How San Francisco really deals with the homeless This Youtube video is of a San Francisco city truck with a water-cannon mounted on the front of it, housing down a homeless man. It is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkfLFPxIVQU
Reposted / uploaded here, with premission.
This next one is only linked in because I do not have permission to use it, yet ....
Another video that was shot at street level with a close up on the vehicle license plate and more Posted at;
Links are given to the reports and reference material of the meanest cities in America that have criminalized being homeless with laws and ordinances that they have passed. Most of which are patterned after programs in San Francisco where the mayor is now running for governor. His "program" reduced the general assistance rolls (welfare) by over 70%. Resulting in swarms of homeless people descending on other communities that had to pass similar laws because they were overwhelmed by the flood of homeless people. While San Francisco kept all of the money that they got from HUD to "help the homeless". A Youtube video is posted near the end of this blog o f what is believed to be a San Francisco city truck with a water cannon mounted on the front of it, housing down a homeless man that had been sleeping. While about one out of three of the homeless men are veterans
Thank you for joining our group. Ron covered most of what we are currently working on to help people that are homeless or at risk of being homeless in Tucson. We also are working on networking with other groups, and people such as yourself who as well are very interested in helping the homeless. For example this past Sunday Ron and I attended a Sunday brunch for the homeless at a very nice place called the Z Mansion here in Tucson. We discovered that t
At the present under the umbrella of the "Center" is "Homeless Documentaries" a group we have formed to document the realities of homelessness and poverty in video format. The videos that you see on the "Home" page are our work.
We believe that the mainstream media don't want you to see the reality of these conditions because they do not equate to polical power of put money in any one's pocket.
Here is a picture of us (me behind the video camera) preparing to do a shoot and a local feedin
Hi Teresa I am Ron or Chakazuluu as is the name on my profile. We are very happy to have you here with us. I will get some of the others to comment to you also.
I will come back tomorrow (Sunday) and tell you what the "Center" is doing for the homeless in Tucson Arizona.
I firmly believe that part of a government’s job is to take care and assist the poor and underprivileged in its society. The outgoing administration has failed in this respect miserably.
In 2006 the feds cut $10 million to Community Block Development Grant (CBDG) funding to the States. One of the many situations that CBDG addresses is providing funding to the agencies that provide services to the homeless and poverty stricken. Because of the funding cuts some agencies had to go under others had had to cut back needed services and many were forced to spend time that was needed doing support to be creative in finding new funding sources.
Bush vetoed on October 2nd 2007 the bipartisan supported Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act which would have provided 10 million needy American children with health care. He also vetoed the revised bill on December 12th.
He also vetoed in 2007 spending legislation that would have provided financial assistance to help low-income families pay for expensive heating bills during the winter. He also rejected the compromise bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education which also contained funding for Low Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP).
Now that we have a new administration coming into power we as citizen’s need to be forthright and assertive in what issues that we want addressed. A government is supposed to be a servant of the people and we the people must tell them what we want. There is no way that they can have oversight on every pertinent issue that exists. We are the ones in the swamp and we need to tell them that we want the alligators removed. If we don’t they will focus on cutting down the Cyprus trees to build houses.
We need to gather together in small and large groups and exert our power over the politicos because if we don’t tell them what we want the new administration will develop there own agendas and focus on their needs and not ours. If they do not attend to our needs then we need to remove them from power. Period
There are many people that think that the homeless are shiftless, without direction and do not want to work. But the opposite is the reality.
Yes, just as you find in mainstream life many people with different motivations some wanting something do something with their lives and others not wanting to do anything among homeless people there is a small percentage that don't want any form of responsibility. But who amongst us especially during those times of great pressure and duress don't yearn for a simpler and less complicated life.
But the norm is that there are many, many homeless individuals and families striving to get back into the mainstream. I see them every day in my job at Primavera Works, the work program under the Primavera Foundation in Tucson Az. (Primavera Foundation is a full service provider to the homeless and poverty stricken) They come into our office eager and bright eyed in anticipation of the possibility of working. Often when the work assignments run out while people are still inline you can feel the disappointment and disgruntlement in the air.
When we decided to make the video slide show and its companion video we wanted to show the parallels in desire and want between homeless people and the mainstream. We want you to see the humanness and commonality they share among all people.
None of the people in the videos were selected they were all asked at random as people passed our camera if they wanted to participate in a venture to humanize them in the public's eyes.
Each and every one of them had at some point in their lives had been living in the mainstream they could have been one of your neighbors. But because of situations that got out of control possibly because of poor decision making processes or external influences over which their was no control they fell from grace in society and became homeless.
Listen to their stories carefully they are not much different from the plight of many others you have listened to who have not yet fallen. Yes, there is mention of alcohol and drug influences but many of us are alcoholics or are addicted to pain killers or other forms of legal medications. But you and I have access through our insurance and other sources to deal with our addictions the homeless have minimal if any resource at all. Yet when a homeless drunk is seen on the streets they are looked down upon as if they were some sort of pariah or low life. I am sure that if they had a home they would get drunk there just as we do. But then they would not be homeless, would they.
Take note of one particular person's story those of you in high levels of employment he tells you of having worked in aero-space and do to changing conditions and the political climate he lost his job and went on a downward spiral. How many of us in this uncertain economical atmosphere can feel the tendrils of possible unemployment grasping at us. At a time when high level bank officers are loosing their jobs we stand on a shaky foundation of uncertainty and financial ruin.
Now we have the homeless populations being mushroomed by uncounted numbers of combat veterans male and female alike, a great many others having been caught up in the sub prime mortgage crises, individuals and families not making a livable wage and our government saving the financial empires of the power brokers and letting the little people that make up the bulk of this country suffer and shift for themselves. It is time that we rethink our position on the have-nots of our country because we live in perilous times and if we do not take care of those that live on the fringe of society who will take care of us when we get there.
Oh, you think it won't happen to you? How many houses in your neighborhood are abandoned or up for sale? Where did their occupants go? Some are living I am sure less than they were others may be sleeping on their cousin's couch and some I assure you some of them are homeless.
This is the companion video to "Homeless Camps One" and Homeless Camps Two" video slide shows. It shows the interiors of camps in a way you would not expect to see them.
An unfortunate trend in cities around the country over the past 25 years has been to turn to the criminal justice system to respond to people living in public spaces. This trend includes measures that target Homeless persons by making it illegal to perform life-sustaining activities in public. These measures prohibit activities such as sleeping/camping, eating, sitting, and begging in public spaces, usually including criminal penalties for violation of these laws.
This criminalization process involves making it illegal to sit, sleep in public places. The police sweep areas where the Homeless camp and drive them out all the while destroying their personal property, important documents and medication. This bulldozing of camps can and do put Homeless people in a crises situation causing them great harm oh yes I know it beatifies the inner city and creates a false impression that everything is ok but what does it do to our humanity. When you go to confession do you also say that you condoned the bulldozing of a Homeless camp and totally destroyed the lives of countless people?
Another thing that is happening is laws are targeting peoples and agencies that feed the in public places. They are limiting the numbers of people that can be fed and placing other restriction on them.
There are some cities in this country that are down right evil in there methods of dealing with the homeless but there are others that are setting a standard for decent treatment. Take San Diego, Ca for example they have created the nation's first Homeless Court Program which is a special Superior Court held at local shelters to resolve outstanding misdemeanor criminal cases. This makes a great deal of sense. How in the world do you give a ticket to a person that doesn't have any money?When it goes to a warrant status and he is arrested this then goes against him when he applies for public housing or other services.
I have seen here in Tucson Az the police rousting and moving along the Homeless in the parks whose only crime was that they wanted to get some sleep in the warmth of the sun after spending a night in the rain, cold or other in climate weather.
Treating the homeless as such does not depreciate their numbers and it does not make them less visible because all the time we spend criminalizing them and treating them as less than human their numbers are increasing every year. What will we do then when there is no place to move them along to because the are every where?
I am posting this blog for a close friend and co-worker Diana Robledo. She is Operations Supervisor, Relief and Referral , Primavera Foundation, Tucson Arizona. She and I both work there and in her program which allows any Homeless person to receive services that comes off the streets whether they receive services from any other Primavera program or not. The people that come to her program can receive, case managment, food boxes, use the bathrooms, use a phone, have their mail sent there, receive lotions, toothbrushes, blankets, bedrolls, get vouchers for their clothing store and many other services.
Diana sees and experiences the anguish, heart break and tragedy that is Homelessness on a daily basis. I worry about her sometimes 'cause she is in the trenches and always up to her ass in alligators. I love this woman because her didication is without peer. I have to go some to reach her level.
At any rate on the front piece of Homeless Advocate she has a poem that was written by her for her deceased father that was Homeless and beaten to death while he was so. Please read the the following piece by her and weep.
RIP...I lost another one........ Current mood: sad Category: Life
Rest in Peace Gordon (hit by a car), Tim (fell and broke c4, quadrapalegic), Walter (heart attack and stroke), James (overdose), Gayle (overdose), John (suicide) Randall (sickness), Jane Doe (suicide), Russell (fell off a train) and the most recent Juan (complications due to alcoholism). Only one of these had a next of kin.
Within the last few weeks the names mentioned above and then some have all passed away. Juan being the most recent, two nights ago. He had no next of kin and last Wednesday as I visited him in the hospital, I sat on his bed side trying to get him to eat or drink something. Juan, only 50 years old looked close to 70. He sat there and stared at me with tears in his eyes as if he knew his final days were fast approaching. He repeatedly thanked me for visiting him. I asked him for family contacts and we tried two phone numbers of his brothers' in Texas but one was the wrong number and the other had been disconnected.
As I was getting ready to leave I asked the nurse his prognosis and because of HIPA laws she could not tell me. We asked Juan for permission and he signed a release form. Luckily he was of sound mind when he did so.
Before I left I said a silent blessing on him and left the nurse my business card and cell phone number. On Sunday, November 18, the nurse from the hospital called and said he had slipped into a coma. I went the next morning and walked in to see Juan hooked up to about five machines and looking nothing how he looked 4 days before. I stayed for a little while, went to work, retuned after work and stayed by his side holding his hand and talking to him. I am not sure that he heard anything of what I said to him but I told him not to be afaid and his time here in this world was done and to stop the fight, there was no need for struggling anymore. His kidneys, liver, lungs were shutting down and his brain wouldn't stop seizing. I left the hospital after a few hours with the anticipation of returning the next morning to be with him but I recieved a phone call that same night that Juan had passed....May he rest in peace.
Another lost with no one to claim him.......I did and I have to say it was an incredible journey!
You would think after 11 years of being clean and having reestablished ones self back in main stream society every thing would be cool. Well I am here to tell ya everything is not cool.
I know people struggle everyday to pay the rent, to have enough money to put gas in the car to do what ever they have to in order to survive.
Ya see me at work I'm always smiling lookin at stuff with a positiveeye, getting things done. But you would never know I am in a constant state of turmoil.
When I quite the street life and quite smoking crack I vowed to myself that I would attempt to be the very best person I could possible be. What that meant to me was to maintain a constant state of honesty, straight forwardness (no mo playin games with peoples heads) and a willingness to comply with and become one with the natural order of things.
These attributes are by far the hardest conditions I have ever tried to maintain in my life. I am always having to check my intentions, motivations, reasons and wherefores. I 'm not trying to be perfect I am just trying to reach what I originally thought would be some attainable goals. Yes, I believe I have obtained some measure of success I am no longer a predator, I no longer perceive woman as objects for my personal satisfaction or financial gain. I see people now as individuals that I can interact without trying to figure out how I get them to give me what they have or how I can take it away from them. I believe there in is some level a modicum of progress. But the striving to where I want to get to requires a horrendous amount of energy and effort on my part.
I know what the problem is but I don't know if I can do anything about it. Ya see that which I was still resides within me. I can feel its influence on every decision that is to be made on the subject of right or wrong. Sometimes I think that it has a mind of its own because it becomes quite canny in its influences and attempted effects on my decision making processes. So there it is I am battling against my self and believe me it is a up hill battle every foot of the way.
Look here I work in social services and the agency that I work for provides services to the homeless. There are a considerable number of people that are homeless and that I deal with that see me as the success that they would like to be. So when conversing with them I need to, I have to give them at all times words that lift them up. I cannot allow the darkside of me interject any negativity at all when speaking with them.
I got this process, when I get home I sit in a quiet place which is generally my car and I go over every conversation that I had in the process of my day and I pick it apart. Could I have said this better, should I have done more listening and less talking, did I make good eye contact, did I really try to understand what she said to me. I do this each and every day because I want to have a positive effect on peoples lives.
Sometime I think I would be better off being just a regular joe blow with all of his games, lies and pretensions. No I'm not gonna stop tryin to be a better person than I was yesterday. But goddamn it's a hard row to hoe.
I'm in San Diego, I'm walkin around in town I come to this corner there is a group of obviously homeless individuals with there one liter water bottles tied to their backpacks, their mangy dogs and one or two of 'em eating out of cans. I casually walk in their direction, tryin not to be too obvious. I barely notice one old man sitting on a stoop slightly away from the group. My intention is to start a conversation and find out what services are offered to them in town and compare those services to the ones offered in Tucson Az. While acting like I am waiting fo the light to change I nod to one and he says "what's up". This is my chance an icebreaker has occurred. I am about to say something trite about surf and sand to start a conversation when something momentous occurs.
The old man on the stoop says "hey pimp", I look over at him and he moves his head to beckon me over. There is a vague hint of familiarity in his voice but it triggers nothing in my memory. I start to walk over to him and suddenly I am down wind from him and the stench form his body odor is overwhelming. Well I have smelled decaying bodies before so I can get past this. He is wearin on his shirt and pants a piece of every bit of food and drink he has probably consumed in the past ten years. His clothes are stiff from the lack of cleaning for who knows how long. His face and exposed skin is matted with dirt and scum from what seems millennia. But his eyes, those eyes (something familiar about them) are clear and bright, they are green (a piece of memory surfaces just barely out of reach) as if he is peeking out of a prison made of bone, skin, muck and yuk. "What's up pimp' he says again. I said "do I know you"?He drones on oblivious to my question, "I can see ya ain't a pimp no mo wearin them $2 jeans and PF Flyers.
Suddenly the lilt in his voice, the intonation, pronunciation and the emphasis on the first letter of the word "pimp" as that letter explodes out of his mouth dragging the rest of the word with it triggers other pieces of memory that float up to the original one, they combine illogically, rearrange themselves several times and finely settle them selves in cohesive order and they float into reach and realization stupefies me.
He was a motherfuker, that pimp was. Every time I turned around he was snatching one of my girls and had them locked up in his stable. What was his game mine was the very best crack that ya could get anywhere in the world. Once I hooked a bitch with my shit and had her totally strung out she was mine forever 'cause she couldn't get shit like I had anywhere. But he always managed to steal the cream of my crop whenever he chose. What did he have going that I didn't. They called him Sweetmeat, The Woman's Treat. His shit was tight, he had a cadre of highly dangerous and capable men and women around him that would die fo him at the slightest command. He was like the Hashhishin that would have his followers demonstrate their loyalty by committing suicide in front of the masses.
"You ain't no pimp, no mo" he said. Yeah ya right, I'm not. You ain't either obviously. He said No, I am an old decrepit, straight razor toting, spiteful shadow of myself now. I told him ya always did have a good grasp on whom ya were and where ya was at. Ya wanna know how I was able to beat ya at yo own game? Do ya wanna know, I'll tell ya religion. You had crack the very best crack that there was a highly persuasive drug once hooked. But I had invented my own religion one that I was the center of. Once you were indoctrinated and vowed yo fealty to me at that point no drug or other inducement could sway ya 'cause I had ya tightly in my grasp.
Suddenly in the middle of his talking to me he broke off and his mind when some place else, he started mumbling as if orating to a group of people, gesturing in the air. Just as suddenly after a minute of that he would pounce back into reality. He would start talking again as if there had not been an interruption taking up his conversation right after the last word he spoke.
I learned from him that after a time he realized that he was getting older and slower and his mind was getting more befuddled. He made the decision to quit the streets and marry one of his girls. Fortunately he had bankrolled a lot a money none of it in banks (he didn't believe in banks). There was some under the floor boards of his house, some in the attic, in a 10 can buried in a park and some in a box buried in the woods somewhere. All to the tune of $200,000.
His wife became very expensive she wanted and got furs, diamonds, expensive clothes but when he started buying her cars that is what broke him. Ya see he never had to worry about money before in his life he started out in the streets at age 13 and from then on he never was without plenty of money so he didn't have to learn about being frugal. What ever he wanted he bought or stole.
While he was allowing his wife to drive him to the poorhouse he was getting sick. He was a heavy drinker and his liver was going out on him. He had always been a very big man until now and diabetes had caught up with him. He also admitted to me that he didn't have much feeling in his extremities. He never in his life went to doctors, a good drink was all he thought he needed and sometimes he would take these medieval concoctions of garlic cloves, red peppers, egg yolks and of coarse liquor. He was dieing and he knew it.
Just before parting with him he said "pimp we did it, we had our time we were the cock of the roost, no one was better than us we had the money, the women, the good times we ruled the streets you and I".
I look back in time and I ask my self "how did I make it this far" how did I ever break away from all that chaotic shit? I look back at him as I am leaving his mind has gone to that other place again and I think had it not been fo time and circumstance I would also be a dead man walkin'.
Certain realizations have come to me in my time on this earth and one of those is that when you have led the type of life that I have in the past you cannot leave all of it totally behind. Sometimes what you think you left behind is moving faster than you, in the same direction and is heading to a crossing point.
I am sitting at my desk on my job at about 3:00 pm on a Thursday and my cell rings. I answer and the voice on the other end says "Ron?". Yeah this is me who is you. Ron, this is Clean Head.
Oops! Suddenly I am mentally catapulted back in time. I remember Clean Head he use to work for me. Whenever I needed someone lightly chastised Clean Head was not the man to send because he was far too brutal his means of chastisement was always extreme. He would often take a person within an inch of death and sometimes beyond. Many times I would send people who were less brutal and also less experienced in the arts mayhem.
When someone really, really pissed me off and I was done with them I would send Clean Head and the person to whom his attentions were focused then no longer was a problem.
So Clean (what we called me for short) says he made a big mistake. His wife left him and took the kid, he went of the deep end and ended up in the dope house (crack house) and he really needs to get out of the dope house, straighten up and get back to his job (he hadn't been to work for three days). The problem is that he owes the dope man $300.00 for the dope he smoked and said he had money for but really didn't. I asked him "you want me to go into a dope house and bail you out"? The answer was yes.
Clean said that he had gone to anger management classes and got a handle on his anger. He hadn't had an outburst or a physical confrontation in three years. He met this lady at the bus stop on his way to work and married her a year later. They had a son another year after that. He said that this event is his only fuck-up and he really needs help getting out of the situation otherwise he knows only way to alleviate his position and he doesn't want to do that because it will put him back where he was when we were working the streets.
O crap! What am I suppose to do about this shit. This man wants me to go into the dope house. I can't be no where around a dope house, I am in recovery, and I will be for the rest of my life. Being in the dope house could jeopardize me staying clean.
Gotta make a decision. I could be selfish and say no. That way I don't have bother with the crap. But selfish is not part of my program these days. Hmmmm The situation here is that clean was an original member of my, lets call it "group". He stayed loyal to me form the beginning to the eventual disbanding of my "group". When I disbanded Clean was the only one I told if you ever need help call me and I will be there for you. Now when I told him this I did mean I would help him no matter what the situation is. But this is a different time, I am a different person so therefore the situations in which I would help him has to be where is is honest and straight forward. This is what he claims he is. Hmmmmm
Ok, he sounds like he is telling the truth. He has reached out to me for assistance and my personal program says that if I believe that all that he says is the truth I need to help him.
I went home strapped on my quick draw pull down holster (left over from the old days) and placed my piece in it. I put my Clipit knife on my pocket and placed another knife in its holster under my pants and above my right ankle. Finally I put on a jacket (another left over) that is padded in such a way that you can't tell that I am wearing a cannon (44 Magnum) under my left arm. By now I am not really feeling good about this situation. Just wearing this stuff is placing me in a frame of mind that is not comfortable.
I arrive at the dope house that is surprisingly nice looking in a seemingly decent neighborhood. I must really be out of touch 'cause I remember them being in the seedy parts of town and in some run down house. This dope shit is running very upscale. They let me in the door and I see my friend (is that what he is my friend, I don't know) in a room with a bunch of people smoking the dope they bought at the house.
Through the kitchen door comes the dope man. Oops again! I am thinking what is this a goddamn conspiracy? The dope man happens to be my former dope man, he is older, fatter and obviously by the cut of his clothes and the jewelry he wears more prosperous. He greets me as if we were home boys for years. I know the type he is now so I tell him straight up what I want. I want to trade the money for the package (my friend being the package) and get out of his house peacefully but if any bullshit goes down I am prepared to shoot my way out if I have to and where my mind set is right now I will take out anybody that I see. I look back on that statement in retrospect and I know if I didn't before that I am still capable of any other fucked up thing that I have done in the past. What is different is that now I wear the façade of respectability and acceptability. That statement knowing that I fully meant it at the time gave me the realization that I have to be aware of my motivations, intentions and reasons for doing 24/7. This is because I could at any time with the right motivation, emotion or intention become again who I once was or worse
Dope man says I remember you in your heyday, I also remember what you were capable of. I don't want any trouble from you in any way, give me the money and you can have the package.
Well it doesn't quite end there; you didn't think it would anyway did you.
Dope man is slick he see some money walk through the door so you know he is gonna try to get some more of it. That's his job. So dope man says let by gones be by gones here have some good stuff and smoke it on me. Another oops, here is the trap I see it as soon as it is sprung. I anticipated something of this nature before I got there. But here is the problem not only did he spring a trap he laced it heavily with dope. What he laid on the table in front of us was not a 20 nor a 60 it was at least a 100.That is a lot of dope to just give to somebody. The motivation is of coarse is to get me and clean sprung and no matter the amount of dope you smoke you always, always want more and more is never enough. MORE is the name of the beast.
No I did not walk out of the house immediately I pondered first for about a minute and a half I pondered with the dope man standing there looking like the cat that ate the canary. I knew in my mind the he knew that he had given me an offer I could not refuse. Fortunately in reality he hadn't. Just on reflex knowing that if I don't do something positive immediately I am doomed I spun around grabbed clean by the arm and quickly left that place.
That was a few years back but I learned a lot about the reality of my self and I am continuing to learn. You know Clean, you can't call him that anymore now 'cause now he is a priest or something of that sort ministering to the poor and the homeless.
Doesn't it strike you peculiar that two street roughs can end up going 180 degrees and end up helping people? I work for a non-profit that works on the behalf of the homeless and he a priest, minister or something helping folks to god. What a world.
You know, when I started working in the streets I was not especially vicious, brutal or predatory. I was your normal everyday Joe Blow heir to bouts of anger accompanied by the usual cussing, frowning and mumbling under the breath but nothing particularly violent. So one of my first lessons that I learned was that everyone I dealt with from those that were successful to those that were struggling to rise in the field of crime were particularly volatile. They were all very dangerous feral creatures of the asphalt jungle. The conditions remind me of a saying that my street mentor use to tell me.
The beast feeds where it can
And I was named a beast
At every feast before I was
Ever named a man
He would often say it to me when he would find me being compassionate, forgiving and kind to others. "You'll never make it like that" he would tell me. You will always be a low level street urchin if you don't learn to toughen up. At some point I did acquire the understanding that though all the street people were dangerous the most successful ones were the most dangerous. I realized a correlation between success and volatility.
I got tired of making the small change while others were making the bucks. I also got tired of folks shitting on me, giving me the left over's, treating me like what I was a low level street urchin. I started developing the qualities that I recognized that was necessary for success. It wasn't easy to burn and cauterize the good guy in me. I would slap around the one female that I had on the streets hoeing for me (in the street vernacular she would be called a two-bit hoe in that she didn't charge very much) because she didn't bring much money back. At first I would slap her pulling my slap, then I would have recriminations and seeing her crying, flinching from my movements and red from the blows I would want to take it back. But I couldn't if I was to be successful.
Slowly and over a period of time I became more predatory but then something peculiar would start to occur. Something that I recognized when ever it happened. When ever I got into a situation where my money, status or welfare in any way was jeopardized some where in my head a sinister voice would chime in and say something like beat that bitch, shoot that motherfucker, show him who he is messing with or some such.
Over time I gave it a name "My Beast". It was my guardian, when ever I became ladi da like every thing was cool and I consciously was not particularly aware of changing situations around me and something would occur that I was oblivious off that could jeopardize my existence My Beast would speak up and spur me into action and most of the time that action was violent.
So I decided to get clean (you can read about that in my first two Blogs) I'm gonna straighten out my life, go mainstream and live happily ever after. Not!!
Ya' see it wasn't that easy is any goddamn thing ever? It was a fuggin chore it was the first hardest thing I ever had to deal with in my life. Ever!! Not only was I a predator with all the appropriate predatory instincts (somewhere in one of those first two blogs I give you more detail on this) I was a gaddamn drug addict to boot.
Now My Beast is also My Addict, combined it is an extremely difficult facet of my mind to ignore. Well, I did get clean and have stayed so for these 11 or 12 years. But I am going to tell the real truth my beast/addict is still with me. I am mainstream now I help provide services to the homeless through the Primavera Foundation in Tucson Arizona and my beast to this day while I am going through my normal work day will rise and suggest actions to supplement my income and sexual adventurism based upon the people and situations over which I have control. I always say no. But it tries me often and it uses pseudo logic in attempts to sway me. I have to be on it 24/7 there is no time that I can let down my guard. I have to be aware at all times of my motivations and intentions to continue in this life style that I have chosen..
Ok, it sounds like I am some sort of paranoid schizophrenic but I believe we all have a voice that either compliments or works against us. Some of us have more than one voice and we always, always have a choice between yes and no. Even in situations in which we are in that we think we don't have a choice we always have a choice. We can even make a choice by not making a choice. I have chosen right over wrong and though my beast may push and prod me I have continued to hold to the coarse. I will not succumb to the beast within.
"Homeless Stories" is a companion video to the video slide show "Homeless Faces" and features some of the same people in the slide show telling their stories.
"Homeless Stories Part 2" is the companion video to the video slide show "Homeless Faces" and features some of the same people that are seen in the slide show telling their stories.
"Homeless Stories" is a companion video to the video slide show "Homeless Faces" and it features some of the same people in the slide show telling their stories.
This blog was inspired by a the first video below that was posted by my friendBlu222
You see on the news that certain individuals that were Homeless died due to over exposure when the temperature was 29 degrees or that a Homeless camp was raidedby the authorities and the people were dispersed and all their worldly belongings were destroyed and you think oh well . Some of you might even think or even verbalize to your friends and relatives some of you will write letters to the editor of your local newspaper that "those" people got what they deserve. There are some of you that think that Homeless people are all shiftless, lazy and that they are all some sub-human class of being.
How many times when you were in school that when there was an individual with a learning disability that you called them names, played dirty tricks on them and barred them from your social activities because they were "different". You even carried into adult hood the same attitude toward "those" people.
Mentally ill people are all through out our society but when you see them you snicker at them, you look at them boldly and unabashedly in a way that you would not dare look at a "normal" human being. You are abhorred by the peculiar actions of these people that seem to be living in another world.
I want you to stop and think for a moment, remember that kid in school that had a learning disability the one you would not consider sitting next to in the auditorium? Look at these famous and well known people below and think how would your life be impacted or even diminished if they had not existed.
Oh yes it is time to think again, how would your life be impacted had you not had all these beautiful, talented Mentally Ill people to titillate your senses with their art and expertise.
Vincent Van Gogh
Nikola Tesla
Yes it is in another language but that does not take away from his greatness and you will get the idea.
Here is one in English about Tesla
Tesla is one of my favorite subjects that is the reason you got two videos on him. Below you will find many well known names of people. Yes these people have impacted yours and my lives in ways that are unimaginable.
Abraham Lincoln: The 16th president, one of the greatest Americans, suffered from severe, incapacitating and occasionally suicidal depressions, documented in six biographical volumes by Carl Sandburg, and in numerous articles, including, "Dark Veil of Depression" by Judy Folkenburg, National Institute of Mental Health, published in The Consumer.
Lionel Aldridge: A defensive end for Vince Lombardi's legendary Green Bay Packers of the 1960's, Aldridge played in two Super Bowls. In the 1970's, he suffered from schizophrenia and was homeless for two years. He now gives inspirational talks on his battle against paranoid schizophrenia. His story has been told in numerous newspaper articles, copies of which are available from the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill.
Ludwig Beethoven: The brilliant musician experienced manic depression, documented in Beethoven by Schauffler.
Leo Tolstoy: Author of War and Peace, one of the world's greatest novels, Tolstoy told of his own mental illness in My Confession. It is also discussed in Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and Inner World of Madness by Beet Kaplan.
Edgar Allen Poe: The famous author known for his eerie, inventive works, clearly experienced mental illness as documented in The Haunted Palace: The Life of Edgar Allen Poe by Frances Winwar.
Winston Churchill: "Had he been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all odds were against Britain, a leader of sober judgement might well have concluded that we were finished," wrote Anthony Storr in Churchill. Storr also discussed Churchill's manic depression in his book The Dynamics of Creation.
Vivien Leigh: The actress who starred in" Gone With The Wind" suffered from mental illness, as documented in Vivien Leigh by Anne Edwards.
Sylvia Plath: The poet and novelist suffered mental illness as documented in A Memory of Sylvia Plath by Anne Edwards.
Patty Duke: The actress told of her bipolar illness in an autobiography, Call Me Anna, which became a television movie. .
Charles Dickens: One of the greatest authors in the English language suffered from depression, as documented in Key To Genius by Hersham and Lieb, and Charles Dickens, Vols. I and II by Edgar Johnson.
Finally we have come to Homelessness and you say who has been Homeless that I could possibly recognize there names other than my cousin Joe. Look below and be amazed.
John Drew Barrymore . . . actor; father of actress Drew Barrymore (streets/shelters).
Jean-Michel Basquiat . . . artist-actor (streets of New York City where he began as a graffiti artist and found fame as a canvas artist with the help of Andy Warhol. The poster at right is for a 1996 movie based on his life. The cast included actors Jeffrey Wright [title role], Benicio Del Toro, David Bowie, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, Parker Posey, Courtney Love, and Tatum O'Neal.).
Halle Berry . . . Oscar-winning and Emmy Award-winning actress (shelter in New York City) (sources: Reader's Digest, April 2007, cover story: "Halle Berry: From homeless shelter to Hollywood fame." Page: 89: RD: "Is it true that when you moved to New York to begin your acting career, you lived in a shelter?" Berry: "Very briefly. ...I wasn't working for a while. RD: "How old were you then?" Berry: "I probably was about 21. But a girl had to do what a girl had to do. You can do that when you're 21 and ambitious, and your eyes are this big and you don't want to go home." / US magazine, April 22, 2007: "Halle Berry was homeless. Berry slept at a shelter in NYC after her mom refused to send her money.") .
Buddha (Gautama Siddhartha) . . . religious leader; source for Buddhism; Enlightened One in the Buddhism religion (outdoor camping).
Andrew Burke . . . governor of North Dakota 1870-1873 (streets of New York City during his childhood; sent west on one of many "orphan trains," accompanied on this particular trip by future Alaska governor John Green Brady).
Drew Carey . . . Emmy Award-nominated actor-writer-producer-comedian; best-selling American author (star of the television series The Drew Carey Show) (car) (source: Entertainment Tonight, May 23, 2002; birthdays segment, co-host Mary Hart: "Which star of The Drew Carey Show once lived out of his car? That's Drew Carey himself, who turns 44 today.")
Jim Carrey . . . actor-writer-producer-comedian (yellow VW van in various Canadian locations with older brother John Carrey, older sister Rita Carrey, and parents Percy Carrey and Kathleen Carrey/outdoor camping in a tent with his family in the backyard of the home of his older married sister, Patricia Carrey).
Charlie Chaplin . . . Oscar-winning actor-writer-director-producer; British-born author; knighted (streets of London during his childhood after his father died and his mother suffered a mental breakdown).
Kelly Clarkson . . . Grammy Award-winning singer; American Idol television talent show 1st-season winner 2002 (car/shelter, with her female roommate after a major structural fire forced them out of a 71-unit apartment building in West Hollywood, California in March 2002) (source: Inside Edition television newsmagazine, September 5, 2002; story/interview with her roommate-fellow Texan, actress-singer-dancer Janet Harvick. Janet: "It was really, really rough because we had just moved here, and we had just moved in the day of the fire. We knew nobody here—I mean nobody, so the night of the fire, the next day, and night, we stayed in our car." / US Weekly magazine, September 23, 2002; print story: "'My apartment [building] burned down; my car got towed twice,' recalls Clarkson, who, with nowhere to go, lived in a homeless shelter for several days.") Photo: TV Guide.
Jacqueline Danforth . . . daughter of television journalist Barbara Walters and theatrical producer Lee Guber; founder-executive director of Daughters, Inc. / New Horizons Wilderness Program for young women (ran away from home in 1984 at age 15 and hitchhiked approximately 800 miles across the southwest United States for a month) (source: Dateline NBC TV newsmagazine, October 18, 2002, Jackie Danforth and Barbara Walters oncamera interview conducted by host Jane Pauley. Jackie: "I ended up hitchhiking with some guy that I, you know, met on the street. And he [eventually] went through my wallet and found a phone number." Barbara: "And he called me. And then I knew where she was, thank God.").
Ella Fitzgerald . . . Grammy Award-winning singer; U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient (streets of Harlem in New York City for a year while a teenager just before she won an amateur singing talent contest at the Apollo Theater).
Cary Grant . . . . Oscar-winning actor (streets of Southampton, England during a summer in his youth at the time of World War I) (source: book, Cary Grant: A Biography, by Marc Eliot, 2004, page 31: "Archie then volunteered for summer work as a messenger and gofer on the military docks, often sleeping in alleys at night if he didn't make enough money to rent a cot in a flophouse.").
Woody Guthrie . . . folk singer-songwriter; Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee; author (freight trains/outdoor camping).
Harry Houdini . . . magician; escape artist; paranormal investigator; Hungarian-born American author (streets/outdoor camping/temporary shelters; left home at age 12 in search of work and traveled for two years on his own, making his way from Wisconsin to Missouri and settling finally in New York City).
Don Imus . . . radio-show host; photographer; best-selling American author (between the dryers in a Laundromat in Hollywood, California).
Burl Ives . . . Oscar-winning actor; Grammy Award-winning folk singer; American author (freight trains/outdoor camping; hitchhiked in the 1930s while in his early 20s across America, Canada, and Mexico).
Jesus of Nazareth (Yeshua of Nazareth) . . . religious leader; source for Christianity; the Christ; God and Savior in the Christian religion (outdoor camping/temporary shelters).
Eartha Kitt . . . Grammy Award-nominated singer; Emmy Award-nominated actress; American author (apartment building rooftops in New York City).
David Letterman . . . Emmy Award-winning television writer-comedian; talk-show host; American author (host of the television talk-show Late Show with David Letterman) (red 1973 Chevy pickup truck).
Debbie Reynolds . . . Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning actress-singer; American author (car for awhile after her divorce in 1973 from Harry Karl, as mentioned in her autobiography).
William Shatner . . . Emmy Award-winning actor-director; best-selling Canadian-born American author (truck bed camper for a time due to financial difficulties after the 1969 cancellation of the television series Star Trek, in which he starred)
Martin Sheen . . . Emmy Award-winning actor-director-producer (New York City subway while a young struggling actor).
"Colonel" Harland Sanders . . . businessman; founder-spokesperson of the "Kentucky Fried Chicken" fast-food restaurant chain (homeless at age 10 when his mother remarried and he left home due to altercations with his stepfather/car as an adult; slept in the backseat nightly because he could not afford lodging as he traveled around the United States and Canada, sometimes with his wife Claudia, trying to sign up restaurants to use his special fried chicken recipe for a franchise licensing fee).
And the list goes on and on with the names of many, many people that have affected our lives in very positive and uplifting ways.
Ok here it comes you knew all the time that I was going to get to a point. The point is can you think of the numbers of countless individuals that have died on the streets in just the past few years. Think about all the mentally ill people by just that facet or in combination of being Homeless also that have foundered and been lost to society because of the lack of services. Also think about the folks with learning disabilities and all the other people with various other maladies and disabilities. Can you imagine the vast numbers of people that could have contributed positively to our society. For all we know there could have been a number Albert Einsteins, Louis Pastures, Telsas and many , many more that could have possibly found a cure for cancer, MD, MS and many of the ailments that plague society. Our civilization could possible catapulted forward many times by those that are gone and did not have the opportunity to be all they could be. Can you fathom that? Can you imagine where we could be now if we have cared for the underprivileged, disenfranchised and the other lowly souls that were merely trying the scratch out a bare existence.
But even if one person whether they were destined to be a world changer or not that is lost because of a lack of care from a society or a government is one person way to many. Any person that is lost or disappears from our existence is one that will never exist again in our world because every person that has been born or will be born is a rarity. When that person is brought into existence then the mold is broken. We can never ever recall that intellect, the make up of that solitary individual.
I ask you this final question. In all our grandeur, the magnificents of our technology, the greatness of the peoples of the world can any of really rise any higher than the lowliest of us.
