[image via and linked to fb share by martin smith – via heather: ‘This piece of art created by a homeless guy is the most poignant, thought provoking and powerful statements I have seen about homelessness…’]
weird no page of this yet.. but fitting with welcome/people page thinking:
we have included some incredible people. we have left off some incredible people.
home less ness (specifically.. how to eliminate it) was one of the first issues/questions of kids (all of us) in a lab.. not about home.. about resources.. so perhaps.. we find a nother way to live.. that offers all of us.. the resources we need.. [where we first started thinking/practicing city as school ness] by freeing us all to be (problem deep enough)
Mark Horvath (@hardlynormal) tweeted at 6:00 AM – 25 May 2018 : I do not know of even one situation where a homeless person gets the support they need quickly. Not one. It doesn’t happen. The norm is to connect to services multiple times over several years and not get help. That’s a very real problem! We need less process, not more!! (http://twitter.com/hardlynormal/status/999983615093235712?s=17)
latest – [ie: adding home less page day after added Elvis’ page] – elvis summers: 6 min – people that are pissed at ie: homeless/tiny house situation.. every right to be.. but re direct that anger.. my whole issue/cause.. is that something needs to be done right now..
esp this from elvis:
elvis: everything that they’ve been doing.. just doesn’t work.. it’s just circles.. of bureaucratic.. holds .. and wait times.. and you know.. 40-50 yrs.. where’s the housing..?
The person/dog connection in the homeless context is one of complete togetherness, which in turn produces a physical and mental bond as reliable as any leash
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those with the greatest personal needs are simultaneously driven by immense levels of self-sacrifice for another living creature.
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Their dogs provide a bridge to human contact, which individuals need as much as food or water (that’s why prolonged solitary confinement is torture and inevitably breeds mental illness).
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Even knowing that it is the dogs, and not him, that trigger the interaction doesn’t dilute the importance of being seen. This relationship with his dogs enables a critical human need: to be acknowledged by other humans.
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How can a relationship with a dog achieve such monumental successes where psychology, medicine, and standalone human desire so often fail? One explanation is that the responsibility to care for another living creature provides purpose, focus and thus self-esteem — all vital human needs. Another is the validation and self-worth that comes from the love a dog provides. Irvine put it this way: “We construct dogs as ideal beings — they love unconditionally, they don’t lie, they don’t judge people — so if a being this noble loves us, then there must be something OK with us.”
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of m\a\p
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The essence of dogness is inextricably linked to their relationship with humans. As Irvine explained to me, “Abundant research proves how dogs need our gaze, how they will look at what you’re pointing at because they want to know what you’re looking at. It shows they share intersubjectivity: the sense of ‘I want to know what she’s thinking.’”
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dogs uniquely provide something deeply valuable to humans.
Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) tweeted at 5:15 AM on Wed, May 10, 2017: Also on @DemocracyNow: we’re unveiling a new project from me & @davidmirandario to help both Brazil’s homeless & animal populations. Watch! (https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/862264909974958081?s=03)
Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) tweeted at 1:50 PM – 10 May 2017 :
how home ownership became the engine of american inequality
There is a reason so many Americans choose to develop their net worth through homeownership: It is a proven wealth builder and savings compeller. The average homeowner boasts a net worth ($195,400) that is 36 times that of the average renter ($5,400).
While many Americans assume that most poor families live in subsidized housing, the opposite is true; nationwide, only one in four households that qualifies for rental assistance receives it
When we think of entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare immediately come to mind. But by any fair standard, the holy trinity of United States social policy should also include the mortgage-interest deduction — an enormous benefit that has also become politically untouchable…The MID came into being in 1913, not to spur homeownership but simply as part of a general policy allowing businesses to deduct interest payments from loans. At that time, most Americans didn’t own their homes and only the rich paid income tax, so the effects of the mortgage deduction on the nation’s tax proceeds were fairly trivial. That began to change in the second half of the 20th century, though, because of two huge transformations in American life. First, income tax was converted from an elite tax to a mass tax: In 1932, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (precursor to the I.R.S.) processed fewer than two million individual tax returns, but 11 years later, it processed over 40 million. At the same time, the federal government began subsidizing homeownership through large-scale initiatives like the G.I. Bill and mortgage insurance. Homeownership grew rapidly in the postwar period, and so did the MID.
The owner-renter divide is as salient as any other in this nation, and this divide is a historical result of statecraft designed to protect and promote inequality.
Poverty and homelessness are political creations.
Once a rarity in America, eviction has become commonplace in our cities, disrupting families, schools and entire neighborhoods.
Steve Jones told ITV News that the response was “just instinct.” And that when he arrived, he immediately started helping young children who has shrapnel wounds. “It was children with blood all over them, they were crying and screaming. We were having to pull nails out of their arms and a couple out of a little girl’s face.”
“Just because I’m homeless doesn’t mean I’ve not got a heart, and I’m not human still. I needed to help. I’d like to think someone would come and help me if I needed help. It’s just instinct.”
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Mark Horvath (@hardlynormal) tweeted at 3:14 AM – 26 Aug 2017 :
Residents didn’t ask to live at Sanderson. They were chosen by researchers who pored through Denver Police data looking for the city’s persistently homeless and frequently arrested, men and women who are marked as “transient” and have rotated in and out of jail mostly for so-called “homeless” crimes — such as illegal camping, trespassing or public intoxication.
The initial list, compiled by Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., included 4,000 names.
The mental health center received the names, birthdates and recent mugshots of 87 people; the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless received 187, chosen randomly from the 4,000.
Catholic Charities, meanwhile, opened a 100-bed shelter for women in a renovated building northeast of the city Thursday. Women, who make up one-third of Denver’s homeless population, quickly fill downtown shelters.
Last night I arrested a guy for breaching his licence conditions following release from prison. He’d been out two weeks. Street homeless. He cried with relief when we came for him because it’s so cold.
While we waited for a van he chatted with my crewmate, who remembered him as a little boy watching his dad getting arrested. Many, many times. Until he died.
The Cat From Greece (@acatfromgreece) tweeted at 3:37 AM – 24 Feb 2018 :
As they talked I made a mental note to tell custody about the fresh self harm scars on his arms.
Charlie Hennessy (@CharlieBinbags) tweeted at 9:24 AM – 17 Apr 2018 :
The awful irony is that so many #homeless people sleep in the damp, cold doorways of empty shops with dry, warm, empty flats above them. The problem & it’s solution are only a few yards away from each other.
Mark Horvath (@hardlynormal) tweeted at 6:43 AM – 14 May 2018 : Since July of last year 1,455 contacts at the end of March, already nearly 50% over the year’s goal, but only 34 housed out of 200 linked to housing subsidies. // Why make contact with more homeless people when you cannot offer homeless people housing? https://t.co/bN3I97p4ub(http://twitter.com/hardlynormal/status/996008081585856512?s=17)
FEANTSA (@FEANTSA) tweeted at 3:30 AM – 11 Jul 2018 : A vast majority of the world’s homeless are not on the streets. They are in hostels, on sofas, in emergency accommodation, and they are suffering from the instability that characterises their day to day lives. https://t.co/VDd4iCBH69 (http://twitter.com/FEANTSA/status/1016977900250296322?s=17)
Homeownership has long been the veritable cornerstone of the American Dream. But the unfortunate reality is that our nation’s outsize attachment to homeownership may actually be an impediment to achieving it.
Study after study shows that high levels of homeownership can constrain mobility, lock people in place, and hold back the economy as a whole. Homeowners are a key factor in the NIMBYism—or what I like to term the “New Urban Luddism”—that limits housing production and the density that lies at the root of urban innovation and economic growth. But the political clout of homeowners goes beyond local NIMBYism and zoning politics, extending to politics at the national level.
Owning a home changes a person’s political outlook as he or she seeks to protect the value of their investment. Homeowners participate more vigorously in politics, and their self-interested political posture does not just limit the ability of cities to build more and achieve greater density, it contributes to broader political and economic inequality.
Mark Horvath (@hardlynormal) tweeted at 6:00 AM – 25 May 2018 :
I do not know of even one situation where a homeless person gets the support they need quickly. Not one. It doesn’t happen. The norm is to connect to services multiple times over several years and not get help. That’s a very real problem! We need less process, not more!! (http://twitter.com/hardlynormal/status/999983615093235712?s=17)
@monk51295 13/ Oh, yesterday every homeless person we talked to has a smartphone. All of them are on Facebook. One person said he has an account but hates FB and doesn’t use it. Engaging people via their phone will save lives and money but the sector still does nothing to use tech like this
2/ officially chronically homeless. The sector has moved to focus on just chronically homeless people. I once supported that but I no longer think it’s the smart move for a few reasons. 1) We have to do something to help people first entering homelessness that do not fit…
Mairav Zonszein (@MairavZ) tweeted at 2:48 PM – 1 Oct 2018 : As Palestinians face homelessness, Israelis just finished celebrating the holiday of Sukkot, where you build temporary dwellings to eat and sleep in, and welcome guests. #CognitiveDissonance #Occupation https://t.co/mizwZGw21B (http://twitter.com/MairavZ/status/1046864382167117824?s=17)
we’re doing this everywhere
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Chris Fralic (@chrisfralic) tweeted at 5:50 PM – 15 Oct 2018 : “We have 1,200 homeless families and 7,500 homeless individuals in the city. One of every 30 kids in the SF school district is homeless. 70 billionaires live in San Francisco. We are all responsible for the city we live in and do business in.” Marc @Benioff #WIRED25 https://t.co/RVHJui8Yyp (http://twitter.com/chrisfralic/status/1051983580220534784?s=17)
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Mark Horvath (@hardlynormal) tweeted at 3:28 PM – 18 Oct 2018 : Last night was the first time I have sat through a public meeting on homelessness. It was disturbing. The battle for public support will continue until philanthropy in the homeless sector takes large scale tangible actions to educate people. HUD’s not going to do it. https://t.co/t1oIW9q24m (http://twitter.com/hardlynormal/status/1053035207392034816?s=17)
“You don’t see people sleeping on the streets,” says CEO of country’s largest affordable-housing NGO.
Homelessness still exists in Finland, Kaakinen noted, but it has shifted with people staying temporarily with relatives and friends.
Citing a Finnish study, Kaakinen said the savings associated with providing one person with supportive housing for one year are at least 15,000 euros ($22, 437).
“In our thinking, a hostel or shelter is always a temporary solution … it’s not a solution to homelessness.”
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on housing first (thread – includes denver stats)
Jeff Speck (@JeffSpeckAICP) tweeted at 6:04 AM on Thu, Nov 08, 2018: To those cities, one can only ask: Are you really willing to spend twice as much on homelessness, and have twice as much of it, because you believe that people should be punished for addiction and mental illness? If not, what’s keeping you? (4/5) (https://twitter.com/JeffSpeckAICP/status/1060518496428322817?s=03)
Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) tweeted at 8:23 PM – 15 Nov 2018 : The shelters are full. A few shelters have had a norovirus outbreak. Other survivors are sleeping in makeshift tent cities, or in parking lots. Tens of thousands of people are newly homeless. The #CampFire is an emerging humanitarian crisis. https://t.co/rY1aboaU6e (http://twitter.com/EricHolthaus/status/1063271228180504576?s=17)
Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) tweeted at 8:39 PM – 15 Nov 2018 : There’s no easy way to say this: Without radical changes, there will be more fire catastrophes like Paradise. The #CampFire and the escalating onslaught of weather emergencies like it, should provoke moral outrage.
Adib Nasereddin (@Adib_Nasereddin) tweeted at 2:03 AM – 6 Dec 2018 : @QueenNoor Who could ever celebrate when knowing such information and sadly there are homeless kids and unfortunate families all over the world..may GOD be with them all and send angels from all over the world to help in any way possible (http://twitter.com/Adib_Nasereddin/status/1070604589915881472?s=17)
Homelessness, as we know it today, really began in the 1980s. When the federal government scaled back funding for public housing projects and social services, the number of people living on the streets surged.
But the most insidious reason is that we, as a society, have permitted poverty to be perceived as a moral failing.
It’s comforting for us to see homelessness as a result of one’s bad decisions and inherent character flaws. Pretending this is true protects you from having to face the unsettling reality that it can happen to anyone.
As humans, it’s uncomfortable for us to live with uncertainty. Given the constant uncertainty of homelessness, it’s understandable for those of us who can avoid uncertainty to do so.
But the mental gymnastics that blame the poor for being poor only causes more harm in exchange for your comfort.
A World Without Homelessness is Possible
And it starts with acknowledging that homelessness is not a choice or a punishment. Homelessness can happen to anyone, at any time, for any number of reasons.
The problem is that no one really believes it can happen to them until it does.
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Eliza Shapiro (@elizashapiro) tweeted at 2:37 PM – 6 Jun 2019 : Looking at LA’s big rise in homelessness, I cant get over the fact that LA’s entire homeless pop. is still *smaller* than the # of NYC schoolchildren living in shelters, not even counting 10s of 1000s of NYC kids on couches of relatives homes https://t.co/ZrRX2OsGIg (http://twitter.com/elizashapiro/status/1136733911365689411?s=17)
Democracy Now! (@democracynow) tweeted at 4:24 AM – 26 Oct 2019 : After Hurricane Harvey, Elizabeth Easton was forced to move from Beaumont, Texas, and now lives in an encampment in California’s Bay Area. In Oakland, she says, “I know I am tossed aside.” We spoke with Easton & other unhoused people for a special report. https://t.co/tCHx1EO7gl (http://twitter.com/democracynow/status/1188038564099035137?s=17)
california has 12% of population in country and 50% of unhoused
how we talk about people matters.. most don’t like term ‘homeless’.. home is what you make of it.. unsheltered or unhoused..
in bay area 28% african american .. 70% of unsheltered african american.. gentrification et al.. ie: stem jobs (google et al) pushing out jobs ..left w no income
suggested solutions: 1\ build truly affordable low income housing 2\ release land – with sanitation provided and let people be (until permanent is built)
this is a cultural/economic disaster.. and they’re not treating it like all the other natural disasters.. need to release public land and provide services
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FEANTSA (@FEANTSA) tweeted at 5:00 AM – 29 Oct 2019 : 4 major cities struggling to cope w rising #homelessness cry fr help: ‘The limit has been reached’ ➡️ 40,000 homeless in NL ➡️ 35% in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Hague ➡️ ⅓ btwn 18-30 yrs City councillors tell country’s leaders system is https://t.co/KJRL09CiLm (http://twitter.com/FEANTSA/status/1189134785379217411?s=17)
@RamonAlonsoJr An awful lot of money is spent to keep homeless people from housing themselves. Let us hope the hexayurts are tent-like enough to stay up. Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/leashless/status/1318024740133535744
be you. 