Free Republic

Full Headline: Would YOU let a homeless person live in your backyard? Portland offers residents free tiny homes if they rent it to families who are on the street .... Faced with an intractable homeless problem, officials in Portland are thinking inside the box. A handful of homeless families will soon move into tiny, government-constructed modular units in the backyards of willing homeowners.

With more than $300,000 and volunteer homeowners, Multnomah County has a new idea to fight homelessness: Build tiny houses in people's backyards and rent them out to families with children now living on the street. The homeowners would pay nothing for the construction. They would become landlords and maintain the units for homeless families for five years. Then the tiny houses would become theirs to do with what they want. If the homeowners break the contract before then, they pay the cost of construction. The project would put the 8-month-old joint homeless office - a shared effort between the county...

When I was 17, I had a chance to be a student lobbyist. I was part of a group of students from several high schools in our state. As a student lobbyist I went to the state capital and spoke before a group of state legislators. The topic was ‘after school’ programs and coincidentally there was to be a vote on funding for such, that day. So the group went to the photo op, I mean hearing, and provided our two cents. After which we got to go see the state legislature in action. At this meeting of the legislators,...

Miami Beach Police detectives have made an arrest in the recent case where swastikas were found etched onto parked vehicles in Miami Beach. The accused subject, 61-year-old Timothy Merriam, is already in jail on other charges, according to a tweet sent by MBPD.

A mannequin, covered with blankets and positioned to resemble a homeless person sleeping on the sidewalk, was attacked with a hammer near downtown Las Vegas. The suspect told Las Vegas police he knew it wasn’t a human. But homicide detectives who staged the mannequin scene say they believe 30-year-old Shane Schindler was out to kill. Two homeless men were bludgeoned to death within a month’s time earlier this year, and Schindler’s arrest report indicates that he attacked the police decoy in a similar fashion. Schindler appeared in court this week, facing one count of carrying a concealed weapon.

LaMont Hammond and his 8-year-old son did not have enough money for a hotel room, so the proud father took his son to the nearby Waffle House to plan his next move. That is where he met security guard Amen Webster who said he could see the pain all over Mr. Hammond's face. Webster went over to Hammond's table and asked what was wrong. "I really was about to cry, but I was trying to be strong for my son. I did not have enough money for a hotel room. They were all too expensive. I was stressed out because...

God bless Robert Rosebrock who dedicates his lifetime to bring Homeless war vets HOME Like an indelible vision of long-gone soldiers that live forever in the memories of their loved ones, Robert Rosebrock has appeared for more than 500 consecutive Sundays and every Memorial Day since March 9, 2008 outside the gates of the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Affairs (GLAVA) park calling public attention to America’s abandoned homeless veterans. It’s a tragic pictorial of homeless and hungry war veterans coming to peer longingly through the gates at what is rightfully theirs through a wrought iron fence.

As many as 15,000 people are homeless after a huge fire engulfed an overcrowded slum in Manila, destroying thousands of homes and sending residents fleeing with their few possessions. The inferno started in a sprawling slum near the port late Tuesday and raged for about 10 hours, as hundreds of firefighters from across the Philippine capital hauled their hoses across rickety, tin roofs to reach the flames. As the blaze whipped across the squalid area, sending a huge plume of smoke billowing into the night sky, residents ran for their lives carrying refrigerators, religious icons and other valuables. Others, desperate...

Am I the only one to notice this? I had an appointment canceled so I was in a local sports bar. I noticed the homeless guy who had replaced the previous homeless guy on the street corner with a sign. I always joked that it must be an union job as they seem to have limited hours and worked shifts. A few stop and give him change. Eventually, a young woman approaches and gives him a wad of money larger than a coffee mug. He passes her a bag. They talk a little. She leaves. He panhandles another few minutes...

In September, D.C.’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser introduced the Homeless Services Modernization Amendment Act, in order to update and improve the 2005 Homeless Services Reform Act. The proposed legislation would now require homeless individuals seeking shelter to provide proof of residency, to ensure that District residents receive priority. Ironically, the city has taken the exact opposite approach to the issue of illegal immigration. Mayor Bowser announced this week that she has pledged $500,000 in taxpayer money for a grant program to help illegal-immigrant residents in deportation proceedings, among other services. Interestingly enough, there seems to be no requirements for such...

FULL TITLE: Homeless man, 23, 'hacked another vagrant with a machete, stomped on his head then threw him into frigid river in snowball fight gone wrong' A homeless man from West Virginia has been charged in a brutal machete attack on another vagrant man, who was then hurled into a ice-cold river. The violent altercation occurred Sunday morning in the Kanawha City section of Charleston. Charleston police Lt. Steve Cooper says 23-year-old Brandon Thompson was charged with attempted murder and malicious wounding. According to Cooper, the victim, identified as 19-year-old Brandon Robinson, hasn't been located as of Monday morning and...

SCHUMER, GILLIBRAND ANNOUNCE MORE THAN $60 MILLION IN FEDERAL FUNDS FOR 38 UPSTATE NEW YORK COUNTIES WORKING TO END HOMELESSNESS SCHUMER, GILLIBRAND ANNOUNCE MORE THAN $60 MILLION IN FEDERAL FUNDS FOR 38 UPSTATE NEW YORK COUNTIES WORKING TO END HOMELESSNESS  Funding Will Be Used to Help Non-Profits, Local Governments Relocate Homeless Individuals & Families, Promote Self-Sufficiency Programs U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand today announced $60,177,796 in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for 38 counties across Upstate NY that promote the goal of ending homelessness. The funding was allocated through HUD’s Continuum of...

Last year we noted, via the Liberty Blitzkrieg blog, that rents in San Francisco and surrounding areas had grown so out of control that even Ivy Leaguers, like 31 year old Luke Iseman of The Wharton School, were having a hard time making ends meet. After growing tired of renting a run down, tiny apartment for $4,200 per month, Iseman decided to take a novel approach to housing. So he rented out a warehouse space and filled it with 11 steel shipping containers that he now rents out as makeshift apartments for $1,000 per month. We learn more from Bloomberg:...

California may be the new capital of American liberalism, but everybody who likes the sound of that ought to consider the fate of three recent San Francisco ballot initiatives. The first, Proposition Q, aimed to eliminate homeless people’s unsightly tent camps by banning sidewalk tents and empowering the police to confiscate them with 24 hours notice so long as occupants were offered beds in shelters. San Francisco has only 1,203 emergency adult shelter beds, for a homeless population of 6,700, but a second initiative, Proposition J, promised to ease that shortfall by earmarking $50 million a year from a small...

DENVER (CBS4)– The Denver Police Department is defending officers who were caught on video taking blankets and tents from homeless people when temperatures dropped to below freezing overnight. The American Civil Liberties Union posted video on Facebook that shows Denver police officers confiscating blankets from people who were camped out in 20 degree weather. VIDEO ON LINK

For all of his focus on industrial workers in the Rust Belt and his dire warnings about America's inner cities, President-elect Donald Trump hasn't had much to say about his plans for those in the deepest levels of poverty—including America's homeless. And that—along with his recent choice of Ben Carson as Housing and Urban Development secretary—is making advocates across the country worried.

Actor Larry Thomas, best known for his portrayal of real-life soup connoisseur Al Yeganeh, in the 1995 'Seinfeld' episode 'The Soup Nazi', stopped by Fox & Friends to discuss what he is doing to help the homeless this holiday, and to make some soup. Thomas said he teamed up with Yeganeh's company, "The Original Soup Man", to provide hundreds of boxes of his soup to a soup kitchens across the United States.

New York City to pay friends and families of homeless people to help them People who take in homeless people can receive up to $1,800 each month The plan is part of the city's new 'Home for the Holidays' program Department of Social Services says it will save the city money on shelters

Diane Reiman, sister of Vietnam veteran Stephen Carl Reiman, is given the casket flag from her brother's coffin during his funeral on Tuesday morning at the Oregon Trail State Veterans Cemetery in Evansville. Stephen Carl Reiman, who served in the Navy during the Vietnam war, died on Nov. 17, in Casper. He suffered from PTSD and was homeless before he was discovered in a hotel room in Sheridan with only a few belongings, including some Bruce Springsteen CDs and his autobiography. Reiman appeared to have no family until his sister was finally located. EVANSVILLE, Wyo. (AP) — Hundreds of people...

As Costs to Shelter Homeless Grow, D.C. Mayor Wants Non-City Residents Out Posted on November 29, 2016 Steve Burns WMAL.com WASHINGTON – (WMAL) As costs continue soaring to house the District’s homeless population, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser Tuesday said the District should put an end to housing non-District residents in the city’s homeless shelters. “If we are serving everybody else’s residents, we can’t serve our own,” Bowser said during a Mayor-Council breakfast Tuesday morning. “We have an obligation to serve our residents, but we cannot serve the entire region.” City officials say costs are expanding rapidly as the homeless population...