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GREENSBORO -- In a different time, Michael Brown's story might have gone untold.

But after Brown, 43, and his family were evicted from their northeast Greensboro home earlier this month, he turned to the public library and its computers for answers. Once online, he couldn't find what he was looking for: advice from someone who was homeless.

So, he took up the task himself. He began posting to a Web log, or blog. There, he began to tell his story -- how he became homeless and how he was dealing with it.

The blog, called View from the Sidewalk, has become a way for Brown to vent, rant and reflect on his problems. He reveals the day-to-day travails, his guilt and anger about the situation, and his depression.

Brown, who works part time at a Kohl's store, said he has been looking for other work. He was a graphic designer for 13 years until he was fired from a job in 2003 -- for what reason, Brown said, he doesn't know. He hasn't been able to find another job in the field and has worked various jobs or freelanced since.

The bills began to mount, and eviction came Feb. 9 for the family,which includes Brown's wife, 17-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter. A 20-year-old son is already on his own.

The family packed as much as they could into a 16-foot truck, and the contents of their home are now in a 10-by-20-foot storage space.

The Browns and their 17-year-old son stayed in hotels and with family in Durham. Their daughter also stayed for a week with a friend's grandmother. Brown said his family never spent a night on the street.

Still, the family struggled to find help. On his blog, Brown details going through a confusing maze of government agencies and groups that he said were not much help.

"We tried to plan, but it's hard when you have no experience doing it," he said.

Finally, a counselor at his daughter's elementary school recommended the Guilford Interfaith Hospitality Network, which coordinates churches to feed and house homeless families. The Browns and their two youngest children are now receiving help from the group.

Kenyatta J. Richardson, the network's executive director, said she could sense Brown's frustration when she met him.

"Mr. Brown and his family should not have been on the streets as long as they were," she said.

Posting to the blog has been beneficial to him and released some frustration, Brown said.

"It's kind of a form of a therapy," he said.

A blog from the perspective of a homeless person may be a first for Greensboro, a city known for its blogging. Nationally, a few blogs appear to have homeless authors. And some people have posted stories of the homeless in their own words. But most are from the perspective of those helping the homeless.

Locally, Brown's blog has drawn attention from bloggers who've posted links to the site on their own blogs and received about a dozen comments.

Ed Cone, a Greensboro journalist and a pioneer in blogging, said the blog shows how easily the free medium can be used to get a message out, empowering the powerless.

"That's kind of mind boggling," he said. "Someone with literally no resources can be published and heard."

It also helps that Brown is a good writer, Cone said.

Michele Forrest, a blogger and a member of the Homeless Prevention Coalition of Guilford County, said Brown's words offer an invaluable critique of the region's homeless services. Lots of advocates discuss homelessness, but the input of the homeless is crucial, she said.

"The voice of the homeless is definitely missing," she said.

Brown hopes it's beneficial.

"This is a problem everybody should be paying attention to," he said.

Most of Brown's blogging has been done at the Greensboro Public Library's Central Branch. Libraries are open to all and often become a de facto place used by the homeless to get off the streets during the day, said Jennifer Worrells, the Web coordinator for the library.

But the library can also be an important tool for the homeless, with its access to information both in the building and online, she said. The library system has worked with a homelessness-prevention group to get library cards for the homeless to ensure that access, Worrells said.

"We strive to serve those in the community who least have access to resources," she said.

Brown has seen other homeless people in the library. He is critical of those he sees sleeping there or panhandling in other parts of the city.

"When they do that, they demean us all," he said. "That's putting in people's heads a stereotype of the homeless."

But Brown also proves there's no one type of homeless person, Richardson said.

"Mr. Brown and his family are real people and very intelligent," she said. "They are the new face of homelessness."

Brown hopes he and his family can graduate from the interfaith program into public housing quickly. What's happened to his family has taken its toll, Brown said.

They could stay with family in Durham, but returning to where he grew up would be a defeat. Brown wants to rebound. A job interview is scheduled for today.

"I can't be beaten yet," he said. "I'm still alive."

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TOKYO , Feb 22 (IPS) - For the past two years Suzuko Yasue, a diminutive but energetic woman, has been walking the streets of Tokyo, talking to Japan's growing homeless community and distributing pamphlets on the dangers of tuberculosis (TB).

''The homeless in Japan, mostly elderly people who live alone, are particularly vulnerable to being infected with TB. This is the reason why it is important that we reach them,'' she says.

As Yasue's work illustrates, Japan maybe the world's second richest country but continues to grapple with alarmingly high rates of TB infection and mortality among the vulnerable, especially its homeless people.

Japan's social safety net, once firmly rooted in its strong corporations, has been shaken as unemployment grows and the country grapples with economic decline.

Homeless people are an unobtrusive lot that live where possible-- in tents, cardboard shelters, railway stations, parks and public spaces and are an embarrassment for the government.

Among them are to be found jobless construction labourers as well as former white collar workers -- equally rendered unemployed by tough times and left to fend for themselves against hunger and disease, including tuberculosis.

''Economic disparity has encouraged the spread of new infections among the disadvantaged such as the homeless community. As well, with increasing HIV rates among the young, we fear that TB will become a national issue again,'' explained Ikushi Onozaki, deputy director at the Research Institute of Tuberculosis (RIT).

Statistics indicate that Japan now records 30,000 new TB infections and more than 2,300 deaths annually from the disease despite the availability of low-cost treatment drugs and vaccines.

Many of the victims are unable or unwilling to seek medical help. Last year, the total number of TB patients in Japan stood at 72,079, the highest number among industrialised countries.

But according to national data, most cases of new infections are reported among people who are over 60 years old-- over 60 percent of the total patients--with 43 percent and 23.8 percent of detections in their seventies and eighties respectively.

Weak immune systems that result from ageing, poor nutrition, disease and high levels of stress are seen as responsible for the TB cases.

A strong government campaign, led by the imperial family in the sixties, helped near eradication of the disease, but doctors say the complexities of containing the now resurgent disease calls for innovative approaches.

While the vast majority of patients caught the infection in the 1950s, when Japan faced a poor economy and inadequate health services, factors such as rising economic disparity in society and HIV infections among the youth are now fostering the resurgence.

Indeed, TB rates among the homeless --people with no regular jobs -- reached 20 percent in 2004. Corresponding data shows that cities, such as Tokyo and Osaka where large numbers of this community live, host the highest number of infections.

In a bid to cope, experts have begun to collaborate with social workers like Yasue to implement a Japanese version of the World Health Organisation's Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course (DOTS) programme, pointing out that drugs or vaccines, abundantly available in Japan, have proved to be insufficient.

''Community support for high risk people such as the homeless who do not go to hospitals on their own, have been effective,'' explained Nobutaka Ishikawa, a director at the RTI.

Patients need to take four kinds of drugs for 6-12 months to complete the regimen. This is hard for people on daily wages and quite often they give up on medication, raising risks to themselves and to the community from multi-drug resistant strains.

Support groups for the homeless talk about the difficulty of convincing people not to discontinue treatment and cooperate with regular assessments of the course of the disease.

Yasue, a public health nurse, says taking medicine to the infected can be effective as homeless people tend to be day labourers and avoid long hospital stay that can reduce their incomes.

''There should be a medication programme that takes into consideration the special needs of the homeless people that are different,'' she says.

Onozaki says Japan's TB problem and the way it is being handled can offer cues to developing countries which are also trying to cope with the disease.

''There are similarities between Japan and other Asian countries grappling with effective programmes for vulnerable groups and community work does help to reach the poor better than a heavy focus on distributing free drugs,'' he points out.

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Homeless shelters across the Lower Mainland have declared an extreme weather emergency and are opening extra beds, as overnight temperatures drop down to –7 C and and an even colder –14 C with the windchill.

The declaration triggers provincial funding for the additional beds. But Judy Graves of the city's housing centre says there's no guarantee the homeless will come inside to stay warm.

Graves, who has looked after the needs of Vancouver's homeless for almost 15 years, says it can be difficult to convince someone to come in off the street.

"They develop extreme anxiety problems. And coming into a shelter can be overwhelming. And they'll perceive it as more threatening than even staying outside in the cold."

There are more than 800 shelter beds in Vancouver and it's estimated there are more than 2,000 homeless people.

Ray, who has been homeless in Vancouver for the past year, sees the number of people living on the street increasing because of the closures of several old single room occupancy (SRO) hotels.

"So you're looking at 30 to 40 units apiece. You're looking at a couple of hundred more people that probably don't have any housing or shelter right now, wandering the streets."

Ray says he's ready for the cold nights ahead, with a backpack of warm bedding.

The most recent homelessness report shows Surrey and Abbotsford have more homeless people out on the streets than anywhere else in B.C.

But Pastor Randy Emerson of the Cloverdale Christian Fellowship in Surrey – which runs a soup kitchen – says most of the city simply has no beds for shelter.

He notes the only shelter beds are in the hard-pressed Whalley neighbourhood, but says he's counted over 80 homeless people in the Cloverdale area alone.

"They have no transportation to get them out of the area, and so they are going to be looking for doorways and anyplace they can get out of the wind. There are no shelter beds in South Surrey at all."

City councillor Marvin Hunt says the city is looking for solutions, but he says it's the provincial government that has the money and resources to tackle the problem.

"This is not a responsibility of the City of Surrey and unfortunately we're the ones that get caught in this thing."

However, a recent Surrey bylaw effectively gives neighbourhoods a veto on whether a homeless shelter is built in their area. And critics say that's going to discourage more shelters from being built.

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You can read What Color Is Your Parachute? until you're blue in the face.

You can scan the want ads until your eyes grow bleary. But if you're homeless and don't have an address and a telephone number to put on your application, chances are you're not going to get the job.

That's why Lexington volunteers founded Pyramid Professional Resources, an agency that offers "encouragement, mentoring and support" to people living in shelters or on the street.

Launched in December, Pyramid is located in the basement of Christ Cathedral. It is staffed by volunteers and funded by the Cathedral, Centenary United Methodist Church and Immanuel Baptist Church.

The agency offers free assistance: resume preparation, job interview coaching and a home base.

"Now when I go out and put in an application, at least I've got a phone number," said job-seeker Don Slone, 45.

Last week, Slone and other clients traded job-hunting stories and discussed the advantages of working with Pyramid.

"It allows you Internet access. ... You can do laundry here. Take showers," Slone said. "It's great."

Pyramid co-director John Rinck helped Slone create a resume. The sheet lists Slone's work history, his qualifications and his career objective: "To gain full-time employment using my landscaping, factory or maintenance skills."

He's had six or seven interviews but is still in the job market. He said he's willing to do "just about anything, really" if it means full-time employment.

Pyramid screens its clients and requires them to take Breathalyzer tests. Flunk one and you're bumped to the bottom of the list.

Currently, Pyramid opens three days a week.

For now, it works with five clients at a time -- primarily men who are living in the Room in the Inn shelters. Eventually, if additional donors and volunteers are found, it could expand to help 20 and open five days a week.

So far, no one has nabbed regular work, but Rinck says persistence will eventually pay off. "We have a couple of guys that are just on the edge of full-time employment," he said.

Rinck, who was once homeless himself, knows what they're battling.

"Finding employment is pretty much a full-time job for anybody, and when you're homeless and trying to fight for survival on a daily basis, it's even more of a challenge," Rinck said. "The homeless, quite frankly, face prejudice from employers."

Pyramid does what it can to help. It lends would-be workers clothes and gives them lockers where they can store their possessions. Job-seekers also get bus tokens and pep talks and hot cups of coffee. A half-dozen computers are available to assist with online job searches.

Having a place to leave their belongings is a big help, clients say.

"You can go in looking like Donald Trump. If you've got a backpack on you, then odds of you acquiring employment are about zero," said Chris, a 53-year-old disabled homeless man who hopes to find work. At Pyramid, "They're excellent at building self-esteem. They build up your morale," he said.

That's one of the goals, said co-director Ruth Mark. "We try to give them as much positiveness as possible. 'No' is not a word we accept.' "

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When the temperature drops below freezing, most of us just grab a blanket and turn up the heat. But for people who live on the streets, the weather isn't just uncomfortable - it can be dangerous, even deadly.

The Nashville Rescue Mission fills up, often to capacity when the temperature really drops, thanks in large part to people who might be reluctant to ask for help during the rest of the year.

And for those who won't come to the mission, volunteers from the mission will go to them. The Nashville Rescue Mission goes on cold patrol when hard freezes hit, cruising the streets and checking overpasses for people who need a warm place to stay.

Cold Patrol volunteers brought 32 people to the mission Saturday night, and they expect to bring in more Sunday night. The volunteers say their work is about more than just an act of kindness. They believe there's a real concern that people who stay on the streets may not survive the night.

"There's always a few out there that could be drinking...got that antifreeze in them and they think they're Superman. All it takes is for them to fall asleep and the next thing you know, hypothermia sets in and that's all she wrote," Frank Kuntz of the Nashville Rescue Mission said.

Volunteers often know the homeless men and women by name, and know where to find their camps and how to convince them to come in from the cold.

But because of the nature of the transient population, some people are newly homeless, from out of town, or have just been passing through and got stranded in the Nashville area. That's why volunteers head out on patrol looking for people in need of shelter.

Some of the people volunteers find do refuse the help they're offered

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Stop, thief!"

Before the modern police force was invented in England in the early 19th century, this shrill command was frequently used among ordinary folks who, if they witnessed a crime, were required by law to raise the "hue and cry," and begin to chase the perpetrator. Others, in response, had to drop what they were doing to help make an arrest. That all changed, of course, and nowadays people are more apt to say, "Let the police deal with it."

But the hue and cry is back, except now it is directed at a group that wants to bring back a kind of community involvement long legislated out of existence.

They are the Guardian Angels, the controversial group that began patrolling the crime-infested streets of New York City in their red berets and bomber jackets 27 years ago. They've come to Toronto, recruited members and promise to have them trained and on the streets by July. But the city's powers-that-be don't want them. Mayor David Miller and the police. led by chief Bill Blair, have said the Angels are not appropriate for Toronto.

The police have, in part, used "community policing" to underpin their argument against the Guardian Angels, saying their own level of involvement in the community defeats the purpose of a group like the Angels patrolling Toronto's streets.

But inherent in the idea behind the "community" part of community policing is the notion that police can't do everything — communities themselves must take some responsibility for their safety, in partnership with the police.

And so, some experts say it's a curious thing the police would be so reticent toward a group that wants to do just that — and perhaps the police are more worried about their monopoly on power.

The Guardian Angels are not the police. They don't carry weapons. They can't lay charges. They walk the streets, talk to people and, most famously, confront criminals in the act, using force to physically arrest them if necessary. They use the section of the Criminal Code that states any citizen can arrest someone they find committing an indictable offence.

This is the third time the Angels have tried to establish a beachhead in Toronto, having failed in 1982 and again in 1992.

The group's figurehead is still the brassy Curtis Sliwa, a former McDonald's night manager in the Bronx who founded the group in 1979 amid worries about rampant crime in New York. The volunteer crime patrol soon developed a reputation among some as being both naοve and heavy handed. Many Angels were booked on charges of public disorder or harassment. Sliwa himself became controverisal; some saw him as a saviour, others as a showboating publicity hound. In 1992, he was shot, allegedly by mobster John Gotti Jr., who is currently on trial in New York on charges related to that incident and others.

The lack of acceptance here is baffling to Lou Hoffer, the former Toronto police officer who is leading the Angel charge into Canada.

"It's like saying we don't want Neighbourhood Watch or the Red Cross," he says. "We're just a community group made up of citizens trying to do good. Maybe it's because there's an American stigma" to the Angels.

Hoffer says officials don't understand the history of the group and how much good it has done in other cities targeting gangs, violence, bullying and the like. And, he points out, no Angel anywhere has ever been convicted of a crime while on patrol.

But Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash says there's a view that the Angels only show up when there's a high-profile crisis — such as Toronto's summer of the gun — and so their presence is exploitative. As well, there are concerns about the fine line between confronting criminals and vigilantism.

Pugash says a number of neighbourhood groups have said they don't want the Angels. And he notes that there hasn't exactly been a welcome mat rolled out for them by police departments in other cities.

Indeed, a new chapter in Jersey City is currently being met with the same skepticism as in Toronto. A recent report in the Jersey Journal quoted a police spokesman as saying: "The police are busy building relationships here in the community; that is more important to us than going out to meetings with Guardian Angels." But mostly, the police feel the Angels have nothing to provide.

"We don't feel they can make a contribution," says Pugash. "Public safety is everyone's responsibility, and our links with the community are what makes this city safe."

Policing has gone through many makeovers through the decades. Before cars, cops walked the beat and knew the people on their route. By the early 1970s, departments had enough cars for all their officers and the era of the beat cop was dead. Air-conditioning further distanced cops from the people, since they could keep their car windows closed in summer.

By the 1980s, police brass and those who study them were realizing officers had to get to know their neighbourhoods again. A concerted push began to put more uniforms on the street, more offices in strip malls.

At the same time, police were supposed to take on a greater social role, promoting drug awareness, working with schools and implementing restorative justice programs. Budgets didn't increase, though, and it became clear the police could not hope to play every role. That's why private security has exploded all over North America. And it's why Alberta is going to arm lesser-paid special constables to patrol highways.

"This rationalization process meant that communities would become more responsible, not necessarily for the enforcement of laws, but for some of the root causes of crime," says Curtis Clarke, director of the criminal justice program at Athabasca University in Alberta, who has studied the shift from public policing to "community self-policing" and private security.

"It was in response to neoliberal policies that communities need to be more responsible, and that policing can't be everything to everybody."

So, groups such as Neighbourhood Watch and Citizens on Patrol have risen in importance, if not in numbers.

Neighbourhood Watch captains receive information from the police and serve as conduits to law enforcers in their areas, looking out for suspicious activities. Citizens on Patrol might roam neighbourhoods in vehicles and do the same thing, via two-way radios with police. Some might stake out bars and watch for drunks getting behind the wheel. But unlike the Angels, they would never get close to a suspect, let alone confront one.

"We would never support anyone going out patrolling as if they were a police officer, or to hold a criminal," says Elizabeth Hawley, executive director of the Crime Prevention Association of Toronto, which organizes Neighbourhood Watch in Scarborough and North York.

"You and I are not going to hook a hose to fire hydrant and put out a fire in a blazing house," she says. "I'm concerned we're asking residents to take police matters in their own hands." Groups like Neighbourhood Watch and Citizens on Patrol work in conjunction with police. And research has shown they help to reduce the fear of crime, if not crime itself, says Clarke. The Guardian Angels, on the other hand, are not co-ordinated with police and thus might be considered opportunistic, Clarke says, "because they're coming in to say, `We will help you,' but really it's a case of focusing on an opportunity to bring greater notoriety for themselves and to forward their agenda and not necessarily that of the community."

Their use of force also troubles Clarke. "It's a slippery slope," he says, in that being aggressive might become an acceptable response to crime. He wonders to whom the Angels are accountable, the way the police are to a public board and the Police Act.

Hoffer counters that his Angels must follow the same laws as any ordinary citizen and that the use of force must be "defensible" in court.

"We are members of the community who say I do want to get involved," he says. "We will abide by all laws. We will act of good moral conduct. And there is room in our country for all these organizations."

He says there is a gross misconception of the Angels as "this crime-fighting organization that comes in and basically acts as a pseudo-policing unit. Nothing could be further from the truth." Mostly, he says, Angels act as educators, on the street and in the schools, about drugs, gangs and violence. They act as intelligence gatherers and pass information on to the police.

But what the Angels won't be doing is partnering with police, because the Toronto Police Service has no intention of working with them. Some experts say this will severely handcuff what the Angels are attempting to do. If the police won't listen or provide the necessary backup, their efforts become futile.

It is the refusal to co-operate with a citizen's group, something police have been promoting for nearly two decades, that has some questioning the Toronto Police Service's motivations. Citizen-level groups "always talk as the eyes and ears of police and, frankly, that's the way police like it," says Randy Lippert, a professor at the University of Windsor and an expert in policing and private security. "They don't really want people to be anything more than that because that's starting to move into their area of expertise."

Chris Braiden, a 32-year police veteran and now a consultant on law enforcement, says that if police fully understood that policing used to be "for the people, by the people," they would recast their opinions of the Guardian Angels as exemplars of community policing. He might know. He was the former superintendent of police in Edmonton who planned and rolled out one of the first community policing initiatives in North America, which was followed by cities around the world.

"If the cops were true to their cause, they would welcome the Guardian Angels because they might be able to help them," Braiden argues. "Why do they have Neighbourhood Watch or Block Parents? They're the eyes and ears of the cops."

The police, he says, are simply worried about their control over authority. "It's called a monopoly. Police in every community have one." Pugash doesn't buy that argument. Community policing and citizen involvement, he says, are about commitment.

"We work with many, many groups in society to protect public safety. We don't want exclusivity. We want to work with people genuinely committed to public safety. "But is there a genuine commitment?" among the Angels. If there is, he wonders, is it to more than just patrolling in certain hot spots of the city?

Even without police support, Hoffer says the Angels are pushing ahead. Last Sunday, they held a recruitment drive at a downtown Toronto bar. They drew 200 people; 70 signed up.

"Fortunately or unfortunately," says Hoffer, "the time for the Angels has come in Canada."

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It sounds like a recipe for disaster - a homeless shelter where the street's most hardened alcoholics aren't just allowed to booze, but get served wine on the hour from morning until night.

But the breakthrough Canadian program is not just raising eyebrows from Minnesota to Massachusetts - it apparently is delivering healthier lives to chronic alcoholics and cleaning up city streets once riddled with public drinking.

"The results are very promising," said Dr. Tiina Podymow, one of the authors of a study published last month in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. "It's a small study at this stage. I'd like to see (it) more widely implemented to help people and use tax dollars better."

The Shepherds of Good Hope shelter in Ottawa is home to the Managed Alcohol Program, where 25 homeless alcoholics are served up to 5 ounces of home-brewed wine hourly from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. under medical supervision.

Over 16 months, 17 MAP participants cut their emergency room visits by 35 percent, had half as many clashes with police and cut their drinking from 46 to eight drinks a day, the study said.

The approach is akin to the methadone-maintenance and needle-exchange programs used nationwide, but MAP has no U.S. equivalent. Seattle and Minneapolis are host to housing for homeless alcoholics where some on-site drinking is permitted.

The Canadian study has piqued interest among local professionals who work with alcoholics and the homeless, but most are blunt about its chances in the Bay State.

"The reality is there'd be an uproar, but we are doing a miserable job of treating people who are chronic drinkers," said Dr. James O'Connell, head of Boston Health Care for the Homeless and a street doctor for more than 20 years.

The Executive Office of Health and Human Services, the agency that oversees homeless shelters, including "wet shelters," where people are admitted even if they've been drinking, shot down the idea.

"It appears more people died than conquered their alcoholism," said spokesman Dick Powers, who was referring to the deaths of three participants in the Canadian study. "Maybe Amsterdam would be interested in something like this, but Massachusetts isn't."

MAP's approach is typical of the harm-reduction treatment model.

"The point of harm reduction is to say: 'I want to help you reduce harm related to substance abuse,' " said Michael Levy, clinical director at CAB Health & Recovery Services. "It doesn't really help people not drink or not drug."

Some MAP participants, however, were able to do so, Podymow said. For example, staff just kept adding grape juice to the wine of one participant until he was able to kick the bottle altogether.

That case is more exception than rule for chronic drinkers.

"It's hard when you have been on the street for 10 years and drinking for 20," said Lyndia Downie, president of the Pine Street Inn. "They've already lost everything. What can we take away? It's already gone."

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Poetry by Tiffani Pontchartrain

What does it mean to be homeless?

What does it mean to be homeless?
I have no place to call my home.

What does it mean to be homeless?
Upon these streets, always I'll roam.

What does it mean to be homeless?
I sleep on a lonely street grate.

What does it mean to be homeless?
I'm bound by cruel twists of fate.

What does it mean to be homeless?
I wander 'round, from place to place.

What does it mean to be homeless?
I am lost, another disgrace.

What does it mean to be homeless?
There are few people I call friend.

What does it mean to be homeless?
When will my lonely journey end?

What does it mean to be homeless?
I must depend on gifts from you.

What does it mean to be homeless?
I sit here, 'neath skies gray or blue.

What does it mean to be homeless?
I know not what is peace or love.

What does it mean to be homeless?
Soon I'll join the angels above.

Tiffani Pontchartrain
August 11, 2005
Toronto, Ontario

Why Am I Homeless?

Why am I homeless, you ask,
As I sit here with my flask
On a corner dark and drear,
Near the end of this long year.

I once had a home so fine,
Filled with caviar and wine;
I drove a Mercedes Benz
And showed it off to my friends.

I was truly overtaxed,
My credit cards all were maxed;
I thought that I had it all,
Yet pride comes before the fall.

I stood in my tower high,
Looking out at clear, blue sky
When a great cloud came in sight
And turned the day into night.

Then, one day, my debts came due;
Whatever was I to do?
I ran first that way, then this:
Was there something I had missed?

They took my house and my car;
I fell so fast and so far!
As I walked the streets that night,
I thought, "This just is not right!"

I talked to my MPP
And asked, "Can you please help me?"
He said, "Nothing I can do
For people who have been screwed."

I stumbled out on the street
And wandered on trembling feet,
Looking for a place to stay
At the end of that long day.

I soon lost my job and wife,
And then tried to take my life!
They locked me up in a ward
Where there was fear and discord.

I spent many days and nights
Watching such distressing sights
That I lost all thought of hope
And could not be strong or cope.

I was released one fall day
When storms 'cross the sky did play;
A lawyer found me perforce:
"Your wife's obtained a divorce!"

I knew that I was alone,
No job, no wife and no home;
I wandered from place to place,
Just another homeless face.

To the shelters I did go
And joined the unending flow
Of men going in and out,
Their lives filled with fear and doubt.

Month after month passed me by
As I prayed to God on high:
"Deliver me from this strife;
Lord, help me rebuild my life!"

The shelters aided me not;
I was still in the same spot
Where I had been months before,
After walking through their doors.

I left the shelters one day,
There I no longer could stay;
On the streets I did arrive,
Ever fighting to survive.

"What must I do to be housed?
Will the masses be aroused,
Fight for all we've been denied?
Will they stand here by my side?

"Will they stand up in a line,
Hold up a protester's sign,
Fight to house all those in need,
Till all have their place in deed?"

I must struggle on once more,
Try to find an open door:
"Enter here and find your way
To your own home, come what may."

Grant to me this simple boon;
I hope my time will come soon.
Why am I homeless, you ask,
As I sit here with my flask.
Tiffani Pontchartrain
October 9 & 21, 2005 Toronto, Ontario

The Faces Of The Homeless

A gnarled old man, leaning on his cane,
In the park he lives and will remain.
His cart filled with odds and ends galore,
They won't even let him in the door
To wash all his clothes and get a meal
Because they're afraid that he will steal;
They will send him back to jail to live
Why can't these people learn to forgive?

A young woman, carrying a child,
Screaming in anger and acting wild;
The home threw her out for using crack.
ODSP is giving her flak
And telling her they'll call Children's Aid.
By society, she's being flayed
For being addicted to a drug.
We stick noses in the air and shrug.

A young couple, looking for a home;
Out on the streets, they are forced to roam.
Two tiny infants in a stroller;
Hear the sound of the asphalt roller
As it levels the road at their side.
The babies scream, their eyes opened wide,
As the noise assaults them, all around.
It appears to be a wall of sound.

Lonely woman, sitting on a bench;
Her life has dealt her a nasty wrench:
She lost her husband just yesterday;
There are no words left for her to say.
She sits in silent contemplation
Of her sudden sad situation,
That casts on her a shadow of fear:
How will she survive, now he's not here?

A lovely woman, quite elegant,
Sits on the steps of a tenement
Hollowed out by a fire just turned cold;
Suddenly, she feels quite grey and old.
She used to live in that burned-out shell;
Inside and outside, she knew it well.
With many others, she seeks the light:
She knows not where she will sleep tonight.

A sweet, kind man, gentle as a lamb,
Knows the housing system is a sham:
He's been on a list for fifteen years.
Now he sheds those soft and silent tears
For a home that he has never known,
For knowing that he is not alone
In his search for somewhere to abide
Across this country so great and wide.

Tiffani Pontchartrain
July 23 & 26, 2005
Toronto, Ontario

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WE'RE ONLY HOMELESS

I wish that I could make you see
That there's another side of me.

I am often frightened, scared and sad
I'm only homeless, I'm not bad.

The world's so big and full of grief
I'm only homeless, I'm not a thief.

People often say, "get a job you lazy jerk"
We're only homeless and we like to work.

There is a big misconception, we are not dumb
We're only homeless, we are not bums.

You think we are dirty and obscene
We're only homeless, and we're clean.

I'd like to plant an education seed
We're only homeless and we like to read.

We've seen the world, some of us like to roam,
We're just good hones people without a home.

We're only homeless.

Sarah Hughes
1994
Cheyenne, WY

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autistic boy
sells homeless papers
to start e-business

Tourette twins
team-teach Siamese girls
to team learn

special needs nurse
helps hoomeless girl
by a wolfberry plant

elder's rag box
off rez homeless shelter
now arson ashes

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From Place to Place
Alvaughn King
Cheyenne, WY 1999

From a small door to a huge room
This is where you find me.
And if you look closer,
you might even see your own inner self,
Waiting to rise. To add color.

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Leaving
"Long Gone"
2000

I'm leaving behind me a hand full of dreams
treasures of gold, silver and things!

I'm moving along the highway
with the peaceful dreams of
a place of my own!

To gather my thoughts, places and things!
The voices I hear are staying behind
To contemplate their own treasures and dreams.

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The Homeless
John Montgomery
2000

We read it in the papers,
     And hear it on T.V.
About these foreign countries,
     And what their needs may be.

But it's very seldom
     You hear these same people say,
Anything about helping the homeless,
     Here in the USA

There are thousands in this country,
     Without a place to live.
But it's to a foreign country,
     They're asking us to give.

Why can't we all pull together,
     And ask everyone we see,
To try and help our homeless,
     And get them off the street.

I wonder how the rich would feel,
     If they were homeless for awhile.
Lost that big new shiny car,
     And had to walk a mile.

I don't suppose they would like it much.
     You would probably hear them say
Let's do something for the homeless,
     Here in the USA

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1-800-Cession
grom
Alamagordo, NM, 2000

I once perpetrated love but
     little palliated
Whiner me, misinterpreted
     the overtures.
Sorry am I. Peregrinating
     the days.

Where do I travel, whom do
     I see?
That I might discern...
     again.

For I truly miss my abysmal
     cup of sunshine,
You see.

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