[daviddennis]

Thanks to some curious legal loopholes, he is technically homeless.

He runs a homeless shelter called the Dome Village, which consists of a grouping of small domes. Each dome contains minimal sleeping accomodations; kitchen and bath facilities are shared. He lives in the same type of housing the other people in his shelter live in, with the exception that he has a whole dome instead of half a dome; one half is his living quarters and the other half is his office.

HUD's legal definition of a home includes various minimum requirements that the Dome Village does not meet. In fact, the Village required a special exemption from Mayor Riordan to be built at all, because it is technically substandard housing.

The result of this legal tangle is that Ted's dome is a tent per Hud regulations. As a result, Ted is technically homeless even though he has a perfectly solid roof over his head.

Prior to developing the Dome Village, he lived in a homeless encampment called Justiceville, where the conditions were often horrible. He engaged in a massive effort to bring them up to legal minimum standards, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

I would say that he has enough experience on or near the streets to have as much street cred as anyone, regardless of his current status.

D

[P.O.E.]

Thanks - that was great background info.

It points up that much of the homeless status is due to government intervention. By demanding that only the government can decide what is a home, it leaves many technically homeless. How convenient for those who get their funding by claiming they are homeless advocates - the more homeless, the better. This guy seems to be doing something real to help the homeless, and the gov't gives him a hard time.