WCH Statistics
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Wyoming
Builders Invoke Fair Housing Act to Overcome Large Lot Requirements
From the National Low Income Housing Coalition
NIMBY Report
At first blush, it isn't obvious why Lincoln County (Wyoming) would be
interested in establishing large minimum lot sizes for building
residential housing. After all, the county, tucked into the southwest
corner of the state, about 100 miles east of Salt Lake City, Utah, had a
total population of less than 15,000 in 2000-an average of 3.6 people
per acre. But in April 2004, local officials imposed a moratorium on
subdivision development and required two-acre minimum lots in the
fast-growing Star Valley area of the county. Three local landowners and
builders have decided to make a federal case out of it.
In a lawsuit filed in late March in U.S. District Court in Casper, the
plaintiffs claim that the county's restrictions discriminate on the
basis of race, color, national origin and disability, and allege that
the "slow growth" motivation behind the restrictions will result in
reduced affordability and the loss of open space. Speaking on behalf of
his clients, John Bowers, a local attorney said the lawsuit could have
important implications throughout Wyoming. "The Fair Housing Act really
encourages government officials to look at the broader picture and what
the effects are going to be on the different classes of people living in
Wyoming ... what it is doing to their ability to afford a home and live
in Wyoming," he said. "The consequences [could be] to level the playing
field for all of the citizens in Wyoming."
Although they would not comment on the substance of the lawsuit, county
officials point to the need for development controls in a part of the
county that has experienced the most significant commercial and
residential growth in the past decade. The lawsuit contends that the
county's land use restrictions have resulted in a shortage of small,
affordable lots for people to buy and build upon. It suggests that
teachers, fire fighters and others will have trouble living in the
communities they serve. The plaintiffs, who have sought to develop
moderately priced housing for those potential buyers, allege that the
county's actions have limited housing options, resulting in
discrimination against some of the county's citizens.
In what may be the first lawsuit in Wyoming to challenge zoning and land
use laws under the Fair Housing Act, the plaintiffs ask that the
moratorium be lifted and for unspecified monetary damages. "We may be
breaking new ground in Wyoming, but the Fair Housing Act has been used a
lot throughout the country," said Bowers, who hopes to capitalize on the
courts' growing understanding that restrictive zoning can have harsh
effects on people protected by the Act.
For more information: John Bowers, Esquire. Bower & Associates, Afton,
Wyoming. Telephone: 307/885-2266.
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Pint-Size Nurse's Homeless Ministry Makes Big Impact in Dallas
Charisma Magazine
A pint-size nurse has a king-size heart for the homeless in Dallas. Born and
river-baptized as a child in the Philippines, 5-foot tall Susie Jennings
spearheads Operation Care, which has helped rally her community to reach out
to the often forgotten group.
What began as Jennings' blanket drive for the homeless a decade ago has
blossomed into Operation Care, a nonprofit
organization that is backed by a board of directors composed of major
players from such groups as Verizon, the IBM Corporation and SBC
Communications.
Several times a year now, Jennings said Operation Care brings the city's
homeless from the concrete shadows to celebrate holidays, and be fed,
clothed and when possible reunited with families through a visit or a phone
call near Easter and Valentine's Day, in summer and fall, and at
Thanksgiving and Christmas.
At least once a month, she said her Operation Care volunteers hit the
streets to witness to the homeless, take them comfort items, food and
bottled water labeled with emergency and shelter numbers and the words,
"Jesus Is the Living Water."
Operation Care outreach stems from the loss of her husband in April 1993.
"He had been suffering long-term emotional illness aggravated by a chemical
imbalance in his brain," she told Charisma Magazine in the April issue,
out now. The full story on Jennings can be found in the magazine.
"He had a bad reaction to some medication; during that time he lost a close
friend, lost his job, and his psychiatrist moved away. ... Then he
disappeared and became a missing person," Jennings added. "We found his body
in Oklahoma. He had committed suicide -- homeless and alone. We buried him
the day before Easter. ... Reuniting families is an important aspect of this
ministry."
That spring, as full-time nurse supervisor for Baylor University Medical
Center, the young widow was already teaching a preschool Sunday school class
at her church in downtown Dallas.
"Then the Lord grabbed hold of me," Jennings said. "I remember driving home
from the church one day and turning my head to look away when I passed the
Canton Street Bridge downtown. Under the bridge, more than 100 homeless men
and women peered out from the cardboard boxes that served as their homes.
"But God called me not just to look at them, but to go under the bridge in
person and help them. ... At first, I said, 'Oh, no, God, not me! ... Why
me?' I had always despised homeless people. I couldn't stand the way they
smelled. ... They don't smell bad to me anymore," Jennings added.
Jennings has a full schedule with the demands of her job, ministry and
caring for her 88-year-old mother, but she's not discouraged. Instead, she
said she's listening to hear if God is calling her to give up her lifetime
nursing vocation.
"If God called me, I'd leave it tomorrow to help the homeless in Dallas and
across the country for Him," Jennings said.
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Homeless Squatters Evicted
Group Lives in Woods in White River Junction By DANIEL BARLOW Southern Vermont Bureau
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION - A small group of homeless people living in the woods along the Connecticut River have been told to leave because they are trespassing on town property.
A small homeless community has lived in a settlement behind the courthouse near downtown White River Junction for nearly a year, according to Hartford Police.
But those tents will be taken down this week after police warned them that trespassing notices would be issued if they did not vacate the property.
"They have no entitlement to be there," said Police Chief Joseph Estey. "They're essentially squatting on town land."
There was no single incident that led police to ask the homeless settlers to leave, Estey said. The settlers had cut down some trees on town-owned property and there were sanitary concerns over how they dispose of their waste, he said.
Between three and six people live at the settlement most days, although it draws a regular flow of transients looking for a place to stay, according to Frank Dow, who put the makeshift tents together last year and lives there.
The settlement is located in a small clearing just minutes from the downtown.
Built against a large rock, the settlement is covered with a large blue tarp held up by cut logs. Under the tarp are three tents, a brick fireplace and shelving for clothing, food and supplies.
Dow, a former construction worker, said he supplies food, clothing and temporary shelter to other homeless who find the settlement. Most people are welcome, although he has little sympathy for heavy drug addicts who "brought this on themselves," he said.
"It's a stepping stone for the old and the cold," Dow said. "We try to help people get their feet back on the ground when they don't have anything."
There are two homeless shelters in White River Junction. Upper Valley Haven has 46 beds and caters to homeless families and the recently opened House of Hope has five beds.
There is rarely an empty bed at Upper Valley Haven, said managing director Tom Ketteridge. The home typically sees poor families who cannot afford the local rents or single mothers who have no other place to turn, he said.
The residents of the tent settlement occasionally come to Upper Valley Haven for food and clothing, Ketteridge said.
"A lot of people we see are what we call generational poor, as opposed to situational poor," he said. "Their grandparents were poor, their parents were poor and now they are poor."
This is the second time in two years that Dow and the other homeless settlers have been asked to leave.
Last May, police served them with a trespassing notice after they had set up their community on property owned by the state.
The latest "Tent City," as its residents call it, was constructed a few hundred yards away, on the bank of the river near a railroad station and the town's wastewater treatment plant.
Dow, who was born in Danbury and grew up in White River Junction, said he will likely resettle the camp further into the woods where it will not be visible to local residents and will not attract the notice of law enforcement.
"I'm not upset about it," he said. "I appreciate that they let me stay here all this time. It's just time to move on now."
A second homeless settlement in town is located nearby, across Route 4, according to Estey. Police have not evicted those residents because it is located on private property, he said.
"We've had no complaints from the property owner about that one," he said.
Despite not having a regular home to live in, Dow said he and many others at the settlement don't consider themselves homeless.
Dow said he collects a monthly $672 check from the federal government following a neck injury during a year-long stint in the Army in the late 1970s. That income would get completely sucked up by rent, so he chooses to live outside, he said.
During the winter, he lights a fire to keep warm just as the "cowboys chasing cattle used to" and cooks canned goods such as beans.
He said he enjoys living outside, away from the hassles of modern life.
Many of the settlers lack job skills, have little or no education and spend most days drinking from "morning to night," the police chief said. But they choose to live this way, Estey said.
"I'm not homeless - I had a home," Dow said. "And now I have to make myself a new one."
There is no timeline on when the residents must leave, Estey said, and he does not expect any criminal charges to be filed. On Monday, Dow and several others had already begun disassembling the tents.
"I'd be happy to work with them if they are cooperative," Estey said. "If they are not, there may be some problems.
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Cooking school puts homeless, addicted on the road to self-sufficiency
By John Tanasychuk
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Optimistic. That's the mood in the community kitchen dining room, where a dozen men are waiting for class to begin.
Some are back in school after more than 30 years. Some haven't opened a textbook since high school, but sitting in front of them is the latest edition of On Cooking.
Those pages hold what Arnold Abbott thinks are the keys to self-sufficiency. Because that's what these men lack.
Many of them are living in shelters. Most are battling drug or alcohol addictions. Just one has a part-time job.
"There are 45,000 restaurant jobs in Broward County," says Abbott. "And you don't need a college diploma to get a restaurant job."
Abbott is the founder and director of the vocational course called the Maureen A. Abbott Love Thy Neighbor Culinary Skills Training Program.
Shortly after the death of his wife, Maureen, in 1991, Abbott started feeding homeless people on Fort Lauderdale's beach. The city ordered him to stop. Abbott took the city to court, and won. He still feeds 250 to 300 people Wednesday evenings on the beach and Sunday mornings at the Cooperative Feeding Program's Community Kitchen on West Broward Boulevard.
"I always wanted to find a way not only to feed them, but find a way for them to feed themselves," says Abbott.
So in June 2003, he teamed with the McFatter Technical Center to train homeless folks to work in kitchens. After nine weeks at Love Thy Neighbor, graduates leave with a certificate and the skills necessary to work in a professional restaurant kitchen. Starting pay is about $10 an hour.
As of March 11, 103 people had graduated from the program. Abbott says 60 percent of them have found jobs. Eleven graduates are enrolled at McFatter, furthering their culinary education.
"Some of them may have cooking experience," says Michelle Atkinson, vocational education supervisor with the Broward Partnership for the Homeless, which has referred 27 people to the program. "What they're lacking is the certificate."
Atkinson says of the many training programs available, Love Thy Neighbor is the shortest. "We've been getting more immediate results," she says. "There are jobs after the training. That quick accomplishment is a self-esteem booster."
When Arnold gives each of the men a white chef's coat, their uniform for the next nine weeks, the change is tangible. They stand straighter. They admire the embroidered Love Thy Neighbor logo. They are one step closer to employment.
A second chance
"They come here with one characteristic missing and that's self-esteem," says Abbott, who recruits students in all of Broward County's transitional housing facilities.
Abbott doesn't keep statistics on incoming classes, but he says about 85 percent are men between 35 and 40. About 80 percent are battling drug or alcohol addiction. It costs about $1,000 to train each student, with most of the money coming from private donors.
He knows of one graduate who has won a scholarship to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. One woman went on to become student of the year at McFatter, where she told her life story to other graduates. There are Love Thy Neighbor alumni in many popular restaurants.
Jose Delemos is one of Abbott's success stories, having graduated in March. Until four years ago, he worked two jobs, often showing up at family gatherings in kitchen whites or a waiter's uniform, on his way from one job to the next. Though he never became a chef, in 1997, Delemos earned close to $60,000.
His life was good until February 2001 when his 14-year relationship ended. A year later, Delemos lost his job in an Epcot Center kitchen -- a job he thought was secure after nine years -- following Orlando's post 9-11 tourism downturn.
Delemos had been an occasional pot smoker since he was a teenager. He'd used cocaine "recreationally," but always worked and paid his bills. But with both his relationship and his job gone, Delemos' life became all about drugs. After Disney, he joined a kitchen labor pool earning $9 to $12 an hour.
Eager to start over, he left Orlando for Miami, and his drug problem worsened. In Miami he was spending as much as $150 a day on crack, the same amount he was making each day as part of a labor pool building Miami's Performing Arts Center.
"I am a drug addict. I have lied. I have stolen," he says. "The difference is I have been given a second chance."
On April 1, Delemos celebrated 30 months of sobriety. Now he's back in a kitchen, but this time with a goal in mind.
In the name of love
A few days before the class members received their chef's coats, Kay Bolm, McFatter's program adviser, talked to them about the school's other culinary courses.
"Just remember that knowledge is something no one can take from you," Bolm told them, quietly acknowledging what had been taken from their lives.
Delemos knew what she meant. He already knew the hands-on part of kitchen work. But through Love Thy Neighbor he's learned what he calls the "book smarts" -- the correct terminology to describe the simple differences between dicing and chopping, the proper temperature for storing everything from meat to produce.
Steve Mosley teaches the Love Thy Neighbor students four days a week. A chef in many fine restaurants before becoming a McFatter teacher, Mosley also drove trucks for 16 years.
He has a sense of what his students have been through, having dabbled in drugs and spent a few nights in his truck as a young man when he found himself without a place to stay.
"Sometimes I hear the stories and it reminds me of where I've been," says Mosley, who grew up working alongside his parents in the Miami fish markets they owned. "My parents loved cooking."
Delemos also comes from a family of good cooks and big eaters. "What do you do with family and friends?" he says. "Mostly you sit down at a table."
After his parents divorced when he was 7, his mother returned to working outside the home. He saw how tired his mother was after work, so when he was about 11 he decided to cook dinner. The fried chicken was burnt. The rice was undercooked. The beans were salty.
But like the program's name, he did it with love.
"The first word in our name is love," says Abbott. "Love is who we are. Love is what we do."
Since finishing the nine-week program, Delemos has enrolled at McFatter. And Abbott has hired him to work with incoming classes. "Now, I feel like I'm someone," says Delemos, who watches the men awkwardly holding their knives.
Still, he thinks there's something about the simple act of cooking -- of food preparation -- that helps keep him and others in the program on track. Because each time they're in the kitchen they're creating something tangible.
"You're beginning with something and you're ending with something. Goals. Little goals. Little baby steps. They're fulfilling," Delemos says. "Self-esteem-wise, it's character building. It builds your confidence. It's a lot for a recovering addict."
Delemos is still living in a shelter, but for the first time in many years he has a goal. He wants to complete a degree in culinary arts.
"In two years, I'd like to be graduating from Johnson & Wales. That's my dream. I want to complete this. I want to know what that feeling is. I see myself in two years in my own little apartment. I picture a little one-bedroom, open, airy."
For information or to help, write to Love Thy Neighbor, 1 NW 33rd Terrace, Fort Lauderdale FL 33311, or call 954-484-4488.
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Nevada Assembly Approves Homeless Identification Bill
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - A bill that helps homeless people get
identification won approval Monday in the Nevada Assembly.
AB84 would allow applicants for a state-issued ID card to get a copy of a
birth certificate, a duplicate driver's license or a duplicate state ID free
of charge, if they sign an affidavit stating they are homeless.
Assemblyman Bob McCleary, D-North Las Vegas, said the bill will help
homeless people apply for jobs.
"The goal is to allow people that are capable of working, who are homeless,
to transition back to work, and part of doing that is getting
identification," he said.
State fees for drivers' licenses or other official paperwork can range from
$4 to $65.
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Ex-Homeless Man is Among Honorees for Mental Wellness
By Mika Edwards, IJ reporter
Five years ago, John Hutchinson called the Marin County Civic Center and the streets of San Rafael home. Homeless and suffering from mental illness, Hutchinson often found support at the Civic Center's cafeteria, St. Vincent de Paul Dining Room and Ritter Center in San Rafael.
"Everything that you can imagine about homelessness," Hutchinson said of his time on the streets. "Including standing in the rain all night."
Hutchinson no longer worries about braving the elements during the night. Since 2000, he has been a permanent resident of Homeward Bound's Voyager Carmel Hotel in San Rafael.
"I'm sort of like a poster child for Homeward Bound. I've been here five years and I haven't had any setbacks," he said. "I'm lucky to be alive, and I've been helped by a lot of different people. I'm very fortunate."
Hutchinson's successful recovery and volunteer work is the reason he is one of eight individuals being honored next month by the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services' Division of Community Mental Health Services. The banquet, "Celebrating the Uncelebrated" takes place on May 5 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Rafael.
The county's mental health services division presents this award every two years to those in the community who have made an impact helping those with mental illness.
"I think one of the reasons John is being honored is his story is so inspirational to other people," said Bruce Gurganus, county mental health director. "We see one person's recovery as an inspiration to others."
Hutchinson is also on medication, which has kept his mental illness at bay and allowed him to lead a productive life. Along with taking numerous courses at College of Marin, he has been a volunteer at the Civic Center one day a week as an information host.
"That was a huge stepping stone for me," he said. "It is nice to be there because formerly I was an unwelcome guest. Well, not unwelcome. I think they kind of liked me."
Joan Brown, founder of Civic Center Volunteers and volunteer and employee programs manager, is Hutchinson's boss at the Civic Center and is also a friend.
"There is no one I know who I respect more than John Hutchinson," Brown said. "He is truly one of the finest people I know. He is a genuinely kind, thoughtful, caring, intelligent person. He has helped and been concerned about so many people who have been on the path that he was."
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For L. A. Homeless: a Gym, Movies, and Hair Salon
Daniel B. Wood
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
(LOS ANGELES)The modernist concrete-and-steel structure rises in the shadow of gleaming downtown skyscrapers, looking like a new museum or corporate headquarters. Yet its identity is given away by where it stands: in the heart of a 55-square block area of aging single-room-occupancy hotels, where homeless men, women, and children crouch in cardboard boxes, push shopping carts, or lean in doorways.
Opening Monday and trumpeted proudly by city officials is the Midnight Mission - and one of the nation's plushest homeless shelters. The $17million state-of-the-art facility boasts a full-sized gymnasium,
library, playroom, hair salon, education center, and professional
kitchen. The shelter is the city's latest effort to address one of its
most visible and resistant social problems: the more than 6,000 people
who live on the streets.
But the fanfare surrounding the new mission also raises questions
increasingly being faced by cities coast to coast. At the same time
that some homeless advocates embrace such new facilities as the best
way to attract homeless people into counseling and job-placement
programs, others openly ask whether the money could have been better
spent in finding more permanent solutions.
"Since the late 1980s, America has built a mammoth infrastructure of
shelters and the number of homeless has gone up, not down. It's a bit
of the if-you-build-it-they-will-come phenomenon at work," says Nan
Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. As Ms.
Roman and other national officials see it, the lack of affordable
housing is what needs to be addressed.
"That same $17 million could have gone a long way toward creating homes and jobs," says Bob Erlenbusch, vice president of the board for the National Coalition for the Homeless. "Affordable housing is what these people need, not a way to institutionalize their temporary status."
Ms. Roman and Mr. Erlenbusch, among others, say the issues surrounding the new facility are complex and reflect mounting pressures in cities coast to coast.
The loss of affordable housing has been driving up the country's
homeless numbers since the 1980s. The gentrification of many
dilapidated downtown districts where homeless people often congregate
has been creating more social tension between new residents and those
on the streets. As homeless populations grow, social-service
alternatives such as vouchers for apartments and healthcare that many
feel can offer aid without creating dependency are being stretched thin.
"Every city is grappling with the pressures of urban renewal and condo conversions that are impacting areas where homeless gather," says
Roman. "They are trying to find a balance between building an
infrastructure that makes it too easy to remain homeless [and finding]
ways to respond to the increasing appearance of homeless on their
streets."
Midnight Mission officials say they chose to build because they could
no longer deal with increased demand for services in their previous
facility. Other observers say there was additional pressure from city
redevelopment and business officials to move their operations farther
away from areas where young urban professionals are snapping up newly
created loft spaces.
Looking out the window of her facility just blocks away from the new
mission, Alice Callaghan, director of Las Familias Del Pueblo Community
Center, points to a freshly renovated loft complex that she says is
part of the reason area housing prices are getting steeper.
"The same $17 million that they spent would have bought a lot of
permanent housing ... and put an end to the encroachment of luxury
apartments around here," says Ms. Callaghan.
Despite the influx of luxury condos, however, mission officials say
there has also long been pressure by surrounding businesses to get as
many people off the streets as possible. And they say the new
500-capacity mission dining room will put an end to food lines that
stretched around the block three times a day at their old facility.
They say new activity rooms with television and movies for grown-ups
and a separate play space for children will do much to reduce the
numbers of homeless who pass time on the streets throughout the
financial district.
Showers and the area's first 24-hour public restroom will be available. The gymnasium and training room will help address the lack of physical activity by those trying to recover from substance abuse.
"We have long felt that one major component missing in our drug and
alcohol rehabilitation was a physical dimension to recovery," says
mission spokesman Orlando Ward. "In the past, we would address the
spiritual and the emotional but were neglecting real physical activity
which we feel is important to rebuilding the whole man."
But 20-year local activist Ted Hayes, who runs an encampment of
temporary housing just blocks away, says the building will do the
opposite.
"The building of large missions in the inner cities of America only
helps to keep the cycle of homeless going with what we call the
'homeless industrial complex,'" says Mr. Hayes. "A big fancy operation
like this only maintains the bank accounts and lifestyles of those who
run them and helps donors rid themselves of guilt."
Still others think a multifaceted approach is necessary. In this view, a combination of shelters with emergency services can help with
short-term needs until longer term social and economic goals are
realized.
"There are dangers and drawbacks to various approaches that can be
offset by the strengths of others," says Paul Tepper, director of the
Weingart Center, an institute which studies homelessness.
Either way, both sides seem to agree that citizens will continue to be threatened with instability until the supply of affordable housing is
increased; incomes of the poor are adequate to pay for food, shelter,
and healthcare; and disadvantaged people can receive the services they
need.
"Attempts to change the homeless assistance system must take place with the context of larger efforts to help very poor people," says Roman.
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NCH Has New Office Digs 
Editor for this issue: Virginia Sellner.