(crossposted from DK)
Not a happy news roundup. I’ll do a happier one next.
Chris, left and Jason, right, call the area no-man’s-land underneath the west side of the Hawthorne Bridge. The encampment of about 16 homeless folks has been there since mid-October. Chris and Jason were two of the first campers in this area that is nicely sheltered under the bridge where they say they don’t get wet. Their belongings stay there all day. Someone in the group is always around. They say they know everyone and they all work together to keep it clean and neat and leave room to walk on the sidewalk. About the noise under the bridge Jason says, “It’s like the ocean but you’re really close to it!” Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian
Fire at vacant downtown hotel ruled arson; 1 hospitalized
A two-alarm fire that damaged a vacant downtown Las Vegas hotel and sent a homeless man to the hospital Monday night was ruled an arson.
Las Vegas Fire & Rescue responded at 7:40 p.m. to the fire at the El Cid Hotel, 232 South 7th St. The building was constructed in 1979, but has been vacant and boarded up, authorities said.
Firefighters received reports that smoke and flames were coming from a downstairs unit and found thick smoke throughout the first floor of the 24-unit building. A man found on the floor was quickly rescued by firefighters, said Tim Szymanski, spokesman for Las Vegas Fire & Rescue.
Suffolk to mirror Nassau Policy on placement of homeless sex offenders
HAUPPAUGE – Suffolk County is discontinuing its efforts to locate facilities to house homeless sex offenders and will follow Nassau County’s model of providing vouchers that will enable homeless sex offenders to pick and choose their own places of residency, county officials announced today.
Suffolk had conducted an extensive search for locations that could meet an array of state and local restrictions for housing sex offenders before determining that such a site is virtually impossible to secure. As a result, County Executive Steve Levy has directed officials to follow the practice that is in place in Nassau County and other counties throughout the state—a system that requires homeless sex offenders to choose their own locations and to notify police within 10 days when they have done so.
“We wanted to keep these predators away from residential communities and under supervision that they previously did not have, but we have found that this approach is virtually impossible to implement due to the myriad restrictions that have been established by state and local governments,” said Levy. “We are suspending our efforts to locate qualified areas and are adopting the same approach that is in place elsewhere in the state.”
Homemade Homeless Shelter
The New York Times has a video produced by Sean Patrick Farrell about a man in California who is using his ranch as a special homeless shelter and rehab center. The difficulties he has encountered and the laws he has chosen to ignore to make this work. Thanks Jeff for letting me know about this video.
Dan de Vaul has taken in dozens of homeless people by building ramshackle, illegal housing on his ranch in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Some see him as a good Samaritan, but others consider the ranch to be a dangerous eyesore. Watch the “Homemade Homeless Shelter video here.”
Are Homeless Camps an Environmental Hazard?
Bob Holmes, executive director of the homeless advocacy group Homeward Pikes Peak, recounts the horrors of the camps to the Gazette: 13 buckets of human waste discovered by a creek, a downed tree nearby serving as a commode, underpasses where walls are both toilets and toilet paper.
Janis Heuberger, a local real estate agent, has filed a complaint with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and has sent Colorado Springs City Council members and the Gazette photos.
“I think the city needs to disconnect with love and enforce the laws and uphold the laws and let the agencies come up with the conclusions,” she says.
Homeless Camps Raising Water-quality Concerns
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) A Colorado Springs woman has complained to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about homeless people apparently relieving themselves along creeks where their camps are growing.
More than 120 people live in the homeless camps. And with few nearby public restrooms, makeshift toilets and toilet paper have shown up along Monument and Fountain creeks.
Real estate agent Janis Heuberger, who filed a complaint with the EPA, said she has an issue with that.
Bob Holmes, executive director of the homeless advocacy group Homeward Pikes Peak, said he’s concerned about the possibility of an E. coli outbreak.
Homeless shelter plans nixed by neighbors
Housing advocates have steered away from plans to open an emergency shelter for women at the Salvation Army after neighbors objected to the idea.
The setback has left those who are trying to establish a shelter for women and families looking at other options, and those who need shelter looking for a solution to their homeless situation.
In the wake of Friday’s decision to back away from the Salvation Army plan, housing experts may now consider pooling together funds to provide motel vouchers for the rest of the winter, even though many believe the system is lacking as a long-term fix to an ongoing problem.
Gay Muslims made homeless by family violence
A UK charity is dealing with an increasing number of young gay Muslims becoming homeless after fleeing forced marriages and so-called honour violence.
During a weekly drop-in group held by the Albert Kennedy Trust in London, Suni, a 20-year-old London student, helps himself to a warm mince pie and a steaming cup of coffee.
In 2008, during a holiday to Pakistan to visit relatives, his parents suspected the truth about his sexuality. They believed marriage would “cure” him of what they considered to be a psychological disorder.
Whistler’s Homeless Get a One-Way Ticket Out of Town for the Olympics
With the Winter Olympics just around the icy corner, the host cities are scrambling to handle any last-minute logistics to make the cities of Vancouver and Whistler as sanitized a tourist haven as the world has ever seen. But that also means handling some of the more unsightly aspects of two beautiful, picturesque cities mere weeks before the games begin. And those solutions are coming from some unexpected places.
We’ve already set aside some time to look at Vancouver’s approach to handling what some might call a heroin epidemic. The variety of solutions employed have proven controversial, if not pretty fascinating for anyone curious about the city’s seedy underbelly. But Whistler, essentially a co-host for the games and one of the world’s most-beautiful ski retreats, is also dealing with its own problems in prepping for the games.
With the Olympics displacing a number of the city’s homeless, a migration has occurred, forcing Whistler’s homeless to primarily relocate to neighboring Squamish, home of the region’s only 24-hour emergency shelter. According to online reports, the city has handed local homeless one-way bus tickets, forcing them to get on these buses. While some big Canadian media claim these homeless will return to Whistler after the games, there really isn’t any evidence backing up that claim. Assuming many of these homeless won’t return, the one-way ticket has become an increasingly-popular way for cities to combat homelessness.
Homeless Donations Spark Debate
Colorado Springs Police officers tell 11 News the homeless community in Colorado Springs now numbers in the hundreds. There is a big debate now over whether people who donate directly to the homeless are helping or enabling. A lot of donations have now become visible in the form of trash.
John Clavin used to live along Fountain Creek. He says, just like he discovered for himself, the homeless do not have to live like they are. Clavin used to work at a casino in Cripple Creek. He says that’s where he got addicted to meth, then became homeless. It wasn’t until he hit rock bottom that he got help from the Salvation Army. “They picked me up and dusted me off,” Clavin said.
Clavin feels the donations people are making directly to the homeless are misguided. “The people that might be getting close to the bottom where they’d find help, (then) all of the sudden someone comes along with a bag of groceries and some money or cigarettes or whatever, they don’t have to move,” he said. Clavin thinks the donations keep people from hitting their bottom, like he did.
Good link from the comments, h/t Deoliver
Child Poverty In America: The Homeless Families
