Seeking oil spill work,
homeless fill Gulf Coast shelters
The director of the homeless service center
15 Place in downtown Mobile calls them "rainbow chasers" -- unemployed, sometimes unemployable, people who've come to Mobile in hopes of striking oil cleanup gold.
"I would say easily since the debacle began, particularly in the last 60 or 70 days, we get two new people a day," 15 Place Director Lyn Manz-Walters said. "I'm sure every city on the Gulf Coast would tell you the same thing."
One man took a bus from out of state to Mobile after seeing reports on TV. He firmly believed he'd be paid $1,500 a day plus per diem.
"They're not so much stupid as they are desperate," Manz-Walters said.
Read the
Mobile Press-Register report
here.
Mayor urges homeless to leave Transbay Terminal
"Go away, man!" Kolinio Waqairawai hollered at Mayor Gavin Newsom at first. But after they talked, he agreed to accept the mayor's offer of housing.San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom visited a homeless encampment as part of a final push by city officials to find homes for about 30 die-hards who have used the soon-to-be-demolished Transbay Terminal and its web of overpasses as a shelter for years, repeatedly resisting the city's stepped-up efforts to get them into transitional housing.
Calling the
Transbay Terminal home won't be an option in a week. That's when demolition is scheduled to start.
As soon as Newsom finished chatting with Kolinio Waqairawai, three city outreach workers approached him to try to formalize an agreement to move him into his own room in a single-resident occupancy hotel, where he will stay for free until permanent housing is found. Sometimes people agree to go and then change their minds; other times, hotel rooms aren't available and people are placed in shelters before housing is arranged. The process averages about six months, Newsom said.
"People end up doing six years on the street because they didn't want to do six months in a transition," Newsom said. "That's the most frustrating part."
Read the
San Francisco Chronicle report
here. And see previous post
here.
Florida has third-largest uninsured population in nation
Florida had the third-largest uninsured population in the nation in 2007, with more than 24% of its population lacking health insurance, according to the latest figures released by the United States Census Bureau.
Texas lead the nation with 26.8% uninsured, followed by New Mexico, with 26.7%. The Census Bureau placed the percentage of people without health insurance nationally at 15.3% in 2007.
A closer look at Florida-specific data shows that DeSoto County had the highest percent of uninsured residents in the state in 2007, with 37% of the population lacking insurance. Miami-Dade County led the pack with the largest number of uninsured people in the state, with 602,000 residents lacking coverage in 2007.
Read the
Florida Tribune report
here.
It's closing time ... but will the homeless leave?
Counselor Jason Albertson arranges a spot in a shelter for Ed Jones (right), who was sleeping in the terminal.There are as many as 140 homeless people sprawled every night across the ancient wooden benches inside San Francisco's Transbay Terminal or in dozens of tents alongside the outside walls.
At one minute after midnight on Aug. 7, the 1939-vintage terminal will be closed for demolition, to make way for construction of a gleaming, glass-walled showpiece of transit glory. The complex is to be cleared of all people -- which, at that hour, will mean dozens who are still clinging to vain hopes that they can keep sleeping in the hulking terminal despite daily warnings that the wrecking ball is on its way.
Jason Albertson, leader of the city Homeless Outreach Team working to clear the terminal, said getting the crowd of homeless men and women out before demolition day and into services or housing is one of the most daunting tasks he's ever faced.
"It's comparable in terms of having a whole lot of people with a whole lot of issues with a deadline," Albertson said. "Some folks have been here as long as 20 years. They've made it their home, and now we have to tell them it's not their home anymore. That isn't easy."
About 35 of them are so mentally ill or physically disabled they need special medical care, Albertson said, making them harder to relocate.
Read the
San Francisco Chronicle report
here.
College student lives among Lakeland's homeless
Southeastern University student Brian Seeley, right, sits with his friend Donna Leslie outside a day labor facility. Leslie didn't get work that day, and says it's hard for women to get day labor.After his classes at Southeastern University ended in May, Brian Seeley began living on the streets among the homeless. He's not doing it as a project or as part of a program, although Southeastern is allowing the experience to be counted as a summer internship. He's doing it, he said, just to show solidarity with people he has come to know over the past couple of years.
"It doesn't parallel being homeless at all. The emotions are not the same. I'm not pretending to be homeless. I'm being present with my homeless friends as they walk through it," he said.
Most days, Seeley follows the kind of hand-to-mouth existence that is a way of life for the homeless - looking for meals, wandering around the vicinity, congregating with others in the same circumstances, seeking shelter when it's hot or there's a thunderstorm.
Seeley makes it clear that what he is doing this summer is not just a personal pilgrimage. He has responsibilities, working one day a week at Tri-County Human Services in Bartow, helping with admissions and group therapy in the detox program.
"I thought I was going to give a lot, but I've received more than I've given," he said.
Seeley said he would like to dispel stereotypes about the homeless and get people to see them on an individual level.
"No one wants to be homeless. You look at a guy drinking and say, 'He just wants to do that all day.' But it might be that he's hopeless and turned to that," he said. "It's sad to get treated like a second-class citizen because of the poor circumstances you find yourselves in."
Read
The Ledger story
here.
Does "homeless dumping" happen?
Or is it the stuff of urban legend?
PolitiFact Florida -- which usually examines the truth of campaign ads -- has tackled the question of "homeless dumping," where cops from one city drive homeless people to another city, drop them off and leave.
St. Petersburg Council Chair
Leslie Curran claimed that other Pinellas cities are dumping their homeless in St. Pete. Her claim was based on a Tarpon Springs police officer's supposed statement that he had brought homeless folks there. As it turns out, he had transported exactly one, and that was to an alcohol rehabilitation center.
The Truth-o-meter rating: False.
Read the PolitiFact Florida report
here.
No drop in the bucket: County urges
motorists not to help panhandlers
Motorists shouldn't give to panhandlers, they should donate to charity instead, Palm Beach County commissioners agree.
The commission hopes to spread that message by launching a public awareness campaign designed to curb the number of panhandlers asking for cash at the county's busiest intersections.
Commissioners stopped short of an all out ban on panhandling, saying the awareness campaign would be a cheaper alternative. It costs the sheriff's office $130 a day to house a panhandler at the county's jail.
Commissioners also asked the county attorney's office to begin working on rules that would prohibit aggressive panhandling on county roadways.
Read the
Palm Beach Post report
here.
A Statement from Orlando Food Not Bombs
"
Orlando Food Not Bombs is not going anywhere. We will not slink out of Orlando because a court ruling goes against us.
Some accuse us of being "outside agitators," but we freely admit that our purposes are both humanitarian and political. Many of us live here, and it is our city, too. We will continue to share food at a location in or near downtown Orlando twice a week, as we have for more than five years. We do this because thousands of hungry people desperately need the food that we provide and because we truly believe that food is a right -- not a privilege.
"The City of Orlando, from Mayor Buddy Dyer on down, has provided ample evidence that it believes that food and human survival are mere privileges. They have repeatedly criminalized homelessness and dehumanized the poor and the homeless. Some of their more outrageous actions have included creating an undercover Orlando police unit to nab panhandlers and arresting an FNB member for the heinous crime of ladling out stew too many times (this involved 15 police officers!). We would love to know how many of our hard-earned tax dollars Dyer and his minions have squandered harassing the hungry, and opposing those who provide them with aid (without using one penny of public money).
"Orlando Food Not Bombs can not and will not stand down and allow an apartheid-like system of injustice based upon socio-economic status to go unchallenged. The court ruling was only part of one battle; our struggle for a freer, more equitable and compassionate society continues. We have partnered with other groups and individuals to organize and advocate in our community around issues such as poverty, jobs, support for the rights of workers and immigrants, gentrification, affordable housing, social services, and police accountability.
"We will hold local public officials accountable for how their decisions affect everyone--not just corporate and business interests and wealthy campaign donors. We will demand that they recognize that the greatness of a city is not measured by how much it can lavish on arenas and performing arts centers, but by how it treats the least among us. We will make the powerful listen and we will make them act.
"In closing, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks to our lawyer, Jacqueline Dowd. It is only due to Jackie's tireless efforts on our behalf that we have been able to share food at Lake Eola Park these last four years despite the City's anti-homeless food sharing ordinance. We esteem Jackie for her commitment to this cause and to the people with whom we share and to everyone in our community who is disadvantaged."
What Wall Street reform means
for tenants of foreclosed properties
When President Obama signs the
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law next week, at least two provisions will benefit tenants of foreclosed properties.
■ Makes clear that tenants can remain in their homes for 90 days after the date on which title to a property is transferred by a court order. The Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act provision which provides this protection referred to a "notice of foreclosure," and there had been some dispute about the meaning of that term. Now we know that the 90-day clock doesn't start until title to a property is transferred by a court order (or through a non-judicial foreclosure process in states other than Florida).
■ The bill extends the expiration date for the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act from the end of 2012 to the end of 2014.
*
The "food fight" in Orlando:
What's next?
Way back at the beginning of the food-sharing lawsuit, we told ourselves: “If we win, then we win. But even if we lose, we win.”
That’s because even then, in the summer of 2006, we were thinking about the big picture. What the First Vagabonds Church of God v. City of Orlando lawsuit accomplished was to bring the discussion of homelessness and poverty out into the open in Orlando, in a way that it never has before. Making sure that discussion continues is vitally important, and that will be an important consideration in deciding what the next steps will be.
Read the whole post over at the National Coalition for the Homeless blog
here.
Well, we lost ...
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the city of Orlando in the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of its ordinance restricting "large-group feedings."
I'll write more when I've had a chance to think a bit.
Read the First Vagabonds Church of God v. City of Orlando ruling
here.
