I directed was located. MLC arranged for me to pick up Mrs. Biggert at Mary Lou's office. After the tour, the flabbergasted legislator asked what she could do. I asked her to include provisions from Charlie's Bill into the eventually to-be-reauthorized McKinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children Act. She did. It's profound. And Mary Lou never got the credit due for this accomplishment.

Another such conversation in 2004, Mary Lou proposed that unaccompanied homeless youth who wanted to go to college needed help removing the FAFSA barriers that kept them from college. She suggested Congresswoman Judy Biggert as the go-to legislator in DC. I suppose Judy Biggert knew I was coming, and she readily agreed to pick up the mantle, again. And since then she's more than proven her devotion to this issue. Thanks to Mary Lou.

In the past 5 years of my latest venture, HEAR US Inc., my nonprofit national effort to raise awareness about homeless kids, I would make time (not often enough) to pop in on Mary Lou. I was shocked to see her almost hairless after a round of cancer treatment. I didn't know she wrestled with that brutal disease. The last time, this past Spring, her hair was back but her strength wasn't. Her beloved, Wayne, and I sat and the three of us chatted. She encouraged my uphill efforts with her characteristic plainspeak style.

Mary Lou Cowlishaw will be fondly remembered by many people for many reasons. My memories of this amazing woman include a deep sense of gratitude on behalf of millions of homeless kids whose access to education can be directly attributed to my friend and mentor. With soaring homelessness among families and youth we need her now more than ever.

Seems to me it's time to get back to the basics--legislators who believe that government exists to protect and assist the vulnerable. Mary Lou proved it was possible.

Unclear on the Concept

2010-05-21T10:18:00.000-07:00

My neighbor--this bird family--recently experienced a violent attack that left 3 hatchlings dead and a mother "homeless," and family-less. The symbolism haunts--and motivates--me....

Over my 25-years working with homeless adults, families and teens, one constant has served as a pebble in my shoe--ivory tower professors who influence our nation's housing policies. Maybe it's my aversion to theory vs. reality, or my disdain of people who seem to lack a reality base to their thinking, I dunno, but here's a recent example:

Dennis Culhane, a prof at the University of Pennsylvania, just penned a report for Massachusetts, "Ending Family Homelessness in Massachusetts: A New Approach for the Emergency Assistance Program." (this is my highlighted copy for ease of perusal). For those of you not following homeless stories from across the nation as I do, major consternation has exploded over the $143 million being expended in MA on emergency assistance (EA), mostly paying for motels for homeless families.

Let me say upfront, motels are often not ideal places for homeless families. There. Dennis and I agree on something. The nay-sayer that I am, I have a few "nays" to offer. I will also comment on another blog I read by Steve Lendman, "Growing Homelessness in America."

Part of me wonders if it's a guy thing. Do most men fail to grasp what's happening to families in America (elsewhere too, but that's someone else's story)? Well, maybe not, because Steve's blog refers to Nan Roman, the head of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, who until lately engaged in a vigorous campaign to deny the existence of homeless families.

In case you won't read till the end, here's my biggest concern about the MA report. Government, always looking for a quick, less-expensive fix, will pick the less expensive options, especially when it comes to the poor. History of humankind backs me up on this.When have you seen government say, "Gee, these folks need lots of help. Let's do everything possible to help them..."?

Additionally, Culhane's report seems to miss--let off the hook??--a major government flaw and reality: since state and federal governments have abandoned the responsibility of creating affordable housing (Steve's blog mentions this), at the same time housing costs have shot literally through the roofs, well, homelessness has skyrocketed. Anyone see a connection here? If people are supposed to quickly move through the EA system, where the hell do they move to, the slums they abandoned when things became too expensive, violent and/or uninhabitable?

So what we have are desperate families, teens, and single adults falling through the abyss of poverty, un/under-employment, unaffordable housing, health care crises, lack of viable treatment options for people with addictions, and on and on...being told to get a life and move on. Assuming the best (not always the case) these families are being pushed by agencies that are already overwhelmed by the tsunami of homeless families and the dearth of resources and viable options.

And what this has created over the years is a huge number of families and individuals who lack the basics--basics that Dennis Culhane, you and I enjoy. Sure, we work for them. But some of those folks now on the other side of the economic tracks do/did work too. They just got screwed by government, corporations, and Lady Luck. You're right--some made poor decisions, but don't we all? And isn't it true that the worse your circumstances, the easier it is to make stupid decisions? Sadly, too many of these families will be hit by the wrecking ball hanging over their heads.

I'm really upset by the tone of Dennis' report, which in my reading seems to coddle MA lawmakers, hoping to at least get something out of them. I seethe at Lendman's reference to the US Conference of Mayors annual drivel on homelessness and hunger too. More money gets spent on creating these reports than helping people in need. And no one seems to pay attention to them unless they need a reference for a blog/report.

My ranting could be endless. But none of us have time for that. Let me leave this golden example of how I fear the system will fail. This story is one I'm following. This family of mom and 5 little boys stands on the edge of disaster. They've been told by distributors of the rapid rehousing funds (HPRP) that they're "not absolutely homeless," therefore not qualifying for housing assistance. Mom owes money in another state for public housing, so she's ineligible for subsidized housing for at least 10 years.

What I fear will happen is this family will soon be split up--it means the mom loses her kids--sort of like my bird family--with dire consequences (seeing as child welfare/foster care systems are in disarray). Maybe that's the point where my thinking (childless by choice, but I've worked with families all my life) diverges from Culhane and Lendman. Do they not understand how precious family life is?

If you care, sign my petition to HUD Secretary Donovan and President Obama to urge a change of HUD policy that would help families like Tina's and countless others.

Seems to me we need to rethink our approach to solving homelessness. Let moms and compassionate people set the parameters. Because without heart, we'll have more of the same, draconian policies that will make families' lives even worse. And that makes it worse for all of us, even the clueless. The only ones who benefit are those who get paid to write fancy reports.

Textbook Example: How We Push Families Through the Cracks

2010-05-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's good to take a few deep breaths before posting a blog. Sometimes that won't help. It didn't help to breathe. So I need your help to act.

Back in January I blogged about a woman I met in Las Cruces, NM. Tina, mother of 5 little boys under the age of 7, was moving from 3 nights in a motel into the tiniest of campers (left, actual picture of her camper), at the time without heat, water or electricity. How tiny? How's 13' ? Click this link to read her story.

Forward to the present. As would be expected, dealing with these circumstances has been really hard on her and the kids. She's made some questionable decisions. And she was struggling to do the right thing--but we talked and emailed a few times and she agreed to go to her housing appointment the other day. I asked her to let me know how it went.

GRRR! The housing authority representative evidently pointed out that she owed money from her previous (another state) stint in subsidized housing, so she's ineligible for assistance in LC, even if she paid the money she owes (from when she and her estranged husband were together). And, to make sure public housing doesn't provide a roof over the heads of undeserving scofflaws, she was told she was banned for at least 10 years.

It strikes me as immoral that we punish poor parents (and single individuals) more than we punish, um, people who have destroyed national and global economies. It's not just this one family--but countless desperate parents and kids with no safe options.

Before I continue--and sadly and infuriatingly there's more to this saga--let's get some facts straight.

Public housing was created to house people who cannot afford market rate rents or who need assistance for any number of good reasons--disabilities being one.
It's federally funded, administered through a local housing authority.
They have rules, made and approved by Congress. Few outside the system pay attention to these rule which, in the past 15 or so years, have become, um, punitive. You could even say draconian. Like insisting candidates for PH have good credit, punishing the residents if they have family members that have gone astray, or several other absurdities as described by Aaron Haas, a legal aid attorney in San Antonio. You get the idea....

Right now, thanks to federal stimulus funds, for the first time in what seems like a hundred years, some (OK, a drop in the bucket) money is available to prevent or end homelessness. These funds come through HUD, the freaking Department of HOUSING and Urban Development. A school social worker urged Tina to apply for funds. This is what they found out:

They (keepers of the funds) both stated that HUD's number one rule is that the client has to be absolutely homeless, they cannot have any type of roof over their head. I tried explaining that the trailer is not appropriate for a pregnant mom with six kids but neither would budge.

Important to note, especially for all who have the comfort of climate-controlled environments: This is Las Cruces, New Mexico, where temperatures now run into the 90s during the day, and get down into the 40-50s at night. This sardine can this family's lived in for the past 5 months sometimes has electricity, sometimes not. It's not air conditioned, it has no space for living, and this is not not being considered ABSOLUTELY HOMELESS??? Give me a f***ing break.

Earth to HUD: Homelessness looks like this, and worse, for a horrible number of families. These are the people we should be bailing out with our billions, not those engaged in Wall Street "shenanigans." I could (and have) spew volumes about the history of HUD's fighting to limit the definition of homelessness, but things are supposed to be changing. My a**.

What we have--just looking at this one family--is a (regretfully, for my thinking anyhow) pregnant mother (and please don't start railing about why/how she got PG), 5 little boys under the age of 7 in a city that has no homeless shelter for families, and the long hot summer weather is already moving in. And this family lives in a tin can the size of a car. AND HUD DOESN'T CALL THAT HOMELESS???

Just what do they think is going to happen? I can predict--based on decades of experience:

The children are going to get taken away from her, split up and farmed out to strangers (my knowledge of this family is that options for family help are quite limited); or,
Some tragic event will happen, of a scope I don't even want to speculate, prompting all involved to go "Tsk, tsk, what a tragedy. She should have gotten help." or,
Mom will turn to the first guy that appears to be nice/interested in her. Odds are this is someone with less than altruistic motives. Bad things usually follow, or
Mom will absolutely lose her tenuous grip, and do something hurtful to the children.

Before criticizing either my predictions or Tina's situation, think of how you might react in a similar predicament. Imagine if you can being totally without options, having the last 2 doors slammed in your face--the 2 places you were told should be able to put an end to living in this bucket-of-bolts camper. Add a heavy dose of insecurity and lack of self-esteem. And top with the reality of looking at your little boys, whom you love dearly, and knowing you cannot make things better. And you'll seemingly never be able to because the only help possible is not available.

If you are the least bit outraged, and if not, get off my blog, then sign this petition and circulate it furiously in whatever way you can. Tina's asked for help. I said I'd do whatever I can.

Seems to me things can't get worse for desperate families and individuals in our country. This is my last-ditch gasp to help Tina and her family, and those in similar or worse situations. If we don't draw a line in the oil-coated sand soon, the rest of us will be next.

The 'Old' Days vs. the New Days of Homelessness

2010-04-28T18:43:00.000-07:00

I'm a diane-a-saur when it comes to homelessness. I've been around this "field" for a long time--since the mid '80s. My current effort, HEAR US Inc., is a pretty unique little endeavor that's making an impact, but I digress. When I think I've seen it all, I get surprised. Like this week....

One of my favorite journalists, Kathy Millen, did a great piece on our new documentary, "on the edge," an intense look at lives of 7 women who experienced homelessness. Kathy came to one of our screenings, basing her story on what she saw. To no surprise, she did a fantastic job, and this chain of local papers ran the story in different areas.

Kathy forwarded me a message she received from a woman who, with husband and 2 young babies, is homeless. I found myself wanting to go talk with her. Then I discovered they're staying outside NYC. She picked up Kathy's story on the Web, something we didn't have back in the old days. The mom and I have been exchanging emails, and I've been able to give her info about her son's rights to register in school, ala the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Act.

Facebook also factors into my different world. More than once I'm surprised at who finds me. Yesterday, a woman asked to "friend" me. Her name sounded familiar, from my days of working in Joliet where I got my feet wet in this world of homelessness. I asked, and yup, it was the same family. The girl, 20+ years later, is a mom, studying to be an addictions counselor. Cool!

Good ol' Facebook, the intrusion into my life I often grumble about, also connected me with a mom with 5 little boys that I met out west. Mom is struggling mightily, not doing as well as she/I'd like, but still trying. Her cell phone's died from lack of money. So she gets on the computer at the library, and I heard from her. A flurry of FB messages between us makes me feel like she's going to get reconnected with the school. A good thing....

And the woman who contacted Kathy, then communicated with me via email, shared her story. I've written my weekly post on Change.org, Poverty in America about her situation. It's scheduled to run Friday. Check out my post from last Friday and share it.

I've heard from a grandmother in Houston who found the HEAR US website as she searched for a way to help her 8-year old granddaughter who had been wrongly kicked out of school. We emailed, talked, and she watched our amazing REACH video that explains the homeless education law. That empowered her to get the little girl back in school the next day. Oh yeah!!

Then we have the HEAR US Compassion Epidemic. Never would I believe that I'd be a regular website editor, changing pages as information changes. I don't do the greatest job keeping up, but you'll always find something of interest on our CE page, as well as the rest of the HEAR US website.

Seems to me the world of homelessness services and resources needs to do a major upgrade. The same-old-same-old ain't cutting it. Just check the HEAR US "Homelessness in the News" page (that needs some updating). And I know some people are really keeping up with things changing even better than I am--my almost 90-year old Mom will surely comment on my diane-a-saur status. What's older than a dinosaur?!

Homeless Kids...As Ignored as Dead Birds...

2010-04-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

Step over. Walk around. Don't look. Forget about.

Dead birds don't merit much attention except by bird-lovers. That's kinda the same way homeless kids tend to be treated. I'm a homeless-kid-lover. And stepping over, walking around, not looking or forgetting about homeless children in Las Cruces, NM, or elsewhere, is not an option. I've long written about this tragic travesty.

My ire got raised as I read this Las Cruces Bulletin article about the long-vacated Las Cruces family shelter now being converted into a children crisis center. Let me say straight up that I think every community should have a safe place for young (and older) children to go when they are in danger. But...

...the vacant building that for 4 years sat vacant on the campus of the Community of Hope used to house homeless families. My first visit to Las Cruces, a pleasant community of about 80,000 on the south end of New Mexico, had me tethered to their shelter by way of extension cord. I spent time inside, talking with families, interviewing kids for "My Own Four Walls," the now-popular HEAR US series of documentaries (DVD, $40).

Las Cruces has no other family shelter. Families in crisis can go to the Rescue Mission across the street, but it's a tough choice, for too many reasons to discuss in limited space. As a parent of homeless kids, you have to decide if this risk is worth it. And often parents in crisis don't make the best choices. Neither do I. And sometimes we fail to make sure people in crisis have adequate options. Then we're disappointed at their decisions.

When I first met LC Mayor Ken last year, he didn't know that his community's only shelter for families was shuttered. He was pretty upset about not being told. We've talked since then and he seems genuinely concerned.

Which gets me back to the dead bird analogy. Do we step over, walk around, not look or forget about homeless kids in Las Cruces and across the country? They're not birds, worthy creatures that birds are. These are kids, and parents (some flawed, some not), that seem to get less attention than dead birds.

Seems to me we should put some of our country's misguided passions into something that counts. Making sure families in crisis have a safe place to go, and adequate supports to get them back on their feet, would be a good place to start. With over 1.5 million kids, including hundreds of thousands under the age of 5, we've got our work cut out for us, unless we want to wait and do the human version of scraping these kids off our streets.

First Step to Help--Learn About Homeless Families

2010-03-31T17:26:00.000-07:00

Everywhere I go, after watching our powerful documentary, My Own Four Walls, most people want to know how to help. My suggestion may seem overly simplistic, but it's critical: Learn about homeless families/youth.

How many of us carry our own prejudices? My hand is up. Even today, when I see an obese person, my family's old tapes play--the kind that make cruel remarks about people being fat. My more enlightened (and slightly chunky) self knows people have many reasons for their obesity. Some may be within their power to address, some far beyond it, and most land somewhere in the middle. Even that's an overly simplistic description.

Our country suffers no shortage of issues, valid and distorted, with family and youth homelessness continuing to get the short edge of the stick in media coverage and resources. Poverty and economic hardship are spreading like kudzu (a southern thing, look it up!). The estimated 3 million households predicted to lose their abodes this year will join over 2.5 million from last year. Poverty rates soar as the economy swoons. It's ugly, and it's everywhere.

Families and individuals swirl in the brutal vortex of survival. Nowadays it's far easier to become homeless and much harder to escape this shackled existence. Although solid data doesn't exist, estimates of homeless families and teens shoot upward to 10 million when you count those who lost housing due to hardship who now bounce between family, friends, acquaintances, and no-tell motels.

When I ran a shelter, which I did in Aurora at Hesed House for 13 years and before that in Joliet, I'd never describe the process as "pretty," or even humane. We tried to be hospitable and kind. But reality, and our prejudices, often interfered; and children, teens, women and men ripped raw by their experience of serious trauma often were inadvertently grossly neglected. I'd suspect that is true in just about every shelter.

For the past 5 years I've traveled 90,000 miles on the backroads of this great nation, living in a modest RV that I've dubbed "Tillie." I've filmed interviews with some amazing people--courageous children, teens and women who shared what it was like to experience homelessness. "My Own Four Walls" was my first documentary--I filmed it and Northern Illinois University's Professor Laura Vazquez and her talented students worked with me to produce it. Thousands have seen, and have been deeply touched by this 20-minute film.

Four years ago, Laura invited me to work with her on an ambitious documentary about families' experience of homelessness. With the blessing of HEAR US, my nonprofit organization's board of directors, and generous support from a plethora of supporters I accepted the challenging invitation.

It's been an incredible process, touching me at my core. Seven women ripped off the shrouds of secrecy common to those embarrassed about their stumbles into homelessness. They shared intimate details. They described, comprehensively and painfully, their nomadic lives. They erased stereotypes--the kind swirling about "welfare moms," women who bear "too many" children, drug and alcohol abusers, foster care, domestic violence, the agony of not being able to provide for their families, and the fear of life on the edge, with its ever-present danger of returning to homelessness.

All of that and more is contained in our new documentary, "on the edge." It's a tough film to watch, but it's the best place to start if you really want to understand the far reaching devastation of homelessness that touches millions in our wealth-distorted nation.

On Wednesday, April 21st, we're holding a preview screening of "on the edge" in Aurora (Annunciation Parish gym, 1840 Church Road, 7:00 p.m.) in conjunction with Mutual Ground. We're asking for free will donations so the economy won't be a barrier.

For my part, I hope families and kids I knew at Hesed House will come. I want to listen to them, to see if this film validates their experiences. I want to offer my apologies for not hearing what they were saying, and for inadequately helping them cope with their traumas. And I want to hear what they have to say.

We all have a lot to learn. Then we need to act upon it. This is my humble effort. Please join me, if you dare.

So Glad Obama is Staying Home!

2010-03-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

Here I thought my trip to the DC area would be somewhat limited in effectiveness, but I just read that President Obama is sticking around, foregoing his Asian trip, because I'm going to be in the area! Well, that, and perhaps the health care saga....

I hope our time together will include time to watch a movie. I have the perfect one, "on the edge," our latest feature-length documentary about women, and their families -- riveting accounts of their homelessness. Homeless families and teens is not an issue getting much attention by our nation's leaders.

Nothing would make me happier than to sit down with Barack and Michelle, maybe Shaun (HUD), Kathleen (HHS), and ideally House and Senate leadership, and let them hear from 7 courageous women who shared the brutal realities of their homelessness experiences.

Audiences that have seen our rough cut of this unique film agree--the women tell their stories like no policywonks could. They point to the causes, effects, and danger of return in such a compelling manner that even so-called conservatives call for a huge paradigm shift in how our country approaches this issue. We have much room for improvement.

And, I'd like to point out, it's not just about housing, but that's an essential ingredient. Families, teens, and adults that have experienced homelessness likely have some trauma issues--hurdles to success and independence--much like PTSD. When effects of trauma arise, it can sabotage best efforts to move in the right direction. The on the edge "7" explain this in ways a 6th grader can understand.

Seems to me it's time to sit down in comfy chairs, pop in this DVD and listen. If not, countless kids and adults will be the worse for it. And we only have ourselves to blame. Just make sure someone besides me will work the remote control. That's one thing I'm not too good at!

Help Wanted: Powerful Lobbyists Needed

2010-03-14T18:04:00.000-07:00

I know I'm getting desperate when I start thinking about hiring powerful lobbyists to help homeless children and youth. I'm just lacking a few hundred thou to pay them. And I'm a little short on cash for campaign donations too.

Not that the current intrepid team of homeless children advocates isn't working tremendously hard, but they just don't have the clout to turn this country's "Titanic-like" approach to homelessness around in time to save the kids, including a horrendous number of babies and toddlers, who are getting brutalized by homelessness and poverty. Yes, this current administration is a tad bit better when it comes to at least acknowledging this issue, but they're too busy on other efforts. In the meantime, homeless kids slip through Grand Canyon-sized cracks in our all but shredded safety network.

What motivates me? I've talked to so many amazing kids and parents on my journeys across this country. I carry their faces with me, hearing their voices pleading for help, wanting a chance to succeed.

Picture a big mob scene, with determined, passionate, desperate people crowded together. Then put a bunch of little kids into the mix. When the crowd panics and scatters, the kids get crushed. That's sort of what's happening.

In true DC fashion, I've seen a turn-around, with former "anti-homeless kids" advocacy organizations now proclaiming the urgent need to do something about this tragic issue. Yes, more money is being allocated to homelessness, but it's way too little, way too late, and way too slow getting disbursed. Everywhere I go I hear about the HPRP (Homelessness Prevention Rapid Re-housing) funds that are not beginning to make a dent, or the frustrations of a weak distribution network that makes it hard to get the money on the streets in a timely manner.

Tillie, my turtle-like RV, and I will be heading to DC next week. We're going to screen our new documentary on homeless families, "on the edge," with a few select audiences. And I'll sit down with key legislators to talk about the need to pass an even stronger, better funded, homeless education bill.

You can join the "fun" by signing our petition to asking for increased funding for homeless students' education. Rest assured that this issue gets almost no attention by beleaguered lawmakers for reasons we can all figure out. That's where you come in. Sign and share this simple petition--the current way to communicate with elected officials. (WE WANT 1,000 SIGNATURES. We have almost 200. LET'S GET GOING!!!)

Seems to me that it's far too easy to dismiss the lobbyist-less homeless kids and families that need attention. I guess that's why I feel the need to go to tell lawmakers that homeless kids count, and their count is soaring. I'd love to have you with me, with your petitions paving the way like a plow on a muddy field.

Fiddle Dee Dumb!

2010-02-25T18:04:00.000-08:00

I don't remember much of the ancient history I was exposed to in high school, but I do remember something about politicians fiddling while Rome burned.... No road map needed to see where I'm going with this one....

Amazed that where I'm parked--in the deep woods outside Pensacola--that I got a signal at all, much less one that streamed video, I watched quite a bit of the health care summit today. I shook my head in befuddlement. Sure, a few bright spots emerged, and I was impressed with Obama's ability to try to diplomatically but firmly herd cats, but my worries on behalf of our country, specifically about how homeless families and teens will fare under the 111th Congress, well, they grew.

I've been posting news stories about homelessness from across the nation on the HEAR US "Homelessness in the News" page. I know it's hard to keep track of these issues, and I figure it's a service HEAR US can do, knowing students, educators, interested individuals, etc., are always wanting information.

I also monitor the Change.org homelessness blog, in addition to writing a weekly post for their Poverty in America section. This morning I almost choked on my yogurt as I read the Homelessness blog and saw the expressed concern from the National Alliance to end Homelessness about the growing number of homeless families staying in motels.

Not long ago, NAEH was instrumental in brutally obstructing and killing a bill that would have increased the definition of homelessness to actually include families doubled-up with others or staying in motels. They weren't really homeless, or so they said. I even made a 3-minute video, "So They Say" to depict this issue.

Now this national advocacy group has become enlightened. I suppose it's because the new HUD leadership and the new president have shifted direction. That's good. I wonder about their dedication to an issue that didn't seem worthy just a few short months ago. It's about the children, the teens, the families in turmoil...like the family living in a tent for 6 months that I met in blustery Oregon (in pix).

If you'd like to do something to help--HEAR US has a petition to urge the Senate to strengthen laws to make sure homeless kids can get an education. Sign it and share it, and do whatever else you can for the skyrocketing numbers of invisible homeless kids in our country.

Seems to me that Congress would get a lot more done if politics (money) didn't interfere. Lobbyists and special interest groups that likely have something to gain from massaging the issues contribute to a heap of suffering in this country. Which brings me back to that ancient, ancient history lesson....

USA--A Nation in Love with Homelessness?

2010-02-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

I dunno...as I peruse news about homelessness from across the land some things jump out at me. We seem to grasp symbolic solutions, like donating jeans for teens, a good deed as far as it goes, but I wonder if it becomes a band-aid that covers a larger wound?

In my quarter century of working with homeless persons, coming at it from a non-social work perspective, I've been dismayed at our nation's ability to bandage problems instead of address root causes. Homelessness is a perfect example. We just "love" to do charity, volunteering to make brownies for the homeless shelter, but when asked to contact Congress to urge passage of legislation to ease a greater need--e.g. helping homeless kids get an education--well, we scoot off to take the brownies out of the oven.

Now, as a former shelter director, I was always happy for brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and the volunteers to staff our shelter. Unfortunately we need such temporary solutions because we as a nation seem stuck in the mud when it comes to addressing homelessness and poverty issues.

One area of blatant unjust "patience" that seems intractable is child support payments. I blogged about this issue a few months ago on my Poverty in America blog, generating what for me was a firestorm of responses, from women and men. Last night, visiting with my friend Angela in Opelousas, LA, we were talking about our latest documentary, "It's All About the Children" (working title), and how a common theme among homeless mothers was the lack of support from fathers of the children.

"Oh yeah, let me show you something," exclaimed Angela, a spunky mother of 9 whose poignant story unfolds in our film. She reached over to her computer, clicked a few times, and showed me her ex-husband's child support (lack of) payment record. Although I was impressed with Louisiana's technology, I was far less impressed with the state's ability to get the father to pay.

Seems to me that our nation suffers from attention deficit disorder. We tend to lose sight of important issues, vigorously substituting frivolity, like making sure homeless teens have jeans or developing fancy technology that tells us what we know. You can prove me wrong-- petition your Senators to increase essential resources for homeless students' education. Share this blog with your network. It's a small act, like a snowflake. But as this snow-battered country should know, a bunch of snowflakes make a huge impact. Time for a blizzard....

The Ugly Reality...Homelessness Never Far Away

2010-02-06T19:25:00.000-08:00

One of the most difficult things I can imagine for the people I've known who experienced homelessness, especially families, is when they face returning to it. And this week I found out about a family that did.

Charlie, our HEAR US "poster child," the cute boy whose image was captured by photojournalist Pat Van Doren, a longtime friend and conspirator, and his mother, "Cookie," recently lost their home, for reasons that I'll keep private, but not unlike reasons of other vulnerable people. 20-year-old Charlie had been working, but got laid off and is now just trying to make ends meet by temp work, staying with a friend. His mom is staying with people she knows.

In our latest documentary, "It's All About the Children," each of the 7 women expresses some form of "I'd never want to be homeless again." It reminds me of Scarlett's quote from Gone With the Wind,

As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.

I certainly don't mean to imply that Cookie or Charlie would ever "lie, steal, cheat or kill," but I could understand the sentiment.

When I visited them in summer 2008 I was touched by Cookie's pride in showing me her blue glass collection. She beamed as she spoke about her "clowning" as Cookie the Clown, brightening kids and old folks' days with her routine. Charlie was finishing courses for his high school diploma and was working had his sights on getting in at Caterpillar, a great paying job.

Formerly homeless families face repeat bouts for any number of reasons. It's easy to slide down the slippery slope. It's much harder to get back up, and the thought of being homeless hangs like a dark cloud over your shoulder, even for those far removed, as this family was. Stigma, lack of resources, feelings of failure--all contribute to the trauma of the return trip.

Today as I drove across Texas' backroads, I saw lots of roadkill, including a wild boar. It got me to thinking about people in poverty--they are the roadkill on the Capitalism superhighway.

Seems to me our way of dealing with poverty and homelessness needs drastic changes. It's bad enough to experience homelessness once, but you should be granted a "get out of jail (homelessness) free" card if facing it again, sort of like we gave those rich bankers and Wall Street scoundrels.

Home Sweet Home, but Really...

2010-01-23T17:32:00.000-08:00

For reasons far beyond my understanding, my path crosses with some very interesting people. I'm in Las Cruces, NM now, having shown our new documentary, "It's All About the Children," to one of the women in it and to a small group of educators. I'm also filming interviews with "non-homeless" homeless families/youth, those staying in motels or doubled up with others for the HEAR US Learning Curve Express project.

One of the outreach team put me in contact with a young mother with 5 little boys under the age of 7 staying in a local motel. Tina was more than willing and able to talk about her predicament.So I went to interview her imagining what a motel room with 5 young boys would be like.

This young mom with "deer-in-the-headlights" eyes and a soft voice let me in. As we introduced ourselves I saw 2 of her 5 asleep on the double beds. The other 3 were with her mother. She assured me the little guys would sleep through more noise than we'd make, so I set up and began the interview.

Domestic violence, no stranger to any income bracket, ethnicity, religion, education level, or part of the country, was the initial cause of homelessness. Last weekend she got tossed from the DV shelter, for reasons not relevant to this discussion. Tina's mother had packed up her life and moved here to be a support for her daughter. Something tells me she has some firsthand knowledge of these too-common struggles.

When Tina and the boys were ousted from the shelter, they had nowhere to go. Tina's mom was living in a 13' travel trailer, a humble abode if I ever saw one. So she bought another cheap one for herself and let Tina and the kids stay in the tiny one. All chilly weekend, no electricity or water. Propane-powered oven (DANGEROUS) providing some warmth, augmented by body heat. Someone from the school got wind of it, and the school put them in a motel for3 nights until a better plan materialized.

Friday noon was checkout time, and things got pretty dicey. Help for this family was slow to develop. Eventually donors came up with enough money to put the little trailer on a RV pad, with electric, water and sewer. Her mom lives nearby in the same park, close enough to help out with childcare, transportation and moral support.

When faced with sleeping on the streets with her children, Tina scrounged for help. I verified, it was not available. The stimulus money for Rapid Rehousing--she was #90 on the list, a wait of between 3-9 months. The only other place was the mission, and I understand a shelter-shy Tina, especially because the mission, with mostly men, has had its share of troubles, including a murder of one woman resident by another last year.

Tina has plans to finish her GED, and get further training to get a good job. I don't want to discourage her. But according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, to afford fair market rent for a 3-bedroom apartment in Las Cruces she'll need an income of $30k+.

Now, I know that's the theory, and the reality is different, and she'll probably be able to find something cheaper. But with the economy, the job market, the lack of child care, and what is likely her need for counseling, that's a pretty steep mountain to climb with 5 pairs of hands holding onto you.

Seems to me a woman who tumbles from a horrible violent marriage should have it better than landing in a pile of rubble that makes her think going back to her abuser is a better option. She and the kids deserve a helping hand. I'm not begrudging the outpouring of compassion the long-suffering people of Haiti are receiving. I just think that ignoring the growing number of poor families in this country might be a disaster too big for us to dig out from under.

Poverty and Homelessness: Call It What It Is!

2010-01-11T07:04:00.000-08:00

A family having "hard times" (translation, homeless because they lost their housing due to hardship) in Starkville, MS was taken in by a mother who understood what "hard times" does to a family, as she was not far from that pernicious condition. On Monday, Dec. 28, in Starkville, a fire rooted in poverty and overcrowded living space took their lives, 3 women and 6 small children.

Having known "hard times," India Williams, the 25-year-old mother of 3 small children, squeezed the other 2 women and 3 children into her humble apartment because they needed a place to stay. I'm not sure of the exact circumstances, but having seen this tragic story unfold countless times, I would guess that a domestic disturbance, money problems, and/or neighborhood violence caused the loss of housing.

The fire that took their lives, sadly, is not unlike a mostly unnoticed nationwide house fire epidemic (certainly getting less attention than H1N1), as winter's wrath has frozen even Florida. The Red Cross reports a 200% increase in house fires in this country, and utility shut-offs cause a good number of those fires as impoverished and desperately cold households turn to unsafe methods to stay warm. (Does your Red Cross do more than put house fire survivors in a motel for just a few days? Enlighten me.)

I've noticed an interesting, and revealing, phenomenon when it comes to news stories about these tragedies. "Hard times" is a common term. The Tulsa World just ran a story with the headline "Tough Times" that described poverty among families in the OK state. The Denver Post just ran a superb feature on CO childhood poverty, people "trying to get by."

"Hard times," "tough times," "trying to get by," are euphemisms for abject poverty and homelessness. I want to call it what it is so thick-headed legislators and policymakers get a clue. Poverty causes a dreadful ripple effect through all communities. It costs more to maintain poverty than it does to holistically address it.

So HEAR US is launching a campaign, "Up the Food Chain," to challenge mayors to look at hard times for what it is--poverty. We're setting up a simple way for people to petition mayors to go up the "food chain" to urge legislators on state and national levels to seriously address poverty. We're targeting communities where poverty-related house fires occur, hoping to in some small way make sense out of these tragedies.

Why mayors? Well, the US Conference of Mayors is an influential body, and they have ties--formal and not--to other politicians. Petitions get mayors' attention, as demonstrated with the successful campaign HEAR US launched in Grand Junction, CO that improved daytime options for homeless families otherwise left out in the cold.

Seems to me that it's time to put significant energy--or at least a few keyboard clicks--into something worthwhile, reducing hard times, before we all get to know first-hand what it means to experience hard times. I urge you to join our effort, share this campaign, and do what you can in your community to make lives of homeless children, families living in poverty, and those having hard times just a little easier. We'll all be better for it.

Stepping Up: Stephanie, Courageous Champion

2010-01-02T20:01:00.000-08:00

I love starting a new year with a new s-hero. Stephanie Burmudez, 13, started my year off right (It's not her fault my bliss will likely not last long.)

She was asked to write about her experience of being homeless for her North Philadelphia shelter's newspaper--one written by homeless children and adults to benefit homeless persons--and she first said no.

But the newspaper account of how she came around is worth reading. She closed her column with some profound observations:

You could be us. We could be you. It's just One Step Away . . .
We are all one step away . . . to getting a home. To losing a home. To rebuilding our lives. To destroying our lives. To retrieving our families. To losing our families.

I can't say anything to top that. If a 13-year-old girl with pretty much nothing to her name can figure this out, I'd like to think our political leaders can grasp what this really means.

Seems to me this new decade has a fresh slate. And it's up to us to let kids like Stephanie lead us on the path we should be on, one where kids count. Yeah, even kids without homes. Especially the more than 1.5 mil kids without homes. I hope to meet up with her some day. I hope to meet her expectations of us each and every day.

How Many Ways to Say 'We've Got a Problem'?

2009-12-29T17:08:00.000-08:00

The old love poem starts, "How do I love you? Let me count the ways." I suggest an alternative, "How bad is homelessness among families and teens? Let me count noses..." and then I'd point to myriad ways the problem has been described....

Let's see...soaring, skyrocketing, surging, exploding, astronomical, rising, record levels...well, you get the point.

In the days of Phil Mangano (pre-Obama administration homelessness czar at the mic), we heard a great deal, ad nauseam, about the need for numbers to convince the administration that we have a problem. So, with a nationwide systemic effort, school districts began tallying, a homeless kid here, a homeless kid there.

Numbers, not my forte nor my favorite way of considering a problem that seems quite obvious, started adding up as this decade unfolded. 600k, 700k, and up. And then the econo-bubble burst and now we're up to more than a MILLION school kids, not counting pre-school or pre-adult siblings or parents. And that's just the kids identified. Some of us believe the million could truly be over 3 mil.

Every article I've seen, and I try to monitor nationwide news on this issue, refers to actual COUNTS of homeless kids in specific geographic areas of varying sizes--metro, suburban, rural--from Anchorage to Key West.

But now, with numbers "soaring, skyrocketing, surging, exploding, astronomical, rising, at record levels," our nation is distracted. Failed bombing attempt, Karl Rove's divorce, Charlie Sheen's probable divorce, you know, important things. Oh yeah, and the economy, health insurance, er, care, jobs....

Hey, that's not fair! We've counted. We've got lots of kids who don't know where they're going to lay their heads, eat their meals, find their mom/dad after school, do their homework; kids wondering if they'll get reunited with their friends from their old neighborhoods, get their pets back, get to try out for band or basketball. These kids count!

We're happy the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act gets/keeps them in school. And we've got a new and improved M-V bill that may someday make its way through Congress and become law. (To help, sign this petition to your Senator.)

HEAR US, my organization, works with schools and communities to help them identify and understand homelessness by letting them hear from the kids themselves, the experts. My Own Four Walls, our collection of documentaries (DVD), lets them rip on how it feels to be a kid without a home. They're powerful.

If we keep going the way we've been headed (no doubt we will), we'll have bunches of homelessness experts. Too many to count. And we'll have squandered the opportunity to make sure these kids had what they needed to be successful adults--simple things like a modest place to live with their families or on their own, adequate nutrition, health care. And we'll have a bumper crop of homeless adults.

Seems to me that between shenanigans and squandering, our nation is quite busy. Too busy to make sure homeless kids count? While the Obama administration is doing a little, it's way too little and will be too late if we don't ramp up those efforts NOW! Consider it a test of what's really important....

Little Reasons to Remember

2009-12-17T16:34:00.000-08:00

One memory forever etched in my shelter director memory is a painful one--a funeral of a little baby whose life began at our shelter with his parents. The miniature white coffin, donated by a funeral home, held the tiny body that had brought so much joy to his parents just days before.

As I recall, the cause of death was SIDS. But the cause of death was lost in the heartache of parents and friends who gathered on the wintery day to say good-bye to this little loved one.

Some would be surprised to learn that people without homes have love. In society's bumbling way of handling challenges, we tend to dehumanize, reducing our guilt and feelings of inadequacy. When "John" and "Marie" buried their beloved baby, their uphill plans for a post-shelter future were shattered.

We lose the gruesome reality that in America, the land of plenty, probably over a million little ones--babies and tykes--face a life that starts with a great deficit. Even factoring in loving parent/s, when a baby's formation years--the most crucial time of an infant's development--are spent struggling for survival--the core of homelessness for children--then the playing field is mud-filled. Sure they can make it, but hardships take a devastating toll.

Poverty, the root cause of homelessness, continues to be the darkness in this great country. We allow it to sap the life from infants to elderly women and men. We find energy, attention and resources to expend on the trivial, and wonder why the substance of society crumbles around us.

Seems to me it's time to move forward to the LIGHT--a respect for life that includes people of all walks of life, the young, old and in-between. On this day marking the beginning of the season of light, each one of us can decide how important life is--for ourselves and for those around us. And, assuming each of us grasps the hope of Solstice, we can move forward, in whatever way our heart leads, to do whatever we can do to hold life sacred. We shouldn't have to prematurely bury babies, children, teens or adults who perish in our abundantly blessed land because they lacked the basics of life.

Sweet Victory for a Monday Morning!

2009-12-08T19:24:00.000-08:00

Being connected is a good thing sometimes. This weekend I received an email via the HEAR US website.

Hello I currently reside in Houston Tx and I thought I had a clear understanding of a child with no permanent address being allowed to go to school where ever obviously I was wrong. On Dec 4 2009 my granddaughter was withdrawn from school after being interrogated and left tearful.Before the school year started my daughter checked with the district and they said it was fine for her to be enrolled in school out of the area where we were staying with no permanent address bu to notify them when we did have an address

It's these kind of situations that make me glad I do what I do, and that we a strong, simple law that guides school districts on the right course of action. After playing phone tag, we finally connected late Sunday evening, after midnight in Houston. I only hesitated a moment when calling that late, knowing this grandmother was going to need help in a few short hours.

She was awake and glad I called. She explained the situation, that she, her daughter, and granddaughter live together in an apartment temporarily provided by her pastor who couldn't stand the thought of them sleeping in their car. This arrangement is coming to an end soon; the place is being sold.

But in the meantime, in snowy Houston on Friday, the granddaughter's school made plans to close at noon so no one would be snowed in. Calls and emails went to parents to pick up the kids. The grandmother usually provided transportation but was unable to be reached, and some confusion unfolded at the school with the granddaughter and school staff.

It is usually the confusion that "tips off" the school that something is askew with residency. Evidently that's what happened. Sadly, I've seen this happen; vigilante mentality takes over. It can be ugly.

The grandmother she hid this withdrawal decision from her granddaughter and got on the Internet. Somehow she found the HEAR US website, and figured that HEAR US might be able to help, thus her email to me.

Talking to her that evening, she shared some of her struggles--loss of housing due to mental illness that caused her to lose a job. Both she and her daughter, the girl's mother, work. Between them they try to pull in enough to make housing payments, but once you get behind, it's tough to catch up.

They've stayed in her car, in motels, and with friends. Now they're in this apartment, outside the district where the girl attends school. GM drives her to school. I could tell school was important--to both of them.

Based on what the GM described and according to the McKinney-Vento law, the girl appeared to be homeless. Since this school was where she attended before, she should be able to stay there if the family chooses. And, the district should provide transportation, free lunch, and supplies, among other things. I directed the GM to our REACH film, available for free viewing online, which outlines the M-V law in a mere 11-minutes. And I gave her language to request the "dispute resolution" process if things went bad.

I wished her luck and asked her to call to let me either intervene if necessary or to tell me how it went. And I crawled into bed.

Early that morning, the GM called. She was ecstatic! She succeeded in asserting her granddaughter's rights. OH YEA! She felt so good about this, and was so grateful for my help. Me, I was extremely grateful that she found me, and delighted to help.

Such a sweet experience, which makes today's release of the 2009 US Conference of Mayors annual homeless/hunger report so pathetic.

Knowing what I do about how these things go, this report, for whatever good intention might be behind it, does nothing but add more confusion to the definition of homelessness.

You see, this GM's family doesn't fall under the definition of "homeless" because they're not staying at a HUD-funded shelter or sleeping on the streets. So they don't count.

Seems to me this nation's mayors need a lesson in Homelessness 101. I know just the teacher. She's a GM from Houston, and she knows her stuff. If you're so inclined, sign our online petition (and spread the word!) to strengthen this law further. You'll be easing the way for some grandparents, parents and caretakers have tools to fight for their kids' education. Maybe the kids will run for mayor....

Gift of Education for Homeless & Foster Care Kids

2009-11-28T14:12:00.000-08:00

Try to imagine having no home, and/or no parents. For millions of kids in this country, this is a devastating, regular experience. Frequently it means being ripped from school--the one stability in kids' lives. And you, my friend, are in a position to give an invaluable gift to these kids! NO MONEY needed!

Way over 1.5 million kids in this country are homeless, some with/without parents. Almost a million more are in the often dysfunctional foster care system. For these kids, educational access and stability is vital.

Fortunately, hard-working advocates and enlightened members of Congress have created and just (11/09) introduced 2 important pieces of legislation:

Educational Success for Children without Homes Act of 2009 (S. 2800), and
Fostering Success in Education Act of 2009 (S. 2801)

I can only imagine what things are like in Congress as the "big" issues get hashed over. Probably worse than Black Friday mobs. Frankly, I'm happy to be out here in California now, getting ready to film some Learning Curve Express interviews in Sacramento. But I know that these 2 bills, just introduced in the Senate, will have better chances to pass if we can rattle the cages of our senators now.

Sure, you're busy. Holidays and all that stuff. If you take a moment to contact your Senators, I can guarantee a few things:

You won't die from it! In fact, you might feel like you've done something worthwhile.
You'll be among a small group of crazy dedicated advocates fighting for these obscure, yet critically important issues.
Homeless kids, and kids in foster care, will be much better off for a chance to succeed in school. Think of it as your gift for them!

You don't need to be an expert. All the info you need is available on the HEAR US website, thanks to my good friend and ultra-awesome advocate Barbara Duffield of NAEHCY.

Seems to me that the happiest people I know are the ones that take time to do something for others. Get yourself set up on Open Congress.org, and follow the prompts to contact your Senators. Or sign and circulate this HEAR US petition. You'll be giving an invaluable gift to kids for years to come, and you don't have to stand in line!

Raising Awareness Gains Momentum!

2009-11-23T07:14:00.001-08:00

This is the last day of the Paso Robles Film Festival where our film, My Own Four Walls, which gives voice and visibility to homeless kids, was screened. Being invited to share this short piece with the audience, which includes digital streaming, is a great opportunity!

I will make my way to Sacramento, where homeless families and teens will share their stories with me about living doubled-up and in motels for our Learning Curve Express project. They don't get counted as homeless, but they are. They've lost housing due to hardships, and typically live nomadic stress-filled lifestyles that make it all but impossible to get back on their feet.

To get an idea of what I'm doing, check out this news clip that originated on Fox Chicago last Friday. It got picked up by the Huffington Post and is getting broad coverage.

And here's a great idea if you would like to help raise the visibility of poverty and homelessness on the Internet. A cyber-friend, Jan, is promoting a simple, but effective, way to begin to tilt the scales on behalf of homeless and poor people in this country. Check out her blog.

Seems to me that as we pour billions of government and private dollars into dubious causes and projects, the crumbs from the table could go a long way to ease what is real suffering for the ever-increasing numbers of homeless families and teens in America. Don't tell me we don't have the money for this. The only shortage is political will.

photo by the author

Adults Struggle, Kids Suffer

2009-11-14T08:53:00.000-08:00

No surprise, a recent NYT article describes behind-the-walls suffering when a parent is under/unemployed. Think of how many households are in that crisis. Then we'll think about the families who don't even have a house, or are in process of losing theirs.

Never in my 25 years of working on the issue of homelessness have I seen economic and systemic failures leaving millions facing peril. Homelessness is a "mere" symptom. We've been totally distracted by the hyper-focus on the issues de jour, ignoring the fact that millions of Americans face catastrophic realities each day. Poverty, with its octopus-like tentacles sucking life from the majority of our country, needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.

I'm one week into a 26+ week backroads tour of our country, the LEARNING CURVE EXPRESS, to let homeless families and teens who don't make the federal definition of homeless by some ill-conceived bureaucratic standard share their stories. It's been an inspiring, dismaying process so far. Check the short interviews on the LCE site. Share them with your networks.

Seems to me if we have the supposed vast social networking capabilities, we should be able to make it work for us. Hopefully fund-raising will pick up--because the 3 grant request reject letters we received before I shoved off don't bode well for foundation support. HEAR US has accomplished lots in our 4 years of this unconventional approach to advocacy. With more and more people falling into the vortex of poverty, we have our work cut out for us. Join us!

Most Invisible Because They're Tiny

2009-10-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

Warning. If your heart breaks easily, this will break your heart. But sometimes we need to do that so we can get fired up. As homelessness surges upward like out of control flood waters, swirling around unnoticed are thousands of babies. It's a horrible picture, but it's one that we need to look at, and act.

I filmed this 4-minute video, Life is But a Dream, with touching song by one of my favorite songsters, Sara Thomsen, while in Boston a couple weeks ago, joining with the MA Campaign to End Child Homelessness.

Since I was stuck in their tiny parking lot until staff left, I asked if I could hang with the little ones with my video camera. Staff at the amazing Horizons for Homeless Children agreed.

What most people fail to realize, even those of us working with homeless families, is that according to a recent report by the National Center on Family Homelessness over 40% of homeless children are under the age of 5.

Those kids have the most to lose by a continued life of homelessness. But we all lose. It cost more. We deal with the aftermath of thousands of deprived lives, as these babies represent. And state budget cuts just announced in MA (to be followed in many other states) will make things horribly worse.

So, please watch this 4-minute video. It will inspire and infuriate you. Maybe it will move you. If so, check the HEAR US Compassion Epidemic page. Do something.

Seems to me it's time for people across this land that profess to be religious, spiritual, and caring to put the beliefs to work. Don't make me explain what happens when these neglected babies grow into adults.

top photo (c) Pat Van Doren

Learning Curve Express Rolling!

2009-10-11T16:34:00.000-07:00

The HEAR US LEARNING CURVE EXPRESS gives homeless families and teens a chance to be heard. And they need it like never before. In the dozens of years I've been working on this issue, the plight of homeless families and youth, as well as single adults, has never been more dismal.

Yes, we have a new administration in DC. President Obama, with his plate chock-full of critical issues, is trying his best. But it's not good enough. And lots of "other forces" are competing--with lots more resources and, well, let's say less compassion.

We're moving into winter--not that weather is the only dire factor with homelessness--but it's not to be ignored. Especially for kids.

Families and youth often don't get into shelters. Some communities don't have shelters. Sometimes people don't qualify for emergency housing or opt out for a variety of reasons--work schedule conflicts with shelter curfews, older boys are not allowed at the family shelter, pets are not allowed, etc. So they turn to a patchwork quilt of friends, family and/or motels. Or sleep in vehicles or tents. It's often not a pretty sight. (articles about homeless families/youth)

So far I've interviewed:

Laura and her 2 teen sons, from a rural town in Indiana, bounces from her parent's dilapidated single-wide trailer to other family and friends. They sleep on the floor. The trailer has holes in the floor and the family is too poor to pay for repairs.

From DeKalb, IL, Cathy and her 3 daughters struggled in a variety of places, family and friends' houses and expensive motels. All had their painful downsides.

In DuPage County (IL), Jacob and his sister tell of life in motels, where the entire family crammed in and tried to endure.

These families and teens on their own haven't registered a blip on the convoluted agenda driving Congressional priorities. But they need to.

So these courageous spokespersons will be sharing their stories with viewers everywhere, including their members of Congress. HEAR US will facilitate, but these experts will shine a light on this often invisible plight. (watch for these stories soon!)

HEAR US is joining forces with the National Center on Family Homelessness and their End Child Homelessness campaign. We're not kidding. We need to end child homelessness NOW!

If you want to help, check our HEAR US Compassion Epidemic info and alerts. Or not.

Seems to me if we can ignore homeless kids in this country, it takes us down a slippery slope. I don't want to go there. I bet you don't either.

photos by the author

Even in the 'System' Families Get Lost

2009-09-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

I knew I'd be angry. But I went anyhow, volunteering at the DuPage PADS shelter (above, volunteers set up in the church gym) last Thursday night, helping my friend Jan with children's activities.

In one of the most affluent counties in the country, on the edge of Chicago, homeless families and adults are given less attention than homeless pets. That is not to disparage gallant efforts of the DuPage PADS program and their volunteers, but to point to gross inadequacies of funding and support for a more comprehensive effort.

This pristine county reflects a lifestyle many areas couldn't dream of: the median price of houses is $300+k, family poverty hovers under 4% of the 928,000 residents, and schools and recreation are regarded as top-notch. But they have homelessness, including a growing number of families.

The DuPage PADS executive director Carol Simler was recently quoted in a newspaper article, "...through the end of June, they saw homeless families increase by 119, or 49 percent, over the previous fiscal year. That included 152 children, a 43 percent increase from the previous year, and 75 of those children were under age 5."

What angered me as I interacted with families at PADS is their inability to get out of this totally inadequate way of living--some families have been there over 2 years! Imagine you and your kids schlepping to a different place to sleep each night, bedding down on the floor with dozens of others, and getting shuffled out by 7 each morning to make your way cross-county to the next shelter site--and doing it as a regular way to live for years! Their reasons for being stuck are complex, but shouldn't be insurmountable. But they need help!

One family uses bikes, not a bad transport in good weather, and they have the rickshaw contraption hooked to the back to transport their 2 growing kids to the shelter of the night. With nasty IL winter approaching I can't even think about what this would be like.

Just what does this say about society where some live in mega-mansions and some live without a place to call home? Many volunteers seem numb to the reality spilling through the doors before them, and church life goes on despite the suffering down in the gym. Thursday they had a photographer shooting portraits of well-groomed and healthy families for the church directory, and the choir echoed harmonious hymns in the sanctuary as they tuned up for Sunday's services.

Before ranting at my naivete, I know some families are hard to serve, and they may defy guidelines set by programs working with homeless families. But, come on, what's keeping us from providing more intensive services and housing for families--not hope-bashing pads on the floor in an overnight emergency shelter?

Oh yeah, money. Here's something people can do: Demand that Congress quits spending $2.7 BILLION a DAY on war. Spend a year using $2.7 billion a day on families in this country who have fallen through every crack possible.

Seems to me that it is cost-effective to create comprehensive solutions to homelessness. But the only time we seem to be cost effective is when we're cutting programs to the poor. No wonder we have such a mess! And these are the families HUD counts, not the uncounted invisible ones in motels and doubled up with others. That's why I'm hitting the road on Sunday for the Learning Curve Express.

photos by Diane Nilan

Need Inspiration?

2009-09-21T16:31:00.000-07:00

When I need a shot of "I can do this,"
I turn to my favorite kids and an inspiring song.
These courageous kids volunteered to stand up infront of audiences far and wide,
via our "My Own Four Walls" DVD
and share their plight and dreams
with the hope that viewers would
be moved to
DO SOMETHING
to EASE and END
HOMELESSNESS.

I share these kids and the song with you.

Soaring, Surging, Way Out of Control

2009-09-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

Can't say I'm surprised at the latest news about numbers of homeless kids exploding all across this fine country.

Sad because, in addition to the trauma that kids endure, this problem isn't bound to improve for a considerable amount of time.

Ever tell a kid to wait a bit, that things will get better? Their impatience puts pressure on the adults who promised improvement. Right now the pressure is on schools, struggling with a host of other issues, mostly funding-related, as they get swamped by homeless students.

Ever look at a youngster's face and know things are tough--and will remain painful--for a long time? What can you say?

I think it boils down to adults not getting it, or not prioritizing the well-being of kids. What gets in the way? Distorted politics, greed, and a sense of disconnect from what used to be perceived as kids from the other side of the tracks.

But now, with numbers of identified school-age kids shooting past 1 million (meaning even more than that--kids, younger and older, those hidden from plain sight), it's kids from both sides of the tracks losing their places to live.

I wish I could say I'm surprised. But I'm not. It's one of a multitude of "perfect storm" scenarios that are swirling around our beleaguered country. And, until our leaders learn to play well together, we're going to see more kids we know, with and without families, losing their homes.

Seems to me it's time to call a time-out on the "Red Rover" game. Instead of trying to destroy the other side, it's way past time to join hands together and see if we can salvage things before they get worse. But that means the bullies on the playground need to quit bullying. The principal better have a deep bag of tricks.

Photos C Diane Nilan

Here's Part of the Problem...

2009-08-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

Deep in the South, in Mississippi, a state that registers 41th for child homelessness according to the National Center on Family Homelessness report "America's Youngest Outcasts", I made a discovery. People here aren't mean or callous on this issue. They just don't know--as in don't see family/youth homelessness in front of them.

"We take care of our own," explained one educator at the MS Dept. of Education Homeless Conference I presented at this week in their quiet capitol city of Jackson. She explained that when a family was having "hard times (i.e. homeless)" that others took them in. Often the local church gets involved.

And that is fine and good on one level. But consider one drawback--not identifying the root problem for what it is--a family lacks the resources/abilities to survive and thrive on their own--prevents those in power, the government, from knowing family/youth poverty and homelessness is a problem. So it goes on and on...

That seemed to be a common dilemma for rural folks, where shelters and agencies are non-existent to begin with, that people make do thanks to outstanding hospitality of family, friends and neighbors.

This state has identified over 11,000 homeless children. Conventional wisdom is multiply that number by 2 or 3 to factor in the invisible kids. Actually, with over 260,000 MS children living in poverty, figure a minimal 10% will experience homelessness. 26,000 children in Mississippi with no place to call home....

Seems to me that it's time to reframe the issue so legislators and other policymakers can get a clue. Let those with the nice houses, the mansions along the Gulf, the spacious stately abodes on moss-draped streets, the historic governor's mansion, you know, the rich folks...let them be the ones to take in the families having trouble. We'd soon have some forward movement on a long-ignored issue.

Good Ship USS USA Going Down?

2009-08-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

Imagine a ship filled with passengers and crew, an adequate vessel owned by a wealthy, respected maritime corporation.

The ship fairly capably sails for a long time, and passengers and crew are mostly satisfied. But, unbeknownst to the passengers and the lower-ranking, least respected crew members—those who do the grungy grunt work—things are drastically changing.

Instead of plotting the course, the officers, including previous Captains, have spent a lot of time plotting how to have better accommodations and more control, at the expense of both passengers and the “non-essential” crew. This top-down systemic mutiny doesn’t happen with one swing of the sword, but as a gradual, noticeable change in the way things happen and how the ship's supplies are divvied up.

Soon it becomes apparent that because of the redistribution of space and materials, something has to give. With little fanfare, lowest ranking crew gets tossed overboard; then passengers, the least-affluent, up through the ranks. Finally, only the elite members of the crew remain and a handful of very lucky, and very wealthy, passengers who were able to buy their safety.

To say operations became dysfunctional is an understatement. Despite the need for crew and passengers for balance, the ship kept churning, although in erratic circles. Without adequate sailors and crew, the ship hits a hidden shoal, seriously damaging its hull. Abandon ship! Anarchy reigns....

The good ship USA is off course. Alienation is the norm. Thrashing, desperate former ship occupants and crew scramble to get on the lifeboats as the USS USA starts to list further to the right. The elite passengers and crew struggle to repel the invaders. With incredible help from the waterlogged masses, a new Captain, determined to rescue the ousted passengers and crew, fights his way on board and makes his way to the top deck.

Now what?

Take the above analogy and apply it to the current health care debate, or affordable housing/homelessness issues, racism, sexism, fair wages, environment, or any conundrum between the “haves” and the “have-nots.”

We're at a time in our country's history when more people are disenfranchised than ever. Homelessness among families, teens and single adults has blown off the charts. Poverty is spreading like wildfire thanks to those who schemed to gain control of even more money and power by sabotaging national and global economic engines.

Don't tell me that we CAN'T improve things. We can't afford to fail. Remember, we've managed to make progress on many essential issues, but every time we crawl onto the lifeboat we let some big brute stomp on our fingers and kick us off.

Seems to me that the only hope is for a strong voice of reason to be heard above the cacophonous cries of the self-interested mutineers. They need to walk the plank. Captain Obama and the masses need to get our mass-asses together and kick some ass. We may have to out-mutiny the mutineers....

NOTE: The New York Times ran a powerful op-ed column about poverty by Barbara Eherenreich, one of my s-heroes. It's worth reading, pondering and sharing! DDN

Make Up For Lost Time?

2009-07-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

Diane the Contrarian, ever vigilant, is not holding her breath. Nope.

The recent influx of $1.5 billion stimulus dollars to address homelessness will help some folks move off the streets, but...500 cities getting funding? My quick Google check led me to a Census Bureau page that listed 718 cities over 50k. What happens to the cities that don't get funds--the unselected out of the 718 and the little ones?

What happens to the little ones--as in kids--who find themselves in the wrong place, with the wrong family at the wrong time? I've been astounded by the plethora of stories across the country talking about homeless families and youth. Seems to me we've given up on those who have no voice. Are we glossing over the big problem--poverty and its many ills--and tossing money at housing?

A recent NY Times article by one of my favorite poverty/homelessness writers Erik Eckholm pointed to a little-mentioned reality in our war on crime--the kids whose parent(s) go to jail, often leaving the kids to fend for themselves. These are the kids we should be worrying about instead of throwing good money after bad at banks, Wall Street, and the like. HEAR US has focused on this population, hoping at least to stabilize the education of children who end up homeless when a parent is incarcerated.

I'd point out what is obvious to me--that our quick-fix schemes--war on drugs, crime, poverty, etc.--seems to hurt those "we" purport to help. And someone else gets rich in the end. We're all responsible--it's our tax dollars being spent by our elected officials.

A perfect example of capitalism gone awry is found in a fascinating account of the Las Vegas housing market's rise and fall. This is worth listening to if you want to know, in simple terms that will disgust the average listener, how our so-called sophisticated financial system deteriorated by greed-mongers.

Seems to me that the best intentions of President Obama may be thwarted by the evil ways of money-grabbers. I will be happily surprised if this round of funds to alleviate homelessness doesn't make the rich even richer.

Learning Disability in Congress

2009-06-20T11:21:00.000-07:00

I took this pix of Congressman Foster (guy with the suit) who recently met with constituents who stood in line on a Saturday morning in a freezing cold grocery store's bakery department. Despite the discomfort, it was worth it because he admitted to me that he "blew" the issue of the definition of homelessness.

I'm back. A week's vacation, tech issues and an unplanned week dealing with a family emergency knocked me out of the box for the past month. Hope I was missed! For those who can't get enough of my insights, I'm still doing a weekly piece for Change.org's Poverty in America blog.

A while back I decided to take advantage of a Google feature that lets me be notified once a day of stories and blogs on the topics of my choice. My keywords: homeless children, homeless teens, homeless students.

I rightly figured that those 3 would keep me busy. Since doing that, I've been astounded about the fairly significant news coverage of these issues. No reports of a dearth of homeless kids, quite the opposite, to no surprise. Some stories report gallant efforts, some tragic happenings. Accounts filter in from across the nation, from places I know and those I've never heard of, despite 4 years on our country's backroads.

I've found myself pondering one question: With what seems to be common knowledge of the existence and plight of America's homeless kids, why is the learning curve so steep for Congress?

I just left for my vacation when Congress passed and President Obama signed the reauthorization of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, the piece that governs HUD's homelessness efforts. While some improvements have been made, I was glad I was out of town and without phone/internet access.

The key issues some of us were hoping for did not pass, despite a herculean effort. Instead, a much-flawed version is set to become law, fortunately for just 2 years instead of the customary 5 year period.

A good story about a house-less family in a no-tell motel in affluent DuPage County (IL) ran this week on Chicago's Fox TV. Mark Saxenmeyer, the reporter, put together a compelling piece that included a poster-child family (mom, dad and 2 boys) who have spent a year in a motel. Chicago Coalition for the Homeless rep and my friend, Rene Heybach, did a superb job emphasizing the issues.

Seems to me steep learning curves need special vehicles. HEAR US plans to be that vehicle. Soon I will announce the game plan. But in the meantime, I'll be glued to my computer, reading about the problem some in Congress think we don't have--kids living without homes in our great nation.

Can It Get Uglier?

2009-05-14T07:19:00.000-07:00

Compared to issues like water-boarding, steroids in baseball, and the economy, the DEFINITION of HOMELESS gets little attention. But to the little people affected by this issue, way over 1.5 homeless children and youth, it's a critical issue, one that seems to be going down the toilet.

According to our homeless children/teen "lobbyist" Barbara Duffield, hopes in DC are at the lowest point ever for negotiating improvements in the definition of homelessness to include the population missed thus far--families and teens who are "outside" the system.

HUD seems to be fighting this effort to expand the definition to include families and teens in motels, doubled-up with others, or outside the sparse HUD-funded shelter system. Big cities--with their big power--seem to be behind some of this strange behavior, maybe because they get funding to get those "chronic" homeless adults off the streets. I dunno...

In the meantime, in Georgia, walking along a highway, a wildly-determined 11-year-old Zach Bonner aims toward DC, wanting to meet with President Obama to raise awareness about homeless children, an issue that rightly appalls him. Zach started his nonprofit, Little Red Wagon Foundation, when he was 8. He's already walked from his home near Tampa to Tallahassee, then Tallahassee to Atlanta, taking important steps to walk the walk.

And I sit in Tillie--my RV home/office, desperately trying to help both Barbara and Zach's efforts. With technology at my fingertips, I can blog, call, and tweet. I'm pleading with people to:

Urge your congressperson to support HR 29, the Homeless Children and Youth Act, which expands the definition of homelessness to include kids identified by schools as "homeless" under the HUD definition.
Urge your congressperson to support the expanded definition as described in this document by sending the Piggies-format message.

Seems to me we need to convert the energy spent on changing the system into energy spent improving the hopes and dreams of kids without homes. In order to make that happen, lots of people are needed to rattle the cages of President Obama and legislators. Listen to Zach! And Make Homeless Kids Count!

Questions from ‘Mom’

2009-05-05T17:53:00.000-07:00

Truth be told, I'm not a mom. But I feel like it when it comes to the millions of homeless kids in our country. So, taking indecent liberties with that, I'm going to ask some serious questions as a mom:

President Obama

You publically stated at your March 24 press conference that "I'm heartbroken that any child in America is homeless." What does that really mean when your heart is broken?
Does it mean that your administration is ready to change the abysmal business as usual with HUD's homelessness policies that seem bent on ignoring homeless families and teens?

HUD Secretary Donovan

You represent a new era at HUD, one which has been long awaited. How much attention have you paid to the pending issue of the definition of homelessness?
Did you notice that the definition, a hold-over from the previous administration, absolutely slams the door on a significant number of homeless families and teens on their own?
Do you not have a different approach to addressing this heartbreaking issue?

Nan Roman, NAEH President

You and your organization, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, profess a commitment to, well, ending homelessness. Why are you supporting a definition of homelessness that excludes so many children and youth, making them more invisible and less likely to get the help they need to avoid homelessness as adults?
The definition of homelessness that you support requires kids who in motels or doubled-up situations to move around a lot before they are considered homeless – are you unaware of the research on the impact of mobility on child development?
You support a definition of homelessness that considers people in motels to be permanently housed unless they only have enough money to stay for 14 days. Do you really consider a motel room a home, adequate for raising children?
How many families and unaccompanied youth in motels or doubled-up situations have you spoken to directly? Can you really say that they are less vulnerable than those in shelters?
If the same youth moves from shelter to couch to motel, are they less homeless when they land a spot on a couch or in a motel?

Kevin Chappell, Senior Editor, Ebony

What led up to your question posed to President Obama at the March 24 press conference about homeless children? Were you satisfied with the President's answer?
Are you aware of current legislative "shenanigans" that will essentially put into place a very restrictive definition of homelessness that in effect doesn't count or adequately address the unmet needs of millions of homeless families and teens?
What would you like to ask the President about this issue to further shine light on our nation's abysmal failure to house and care for families in poverty?

Readers and people of compassion across this nation (CLICK HERE FOR 2 1/2 min. video)

Since homeless families/teens are in effect being bullied by the system, are you willing to fight back on their behalf?
Do you think our nation needs to ensure that children, teens, families and other vulnerable people have a roof over their heads and access to help to move out of homelessness?
Will you step up and advocate for this to happen? (link to advocacy info)

Seems to me that it's way past time to reach way down to the most ignored populations in this country and give them a hand-up. That's what moms do every day.

The Longest 100 Days--Now What?

2009-04-30T09:38:00.000-07:00

I'd be the last one to fault President Obama for overlooking one very important task, reshaping this nation's homelessness policies. He's had a few things to do since moving into Pennsylvania Avenue.

My Facebook page just served a rare purpose: giving me good news. My quick peruse of my friends' posts led me to the one from Timothy Harris about the pending resignation of Phil Mangano, who for the past 7 years led our nation's deteriorating homelessness policies as the head of the Interagency Council on Homelessness.

I have heard PM speak a few times. I've read some fairly negative stuff (though I can't argue the point), including this blog. I've spoken with city officials who had to deal with him, much to their dismay. I've heard from providers who decry (privately, as not to jeopardize their funding) the Continuum of Care and Point-in-Time count, and the way they have to shift their focus to fit HUD's demands.

But the clincher was last summer when my video partner, Laura Vazquez, and I tried to interview him for our documentary about homeless families. This pre-arranged interview was in Springfield, IL. We shared our purpose and questions, so as not to "Michael Moore" him.

And, after he blew off our morning appointment, we had to follow him around all day. Finally, 13 hours after our initial time, having listened to way more PM than I would ever choose, we got him for a few minutes. As I wired him and he was sitting down, he said, "I sure hope you're not going to ask me about those kids..." or something very much to that effect.

Laura was much better than I could have been. "Yes, Mr. Mangano, that's exactly what we're here for, just as we had told your 'people' as we arranged this..." or something like that.

The interview as I remember was just a waste of time.

Me, I seethed as I stood behind the camera that was too expensive to toss his way. I couldn't quite control myself when, after the interview, he made a remark that insinuated that communities wanting to serve homeless families and teens could do so if they chose. I disagreed, knowing a bit how HUD funds programs, or not, depending on compliance with policies and priorities, stated and implied.

Then Laura disagreed with a remark he made about statistics. Between the 2 of us, we probably ruined his night. He stormed off, shouting at us as he crossed the hall to leave. We stood there, not really knowing what to make about the show of anger that far exceeded a typical disagreement.

It gave us plenty to talk about on the 3-hour ride back to DeKalb. It's given me plenty of food for thought, to the point when President Obama was elected and his Change.gov site was opened for people wanting to work for his administration, I submitted my application for Executive Director of the Interagency Council.

It wasn't that I don't like what I'm doing with HEAR US. Quite the contrary. But after seeing the mess that this country has made of trying to address homelessness and poverty I couldn't hold back if I felt I'd be able to do a better job. That's how I've gotten many of my jobs in the past--complaining about a wrong but being willing to do something about it.

The person being considered (or perhaps already decided) reportedly is someone tied to the "chronic homelessness" crowd that has been opposing our campaign to expand the definition of homelessness. Described by one of my colleagues as "Phil-lite," it's hard to imagine that this person would take a drastic step away from the current direction of addressing "chronic" homelessness of single adults. He's a big city guy...so his knowledge of rural and non-urban homelessness may be limited.

But the biggest reason for concern at this point is that whoever gets the job needs to expand this nation's focus on homelessness to include the millions of invisible families and teens. It's a big job.

Seems to me that our window of opportunity has at least 4 years (minus 100 days). Time's a-wasting, especially in the eyes of the children who have no place to call home.

baby crying photo courtesy of Pat Van Doren