NPR radio covers Fresno Officials Dismantle Homeless Encampments

[annm4peace]

I'm so glad the abuse of the homeless by the City of Fresno is finally covered in a national outlet
you can listen and post comments. Please take a gander and listen.

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/26/226497851/fresno-officials-dismantle-homeless-encampments

"Any day now, Fresno plans to raze a large homeless encampment that's grown up near downtown. The poor, farm-dependent city in California's Central Valley has one of the highest per capita homeless populations in the country.
In recent weeks, city officials there have dismantled three other sprawling shantytowns. The moves have displaced hundreds of people and sparked controversy. "



Please sign the petition.. even if you aren't a citizen of Fresno

Petition: http://chn.ge/18QeLIW

http://helpfresnoshomeless.org/

http://facebook.com/groups/helpfresnoshomeless/

Video and Song:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/fresnoshomeless

Articles since 2002; http://fresnoalliance.com/wordpress/?p=1313

Statistics: http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_21593004/calif-central-valley-cities-among-poorest-us

http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acsbr11-01.pdf (pg. 5 and 6)

http://www.measureofamerica.org/.../05/SJV_FactSheet.pdf

[annm4peace]

1. I have posted many times on DU the attacks on the Homeless by the City of Fresno

here is another recent one.
Please share with others and ask them to sign the petition and call they Mayor they are boycotting Fresno goods.
If everyone who read this posting signed the petition and they shared with another and they signed, then maybe
it will get the 3000 signatures it needs. AND give hope to the homeless and their advocates that people do care.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023731015


The City of Fresno has destroyed homeless encampments time and time again, which is not only costly, but ineffective and harmful. We know there are better ways of addressing homelessness and we are asking the City of Fresno to consider methods that have been successful in other cities, such as safe and legal encampments. The fact that Fresno does not have emergency shelters, for a city of its size, is also alarming.

This petition is intended to show the city officials that we disagree, and that we want better methods for fighting homelessness, rather than fighting the homeless. You can find out more at the website about these actions and our efforts.

Please share.

"Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead




Here is a picture of the Homeless Memorial, adjacent to the Homeless Ministry of Pastor Ray Polk, which will be a part of the City of Fresno's continuing policy of homeless camp demolitions. Eviction in this area is scheduled to begin at 7:00am on September 9, 2013.

Featured prominently, below the American Flag, is the memorial for Sharen “Big Sue” Bobbitt who died on December 28, 2011 on the sidewalk outside of the Poverello House, a homeless service center in downtown Fresno. She died following the 2011 evictions, when the City of Fresno destroyed all of the shelters for homeless people, took their blankets, and put out their fires. Poverello House is one of the driving forces behind the evictions this year.

from facebook:
"I knew Mother Nature who is also there... Mother Nature was a kind woman who loved the care packages that i would prepare for her... I tried getting her to go live with her son but she didnt want to."

[Joe Shlabotnik]

2. kick for exposure n/t

[reddread]

3. Theres no place like homelessness

Hey, look! thats Cinnamon!
one of the most well spoken people Ive met.
Seem to remember visiting with her and Bruce in one of his last dugout shelters.
The police threatened him with arrest the next time he does that, so he has stopped emulating
one of the most famed aspects of Fresno, the Forestier Gardens.
Well worth a visit if you are passing though, it is directly next to 99 at the Shaw exit.

[annm4peace]

5. thanks for personal connection

I hope the outside attention helps make a change in Fresno. I don't think it can happen with the type of City leaders that have been in power for the last 20 years.... but I hope they are voted out of office and some decent people are voted in.

Fresno is a great city, with great people.. it was just hijacked by the fundamentalist neo-cons.

[reddread]

7. yes maam, thank YOU!

I actually registered to respond to the post requesting info on homeless people undergoing radical mistreatment.
But for years have come to DU as a news source, the best of it being your posts highlighting Fresno's storied
recent past. I hate to say it, but the attention level on these topics seems a little deficient.
I know you left the area before we could be introduced, but like to think we might have shared a bus ride to
some late 90's demos up in SF?
If not the same sidewalk in 92...
You are so right about the chorus of clowns who get the nod to run and win the votes of less thoughtful people.
They all need to be fired, AND their unelected appointees.
That possibility is greater than ever these days,
and I look forward to considerable turmoil in the future.
You keep warm up there, and keep those home fires burning, we owe you a great debt of thanks.
Your name is frequently mentioned by the best people I know, with great respect and appreciation.
thats the facts.
take care!

[annm4peace]

4. Fresno Co should check out what MInneapolis, MN is doing.

Minneapolis is much economically healthy city in a healthier County.. but the City and County of Fresno could look to Minneapolis as an example of what they could be doing to help the homeless.

It is cheaper to spend the pennies to lift people out of homelessness,, then to pay the dollars for emergency rooms, ambulances, cops, jails, etc.

Fresno does have organizations and people trying to help the homeless.. but the City doesn't help and often hurts.
********

http://www.startribune.com/local/225445012.html

Star Tribune, by Rochelle Olson

Hennepin County is midway through an intensive two-year pilot project aimed at getting people who haven’t had shelter for a long time into stable housing. Results look positive.

As he had every night for years, Roger Lisk was checking in to a homeless shelter when someone said, “Hey, come here. I want to talk to you.”

That person was Terry Ostrander, a Catholic Charities Housing First worker who helped move the 56-year-old Lisk into a stable home and a job within months.

Speaking Thursday from his south Minneapolis room, Lisk spoke of the peace in having a key to a room where he can come and go when he chooses, without being patted down by security or sleeping on a gymnasium floor with 200 men.

“Now I get off work, I come home. I got my Dr Pepper. I got a TV. I got a lock on my door. It’s so beautiful,” he said.

Lisk was one of those targeted for a novel, intensive Hennepin County effort to tackle long-term homelessness by zeroing in on the most frequent users of emergency shelters. A midterm report on the Top 51 project, a two-year pilot program that started in July 2012, shows progress:

Of the first 55 clients chosen for help, 26 found stable housing. Shelter use among the group as a whole dropped 23 percent, according to the report from the county’s Office to End Homelessness, which leads the Hennepin-Minneapolis 10-year effort to end homelessness by 2016. Ten formerly homeless clients were in private apartments, often with state subsidies. Another nine moved into rental units at Catholic Charities Higher Ground, 165 Glenwood Av. in Minneapolis.

The $550,000 that the county is spending on the Top 51 project is roughly split between Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army Harbor Light.

The money goes to pay for two social workers at each agency dedicated solely to the Top 51 project. Each case manager was given the names of 15-20 clients to pursue — a fraction of the number that most case workers see.

The county agencies are asking the County Board to extend the program in the 2014 budget through the end of the year, an additional six months.

Tackling long-term use

Emergency shelters are designed for brief stays, but for the Top 51 clients, the average stay was 10 years. These long-term users had multiple problems, such as mental illness, chemical dependency or health issues, with no safety net of family or friends. They had burned bridges.

Without persistent, personalized help, most of the long-term homeless were mired in a rut coupled with a belief that nothing would change, that “they would just continue doing what they’re doing,” Ostrander said.

Lisk said he had no hope for finding a home because he could only find day labor once or twice a week. “You can’t afford nothing,” he said. “You’ve got your cigarettes and $10 in your pocket and it’s got to last until next week.”

He said he was in the loop of bouncing among shelters for free meals, then checking into one to sleep for the evening. He would be back on the street by 6 a.m.

“The top folks are the ones who would turn around and walk away,” said Lisa Thornquist, planning analysis supervisor in the Office to End Homelessness. “They’ve been very good at avoiding everyone for years.”

Ostrander frequently stands outside emergency shelters at 5:30 a.m. to hand out his cards. He and colleague Doreen Marie Donovan use all sorts of methods to slowly build connections with clients.

Donovan sends birthday cards. She meets people for coffee. She has taken clients for a ride in a car — a “normalizing activity” many of them haven’t done in years, she said.

Most of what the case workers do is reliably show up, become a confidant, provide peace of mind so clients can start to open up and see hope. “When you went to your first day of school, were you scared?” Donovan said. “It’s hard to do new things and you need mom there at the bus stop.”

Usually, clients come in to meet their case workers and if they don’t show, that’s that. The Top 51 workers are much more insistent.

Zach Johnson, a Top 51 case worker at the Salvation Army, said, “For us, if our appointment doesn’t show up at 3 [p.m.], we go looking for them until 5 [p.m.].”

Catholic Charities Housing First program manager Chris Michels said, “A lot of the clientele feel like they’re invisible, [that] ‘if I don’t show up here people won’t care.’ It’s empowering to them to have someone care.”

With their smaller caseloads, the workers have the flexibility to spend a lot of time with individual clients — or to give the clients space.

“We’re just spending time with them. It’s like what makes any relationship good — to take the time,” Johnson said. He cited a recent success: a client who wasn’t having coherent conversations with anyone. Johnson worked with him. The man who is now preparing to file for disability benefits. “To me, that’s monumental,” Johnson said.

Lisk had plenty to say about Ostrander and how he has helped. “If I have any trouble, I go through him and things get taken care of real fast,” Lisk said.

[annm4peace]

6. *** Please sign the Petition ***

lets see if we can get the signatures up to 500 by the end of the night.

** please sign it.. lets show the Homeless and their advocates that there are people who do care ***

It is a shame the petition is only in the 300's

[annm4peace]

8. there is hope

there is hope... they just need more money and more people but they making changes in Fresno
they aren' t preaching to the choir but fighting back in the heart of the beast.


http://www.cvppac.org/

he Valley’s Voice for Progressives

Promoting human and civil rights
Recruiting candidates who embrace progressive values
Mobilizing voters to elect progressive candidates
The purpose of the CVPPAC organization is to promote the human and civil rights of all Central Valley residents. This is to be accomplished through education and action. The CVPPAC will advocate and/or lobby elected officials relative to the concerns/core values of Central Valley residents.

The CVPPAC will also recruit, endorse and support candidates for office who are committed to the concerns/core values of Central Valley residents as expressed (presented) by the CVPPAC. These concerns/core values include, but are not limited to: a living wage for all workers, clean air, public safety, affordable housing, adequate public transportation & bike paths, police accountability, improved public education, marriage equality, and health care for all.

The CVPPAC is dedicated to enhancing (improving) the participation of Central Valley residents in the election of governmental officials by sponsoring “Get Out The Vote” campaigns.