"No place like home" now on MSNBC

[demosincebirth]

Poverty in America. Homeless families. Very sad.

[EFerrari]

1. Thanks, augie. The fastest growing demographic among the

homeless are single women with kids. And it's not going to get any better any time soon.

[FreedomAngel82]

29. Sad

And Bush isn't doing a damn thing about it. :cry: He's cutting all these programs that could help them.

[sharonking21]

2. Everyone should leave their computers and go watch this! (NT)

[EFerrari]

3. Ha! We can do both, now. My husband went homeless for a year.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/08/29/newsstand.ferrari/

So, since he's been back, this is a near & dear project.

[sharonking21]

6. Thank you for the link

I followed it and read every word.

I can see why it would be near and dear to your heart. It is to mine also. I grew up in a family that ranged from poor at times to working class. We slept in the car a few times, but usually had family in some other town that would take us in for a while, while my father tried to find work.

But that was a long time ago and now it is not so easy to climb out. Sometimes I despair at the direction our country is headed.

[OzarkDem]

14. I deal with it every day

Women who have cancer and can't work who lose their homes, can't buy clothes or food, live in vans, sleep on friends couches.

[EFerrari]

18. Hi there, Demgirl. It's astonishing that most people don't know

their vulnerability. Or, maybe just a survival mechanism. What is your field?

[EFerrari]

4. It always disturbs me when they try to mystify homelessness.

How about health care, including mental health care?

How about affordable housing in balance with the resident population.

It's not a mystery, it's a problem of community and education. I read yesterday that the cost ratio of imprisoning people with mental health issues costs $7 where delivering treatment costs $1.

I bet this list gets really long.

www.missionnotaccomplised.us A day to retrieve our values.

peace,
B.

[sharonking21]

7. Oh yeah

but we are going backwards on health care, mental health care, and on affordable housing. Not to mention the scandalous minimum wage. Funny that it should lead of all things to . . . homelessness.

[EFerrari]

8. Oh, but it's not "simple", is it? n/t

[sharonking21]

11. God forbid

that a problem should be complex or even, egad, recalcitrant. Not to mention, of course, that most problems worth solving ARE.

Have you read either The Working Poor or Nickle and Dimed?

How do we shake people out of their thoughtless complacency?

[demosincebirth]

23. We can't worry about ofther peoples complacency

What can I do to make a little difference in the lives of the homeless?

I am guilty of complacency.

[EFerrari]

24. You did something, today, augie.

We do what we can. \

Doug & I try to support our local (great) homeless coaltion here in our town in any way we can.

Sometimes, when we have an extra dollar, we walk the neighborhood, try to make contact with our homeless neighbors and share a cup of coffee and some trust. That's my favorite part.

And we try to stay aware of legislation. We try to keep the bug in Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer's ear.

And we try to keep thinking.

Thanks for this great thread, thanks so much.

Beth

[demosincebirth]

28. Bless you!

[sharonking21]

25. Some things

1. Help raise consciousness about the problems of poverty, mental illness, homelessness, an increasing problem with division of wealth and income, class, less access to education, less health care and lack of affordable housing.

2. Volunteer at a homeless shelter.

3. Sign up at Christmas or some other time to take a single mother shopping for her family and let her give the children the presents.

4. Work for "Habitat for Humanity."

5. Write letters to the editor about lack of either public housing or affordable housing.

6. Raise # 5 as an issue at any grassroots group you belong to. Do a little research and give them not only the facts but the facts about what this means to real people.

7. If you have room to spare in your house, consider renting a room to someone you find, vetted through a trusted service agency, who is elderly and living on a limited fixed income, or has cancer, etc.

[SoCalDem]

12. An article a few years ago actually said that "they" liked the

"outdoor life"..:puke:

and that the homeless were not "rule-followers"...they paid their rent late (if at all), didn't pay their other bills, and didn't work..

DUH!!

Chicken, meet egg:eyes:

[EFerrari]

13. That's why Doug's story is so good.

He's a workaholic, compulsively early, lol, just busts the myth wide open.

(This wasn't the career path I set out on, but it sure has been an eddication :) )

B.

[OzarkDem]

15. Cancer patients aren't as lucky

Not providing them with assistance is actually cheaper, because they just die.

[sharonking21]

19. But when did we lose our humanity?

Was I wrong? Did we ever have it? I thought we did as a country at one time and I thought the Democratic Party was the primary champion and standard-bearer for invoking it.

[sharonking21]

21. When I try to follow this link

I get one of those error messages. Is there perhaps a letter missing or something?

[FreedomAngel82]

30. A lot

of the rightwingers just dismiss homelessness as they did it to themselves and that the government can't do anything about it. You should tell Clinton about that. He made the poor richer and the rich richer as it should be. Not like in Bush's Amerika.

[sharonking21]

5. It drives me crazy that

things like this don't get more attention here on DU and on other blogs. I attempted to find out if MSNBC would replay this later tonight but could not find out.

Here is a link to a review I found back in 2003.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/tvradio/031017_remote.html

[EFerrari]

9. Thanks for the link, sharonking. I want to read that.

:hi:

Beth

[EFerrari]

10. I've so many fires going but, I wonder if a Poverty Group

might not be useful.

When people think about homelessness, the first thing they feel is shame and the second thing they feel is helplessness.

There's got to be a stigma buster somewhere so we can just settle down and think.

But then, I'm a Sagitarian and we're hopelessly idealistic.

:silly:

[sharonking21]

16. That sounds like a good idea

I'm relatively "new" here--signed up in 2003 but didn't have time to learn anything about blogging till after the election and 'till I had time to wash my underwear and see if I still had grandkids. I don't know how to start a new group and I haven't even donated yet. I've been posting just a little over a month.

What about a poll asking how many have come various distances as to being close to or actually in a state of homelessness? Or do they know other people who have been either close or in that state?

I have found that some family members who are middle class are starting to see the light as their children struggle to make it in this new and harsh environment. One wrong step and the kids are toast as far as becoming middle-class wage earners.

[EFerrari]

17. That's right. We could not have survived had my family

not finally understood that Doug needed 24/7 care, and that I was it.

Their help made our life possible and now we try to give "back" in any way we can.

That's a good idea for a poll. One hitch I see is that many people feel so shamed by their poverty that they won't discuss it. When I first started seeing Doug, he was homeless and to this day, won't allow himself to know it. (And I respect that, he's the best judge of what's right for him.)

My kids sure don't have the opportunities I did, that's for sure.

Let's think about this. It would be a good reality check for a lot of us.

Thanks,
Beth

[faithnotgreed]

20. hi sfexpat - love how you & others here are trying to get this crucial

issue out in any way you can think of. i know there are lots here on this great board who really do care about this issue

i love that

as an aside i hadnt read this thread yet due to the title. theres nothing wrong with it at all but there are so many threads going that since i didnt know what it meant immediately then i didnt check it out until now

if i may can i ask you what you meant when you said your husband "wont allow himself to know it"

homelessness and mental illness and thoughtless complacency (as was mentioned above) etc are quite striking to me in our culture. i literally still dont know how this just goes on and on as if its perfectly acceptable

thank you all again for caring enough to do something! (i know it may be a little bit more complicated than that but not really huh)

peace jude

[EFerrari]

22. Hey, Jude

My husband had undiagnosed major mental illness his whole adulthood. And he covered it up so well, people just got annoyed with him. Well, it got so bad, he just stopped, like a clock stops. And went homeless.

But, because he was raised to be responsible, he couldn't admit even to himself that he was homeless. To this day if you ask him, he'll say, "Well, I stayed in bad hotels but never on the street."

And that's not true. And he's otherwise a compulsively honest person.

So, I learned when we were invited to a conference in D.C., for Health & Human Services on the project "Health Care for the Homeless", just talking to some people there, that it's very common for homeless people to deny, hide or otherwise disappear their situation.

Just the opposite of the stereotype. Does that make sense?

On edit: I think this just scares the cr@p out of people so their poor brains just shut down. But, it is possible to help our brains stay "up" with a little patience and faith in our fellows.

[faithnotgreed]

26. yes

and i certainly understand that denial is part of all sides of this deep/painful issue
thank you for the explanation

your edit is also right on. my mom falls into that category on pretty much all topics. its just too painful and or overwhelming for her so she just doesnt let herself feel or express much. its easy to forget sometimes that there are so many layers of mental illness and hurt going on in our culture. not just the kind that we think of typically but the depression and anxiety that wrack so many people on a daily basis. they feel fortunate just to keep it together at all let alone give energy to something so huge as what were talking about
i remember talking about that aspect of many in our culture some time ago

again i thank you for being willing to see and to feel all that is truly going on. it takes a grounded and special person to do so. and i thank you too for loving your husband as you do. i want that to come out properly but it goes deep when someone is willing to reach out in love to someone hurting so terribly and suffering in something so tragically layered and misunderstood

all my best jude

[EFerrari]

27. Why, thank you.

You know, before I was with Doug, I had so many things I loved. And had to give most of them up, just to cope, to survive.

But I see now that all the things that mean the most to me, I learned or met or somehow contacted because of this challenge.

It's a good day, today, to know what we know and to try to stretch just a little to know more.

Thank you,
Beth