Free Republic

Shocking isn't it? Tent cities, refugee camps, they are all over America but in Seattle they are considered the norm. Today as of the writing of this article, one such tent city has been erected over Seattle city hall. It is illegally established and yet city hall not only tolerates it but is using taxpayer funds to promote it. They have but one demand. GIMME! GIMME! GIMME! The Tent city, dubbed Tent City 6 is run by two organizations of militant homeless bums called SHARE/WHEEL. Share stands for Seattle Housing and Resource effort. Wheel stands for Women's Housing, Equality...

At the 1889 National Hobo Convention in St. Louis, a strict ethical code was established for all hobos to follow. Here are some tips we could all use, no matter what you carry in your rucksack. 1. YOU DO YOU. "Decide your own life, don't let another person run or rule you." 2. SHOW SOME RESPECT. "When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times." 3. DON'T BE AN OPPORTUNIST. "Don't take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable situation, locals or other hobos." 4. GET A JOB. "Always...

For Michael Powell, a 53-year-old ex-convict, his tent off the highway in Camden, N.J., is what he has called home for nearly a decade. But on Tuesday, he and dozens of others living in homeless encampments known as “tent cities” throughout Camden were forced out—leaving many of them homeless all over again. The eviction was conducted by the state of New Jersey, as well as Camden county and city, for health and safety reasons. […] Amid the commotion on Tuesday, Gino Lewis, director of housing at the Camden County Improvement Authority, assured people that the county would work to find...

Christian ministry leader Dawn Martinez was told she could no longer hold the twice-a-week Bible studies she has taught for homeless people for the last two years inside a McDonald's in Camden, N.J. A night manager at the fast food restaurant told her last week that a customer had filed a complaint. Martinez wonders if it could have been because of the topic briefly discussed at one point last Monday – the Muslim faith. The 33-year-old, who began the ministry to transients and drug addicts two years ago, describes the Bible study group's last meeting on Monday. "It was a...

One question that might be interesting to know the answer to is this:Did any of the presidential candidates travelin the great state of Iowa ever come across the town of Brit, the site of the annual National Hobo Convention? If so, did any of them pay a visit to the hobo museum? Every year since 1900 freight hopping hobos from all across America make their way to the town of Brit, Iowa. What started during the years of the great depression with folks travelin to find work, became a lifestyle for many. An adventure for others.These days people still take...

Congress Moves Decisively During Busy Lame Duck Session to Honor HobosNovember 26, 2010 Dust off your bindles and get ready for some cutting edge melancholy harmonica sucking when your busy, busy Congress pushes aside major tax legislation (it's not even on the schedule) in order to address the vital National Homeless Persons Memorial Day issue. Yeah, I know hobos aren't synonomous with homeless people, but I'm still fighting off the tryptophan and I didn't want to get into a discussion about the differences between hobos, tramps, bums, and the Democratic base. Comments (15)

What a blatant false insult!  Fruhlinger obviously doesn't know the difference between hobos, tramps, and bums!The three are not the same!Hobos are not bums!Bums are not tramps, and tramps aint hobos.Hobos have pride. Once an active Hobo, now a proud "Hobo at Heart".Yes we have the "wander lust" and we love to travel and see this great country of ours from time to time via rail and road. But we work and aint "bums" as Fruhlinger calls us." ...a real hobo will work for his stuff. He's not looking for a free handout. He wants no problem  from anybody, and he'll give no...

Brad Cain was in a bad mood. On Friday, his fifth day at Haven for Hope, he was scheduled for three hours of mandatory motivational classes, a requirement that caused him to lament the loss of his time not spent at a job off campus moving furniture. “This whole deal, getting in here, has cost me 100 bucks,” Cain said. “How can I be working if I'm doing workshops?” Later, he said, “My biggest problem right now is I've already got this locked in my mind, and you're wasting my frickin' time.” Cain had other complaints, bemoaning an uncomfortable bunk...

Medical bills and layoffs recently forced both men into the woods, where they met and discovered a mutual passion. Pastor Scott Billue of Next Community Church heads an organization called Matthew’s Hope. They offer shelter to the homeless on cold nights, and it was on one of those nights that he discovered a musical talent that until now had been hidden. A few weeks later, Pastor Billue invited John and Butch to be the opening act of a fundraising concert at the Garden Theater in Winter Garden. They called themselves “The Boys in the Woods.”

On the first night he slept indoors in more than 15 years, Jeff Latchaw tossed and turned and fretted. It was much too quiet. The mattress was too soft. Latchaw got in and out of bed, over and over. "Just having these walls around me, it's a huge adjustment," Latchaw said, waving his calloused hand around the living room of his tidy home in Natomas. "There's no open sky above me. No fresh air. No birds greeting me when I wake up. "At times I have thought about going back out and pitching a tent."

This Christmas, many Americans did not get a chance to enjoy warm hot cocoa, presents and a good meal. Many were forced to sleep on the streets or in crowded shelters and missions. Throughout America many are feeling the pinch of the economic downturn. But liberals, with their medeling and their compasion for those who are evil and degenerate are to blame for much of the homelessness on our streets. In the past several years, affordable housing units in particular, boarding houses have gone into decline. These places, flop houses, boarding homes, rooming homes, some just call them slums were...

<p>The last politician who took advice from the bond market was Bill Clinton. When he pushed for a tax hike back in 1993 to cut the budget deficit, it was under the assumption that bond investors would respond by bringing down interest rates. (The theory here is that deficits are inflationary. Inflation is bad for bonds.) Yet long-term interest rates surged from 6.45 percent when Clinton signed his tax-hike bill on Aug. 10, 1993, to 8.16 percent on Nov. 7, 1994, the day before the midterm congressional election where Republicans won back the House and Senate.</p>

Turmoil in the U.S. home-mortgage market is starting to pinch even buyers of high-end homes with good credit records, in the latest sign of rising anxiety among lenders and investors. This surge in rates on so-called jumbo loans is particularly notable because rates on 10-year Treasury bonds have been falling. Normally, mortgage rates move in tandem with Treasurys, but market jitters have caused investors to ditch mortgage securities. Meanwhile, American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. finally succumbed yesterday to the mortgage-sector chaos that had crippled it in recent weeks and filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of U.S. bankruptcy...

Fla. Teens Surrender in Homeless Beatings By DENISE KALETTE, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Two South Florida teens suspected in the beatings of three homeless men turned themselves in to police Sunday, authorities said. Family attorneys negotiated the surrender of Brian Hooks, 18, and Thomas S. Daugherty, 17. They will face murder charges in the death of Norris Gaynor and aggravated battery charges in the videotaped beating of Jacques Pierre, said Capt. Michael Gregory of the Fort Lauderdale police. They also are suspects in the beating of a third man, Raymond Perez, 49, whose case...

A fire in a subway control room has put the C line out of service for up to five years and caused serious problems on the A line that will make the commute miserable for hundreds of thousands of subway riders, officials said yesterday. The unstaffed room containing 600 electrical devices called "relays" that are used to power signals and switches along a segment of the vital Eighth Avenue line were destroyed Sunday in the blaze. Cops blamed a vagrant who set a shopping cart full of wood blocks ablaze six feet into the tracks at the Chambers Street station....

Well it's that time again fellow freepers. Time once again to decorate the tree, time once again to make up our wish list, time again to spread the joy. Its also time once again for the dregs of society to come out of the gutter to try and mince us into feeling sorry for them and take advantage of the holiday spirit to give away our money to people who refuse to work. WHAT RUBBISH! If you want to get presents for your little homeless bastards get a job! And don't give me that crap about a recession and Bush...

Fatal Beating of Bar Owner by Homeless Man in Tulsa, Okla., Sparks War Against Indigents The Associated Press TULSA, Okla. Aug. 17, 2004 — A homeless man's fatal beating of a brass-knuckle-wielding bar owner has triggered something approaching a war against Tulsa's homeless population. T-shirts around town blast homeless people with a four-letter word, and some people are warning of vigilante justice. Downtown bar owners have stapled wanted posters to telephone poles with a picture of Terry Badgewell, the man who used a length of pipe to kill Deadtown Tavern owner Shawn Howard. A prosecutor said the killing was self...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- City officials want to eradicate 27 homeless camps, getting their occupants into shelters or out of town as Little Rock prepares for the high-profile opening of the Clinton Presidential Library.     Officials deny that the strategy has anything to do with the Nov. 18 opening, but homeless advocates fear that the city is being merciless -- perhaps at the behest of the library.     The homeless were living at the library site before construction began.     An annual satirical stage show put on by the Pulaski County Bar Association this week depicts Clinton library officials driving away helpless...

Jerseyan takes up a charge for Grant Descendant seeks to preserve tomb Sunday, April 25, 2004 His name is Ulysses Grant Dietz.He hasn't written anything like his famous ancestor's two-volume "Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant." His writings have been on such topics as "Desmond: A Novel of Love and the Modern Vampire," a twist on the Dracula legend.But Dietz, who lives in Maplewood and is steeped in the art world as a curator of the Newark Museum, is not unlike the ancestor credited with helping to save the Union.President Abraham Lincoln, frustrated with the slowness of certain Union commanders to...

<p>Hobos were very different from the homeless of today, according to Todd DePastino, a Pittsburgh historian and professor at Waynesburg College's Southpointe branch.</p> <p>DePastino will discuss the subject in a free lecture on his book "Citizen Hobo: How a Century of Homelessness Shaped America," 6 p.m. Monday at the Hilton Garden Inn at Southpointe.</p>