 WYOMING WINDS February 2008907 Logan Avenue, Cheyenne, WY 82001-5247 phone: 307-634-8499 fax: 307-634-9089 email: wch@vcn.com ©1990-2008
by the Wyoming Coalition for the Homeless The Wyoming Coalition for the Homeless is in need of cash donations to pay for items needed for client use that are not donated, and for day to day expenses. Grants currently cover the expansion of the buildings but not the day to day expenses. Checks should be made out to Wyoming Coalition for the Homeless and mailed to 907 Logan, Cheyenne, 82001. Click here for donation form. AT THE WCH OFFICE AND THE WELCOME MAT, 907 LOGAN AVENUE: 
For more information on volunteer positions contact Virginia at 307-634-8499 or stop by 907 Logan Avenue, Monday - Friday between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. By Jane Huh Post-Tribune staff writer It's been a week since a dozen Valparaiso-area churches collaborated to shelter homeless men in February. But as of Thursday night, just one man spent the night at the Genesis Foundation, 259 Indiana Ave., one of the shelter sites. "Perhaps it's the stigma of going to a public place and saying, 'I'm homeless. Take care of me for the night,' " said the Rev. Mario Bustos of the Valparaiso Mennonite Church, who led the Valparaiso Christian Ministerial Association to support the month-long program, the first of its kind in the county. Nonetheless, organizers said they were compelled to pull the pilot project together because of the homelessness, particularly among single men, they believe exists in Porter County. Organizers are redoubling efforts to disseminate information about the program to various agencies and groups, including police departments, hospitals and the local United Way. "Any pastor in the county will say they've been approached by a homeless person," said Tom Isakson, program director of the Spring Valley Shelter. Isakson said the Spring Valley Shelter, 2001 N. Calumet Ave., fields an average of seven calls a month from single men, males who have no spouse or children. But at the shelter, families, women and children take precedence over single men. It's estimated that one out of 150 county residents will become homeless this year. Though advocates believe the community at large is becoming more aware of the issue, there's still more awareness to raise about homelessness. In larger metropolitan and urban settings, pedestrians are more likely to "see guys sleeping on a grate," said Steven Amburgey, who said he was homeless some years ago. Amburgey and other advocates said the face of rural and small-town homelessness has a slightly different appearance. Also, what society views as the "traditional-looking homeless" person doesn't always hold true. "The men we're serving are working-class people," Isakson said. "They're not chronically homeless, they don't have substance abuse issues for the most part or mental illness." Amburgey said he "lost everything" after he "made the mistake of opening up an antique shop," in the late 1990s. He said he's slept in his Dodge van several weeks at a time. Eventually, he became employed at the Spring Valley Shelter. Three years ago, he moved into an apartment in Valparaiso. He recalls the embarrassment he felt years ago when a grocery store employee found him washing his hair in the store's bathroom sink. "I've been down the same road so I understand where they're coming from," Amburgey said. It's likely that devastating work and health-related consequences led some local residents to lose the roof over their heads. And some homeless people work minimum-wage paying jobs, Isakson said. For some people, having car problems is enough to bring financial ruin. "I've met a man who was homeless because his car broke down and he couldn't get to work," Isakson said. Homelessness can also mean poverty-stricken individuals sleeping in cars or "couch surfing" at other people's homes. Isakson said a number of homeless people he's met have told him that they've parked their cars in big-box retail lots, especially if it's open 24 hours." Despite the scant turnout, there's no shortage of volunteers. While most of the shelter sites are churches and the volunteers members of church groups, prayer and counseling for the homeless guests are optional. And organizers are optimistic that more men will show up at the shelters as the cold month wears on. "We've got a great group of people eager to serve," Isakson said. "So it's frustrating to not have a way for them to give their gift." At the Genesis Foundation on Thursday night, volunteers drank coffee and ate doughnuts while they waited for the guests. "These guys who don't have a place to live, God loves them as much as God loves me," said Ernie Brix, 62, of Porter. By Gary Pinnell Highlands Today SEBRING — Nine homeless men who live in the woods across Kenilworth from Sebring High School have been offered homes in Tampa, said Terri McClelland. McClelland and Anthony Lomonico, volunteers with the Highlands County Coalition for the Homeless, surveyed the men after reading in Highlands Today Thursday about them being removed from vacant land behind the Highlands Homes subdivision. Some men have been living in the woods for three years, they said. "We're going to make the offer to them," McClelland said. "I don't know if they'll go, but we're going to make the offer." Capt. Randy LaBelle of Highlands County Sheriff's Office said Thursday the men were offered an opportunity to go to the homeless mission on Lemon Street, but declined. LaBelle speculated that they prefer to live outdoors because liquor is forbidden at the shelter. One man admitted to having an alcohol problem, and the woods were littered with beer bottles and cans. McClelland and Lomonico met the men Friday afternoon on a street behind a Mobil convenience store. They surveyed Tim Fanning and Johnny Malone, who have set up their own tents and lean-tos with tarp roofs and walls. Richard Reinhardt, executive director of the homeless coalition, said about 700 homeless people were counted in Highlands County during a survey two weeks ago. "We're just out here to see if we can help you," Lomonico said as he introduced himself to Fanning. "You can help us by getting us jobs," Malone answered. They both worked Friday at Labor Finders, a personnel agency temporary workers. "We only got five hours," both men said. They receive $46 for an 8-hour day. by Katy Reckdahl The Times-Picayune Mayor Ray Nagin's administration appears to be preparing to move the city's biggest homeless colony, a highly visible collection of people and bedrolls just off Canal Street, to a Central City emergency shelter. Some City Council members and leading advocates for the homeless say they are not aware of the plan, although the director of the New Orleans Mission confirmed that the city accepted his proposal on Friday. Nagin alluded to a plan for the homeless last week during an appearance on WWL-TV. He said he had recently seen a man in the encampment on Claiborne Avenue beneath Interstate 10 "drinking beer and just flipping the bird to citizens." Calling the scene "a mess," Nagin said that before the end of February, the city will begin enforcing its "habitation laws." "We've got more mental cases out there," the mayor said. "It's unsanitary under the bridge. And we have beds for these folks and they just don't want to take them. ... So we're going to try to push the issue, if you will." While Nagin did not specify which local habitation law he was referring to, the most often-used ordinance was found unconstitutional by the courts more than two decades ago and stricken from the municipal code six years ago. But in past years it still has been seen as a tool by local officials who wring their hands at the homeless people who linger in public spaces. The fast-growing colony on Claiborne Avenue, now drawing more than 200 people a night, was repeatedly cited at a recent City Council meeting that featured testimony from social service officials. "We cannot accept this any longer," Councilwoman Stacy Head said. "We've got to fix the problem and we've got to fix it in short order." Martha Kegel, head of Unity of Greater New Orleans, a coalition that is working to house 250 people who previously camped out in Duncan Plaza, across from City Hall, told the council that homeless people are suffering at Claiborne Avenue. "We still have a humanitarian crisis," she said. When asked about the mayor's plan to clear people out of the Claiborne site, neither Kegel, Head nor council President Arnie Fielkow knew anything about it this week. Better or worse? News of the mayor's televised comments traveled quickly to the hodgepodge of tents, sofas, blankets and mattresses now stretching across five blocks on a cement neutral ground beneath I-10. People sleeping there said they feel targeted. Shouting to be heard over the din of cars passing overhead, they said they have little choice but to sleep at the site. "We're already on the streets, where else are we supposed to go?" asked Sara Brown, 40, who before Hurricane Katrina rented an apartment Uptown and worked as a dishwasher in the French Quarter. Like many others interviewed beneath the expressway, Brown is a native New Orleanian who was displaced by the storm and returned to the city to find rents sharply raised. During a news conference called Wednesday to react to Nagin's comments, Mike Howells of the activist group C3/Hands Off Iberville said, "We're going to make the situation worse by arresting people for things we failed to do." Sgt. Joe Narcisse, a spokesman for the New Orleans Police Department, said there are no orders to crack down on the homeless. "No plans have been shared with us," he said. Law was struck down According to mayoral spokeswoman Ceeon Quiett, the city planned to work with the NOPD Homeless Assistance Collaborative, a unit begun several years ago that uses social service methods, rather than arrests, in moving homeless individuals off the streets. But Quiett also said: "The habitation laws, as all city laws and ordinances, are enforceable and all citizens are expected to comply." However, New Orleans' "unlawful public habitation" ordinance was thrown out by the courts more than 20 years ago, said Judson Mitchell, a Loyola University law clinic attorney. Even if the mayor asked police to enforce public-habitation laws, the charges are sure to be thrown out in Municipal Court, he said. Homeless people sleeping in public once were routinely charged with "unlawful public habitation," but the ordinance was successfully challenged in federal court in 1986 by the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corp. and the American Civil Liberties Union. But such arrests continued until recently. In 2000, for instance, N.O. police booked 657 people on the charge, according to police records at the time. In September 2001, the ordinance was wiped off the books. Still, during a French Quarter cleanup in 2002, five people were arrested under provisions of the defunct ordinance, records show. Mitchell hasn't seen anyone charged with it lately. "The police seem to know that the ordinance doesn't exist anymore," he said. Municipal Court judges Paul Sens and Sean Early both labeled the once-common public habitation charge as "rare." Mission to offer beds People at the Claiborne encampment recalled seeing the mayor's sport utility vehicle pass. Referring to the mayor's comments about an obscene gesture, Brown said, "That man, he was flipping off the mayor ... because we're out here and he's doing nothing for us." In fact, the mayor is trying to find relief for the Claiborne assembly, Quiett said. What the mayor was speaking about on television was his work "with the religious community to make available additional bed space," she said. This month, the city plans "to transition many, if not all, of the homeless citizens inhabiting the areas under the Claiborne bridge to locations where they can receive shelter and social service care," she said. More than 100 beds, Quiett said, will be provided in a tent behind the New Orleans Mission on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard in Central City. The mission's director, Ron Gonzales, confirmed that the mayor's office on Friday accepted his plan to provide shelter for the homeless on Claiborne Avenue. A timetable hasn't yet been set, he said. Late last year, the city awarded the mission $100,000 to buy a tent with air-conditioning and heating that can sleep 130 men, he said. A facility for women run by the mission currently has openings for about a dozen people, he said. In exchange for housing people, Gonzales has proposed that the city pay $200 a night to pay for a fire marshal who would stand guard at New Orleans Mission, a measure made necessary by fire hazards caused by storm damage. He also is asking the city to pay for some storm-related repairs to eliminate his code violations for good, he said. Gonzales plans to keep people in his shelter while they grapple with addiction, mental illness and other challenges, he said. "They'll be better able to deal with those issues because they'll be there with us," he said. He conceded, however, that the mission isn't set up to deal with intensive mental illness. He said he has a case worker but no licensed social worker on staff. The mission plan faces other hurdles. Brown said she would not go to the mission because she would have to be separated from her boyfriend. Others said they wouldn't sleep there because there's nowhere to stay during the day, forcing them to tote their possessions around town from morning until evening. Gonzales said the new plan for housing the homeless is not yet final. But he talked optimistically about approaching the Claiborne crowd with a team of outreach workers, accompanied by police. By MIKE WIGGINS The Daily Sentinel When Roberta and Robert Freshcorn moved from Chicago and bought a modest house on Belford Avenue last August, they thought the gray building on the other side of the fence was part of a shopping center. It wasn’t until they ventured onto North Avenue and saw the building sign — after the previous homeowners had accepted their offer — that they realized they had moved in next to a homeless shelter. Trash appeared in their backyard. Someone tossed a full can of soda over the fence, an item Roberta Freshcorn said could have injured the couple’s two small dogs, had they been back there at the time. “You can’t even go out in your yard because they’re right there,” she said, referring to people who congregate outside the Grand Junction Community Homeless Shelter. More transients and people who don’t have their own places to live could be calling the shelter home in the near future. Shelter operators have applied to the city to expand the facility at 2853 North Ave. and add beds for what they say is a homeless population that is booming right alongside the rest of the Grand Valley. Initial plans would expand the capacity from 87 to 135, and the shelter could grow to house 200 people in the coming years. The plans have generated a backlash from neighboring residents and business owners who claim increasing the size of the shelter will exacerbate problems with littering, loitering, panhandling and theft. Homeowners on Belford, the street immediately south of the shelter, are circulating a petition opposing the expansion. “We want this to be our home forever, but I can’t see that happening if the shelter expands,” Freshcorn said. But Teresa Black, executive director of Homeward Bound of the Grand Valley, a nonprofit organization that runs the shelter, said until the past month, she heard few to no specific complaints from neighbors. She said nobody attended two neighborhood meetings the shelter held last spring to field questions and concerns about the expansion. “I’m not saying that people aren’t causing trouble, but we can’t respond to it if we don’t know where it’s happening and when it’s happening,” Black said. The shelter, which has been on North Avenue since 2001, is seeking a 5,345-square-foot addition to its 8,630-square-foot facility. The shelter has received donations or commitments totaling about one-third of the $750,000 estimated project cost, and officials hope to finish the expansion in about a year. City planners last month mailed out notifications to, and requested comments from, property owners within 500 feet of the shelter about the proposed expansion. The application will be considered by city planners, rather than the Planning Commission or City Council at a public hearing, because the shelter is already established and considered a “use by right,” city Planning Manager Lisa Cox said. Neighbors, though, say that won’t discourage them from voicing their discontent. Sheryl Fitzgerald, whose family has owned a strip mall at 2851 North Ave. for more than 30 years, said in the past few weeks she has handed out to business and homeowners more than 30 copies of a letter outlining her concerns about the expansion. Fitzgerald said her tenants have reported problems with homeless people shoplifting and berating employees. She said she consistently finds bottles, broken glass and abandoned shopping carts around her property. “People feel threatened to be able to bring their children into our businesses,” she said. Another business owner, who did not want to be identified out of fear that she would scare away customers, said the shelter’s presence is harming the neighborhood. “They’re killing us. We have had enough,” the woman said. “I have cleaned up poop, I have cleaned up pee, I have cleaned up puke.” Some proprietors were reluctant to speak out, fearing their opposition would ruin their business or make them sound uncaring for people who have nowhere else to go. “We are not uncompassionate people,” said the business owner, who wanted to remain anonymous. “We know these people need help. But I don’t think that shelter is helping, because they’re taking on more they can handle. They’re destroying it for everybody.” Joel Simpson, who has lived at 2857 1/2 Belford Ave. for 19 years, said he has kicked homeless people out of his yard and planted a smaller garden because people have stolen vegetables out of it. He signed the petition going around the neighborhood. “I think it’s just sort of hurt this area of North Avenue,” he said. “It doesn’t help the land value.” Neighbor Louise Phillips, on the other hand, said she won’t sign the petition. “I don’t like (the shelter), but ... I don’t like seeing the homeless outside freezing to death,” she said. “There’s got to be someplace for it.” Black said she handed out brochures to nearby businesses last year, explaining the reasons and benefits of the expansion. She said the shelter will have enclosed areas where the homeless people can wait until the shelter opens in the evening, rather than hanging out in the parking lot, as they do now. She said the expansion should help reduce problems such as loitering and panhandling by accepting more people rather than turning them away because of overcrowding. In the meantime, Black said she has given business owners a phone number where they can leave a message with information about an incident and a general description of the offender. She said she hasn’t received a single message. Black said the homeless shelter intends to hold another meeting to listen to neighbors’ concerns. “Nobody wants this sort of thing in their backyard,” she said, “but we’re already there.” By Steve Kugler Jane Doe, wearing a skirt and a kit cap pulled functionally over her ears, is a non-traditional graduate, Northern Arizona University student who spent last school year or eleven and a half months living in the back of a small sized pickup truck. This school year, Doe is living in a trailer that has all the amenities and has a scholarship, which she may loose and have to pay back if she gets a “C” grade. Jane hopes to graduate this spring. Before her homeless state, Jane was renting a place for $655 a month. “It was so small, “stated Doe, “that it was more suitable to use for storage.” Jane was working 30-40 hours per week, 23 of which were needed to cover her rent. Jane tried going to school part-time, but found that her school loans were then due. When the lease was up, her 14 year-old truck needed maintenance, and the bills became so high that she ended having to live in the truck. Living in her small truck was cramped with her books, clothes and lots of bedding. Winter temperatures in Flagstaff get down below zero. Jane was allowed to keep food in a refrigerator at work. She micro-waved and ate a lot of TV diners, which she hates. Jane states she really had a hard time that year. But in reflection she feels that the year living out had positive effects. She nearly dropped out the one semester. For the next semester she made straight A’s. In the morning she was afraid of being spotted living in her pickup and would rise early, go to the campus gym and work out for an hour and a half. There were showers available. Working out in the mornings at the campus gym is still a practice she continues today. "The gym is is $250 a semester and going up," stated Jane. The increase is to support a new facility. These fees are not normally covered by scholarships. Doe’s goal is to get a decent job that allows her to live in a home and pay her student loans. Currently, Jane has $10,000 from her undergraduate days and $25,000 in new loans. To sum up her situation, Jane stated, “That people need to care for people a little better and not isolate or distance those who don't have places to live.” She wonders about how other students may get by. Jane, who is past middle age and yet under retirement, has a no-nonsense assertive yet humorous aura about her. Doe has seen and conquered many of life’s battles and is resigned to her current life’s role. Jane may even be courageous. Few of NAU’s students will admit that they are homeless. Jane admits she has experienced discrimination from her peers and colleagues. She does not want her major identified because of this fear. Her employer made it clear to her that she is not to reveal where she, a homeless student, works. Perhaps it is time that Flagstaff’s citizens become aware that there are other homeless populations that are not the 30 SouthSide and bus station drunks.
When the weather gets this cold, John Yazwinski and his outreach workers at Father Bill’s Place know where to look for the street folks. They check the groves in Faxon Park, the scrub behind the CVS store on Southern Artery and the vacant spaces around the old Fore River shipyard. Whenever they find someone camped out, they have the same message: Come inside. As the coldest wind-chills of the season set in Monday and with sleet and snow predicted for tonight, dozens of homeless men and women are taking that offer at the Quincy homeless shelter and the affiliated MainSpring shelter in Brockton. “It’s too cold for people to stay outside,” said Yazwinski, who’s president and chief executive officer for both facilities. “We’re pretty much full all day and night.” In recent weeks Father Bill’s has been providing meals and space to sleep for an average of 110 people a night. Some nights at least 20 of them are men and women who usually stay outdoors but take a cot or sleeping bag on the shelter floor to avoid freezing to death. MainSpring’s overcrowding is similar, with an average of 65 overnight guests in a space that usually holds 40 beds. “We’ve done a good job of getting people who didn’t want to come inside,” Yazwinski said. “But it’s a day-to-day struggle, because you can’t force them in.” Yazwinski said many of the small number who resist the shelters’ have alcohol or drug problems, mental illness, or both. Some don’t like being in large groups or bristle at shelter rules. Even though some people refuse shelter, there have been no local, weather-related homeless deaths for at least three years. In April 2004 a homeless woman was found dead near the North Quincy Red Line station. She had been a former guest at Father Bill’s. In Plymouth, a task force of six churches has been sheltering a dozen people on the coldest nights, while about 18 more are staying with friends. Task force director Connie Melahoures said she knows of a couple of people who are sleeping in their cars this winter, and one man who refuses to stay in a church because he’s not allowed to drink there. “If I knew where he was staying, I’d try to talk to him,” she said. Wyoming Winds
is published by the Wyoming Coalition for the Homeless |
