Burning Crisis In America--Ignoring Poverty

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

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 report 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.

Poverty and Homelessness: Call It What It Is!

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.