Southeast Wyoming Skywarn
Walk In My Shoes 2009
June 13, 2009 the 11th Annual Walk In My Shoes will take place, starting at 907 Logan Avenue. Registrations starts at 8:00 a.m. and the Walk begins at 9:00 a.m. The walk registration form can be found at... Registration for walkers or ghost walkers is $12.00 prior to the event and $15.00 on the day of the event. Contributors and sponsors are needed. Door prize donations are needed.
Bring your children and your 4-footed friends. Dogs must be on a leash, but children don't need to be!!!! 
Ghost Walkers are those that would like to attend but cannot -- but they register, pay, and are eligible for door prizes.
If you only donate one time a year to the Wyoming Coalition for the Homeless make it a donation to Walk in My Shoes and become a registered walker, ghost walker, contributor, or sponsor.
Funds from the walk are used to purchase items needed daily for use by our clients.
Click here for 2009 registration form
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Small Donations
Did you know that if you make a small monthly donation to WCH between $1.00 and $10.00 that it will work wonders with our day to day needs and solve most of the problems created by a short fall of donations. Churches, clubs, associations, businesses take one meeting time to ask everyone at the meeting, service, or work that day to put $1.00 in the pot for WCH!!! This is an urgent need -- cash donations have dropped off so that we are having a difficult time meeting necessary expenses -- your small donation will go along way toward solving this problem.
WCH does not receive United Way or federal funding - but relies upon the community and foundation grants. The only government funding that WCH has used was funding for construction of the day care at the Richards center.
WCH Donation Form
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Thanks to Women's Civic League
Special thanks go out to the Women's Civic League for their most successful toy shower for the day care center coming soon to the
Richards Center at 4700 Ocean Loop. They took loads of toys out to the center. Impressive!!!!
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Special Thanks Cheyenne Alliance Youth GroupsSpecial Thanks to Cheyenne Alliance Church Youth for their help with cleaning, sorting clothing, and
other projects at both the WCH buildings. They have been doing a supurb job and we are looking forward to having them come by and
help us on a regular basis.
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The Coming Crisis: White Collar Homelessness
Shannon Moriarty Pak Alert Press Reports
Last month, unemployment rates surged to 7.6 percent. As the jobless population becomes older and more educated, many are ending up with no car, no job prospects, no health insurance, and - before long - no home. Will the dramatic increase of unemployment change the face of homelessness in America?
According to data from the Labor Department, more jobs have been lost in the past 12 months than any other period since the government began keeping records in 1939. Perhaps most disconcerting is that experts predict unemployment will get worse before it gets better. In 1991 and 2001, unemployment didn’t hit its peak until two years after those recessions ended.
As unemployment becomes worse, community-based organizations are noticing a change in their clientele. Shelters are seeing clients who are more representative of the newly unemployed. Here’s what one non-profit, Partnering for Change, reported on their blog just last week:
- In recent months we’ve noticed a change in the needs of our program feeding homeless children. I’ve mentioned, there are over 11,000 elementary age children in Orange County, CA who are homeless. They are homeless for different reasons. But here’s a scenario you wouldn’t think would take place:
- Two able body parents in their early 30’s. He has a 4 year college degree in marketing, she went to a technical school in information technology. Both are smart with a willingness to work. They have 3 kids, ages 8, 5 and 2. But guess what, they are both unemployed….for 9 months now.
- What would you do? When your unemployment runs out and no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to get a job? How would you feed your family? How would provide shelter?
- Unfortunately this family is representative of the new face of homelessness in our community. The college educated family forced to leave their rental home and bounce around from motel to motel with no money for food to feed their children.
Another organization in St. Louis, the St. Patrick Center, has adjusted it’s employment services to meet the needs of the newly unemployed white collar workforce. They have launched a networking and job training program to connect laid off workers with employment opportunities:
- Officials at the St. Patrick Center said an obvious need in the region — with roughly 7,800 professional people laid off in the past four months — prompted the effort. Missouri’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate hit 7.3 percent in December, its highest mark in 25 years.
According to Business Week, over 200 suited professionals showed up for the first meeting.
Given that shelters and community safety nets are already grappling with shrinking budgets and increased demand, this economic outlook is downright scary.
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Homeless Kids Lack School to Call Home
As more kids become homeless, finding stable school environment is a struggle
by Carlos Sadovi
the Chicago Tribune
As Kathy Johnson walked from her family's cramped room in a West Side shelter to pick up her 10-year-old twin daughters from school, she asked God to make good on what she had promised them.
"Release housing for me and my children. . . . God, give me strength. We didn't ask to be in this shape; unfortunately we are," Johnson prayed. Health issues cost her a job as a hotel room attendant three years ago, she said.
Chicago Public Schools officials say an increasing number of students are losing their homes, becoming casualties of the economic downturn.
The number of homeless students has risen dramatically in the last year. From July 1 to Dec. 31, the district counted 9,698. That's 23.5 percent more than the 7,851 for the same period in 2007. By the end of the school year, the district is expecting to top last year's record of 10,642 students, said Patricia Rivera, director of the district's homeless education program.
"I see that it will probably get worse," she said. "It has far-reaching consequences for our students."
For three years, Johnson, 43, and her children have drifted through a half-dozen Chicago shelters as she struggled to find work and housing. The twins, Laquita and Lakresha, and an older daughter, Pearlie, 18, have had to cope with new living conditions and people almost every semester, because shelters require clients to move every few months to free up space for others.
"Laquita came up to me and said, 'Mom, I'm very tired. I just want to get out of here. Can we just please move into an apartment?' " Johnson said. "I said, 'Baby, Mama's going to try and get us out of here this year, I promise.' "
The girls have struggled with homework because there is little privacy in shelters, Johnson said, and with making friends. Shelter rules prohibit outsiders, meaning the twins could not invite classmates to a birthday slumber party.
"I don't like being in a shelter because when I get to school I get friends and then I lose them," Laquita said.
Their grades have suffered, too. Johnson tried to keep her children at Shoop Academy on the Far South Side after they switched shelters and had to travel several hours to get to school. The girls failed state tests last spring and now are repeating the 3rd grade at Cather Elementary School, near their current shelter.
Federal law requires schools to provide services to homeless students, but little money is allocated. Chicago school officials said there have been slight increases in the last few years, with the district receiving $700,000 from the federal government for the current school year. Most of the money goes to transport students to the schools they attended before becoming homeless. The district also waives school fees and often gives students multiple sets of uniforms.
Each school has a homeless advocate to help children and families arrange for services. Students also receive free breakfasts and lunches through a federal program that allows $100 for each homeless child, Rivera said.
"It doesn't cover a lot," Rivera said.
A three-year grant made volunteers available to tutor children in some shelters. They hope to continue the program, Rivera said.
Rene Heybach, a lawyer with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, said the district generally is doing a good job of working with the group on behalf of children. But upheaval is looming, she said, because of plans to close dozens of neighborhood schools for the district's Renaissance 2010 program to close under-enrolled or struggling schools.
"All of that displacement that Renaissance 2010 is causing is a huge problem," Heybach said.
Tiara, 6, has attended three schools since her mother, Aisha, lost her fast-food job and her apartment in September. Aisha, who did not want her last name used, said she changed schools each time so Tiara could arrive on time.
Tiara attends Westcott Elementary on the South Side, where her mother said teachers and others don't always understand the challenges she and her children face.
"The teacher says she's behind. I work with her but it is extremely hard," Aisha said. "It's not like I can just sit down and work with her one on one. There are 50 people that live in the same place as me."
Homeless high school students have their own issues, said Jimell Byrd, liaison for homeless students at Fenger High School. The schools used to deal with teens locked out of their homes because of family conflicts but who moved in with friends. Now more families are being evicted, Byrd said.
"Some students are really embarrassed that they don't have their own home or their own key," Byrd said.
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Wyoming Winds
is published by the Wyoming Coalition for the Homeless
907 Logan Avenue
Cheyenne, WY 82001-5247
phone: 307-634-8499
fax: 307-634-9089
email: wch@vcn.com
Views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the Wyoming Coalition for the Homeless, its staff or board.
Editor: Virginia Sellner.
Copyrights revert back to the author upon publication.
WCH is a 501(c)(3) non-profit agency depending upon the community for funding.
© 2009.
**In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.**
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