Homelessness Activists Serve Up a Protest -WP

[Rose Siding]

Before Rose Marie Flynn finished preparing a Thanksgiving meal for herself and 13 guests, she wanted to take a stand for the homeless.

So the 78-year-old retired chemist and member of the Gray Panthers, a senior's activist group, left her Bethesda home Thursday morning with her husband Joe, 82, to take part in a rally to demand the District provide more housing for its poor.

The Flynns were among a dozen activists who served breakfast -- bagels, coffee and fruit -- to homeless people outside the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department and then marched to a recently closed shelter for men. About half of them forced their way into the Randall Shelter at Half and I Streets SW.
......
Protesters chanted "Housing Not Stadiums" and unfurled a sign on the shelter's roof proclaiming, "Mayor Williams, You Can't Run the Homeless Out of DC."

It was the second time in eight months that the city closed a homeless shelter and put replacement beds miles from downtown. In March, city officials closed the 150-bed Gales Shelter in Northwest, blocks from the U.S. Capitol, and opened 200 beds in a men's shelter in Northeast. City officials have said they decided to close the shelters because they were dilapidated and beyond repair.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13082-2004Nov25.html

[oscar111]

1. Hunger up a million in bush Fed Budget plan: Nice guy

Lots of stats on hmlessness, poverty, total US wealth with link to fed site to prove it, Keynes economics and how Reaganomics is a total deadly failure... all at my post below linked

Democratic Underground Forums - Thanksgiving:Hunger up a million is Bush plan in Budget

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=230x40

[Sugarbleus]

2. Great Post!

Lately,I'm seeing more posts in DU on issues of poverty et al. I'm DELIGHTED this is so.

The issues of poverty and disenfranchisment are FOREMOST on my agenda.
I took some time to search for books on poverty; guess what? There are countless books on the subject but nothing is ever seen in the media about it...not from the right OR left. It's shameful.

It irks me to no end when I hear people pop off about the "poor". Immediately, folks assume that the poor are lazy. "get a job" they say; "not with my taxes", they say. I'd like to remind those callous hearted people that WORKING is a priviledge! BE THANKFUL YOU have employment and the wherewithall to KEEP it. BE THANKFUL you haven't lived through any catastrophic life experience that would cause you to LOSE THAT JOB or that house or your mind!

I have this "visual" in my mind of callous people like that desperately trying to climb back UP a rope before they descend into a vat of boiling oil...so paranoid to even THINK about what it would be like to live in the world of the poor; thinking it is better to just sweep the issue under the rug and bar the door. Hey, ANYTHING could happen to ANYONE anytime leaving them in need. The safty net programs were there for EVERYONE, not just the chronic poor.

This article about people helping people and making their voices heard..is milk and honey to me. I read another post this morning where a man and his family took "tons" of "stuff" to a shelter in a run down part of their community. The man said his family was blessed outta their socks and the recipients were gratful for their charity...

On my morning news, this thanksgiving day, they filmed a piece on a family...not a rich family..just a family who got up early, made tons of food, rounded up everyone in the household and took HOT MEALS out to anyone they saw ON THE STREET in a neighboring "rough" area...

I PRAY that these issues come forward hard and fast as the days go on. It's simply DISGRACEFUL that this RICH Country cannot house, feed, and tend illnesses for.............the least among us.

[barb162]

4. 'Hey, ANYTHING could happen to ANYONE anytime

leaving them in need.' My girlfriend always says about the homeless
"there but for the grace of God go I" because literally if one event gets you thrown off track, you can end up homeless.

[Sugarbleus]

7. Or having your modest home foreclosed on then you have to

move into a house with your parents or kids or friends and sleep in their garage or couch....on and on.

Catastrophic events (illness and otherwise) can put ordinary people into some dire straights. It's not just about "Houseless" people.

We have WORKING people who have to live in shelters or rent rooms far away from home in order to go to their jobs! The housing crisis is OUT OF CONTROL..let alone the employment crisis.

I choke everytime I hear *twig* talk about home ownership is up...AS COMPARED TO WHAT??

The COST of everything is sinister. My lady friend's husband just found another job after being out of work for a year. At 58 he is a security guard now!! woooo big bucks there! :eyes: Their cobra insurance is about to run out, she is disabled and freaking out. Her meds are approx. $1100-1500 PER MONTH! Medicare "drug club" is a JOKE, she doesn't wish to participate in--hello canada. If she and her husband cannot find a way to pay for those meds, they may have to sell their modest mobile home and buy a motorhome to travel around in like freaking gypsies of lore.

How can struggling people have a "nice life" when they have to be FREAKING out about such things??

End of rant: ;)

[genieroze]

3. Hey homeless people can't vote, so Boosh don't care

[Sugarbleus]

5. There were efforts in the Kerry Campaign to register those

"Houseless" people. They had to use a single office/address in order to register. The volunteers were out in force in the inner cities doing just this very thing. WTG volunteers.

There are a few homeless/poverty movements around the country as we speak. Maybe they will have their voice heard loud and clear one of these days.

I know that one group has appealed to the United Nations Human Rights branch over the poverty, sickness, and houseless circumstances of large populations of Americans. We just aren't "treated" to a look into these movements. ... yet.

[Ima]

6. And a lot of them are

veterans! We need more affordable housing.