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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

"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?