Not forgotten: We remember
those who died without homes
It's the first day of winter and the longest night of the year, so it's time to bring attention to the tragedy of homelessness and to remember our homeless friends who paid the ultimate price for our nation's failure to end homelessness.
Each year since 1990, people have gathered in cities across the country to observe National Homeless Persons' Memorial Day.
Here in Orlando, we were able to identify 34 homeless people who died this year in the metro area.
Four were murdered. At least two of them were murdered
because they were homeless.
Most died of natural causes. That's part of the tragedy of homelessness, too. The average age of death of homeless persons is about 50, while non-homeless Americans can expect to live to age 78. Homelessness dramatically elevates one's risk of illness, injury and death.
I knew some of them: a veteran I found already dying in a woods camp, a few I took to collections court to resolve legal troubles, a few more we helped get IDs at
IDignity. I held the candle for
Pastor Brian Nichols of the First Vagabonds Church of God, a friend and colleague, who started his ministry for the homeless when he was on the street himself.
Read the National Coalition for the Homeless report on homeless deaths, "Dying Without Digity,"
here. And read the National Health Care for the Homeless Council's "The Hard, Cold Facts About the Deaths of Homeless People,"
here.
A voice for legal aid to the poor is silenced
F. William McCalpin, one of the earliest advocates and most vocal defenders of the
Legal Services Corporation, a federal program that has provided legal aid to millions of poor people, died Dec. 9 at his home in St. Louis. He was 88.
McCalpin butted heads with the Reagan administration when it sought to eliminate the program he had long championed.
Eliminating the program, he said, would amount to a denial of the nation’s commitment to equal justice under law, “putting a price tag on justice, just like a Cadillac or a yacht.”
Congress restored the corporation’s financing.
“Early on in his legal career, he was assigned poor clients by the courts,” William McCalpin said of his father. “I remember one client, Gerald Thomas, who served time for burglary. My father bought Christmas presents, and we took them over to the family. He thought there should be a more organized way to represent poor people.”
Read
The New York Times obituary
here.
Stimulus kept 425,000 Floridians out of poverty
About 425,000 Floridians would have found themselves living in poverty had they not received assistance through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The Act also reduced the severity of poverty for about 1,970,000 more Floridians who are poor by lifting their incomes, said the study by the
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The study pointed to the recovery act's increase in food stamp benefits, expansions of the
Child Tax Credit and the
Earned Income Tax Credit; the new
Making Work Pay tax credit; extra weeks of unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed and an increase of $25 in jobless benefits; and a one-time payment to many elderly people, veterans and people with disabilities.
Read the report
here.
2 teens arrested in homeless man's shooting death
Two teenagers are accused of killing a homeless man and shooting his friend outside a Pompano Beach apartment complex.
Harry Velez, 17, and Brady Fisher, 19, were arrested in connection with the shooting of Cristobal Mariano and his homeless friend, Eustoquio Lopez.
Mariano and Lopez were chatting outside the apartment where Mariano lives when the suspects approached, a confrontation ensued and shots were fired, the Broward Sheriff's Office said.
Lopez, 46, died at the hospital, but Mariano, 40, is expected to survive.
A security guard at a nearby apartment complex saw two shirtless teens get inside a Ford Taurus and drive off. He wrote down the car's license plate number and gave it to detectives.
Velez faces one count of first-degree murder and Fisher faces one count of accessory after the fact.
Detectives said the motive for the shooting was robbery.
Read the
South Florida Sun-Sentinel report
here.
Homeless newspaper debuts in St. Pete
The
St. Petersburg Homeless Image -- a forum for advocates, homeless and formerly homeless people, students and the general public -- made its debut this weekend on the streets of St. Pete.
The paper includes articles on the
homeless lawsuit against the city, St. Pete's designation as
the second meanest city, a blistering attack on the
St. Petersburg Times for their
recent article against panhandling and passionate obits on street people who died recently.
The paper is the brainchild of my friend and colleague G.W. Rolle, a formerly homeless man who serves on the county's Homeless Leadership Network. The project grew out of a need to provide accurate news and opinions to the people of St. Pete during an unusually hostile atmosphere toward the homeless. Plus, through a generous vendor program, the paper provides an economic opportunity. Homeless folks can sell the paper for a profit and, besides getting some extra cash, learn valuable job skills. Rolle says it's a good alternative to panhandling.
Read the newspaper
here (but if you're in St. Pete, buy one anyway).
(Adapted from
Alex Pickett's post at
Pushing Rope.)
Firefighter rescues homeless squatter from blaze
A 63-year-old Boston firefighter, making his way up a stairway through black smoke, pulled a homeless man to safety from a burning warehouse in South Boston.
John Smith, a firefighter for 40 years, was being hailed as a hero for rescuing the man from the two-alarm blaze.
"There was heavy smoke," Smith said. "You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face."
Smith said the man, who had been squatting in the building, was disoriented from the smoke.
However, the man, identified as Jean Jaquez Eve, 49, was arrested after being rescued. Eve was wanted after failing to appear in court on an August 2008 charge of open and gross lewdness for urinating in public, Boston police said.
The warehouse was sectioned off by the squatters into several illegal mini-apartments that were strewn with debris. Electrical power was brought into the building by illegally bypassing the power meter and jumping cables directly from the electrical lines coming into the building.
Read the
Boston Globe report
here.
Thanks to
@hardlynormal for the link.
City won't appeal camping ruling
The city of Victoria will not appeal a
court ruling which upholds the right of homeless to set up tents in parks.
"Appealing this ruling does nothing to solve homelessness, and the real goal for this council is to ensure that all members of the community have a home," Mayor Dean Fortin said. "For us there is no win in appealing."
Read the
Times Colonist report
here. And see previous posts
here,
here and
here.
This morning, I'm getting ready for an appellate argument in the
Orlando homeless feeding case ... and wishing my city would chose to spend the costs of its appeal on solving the problem of homelessness instead of continuing a court battle that's lasted more than three years. Oh, well.
Orlando t-shirt seller uses homeless models
Photo by Wheat WurtzburgerAn Orlando t-shirt business called
Fat American every so often uses homeless people to model their t-shirts in photos by
Wheat Wurtzburger.
"It may be an unorthodox way of flaunting our t-shirts, but we feel it is appropriate when we consider our feelings about the failure of the United States social system. Throughout the photo shoot we didn't meet a single person whom the US government hadn't failed. Of the 11 homeless men and women we photographed 5 are mentally ill, two are Vietnam war veterans, two are physically disabled, one is down on his luck (unemployed), and one has aids, he apologized for the spots and sores he displayed while putting on the shirt we gave him. The only system caring for this group of people is the prison system."
Thanks to
The Daily City for the links.
It's OK to camp in parks, says Canadian court
Homeless people can camp temporarily in public parks if municipalities can't provide them with sufficient alternative shelter, British Columbia's highest court has
ruled.
The B.C. Court of Appeal upheld a lower court ruling that struck down a Victoria bylaw banning camping in city parks by the homeless.
The court determined that the bylaw (Americans would call it an ordinance) deprived homeless people of their rights to life, liberty and security of the person, in violation of the principles of fundamental justice.
Read the CBC News report
here. And read the court opinion
here.
Two Florida cities among America's most unequal cities
If you're feeling like the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, you may be on to something. Especially if you live in one of the two Florida cities to make the top 10 of America's most unequal cities.
Naples is home to many people who got rich somewhere else and then moved to Florida's Gulf Coast. The annual income of the bottom 20% there is $15,803, while the top 5% have an annual income of $599,269. The richest 20% in Naples earn nearly $100,000 a year more than the richest 20% nationwide.
In Miami, the annual income of the bottom 20% is only $10,793. The top 5% earn $367,402. In most cities on the list, the whole city is rich but the rich are especially rich or the whole city is poor but the poor are especially poor. But In Miami, the rich are unusually rich
and the poor are poorer than average.
Read the
Forbes report and see the full list
here.
It's the first day of winter and the longest night of the year, so it's time to bring attention to the tragedy of homelessness and to remember our homeless friends who paid the ultimate price for our nation's failure to end homelessness.
