Free Republic

Good news! Good news! Project Vote, a collectivity of 10 church-based community organizations dedicated to black voter registration, is off and running. Project Vote is increasing its rolls at a 7,000-per-week clip. Just last Saturday it registered 2,000 during the Chicago Defender's annual Bud Billiken Parade. But now, the not-so-good news: If Project Vote is to reach its goal of registering 150,000 out of an estimated 400,000 unregistered blacks statewide, "it must average 10,000 rather than 7,000 every week," says Barack Obama, the program's executive director. The current drive will end Oct. 5, the last day for registration for the...

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) -- The number of homeless families in Massachusetts has surged -- a spike that has overwhelmed the state's shelter capacity and forced it to again place homeless families in motels.

Washington—Democrats on Capitol Hill have done the unimaginable. The U.S. House of Representatives have created the most significant homeless legislation in American history, slashing homeless numbers to insignificant levels for the first time. Spearheaded by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-CA—a woman capable of handling children and the country—H.R. 9300 will face a vote that is all but a formality on Wednesday, October 8, 2008, literally redefining homelessness through a new set of legal standards. Some of these standards include: 1. Those watching a large screen HDTV will not be considered homeless. 2. Car owners will no longer be considered homeless. 3....

Bills Force Family Out Of Home, Into Tent Parents, 3-Year-Old Daughter Staying At Campsite POSTED: 10:25 pm CDT October 1, 2008 UPDATED: 10:42 pm CDT October 1, 2008KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A local family is having such a difficult time making ends meet that they can't find the money for housing. Kathy Mankey and Brian Fears said they've hit rock bottom. They've been living out of their car and are desperate to find a place to live. "We're trying -- day to day. It's all you can do," Fears told KMBC's Jere Gish. Mankey and Fears are engaged, but...

A homeless thug now registered to vote comments: “They picked me up. They seen me walkin’ around. So day said, ‘You wanna vote?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll vote.’ (laughs) Day said, ‘We’ll take you anywhere you want.’ I said, ‘Dat’s cool’…If day say ’sign the ballot,’ just give ‘em and do exactly what they want you to do.’ I mean, hey, dis is America, you know?” (laughs). Who does this new voter support? “Barack! I mean, I want him to do his thang. You know, do his thug thizzle. You know. That’s how I like it to be. You know....

It’s funny how greed only afflicts the other guy. With John McCain jumping on the anti-avarice bandwagon, the consensus that the greed of rich Wall Street CEOs, analysts, and investors is to blame for the financial market turmoil now spans the New York Times editorial page, the Democratic punditocracy, and the highest reaches of the Republican ticket. Liberal columnists, university professors, and crusading politicians railing against market selfishness are all supremely confident that their own salaries reflect exactly their worth and not a penny more—because they would never seek to make a profit from their labor, right? It’s also axiomatic...

Homeless encampments dubbed "tent cities" are springing up across the US, partly in response to soaring numbers of home repossessions, the credit crunch and rising unemployment, according to a report..."What you're seeing is encampments that I haven't seen since the '80s," said Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, an umbrella group of homeless groups in west coast cities.Homeless encampments springing up due to soaring home repossessions. Photo: Mack Martinez from Iowa smoking in front of his tent in a tent city in Reno.

RENO, Nev. - A few tents cropped up hard by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer. Then others appeared — people who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy, or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work and discovered no one was hiring. Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population. Like...

(AHN) - More cities around the country are finding themselves with tent cities housing otherwise homeless people, and homeless advocates say the foreclosure crisis is partly to blame. Even before the foreclosure crisis, officials in St. Petersburg, Florida tired of criticism over police routing homeless people camping in and near the downtown area on sidewalks in tents. The city allowed various groups to form a permanent, regulated tent city that offers services to occupants to help them get back on their feet. But now, even the upscale community of Santa Barbara, California has found itself with people sleeping in cars...

In his best-selling autobiography, "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., writes movingly about his high school best friend, whom he calls "Ray." Ray's real name is Keith Kakugawa. And Kakugawa's life could not have veered more starkly from that of his old friend, the presidential candidate. Kakugawa is currently homeless in Los Angeles, sleeping in the beat-up Mazda of his friend Jason Myles. He has been in and out of prison for the past few decades, mostly on charges related to cocaine possession and dealing. "To be honest with you,...

A new generation of shakedown artists hampers America’s urban revival.___ Barbara Bradley, an editor with the Memphis Commercial Appeal, moved into the River City’s reviving downtown about a year and a half ago, loving its “energy and enthusiasm.” But a horde of invading panhandlers has cooled her enjoyment of city life. Earlier this year, she recalled in a recent column, as she showed some visitors around the neighborhood, “a big panhandler blocked the entrance to our parking area and demanded his toll.” Now a nervous Bradley avoids certain downtown areas, locks her car when fueling up at local gas stations,...

Link only - Organization reiterates plan for homeless during DNC

Being a beggar will not be so easy anymore if draft legislation approved by the cabinet yesterday becomes law. The bill proposed by the Human Security and Social Development Ministry sets conditions for people who want to be beggars. They must provide proof they are underprivileged, disabled, homeless or elderly without children to care for them. And this will be a reserved occupation, exclusively for Thais who must carry ID cards. Would-be professional beggars will have to report to local administration organisations for approval and work permits. Local agencies will be responsible for controlling beggars in their jurisdictions, while the...

Denver's homeless get free haircuts to look good for Obama and his Democrats Last month The Ticket wrote that officials in Denver, worried about the impression that 50,000 visitors to the Democratic National Convention would get next week, were planning to hide the estimated 4,000 homeless people who hang around the city's downtown area. They arranged for free movie passes and bingo games to get them off the street, as well as temporary housing and free tickets to the zoo and Museum of Nature and Science. Downtown Denver awaits the Democrats Do you see any homeless? Now, with a Hat...

DENVER (CBS4) ― One week before the Democratic National Convention, CBS4 cameras were rolling as police moved in on a group of homeless people. Some of the homeless believe police are cracking down because of the convention. One of the areas homeless believe they are being targeted is Park Avenue West and Broadway. With two large homeless shelters, the area is sometimes considered the epicenter of the homeless community in Denver. A businessman came up to CBS4's Rick Sallinger and suggested doing a story on how police are now cracking down on the homeless in the Park Avenue area. A...

DENVER (CBS4) ― The City of Denver has been working to make sure everything is in tip-top shape for all the visitors coming to town for the Democratic National Convention, and now a local salon is helping in that effort. It seems to be a first -- don't move the homeless, clean them up. That was the work of one salon and the recipients didn't even seem to care if the Democrats were coming to town. Sly's Salon at 17th and Grant was offering free haircuts to the homeless Monday. "To give them haircuts and make them all spiffed up...

An investigation into what the authorities say was a scheme that used homeless people to bilk tens of millions of dollars from federal and state health insurance programs began four years ago with a tip from a rescue mission employee. The employee, Scott Johnson, who works for the Union Rescue Mission in the heart of Skid Row, said he had noticed vans and cars loading up homeless people. “Sometimes they were so full of people that they put people in the trunks of cars,” Mr. Johnson said Thursday as he passed out bottles of water to the homeless. “I wondered...

The number of chronically homeless people in the United States is dropping, according to a new report from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, but the executive director of an area service organization says the challenge of caring for America's disadvantaged people remains great. Nearly 32,000 fewer people lived on the nation's streets and in emergency shelters in 2007, said the HUD report, which highlights a 15% average yearly reduction in chronic homelessness since 2005. Based on data collected from more than 284,000 people in 98 communities across the United States, HUD estimated that nearly 1.6 million people...

THE GREEN BERET COURT MARTIAL Written by To The Point News Friday, 01 August 2008 US Army Green Beret James T. (Smokey) Taylor was awakened in the early morning hours of November 5, 2007, when an intruder broke into his home in Knoxville, Tennessee. He investigated the noises with one of his many weapons in the house. "It was just after Halloween, on Monday morning at 4:30," Taylor testified in his trial. "I heard this commotion at the door and grabbed my fishing gun, a little .22 revolver, to see what was going on. "I got to the front door...

ONE of the best ways to see a city's bones is to take a long jog in the hour before dawn. That's what I did in San Francisco this week. The city reminded me of Calcutta. By day, the camouflage of color and crowds makes the multitudes of homeless less apparent. At the chilly end of the night, though, they lie strewn on the sidewalks like plague victims, wrapped in filthy blankets and abandoned. New Yorkers have no idea how bad a homeless crisis can be. I didn't even run in the rougher sections, where old garbage fills the alleys...

Tom Sepa would rather not be called homeless. "That word is loaded," he said. "I prefer 'urban outdoorsman.' " It is true that Sepa has a lot of things that aren't generally associated with the stereotypical San Francisco homeless person - like a full-time job. A telemarketer, Sepa hits the phones at 7 a.m., working out of Zephyr Cafe in the Richmond District. He uses his laptop and a cell phone headset to make over 100 cold calls each morning. Currently, he's trying to get companies to take a meeting with a software firm he's representing. He gets paid via...

In March 2007, Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan of Gainesville, Fla., launched a program designed to reunite some members of the city's long-term homeless population with family members. "It's not just a bus ticket out of town," Hanrahan told The Gainesville Sun at the time. "It's trying to reconnect people to the places and people that have the resources to get them back on their feet." The program was new to Gainesville at the time, but it was by no means a new idea; San Francisco already had a similar program in place for two years that had been hailed as a...

WASHINGTON — The number of chronically homeless people living in the nation’s streets and shelters has dropped by about 30 percent — from 175,914 to 123,833 — from 2005 to 2007, Bush administration officials said on Tuesday. Housing officials say the statistics, which are collected annually from more than 3,800 cities and counties, may reflect better data collection and some variation in the number of communities reporting. But officials also attribute much of the decline to a policy shift promoted by Congress and the administration that has focused federal and local resources on finding stable housing for homeless people suffering...

GUESS WHICH CANDIDATE WILL WIN THE HOMELESS VOTE Apparently Barack Obama can count on a newly empowered class of voter: the homeless. Michael Stoops, the executive director of the National Coalition of the Homeless says, "Low income and homeless people are more energized than I have ever seen before." Well ... they're that damned energized, tell them to go out and get a job! The mentality from those in the homeless industry is that if you are homeless you care more about who gets elected because your life depends on your ability to live the life of a parasite. A...

(SNIP) Among those following the campaign is Shera Greenwich, a mother of two living at a shelter run by the Henry St. Settlement in New York City. As she waits to move into a subsidized apartment, she says issues including economic security and obtaining quality healthcare are her focus, and she plans to vote Democratic. "I see so much change in the future if Obama is elected President," she said. "I think he can get America back on track." OBSTACLES TO VOTING Advocacy groups campaign each election season to get the homeless to register to vote, noting they often face...

As the military prepares to close Fort Lawton, an Army Reserve base nestled in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood, a city proposal to develop a 200-home subdivision that includes housing for the homeless angers some residents. ___ A newly released city plan to redevelop the soon-to-be-closed Fort Lawton in Seattle calls for building a 200-home subdivision of market-rate and affordable housing on about 18 acres. At a final community meeting Saturday at Fort Lawton, those living near the Army Reserve base said they didn't oppose housing for the homeless, but they worried that the total number of homes proposed and the percentage...

On July 6, SFPD Officer Lisa Frazer responded to several calls about a homeless man named George Miley, who has a long history of terrorizing neighbors at 18th and Diamond in the Castro. But when Frazer tried to serve Miley with a citation for loitering, he became obstreperous and then violent. Frazer only had time to call for backup before he charged her. "He came at me," she said. "He grabbed my microphone and severed the cord so I couldn't call. He ripped my shirt, he scratched me with his fingernails." Luckily, support arrived quickly. It took three officers to...

It's 6 a.m. in Rittenhouse Square, one of Philadelphia's most elegant parks. As the sun rises, its overnight summer residents - more than two dozen homeless men and women - are asleep on benches. --snip-- And while homeless people say they like the comforts of the high-end neighborhood, the Rittenhouse Square residents, managers of nearby businesses, and Fairmount Park Commission employees who maintain the grounds complain that the resulting problems have gotten worse this summer, making their jobs and neighborhood life more difficult

Liberalism in action, California style: The mayor and others are now admitting what the grand jury reported - that a majority of those on the streets are not homeless. The head of the city's homeless program, Dariush Kayhan, estimates that 50 to 75 percent of street people live in supportive housing. "We just warehouse addicts," said the grand jury's Stuart Smith. "Granted, it is a nicer place for them, but it doesn't address the problem." Almost three out of four people on the street live in supportive housing. The article explains that people who live in or move to San...

DENVER'S HIGH-CLASS HOMELESSLast updated: 5:17 am July 20, 2008 That must be some classy set of street people out in Denver. Officials in most places with vagrancy problems must wrestle with issues like drug abuse and mental illness. Apparently not so in Denver - which next month hosts the Democratic National Convention. The area around the convention center where Democrats will gather is home to many of the city's 5,000 or so vagrants, so city officials have hatched a plan to, er, get them out of the way. For their own good, of course. But rest assured that Denver isn't...

JOHNSON: Homeless say DNC diversions not for themBy Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact) Thursday, July 17, 2008 Debbie - and this is merely a hunch - will probably be going to jail next month. Unless they are giving away free booze and marijuana at the movies, the zoo or the Nature & Science museum - along with the free tickets to those venues they plan on giving the homeless during Democratic National Convention week - I can't see Debbie budging from the dirt beneath the Speer Boulevard bridge she has called home the past 26 years. She and scores...

"Hundreds of Denver's homeless could be cooling their heels in a movie theater or museum while the Democratic National Convention is in town next month. The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless plans to get 500 movie tickets as well as passes to the Denver Zoo, Denver Museum of Nature and Science and other cultural facilities for the people it helps. Bus tickets will be provided for events beyond walking distance, said John Parvensky, the non-profit's president."

A long overdue civil grand jury report released Wednesday says that the city should be proud of getting over 4,000 homeless people into housing since 2004 but distressed at the scene on the streets. Panhandling, public drunkenness and street loitering are still an unpleasant reality downtown. The mayor and others are now admitting what the grand jury reported - that a majority of those on the streets are not homeless. The head of the city's homeless program, Dariush Kayhan, estimates that 50 to 75 percent of street people live in supportive housing. "We just warehouse addicts," said the grand jury's...

Hundreds of Denver's homeless could be cooling their heels in a movie theater or museum while the Democratic National Convention is in town next month. The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless plans to get 500 movie tickets as well as passes to the Denver Zoo, Denver Museum of Nature and Science and other cultural facilities for the people it helps. Many day shelters will have expanded hours during the convention, and big screen TVs are being donated to some shelters so patrons can watch convention goings-on without being caught up in the mayhem. A two-day voter registration drive is also...

Do you think Denver is trying to hide the homeless during the Democratic National Convention? Yes No

You are welcome here. That's the message that Denver officials say they hope to convey to its homeless community as the Democratic National Convention approaches. No one will be swept or bused out of the city in an effort to "clean up" Denver during the event. But some homeless advocates say that a city program makes the homeless feel particularly unwelcome in public parks, and that the city plans to empty parks of the homeless before the convention. Called Come On In, the program, which was launched in 2006, urges charities that serve outdoor meals to the homeless to move...

Bean-thin and sallow, George tugged on a cigarette in the blistering parking lot of a Camden men's shelter. Standing on the pavement, his foot on a picnic bench, he recalled how he took his first drink at 13. The hard living shows in the lines of George's face -- and in his medical history. When he gets sick, which is often, the 55-year-old has no place to go except one of the city's emergency rooms. George is a "super user," a new name coined to describe people who turn to the ER with astonishing frequency and at an astonishing cost...

The $300 billion mortgage bill received a vote of approval in the U.S. Senate, but the rescue may not come to starving homeowners soon, largely because the House wants to change the legislation, and Bush has threatened to veto it, leaving thousands of children without a home. “When you wake up in the morning with a foreclosure,” cried Dodd, “you have to face your children and your spouse. How much longer do we need to debate? I guess long enough for people to start jumping off buildings!”

Drug dens, homeless shantytowns and prostitution are rampant in New York City's parks, a Post investigation found. Comparing the manicured lawns of Manhattan's Central Park to the barren, rat-infested eyesore of Spring Creek Park in Brooklyn, the disparity is shocking. While the Bloomberg administration boasts that parks are in better shape than they've been in four decades, an investigation of 70 parks over the last nine months found: * Clusters of homeless living in tents and small shantytowns in 10 parks, including Riverside Park near 148th Street in Manhattan. * Hookers brazenly plying their 24-hour trade, including at Printers Park...

Power to the street people during DNCThe city says it has no plan to hide the homeless during all the hoopla. Some officials hope they'll be part of the dialogue. By Allison Sherry The Denver Post Article Last Updated: 07/01/2008 06:20:24 AM MDT Denver police Cmdr. Deborah Dilley has a message to the 3,900 homeless people who live in the city: You can stay where you are between Aug. 25 and 28. Responding to rumors that Denver's homeless would be bused to Pueblo or hauled out of the hip Lower Downtown area during the Democratic National Convention, city officials say...

Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland By Matthew Day in Warsaw Last Updated: 11:17PM BST 02/07/2008 Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus. The medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, are being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus. Authorities claim that the alleged victims received £1-2 to be tested with what they thought...

Aren't all of those tech gadgets great? PDA's, cell phones, laptops and so on have all had a beneficial impact on our lives. However, not ALL innovations have this effect! See for yourself in this latest installment of "Geeks On Caffeine!"

The recent flooding in Wisconsin is a teachable moment on how a change in circumstances can make people homeless, says Greta Hanson, executive director of the Community Action Coalition for South Central Wisconsin. "So much angst and empathy is flowing to people who have lost everything," Hanson said. "We work with people who have lost everything every day. What's the difference?"CAC is a member of the Dane County Coalition to Fight Homelessness and End Poverty, a group formed in May to educate the community on homelessness and work towards ending poverty in the wake of a recent backlash in Madison...

Mayor C. Ray Nagin recently suggested a way to reduce this city’s post-Katrina homeless population: give them one-way bus tickets out of town. Mr. Nagin later insisted the off-the-cuff proposal was just a joke. But he has portrayed the dozens of people camped in a tent city under a freeway overpass near Canal Street as recalcitrant drug and alcohol abusers who refuse shelter, give passers-by the finger and, worst of all, hail from somewhere else. While many of the homeless do have addiction problems or mental illness, a survey by advocacy groups in February showed that 86 percent were from...

House prices force Americans to sleep in cars By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles Last Updated: 12:58AM BST 22/05/2008 Increasing numbers of women and elderly people are taking advantage of a scheme in one of America's wealthiest cities that enables the homeless to sleep safely in their cars at night. Organisers of the programme say they are seeing ever more unlikely people living out of their cars in the exclusive beachfront city of Santa Barbara, where the average house costs more than $1 million(£500,000). Many hold down part-time jobs while bedding down for the night in their vehicles. Barbara Harvey,...

At first the gash of freshly turned earth looks like one of the hundreds of landslides triggered by China's massive earthquake. But the incense sticks and half-burnt candles along the road hint at a hidden purpose. The scar on the hillside has become a mass grave for the victims of the disaster. A line of young soldiers, their faces covered by blue masks against the stench of decomposing bodies, stand guard. More troops, their uniforms protected by blue plastic coats, squat at the foot of the slope, waiting for the next grim delivery. “The authorities asked us to bury them...

Ottawa’s Panhandlers’ Union has filed a $1 million lawsuit against the City for blocking access to a highway underpass where a youth was murdered. “The area in question is dark, dank and rank,” explained City Attorney Alfred Throckmorton. “Closing it off enhances public health and safety.” The suit describes the underpass as a “critical ‘dumping’ ground for the homeless community.” “These people have nowhere else to go,” said Union lawyer Amos Arrant. “So, one person was murdered. Unfortunate as this may be, putting up with an occasional murder is the price we may have to pay for preserving a traditional...

(05-12) 19:45 PDT -- Rather than tossing loose change into a panhandler's empty cup, San Francisco officials want you instead to slide your spare quarters and nickels into a homeless meter. The city's latest attempt to deal with one of its most vexing problems will be announced in coming weeks in the form of 10 old parking meters installed in some of the most heavily panhandled areas, The Chronicle has learned. Money deposited in the meters would go directly to charities that help the homeless. The goal, officials say, is to reduce panhandling and to educate tourists and residents about...

Click on the link.

A 23-year-old Bloomington, Illinois, hotel employee accused of letting a number of people stay in rooms without paying has told police she let them stay only because some of them were homeless. Jeannie Roberts was charged yesterday with theft of labor, services or property. The general manager of the Clarion Hotel called police after discovering that five rooms were being used even though they were not checked out. Some of the unpaid guests were found in a hot tub, and police said the five rooms had been occupied by about 20 people. Police said the unpaid guests may have damaged...