Rough Sleepers September book club selection

Our book club assignment for September is Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder.  Here is a summary of a model program from 1985 to the present at its website with a description of the book. Our History | Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (bhchp.org)

"2023:  Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People by Tracy Kidder is published. Kidder tells the story of Dr. Jim O’Connell, (Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program) BHCHP’s founding physician and the BHCHP Street Team as they offer medical care and friendship to “rough sleepers”, our patients living on the streets. Tracy Kidder, a Pulitzer prize-winning author followed the Street Team for 5 years resulting in this New York Times bestseller.

Rough Sleepers appears on the cover of the New York Times magazine with a 10,000-word author essay by Tracy Kidder and a photo montage of patients cared for by the BHCHP Street Team.

Barbara McInnis House respite program [in 2023] opens the Complex Addiction Treatment (CAT) team specializing in the respite care of people with active SUD using best practices from addiction medicine, harm reduction, and trauma informed models of care. This is a unique model of care: The team’s goals are 

(1) to provide effective care to respite patients at BMH who are at high risk for adverse outcomes related to drug use 

(2) to retain these patients in care at BMH to address the medical need(s) for which they were admitted and 

(3) to decrease triggers and trauma for patients in respite who are not using drugs by cohorting and better supporting patients for whom cessation of use is not an option."

Additional information

Find Immediate Homelessness Assistance | SAMHSA

Need Housing Assistance? - HUD Exchange

"SAMHSA’s SOAR program increases access to Social Security disability benefits for eligible children and adults who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness and have a serious mental illness, medical impairment, and/or co-occurring substance use disorder." However I found it so complex, I couldn't figure it out. Find Treatment Locators and Helplines | SAMHSA  Definitely would require a whole department of specialists. But I also looked at the number of applicants in 17 years this department has helped, and I was not impressed.

"Under federal disability rights laws, alcohol addiction, whether current or past, is typically considered a disability due to the effects it has on a person’s brain and neurological functions and is protected by the ADA. 7 On the other hand, though drug addiction is generally considered a disability, the ADA only allows protections for those in recovery and not currently engaging in illegal drug use. 7

Is Addiction a Disability? ADA Protections & Disability Benefits (americanaddictioncenters.org)

Dr. Jim O'Connell wrote a memoir in 2015. House Calls To The Homeless: A Doctor Treats Boston's Most Isolated Patients : Shots - Health News : NPR

Medicaids-Role-in-Housing-1.pdf (macpac.gov)

Thousands in Columbus are waiting for affordable, Section 8 housing (dispatch.com)

Research for Tracy Kidder book on Rough Sleepers

Our book club is reading Tracy Kidder's book, Rough Sleepers (2023). I was researching some of his information on homelessness, and saw the subtle but common myth some of our current burden was the Reagan policies "with its deep cuts in programs for the poor and policies that led to declines in the supply of inexpensive housing." ( p. 55) I'll skip over the housing supply (single room occupancy) because that is a local/city problem. I did find the article in "Behavorial health news," by Michael B. Friedman, which I then checked further, since it also brought up Reagan. Yes, there was a 1983 SSDI law passed to stop fraud and he signed it. Then it was revised twice in 1984 and actually eased the requirements so the disability awards shot up, not down. Since I was a Democrat then and only believed the worst about Reagan (same media treatment that Trump gets, and Bush before him) I had always believed Reagan was the reason people were put on the streets.

But as the author himself wrote, the deinstitutionalization which is closely tied to the SSDI recipients finding housing began in the 60s and 70s, long before Reagan was in the White House. And truly, one can't deny that most of the programs that make it to Congress and the White House begin in academe (where I worked). Congressmen are so busy raising money to campaign they have no time to dream up billions in social and economic programs, or even read the bills they vote on.

But I want to pass along two experiences with government programs for the disabled, one from the late 1960s and one from 2020. In the late 60s at church coffee hour I met a former pastor of the Church of the Brethren (Anabaptist tradition) who was a social worker in one of the rural Ohio residential institutions for the blind and deaf mentally challenged. It was in the process of "deinstitutionalizing" his clients because he said, "they deserved their civil rights like any other citizen." Joe was thrilled with the idea. At that time, I was a giddy humanist in my early 30s, so he convinced me they would do fine on the "outside" because there would be community programs and smaller homes (not yet established) that would help them. So, many of them lost the only home they knew and life long friends.

In October 2019, our son was diagnosed with glioblastoma. He was 51, employed and a homeowner with a mortgage, but no wife or adult children, only his 80 something parents. However, he could not work, especially not after the surgery and chemo which is the same "slash and burn" method of 30-40 years ago. The SSDI application was brutal. I can't imagine how anyone, let alone someone who has been on the streets, completes it. Our daughter who works in the medical field and her cousin who was a lawyer for Social Security in DC worked together on it. Probably took eight hours with both working on it. The sick, unemployed person usually waits 6 months--to prevent fraud (which vastly increased during Obama years as people lost their insurance). He died about 6 months and 1 week after the application went to Washington. He paid his bills with his IRAs and retirement account, he had family to help, and it was all used up in 6 months plus he was charged a penalty for closing out his retirement funds and he had to pay income tax on it (or rather his estate did since he was deceased).

Between the green local laws to save the environment which adds thousands to every home purchase/rental and the new codes for safety and transportation, all types of housing have become prohibitive. Plus this is not the 1930s culture where people let even cousins or childhood friends sleep or rent a room at their home. Let's not point fingers at the 40 year old Reagan administration; there has been plenty of mischief since then. 

Are you old enough to remember or have studied the housing shortage after WWII? Low income, inadequate housing was taken off the market through special codes. A lot of livable housing was condemned. There was no actual shortage. Reagan was a movie star then, not a politician. There were the same number of housing units in 1945 as in 1940--it was the liberal policies that destroyed them by law.

California has become a cesspool of homelessness by fixing the tax system with Prop 13 so no one would dare move and it weakened the tax revenue for supportive services. The grifting of non-profit agencies and probably thousands of California state employees to "fix" a problem has contributed to the now mushrooming homeless population who suffer from legal and illegal drugs, alcoholism, mental illness, illegal immigration, an aging population, lack of general life skills, and mentally challenged (probably some blind, deaf).

It wasn't Reagan and it isn't Trump. But it is government at all levels working with academe. It's liberal, pie in the sky programs that don't work which began in academe by people who need to publish and who don't live in reality or a low income neighborhoods.

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Growth of homelessness--who caused it? Reagan policies, loss of SRO housing, closing of institutional care facilities, 1968-1973 (about 1/3 of the increase), https://www-origin.ssa.gov/benefits/disability/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/04/08/how-americans-game-the-200-billion-a-year-disability-industrial-complex/

Why Are the Disability Rolls Skyrocketing? The Contribution of Population Characteristics, Economic Conditions, and Program Generosity, pp. 337-379, chapter 11 in "Health at Older Ages: The Causes and Consequences of Declining Disability among the Elderly" (2009) https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c11119/c11119.pdf  

Deinstitutionalization Did Not Cause Homelessness: Loss of Low-income Housing and Disability Benefits Did By: Michael B. Friedman, LMSW Mental Health Policy Advocate
April 1st, 2020 https://behavioralhealthnews.org/deinstitutionalization-did-not-cause-homelessness-loss-of-low-income-housing-and-disability-benefits-did/

"At the height of deinstitutionalization in New York (1968-1973), people who were discharged (with wildly inadequate discharge plans) were not homeless. Most went to live with family. Some went to adult homes. Many went to nursing homes because they had dementia. And quite a few went to single-room occupancy hotels (SROs) and other places where poor people lived. To be sure, this resulted in huge family burden, inadequate care in adult homes, transinstitutionalization to often unprepared nursing homes, and squalid sometimes dangerous living conditions in SROs and poor neighborhoods. But they were not literally homeless. In fact, the scandal that led to the creation of the community residence program for people with mental illness in NYS was not homelessness. It was the squalid and dangerous conditions in SROs."

San Francisco is dying according to native

"Elizabeth Weil detailed the crime, homelessness and human misery on display in San Francisco compared to the city’s pre-pandemic prosperity in a Wednesday article in New York Magazine. Her story included an apology to her fellow San Francisco residents for contributing to the barrage of stories about the city’s collapse.

“I’m sorry. I know … There’s always some story in the east-coast press about how our city is dying,” she wrote. “When I set out reporting, I wanted to write a debunking-the-doom piece myself. Yet to live in San Francisco right now, to watch its streets, is to realize that no one will catch you if you fall.” "

Journalist Goes On Quest To Debunk Blue City’s Bad Reputation, Instead Writes About It ‘Spiraling’ Out Of Control | The Daily Caller

California dreaming

Why are eggs so expensive in California? Over regulation for animal rights drives out egg farms.

Why are there so many homeless people in California? Over regulation of housing to meet green goals so only the rich live in neighborhoods that meet those requirements.

Why are there so many fires in California? Over regulation of forests to protect the environment. 

Why is gasoline so costly in California? Higher gas taxes to feed a hungry bureaucracy.

California's economy is larger than Germany's. Why are there so many poor people? Democrats.

Move over Detroit

"No major American city has failed at the same level as Detroit, whose population dropped from 1.85 million people in 1950 to about 630,000 today. Move over Detroit, here comes San Francisco, which lost 6.3 percent of its population between 2019 and 2021, a rate of decline larger than any two year-period in Detroit’s history and unprecedented among any major US city."

San Francisco Falls Into The Abyss | Hoover Institution San Francisco Falls Into The Abyss

. . . drug and crime issues, its poorly performing public schools, its homelessness, its extremely high cost of doing business, and other issues that people have tolerated for so long, . . .

While Pelosi has been ruining the lives of the rest us, she hasn't done much for her district.

A new podcast for me to explore

I've been enjoying podcasts by some of my favorite conservative speakers, thinkers, politicians and webcasters. Found this today, "10 blocks," by City Journal 10 Blocks Podcast | City Journal (city-journal.org)  and here's a snippet of the transcript:

"Now, [Friedrich] Hayek was best known during his lifetime as a lonely critic of socialism and central planning. In the 1940s, when his fellow economists were enthusiastically nationalizing industries and expecting the Soviet Union to soon overtake the West economically, he published an unlikely bestseller titled The Road to Serfdom. In that, he predicted that the central planners were doomed to fail because of overconfidence in their own knowledge, in their own expertise. He called this the fatal conceit. It was the title of a later book, too. Now, this idea was not very popular among Western intellectuals, but his ideas were an enduring inspiration to reformers trapped behind the iron curtain, until communism finally collapsed in 1989.

By then Hayek was 90 years old and he didn't issue any public statements. But his son reported that as the family sat at home watching television, watching the fall of the Berlin Wall on TV, Hayek could not resist smiling and saying, "I told you so." Now, during those heady years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many of us, and myself included, expected freedom to keep spreading around the world. There was talk of the end of history now that liberal democracy and free markets and enlightenment values had prevailed. For a while, freedom did spread. But lately, as we've seen, it's in retreat. Both abroad, most obviously in China and Russia, but also here at home. Young Americans are suddenly embracing socialism. Academics and journalists are demanding censorship. Both political parties have turned protectionist. Public officials have claimed unprecedented powers to suspend fundamental liberties. And that traditional guarantee of equal justice for all is giving way to something called social justice."

Zoning Out Growth: 10 Blocks podcast | City Journal (city-journal.org)

A History of Homelessness: 10 Blocks podcast | City Journal (city-journal.org)

How have environmental rule and regs worsened our housing for low income and middle class?

Because our AC died on the hottest day of the summer (95) and current EPA laws on R-22 prevent it being fixed (will have to replace) I was trying to research to what extent our energy and environmental laws have contributed to homelessness or even pricing low income out of real estate wealth or the competition for a good rental. It's only common sense that the constant drum beat of climate change on the building trades and the corresponding greater concern for mother earth than a mother in America has to hit the more fragile in the wallet. Zip, nada, zilch in the research, especially EPA and Energy Star articles. So I'll just continue to know in my gut that saving the environment is throwing a lot of people out of work and out of their homes. Soon, you may be seeing a lot of cars up on blocks as the bidenflation roars ahead.

But my eyes landed on an interesting fact sheet about homelessness in Washington DC. It decreased significantly under the Trump booming economy, but was still higher than most big cities. The January 2018 count (a point in time) showed 3,761 single adults, and 924 families (3,134 people), and 9 minors alone. So I took a closer look at the singles: 51% were chronically homeless, but only 19% of the adults in the families were chronically homeless. I think that was my big takeaway. 50% of the singles had formerly been institutionalized--from jail or hospital to the streets; 19% of the singles had a history of domestic violence, much lower than the family rate; 30% of the singles had chronic substance abuse and 32.7% had a history of mental illness; 24.6% of single homeless adults were chronically ill and 18% were disabled. Median age for the singles was 51 and for family adults 29.

 
I was a librarian not a social worker, so I won't suggest a solution, but I do know that saving families is a big part of the solution of homelessness, and housing is probably the smallest part. Families are a social safety net, and many of our government policies can't answer that need.
https://www.legalclinic.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Fact-Sheet-on-Homelessness-and-Housing-Instability-in-DC.pdf

Could Homelessness become a Conservative issue?

Hugh Hewitt today has a good program on homelessness in California. It's not a new topic for him. Today he is suggesting that Conservatives should take this on as a cause. Liberals/progressives and Democrats/socialists have failed hugely, and are using the issue only to grab more money to solve a problem they really don't want to solve.

He says it is both a humanitarian issue and a property issue. The homeless were better off in the old days (pre-War on Poverty) when there were institutions to house, feed, and care for them rather than allowing them to live on the streets and destroy businesses and homes. Considering how the Left has revealed its hatred for private property, especially in various Marxist groups like BLM, their willingness to let this fester makes some sense.

The Left will always make homelessness an income issue, or a racial issue, and until a transwoman can't get into a women's shelter in San Francisco or Seattle, or the official count once a year, you won't even hear about it. Are they dying of Covid? Haven't heard much about that, but considering the living conditions and the co-morbidities of alcoholism and drug abuse, I would think so. It will look great on those requests for funding to hire more people at comfortable salaries for the non-profits and expanding government agencies.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=1928898523917429&ref=watch_permalink begin at about 1 hour with Byron York discussing the failures in California

Whose problem is the homeless problem? Not the president’s

I hope the president and the federal agencies stay out of California's homeless problem. It's a state and local problem exacerbated by the green/environment/climate regulations, building codes and their tax laws which keep some costs artificially low for a few. If California were a country, it would be one of the richest in the world--the 5th largest economy--and wouldn't need our "foreign" aid if it were managed correctly and didn't have Democrat law makers.

Just as Obama took affordable older cars off the road and destroyed them with “cash for clunkers,” so state officials in collusion with builders, architects and real estate firms are destroying affordable housing calling it necessary because of climate change or healthier housing. And it's not just California. My husband's architecture magazines are cringe worthy. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-homeless-how-we-got-here-20180201-story.html

Chick-Fil-A caves to radicals

"Chick-Fil-A said on Monday that it has stopped funding two Christian charities after coming under fire in recent weeks from LGBTQ activists. The fast-food chain’s foundation has donated millions of dollars to The Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Both organizations have a history of opposing same-sex marriage." (CNBC)

And who are the unfortunates being hurt by withdrawing funding from the Salvation Army? Who are the people being hurt by the LGBTQ activists? The homeless. The mentally ill. The single moms with little kids. Take a look at the full homeless report for Los Angeles--the one that breaks down this disfunction by district, race, age and sex. There is a tiny percent of people who are transgender in this country, yet their rate for homelessness is beyond absurd--and these are the very people Salvation Army helps. S.A. doesn't ask gender, race or creed--but the Left does. The Left has polluted everything about our country--there is no decency, kindness or integrity in the whole movement. They poison everything they touch.

Do something small that won’t change lives

Today I packed a bag for a family or household to have complete sides with the turkey Lutheran Social Services will distribute--mashed potatoes, 2 different vegetables, 2 fruits, a cake, gravy, cranberry sauce and pumpkin. I also packed a bag for "God's Hygiene Help Center" which includes personal care items for women who need to get back their dignity. This was started by Tammy Jewell about 8 years ago who was using her own disability check to buy things for those less fortunate. I packed shampoo, hand lotion, cotton balls, razors, deodorant, hand sanitizer, feminine hygiene products, and new Christmas socks, just for fun.

No one's life will be permanently changed. But the recipient may just be on a temporary slide and can bounce back, but she could be mentally ill and spend the rest of her life on the street. Why not have one good day to feel like everyone else? Would that be so terrible?

A few years ago I was visiting in Mt. Morris around the holidays and my Uncle Gene stopped by to chat. He was feeling great--he and a bunch of guys at the bar had taken up their annual collection for turkeys and were going to distribute them to (there was a list). They felt good and there were some families who had a nice meal--nothing life changing, just people helping people.

I was thinking about this because two Nobel Prize winners won on the basis of small projects enhanced by competition and incentive—finding out that children in Africa learn better if the teacher shows up, and that children are more like to get immunizations if they and the health care worker show up.  So simple.  Yet the author of the article was critical.

https://www.econlib.org/nobel-laureates-aim-too-low-on-global-poverty/

Carson on the homeless problem in California

I watched Fox's interview with Ben Carson about the federal government (my tax money) helping out the homeless disaster created by the Democrats with all their building red tape which only helps the wealthy and well-placed. He held up San Diego as a good example with wrap around services. California has one of the largest economies in the WORLD--they can solve this without Florida, Montana and Ohio money just by cleaning up their own local laws. It’s the same reasons their forests and neighborhoods burn.  Environmental wackos, aka climate change alarmists.

“The leadership in San Diego has a grasp of the homelessness situation, which stems in part from rising housing costs,” Carson said. “To reduce homelessness in San Diego, the city has developed a housing plan which takes the appropriate steps to alleviate some of the impediments to the production of affordable housing.”

"Impediments" my granny's bean soup--it's mismanagement and swallowing all those "green" regulations.

https://fox5sandiego.com/2019/09/19/mayor-meets-with-ben-carson-about-homeless-services-funding/

Homeless in Columbus

There was an odd juxtaposition of articles in Monday's Columbus Dispatch (December 31, 2018).

1) Immigrant who is a janitress bought and fixed up a run down home in Linden area and is helping to revitalize the area (photo--really cute home, she's on the porch), "Affordable housing key to revitalized Linden." Like other home owners she is happy to see home values increasing as a result of her determination and hard work.

2) Terrible homeless problem in Columbus, higher than during the recession and higher than the other parts of Ohio, and there is a need for the new law (January 2, 2019) to prevent evictions or there will be more homelessness. And the writer looks to Homeport to continue providing more affordable housing (government money). "Resolved for 2019: It's time to decrease local homelessness." https://www.dispatch.com/opinion/20181231/editorial-resolved-for-2019-its-time-to-decrease-local-homelessness

I wrote about this "problem" over a decade ago at my blog, pointing out that Columbus Housing Partnership over 20 years (now 30) had millions and millions in government grants to "solve the housing problem" in Columbus. It created Homeport in 2004. Based on the just the money, there should be no low income person in Columbus without housing. Except. https://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2008/11/cityliving-network-and-homeport-of.html

Homelessness is just not about affordable housing. It's alcoholism, drug use, poor living skills, chronic illnesses, bad family relationships, mental illness, and the nanny state.

Homeless in Seattle

I do not understand how a city can spend so much on the poor and yet have so little effect. What's the answer--it obviously isn't more money. "According to the Puget Sound Business Journal, the Seattle metro area spends more than $1 billion fighting homelessness every year. That’s nearly $100,000 for every homeless man, woman, and child in King County, yet the crisis seems only to have deepened, with more addiction, more crime, and more tent encampments in residential neighborhoods. By any measure, the city’s efforts are not working."

https://www.city-journal.org/seattle-homelessness

Pathological altruism = altruism in which attempts to promote the welfare of others instead result in unanticipated harm, . . ”.

Socialists know more money won’t help so the only answer must be to make the rich poorer.

Four years ago they were asking the same questions.

“Seattle’s liberal voters and politicians don’t mind spending money on social problems. And there’s a lot of money here. King County has the largest United Way in the country. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — the world’s wealthiest — puts money toward the homeless in its home town.

All told, King County officials estimate that a billion dollars or more has gone to help the county’s homeless over the past decade. Nearly 6,000 units of affordable housing have been built, more than in any city except New York or Los Angeles.”

http://www.invw.org/2015/03/02/after-10-year-plan-why-does-seattle-have-more-homeless-than-ever/

"On one night in the greater Seattle region in 2018, 12,112 individuals were experiencing homelessness, with 52 percent living unsheltered. In the Columbus region’s 2018 count, there were 1,807 people experiencing homelessness with 16 percent living unsheltered." https://www.geekwire.com/2018/cities-making-dent-homelessness-seattle-can-learn/

https://seattle.curbed.com/2017/7/31/16072102/washington-state-homeless-student-population

Homelessness in a growth economy

"Los Angeles County's homeless population has soared 23% over last year despite increasing success in placing people in housing, according to the latest annual count released Wednesday. ... Homelessness also increased sharply in the city of Los Angeles, where the count of just over 34,000 was up 20% from 2016. ( LA Times May 31, 2017)  http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless-count-20170530-story.html

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-isnt-alone-homeless-crisis-stretches-up-and-down-the-west-coast/

The city government had promised an additional $138 million this past year for homelessness, and I know it's a shock, but sometime governments don't deliver on their promises. But isn't it odd that the homelessness increased by 20% after the budget increase was announced in 2016? In Ohio where homelessness was decreasing all over the state (down 17%), it was increasing in Franklin County (24%) where I live. 

Low to zero unemployment, economic growth and soaring housing prices, which look good for marketing your city or county, also mean less affordable housing. And no one seems to want rotting mattresses, blanket tents and human waste in their neighborhood.

Christmas at a Homeless Camp in the Woods by Rich Garon, guest blogger

There were about fifty people in the woods, behind a strip mall that sits right across from one of the largest outlet malls on the east coast. There were clusters of tents and a shack or two. Looking carefully, I could see the winding paths that led me to another way of life. My first visit was a novelty. My grandson and I had arranged with one of the homeless men at the camp in the woods to bring the group produce from a nearby food pantry. I’ll call him Sam. He was tall and led us to his site, which seemed to be very well organized. We didn’t speak long and he thanked us for the meals our church had brought earlier in the week. The air-conditioning in our car revived us from the stifling heat that hung in the woods that early July day.

A group of us continued bringing produce from the farmer’s market, chickens from Costco, and some gas for the one or two generators that powered some small fans fighting the oppressive heat. We continued this routine for a while and spent time getting to know the men and several women who called these woods home. “I’ll be glad when the fall comes,” a guy named Billy said.

We were all new to helping the homeless, but it soon dawned on us that produce, chickens and gas weren’t really the answer. As we became familiar with the people in the woods, we learned about them and realized their lives were complicated; that divorces, job losses, arrests, addictions, or chronic health issues had led them into the woods. In some cases, events unfolded abruptly. In others, it took a string of setbacks before they claimed the spot on which they set-up their tents. We gave them money at times. It seemed they always needed little things; that is, until we had to shell out $200 to get Randy’s car out of the impoundment lot so he could travel a considerable distance to his job. 

As we tried to help, we realized we really didn’t have a plan, so we decided to give money to groups we were told were more expert in helping the homeless. We still visited the homeless; many who by now had become our friends. We took them out to dinner occasionally, tried to interpret undecipherable forms and letters they received from county and state aid agencies and recognized each individual required more help and guidance than we could provide.

Remember how Billy was looking forward to the fall? Well, fall was short-lived that year and winter rolled-in with chilling winds and heavy snows. We brought shoeboxes full of toiletries and other notions. Billy even erected a beat-up Christmas tree. He situated it near a memorial of Christmas decorations dedicated to his twenty-five-year-old friend, Mantu, who froze to death one night outside his tent. Our friend, Sam, who had become increasingly ill, almost died one sub-freezing night when someone stole his propane heater. Such was Christmas that year in the homeless camp.

We were able to get Sam into transitional housing, but his medical condition was beyond what the home could accommodate. He was asked to leave. The snow had been replaced by the brutal heat of July, and his overall health declined rapidly. We tried to get him into a facility, but were told there was a two-year waiting list at most places. We spoke to another agency and they said they’d be pleased to help, but he’d need a fixed address. There was also little help available from non-profits.

We did eventually find a small studio apartment for Sam, and then one for Billy. We schooled ourselves in learning to navigate the bureaucratic tangle of regulations that tried to discourage us from finding out the types of assistance to which they were entitled. 

You see, most homeless people don’t have cars to get to assistance offices, and they don’t have computers to complete forms online. They don’t understand the importance of seeking medical help for a problem before it worsens. Many individuals, church groups, and non-profits—while well-meaning—often support competing programs, and local governments provide inadequate funds to address the problem. 

Sam and Billy have become family to us, and we’re going to continue taking care of them as family. Who would have thought that could have developed from our initial trip into the woods? There are plenty of other Sam’s and Billy’s who desperately need help, especially this winter. If you would like to help, check out non-profits and houses of worship in your area who work with the homeless. Any amount of time you have, can help those so in need. 

Rich Garon is the author of Felling Big Trees (BookBaby, December 2016), a novel about a congressman turning from politics to make a positive change on a disillusioned society. All proceeds from the book will go toward WhyHunger.org.  He currently works with the Immanuel Anglican Church in Woodbridge, VA, where he coordinates the homeless ministry and particularly dedicates his focus to helping individuals who live in the woods. Learn more at www.richgaron.com.

Homeless outing in Licking County

One of our Ohio branch campuses of OSU is having an event to draw attention to homelessness. 

"The Ohio State University at Newark Dean/Director William L. MacDonald, Ph.D., will be sleeping outside on April 7 at the shared campus of Ohio State Newark and Central Ohio Technical College with United Way Executive Director Deb Dingus to kick off 50 the United Way and bring awareness to homelessness in Licking County." OSU news On Campus, March 24, 2016

It might be useful to assign good students and staff to compile a list of all the federal, state, and local tax supported programs for Licking County, add in the church charities and non-profits, and then figure out the overlap and wasted resources and determine if this homelessness is lack of income for available housing stock, mental illness, a temporary expulsion from a home situation due to misbehavior or domestic violence, or inefficient use of resources by professionals (social workers, government employees and academics).

The U.S. spends approximately $22,000+ per person in the low income/poor bracket available through tax supported programs. That’s $88,000 for a household of one mother and 3 children on top of what other income she might have. That doesn’t include food pantries, free medical clinics, church employment training, etc. Only one nation (Norway) spends more per person on social welfare than the U.S. USDA reports that only 4 percent of poor children were hungry for even a single day in the prior year because of a lack of funds for food. (http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/dps/pdfs/dp138710.pdf http://www.nationalreview.com/article/424009/poverty-us-we-spend-much-more-person-social-welfare-europe-does-robert-rector)

After the Dean draws attention to homelessness in Licking County, Ohio, will anything change?

The Great Recession was made great by President Obama

The last recession was over (according to the way the federal government figures these things) in June 2009, before any of Obama's ARRA programs hit the pavement and wallets of unions and government workers. And today he's taking credit for turning around the longest "Great Recession" in our country's history, and proud that unemployment is at 4.9%. Could be, but homelessness in Columbus is at an all time high, as is SNAP participation, and labor force participation is lower than in the 1970s, and people are scrambling to pay for health insurance. He even takes credit for the slowing increase in health care costs, even though that had been going on for 4 years before he took office, and is now on the way back up. The turn around we do have is because Republican governors pulled it out for their states with rebuilding small business and finding new sources of energy. The absurd length of this last recession's fits and starts economic "come back" can be laid right at his socialism feet. The only president who took longer was FDR.

Gender Identity and homeless shelters

Emergency shelters are the next target for regulations from the federal government elevating gender identity over health, safety, privacy, and religious liberty concerns. Why is this tiny fraction of a fraction of the population considered more important than the health, safety, privacy and religious liberty of women who have been women since conception and who have struggled for centuries for the crumbs of laws and protections given to men?

 http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=%2Fpress%2Fpress_releases_media_advisories%2F2015%2FHUDNo_15-150

If we solved poverty, too many people would be out of work

It's not easy being poor, and especially homeless. You have to support so many good middle class jobs. I was looking through the 2014-15 annual report of the Ohio Housing Trust Fund yesterday. It began as a group of concerned citizens in 1990 cobbling together resources to help the homeless and now has a budget of about $60 million. It doles out grants to various non-profits who assist with low income housing and programs for the homeless. I looked at one of the larger grants, Integrated Services of Appalachian Ohio (that's the geographic area that Obama promised to destroy in 2008--coal country). This ISAO has a budget of about $7 million. CEO makes $134,522 (2013), and about 60% of that $7 million goes to salaries. Poverty is big business.

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2008/11/affordable-housing-in-ohio-and-your.html

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-is-ocdca-not-obsessive-compulsive.html