What You Talking About Willis?

Don't Call Me Homeless!!!

I am not a big fan of the word homeless, but it is the word we all understand. Dick Feagler never understood the word, but the rest of society has the image of people sleeping in shelters or on the streets when we use the word. Anyway, homeless people hate the word "homeless." We never use the term in surveys, because it is viewed with such disdain by those experiencing housing instability. Last week, we saw had bad the term "homeless" is viewed by our society. Call me anything you want, but don't call me "homeless." The Detroit News found a guy in an elevator shaft two weeks ago, and identified him as homeless. There was some controversy about putting the photo of his legs sticking out of the ice on the front page, and the point of the story was the indifference by all the other people in the building who did nothing. What was amazing is the reaction in the Associated Press story by the family when the man's identity was discovered.

"Relatives said Redding was a one-time steelworker who worked as a handyman and moved around to the homes of relatives and friends. Older brother Homer Redding said family members don't know what Johnnie Redding was doing in an abandoned building, but they rejected authorities' speculation that he was homeless.

'That's what I don't understand. They are saying he was homeless. I couldn't understand it,' older brother Homer Redding, 59, of River Rouge, told the Detroit Free Press. 'He had too many places he could live.'

Johnnie Redding might have had places that he could have crashed, but he did not have a lease and was struggling with affording rent. It is not shameful, and the less we talk about it the longer the problem will persist. We need to start discussing homelessness in a more open and honest way so that we can start talking about solutions. People need to start admitting that they have had problems with homelessness so that they can take responsibility for the issues that led to their losing their housing.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

Homeless Foreclosure Story Goes National

Associated Press Story Today on Foreclosures

The Associated Press published a story today about the foreclosure crisis in Cleveland. A story by Tom Sheeran went out across the wires in the United States and was published in Chicago, DC, Detroit, and pretty much every city in the United States. It appeared on the Christian Broadcasting Network here and SF paper here and Detroit here. It immediately shot our website traffic from about 122 a day to 800 today. We had as many people visiting our website in the first 17 days of February as we had in all of January.

I talked to a friend in Texas who could not understand this problem we face in Ohio. The foreclosure crisis is much different in the other parts of the country. Most of the foreclosures in Austin were in suburban, usually higher end neighborhoods, and far away from the homeless population. He said that the police would be quick to respond to a squatter in the areas where foreclosures are cropping up in Austin. It is so different in Cleveland. Almost every neighborhood has witnessed the devastation of foreclosed properties. The temptation of all these abandoned properties is too much. Any walk down the any street in Cleveland has obvious empty houses. There is no way that law enforcement or community groups can monitor all these properties. Foreclosures are really bad in Cleveland.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

Arena Football: Cleveland Squatters??

Dismiss the Gladiators/Bring on the Squatters

In light of the foreclosure crisis and the poor state of the Cleveland economy, I am starting a campaign to rename the new professional Arena Football team the Cleveland Squatters. Rarely, do sports team names take on a social justice flavor. This would tell the world what is going on in Cleveland. For all those who skip the news section of the paper and head straight to the Sports section, they would remain uninformed, but would at least capture a sliver of the problems facing Cleveland over the last five years. Besides, what does a Gladiator have to do with Cleveland? The Gladiators is just a generic name that has no connection to this city. The Squatters is a bold name that could provide interesting and fun special event nights. How about... you sleep in your seat for a week and you earn yourself season tickets for that seat? The Boarded up house could be their logo. "Enter through the window night" at the arena--no doors would open everyone would have to enter through the window. The Columbus Destroyers would cower in fear having to face the Cleveland Squatters.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

If I had a Law Firm...

Akron Man Finds Housing in Mall

The Rolling Acres is nearly abandoned, and one adventurous man, Brandon Shawhan, decided that the Mall would be the perfect place to live. If I had a big law firm, I would assign a few lawyers to represent Shawhan, and put capitalism on trial. There was most likely public subsidy that went into the building of the mall. Mr. Shawhan, for whatever reason, cannot find enough money to pay for housing in our society. He did whatever he could do to survive including borrowing space that was no longer in use. The basis of my case would be the question: does our society have an obligation to house every citizen? If we are all equal and our government has an obligation to protect us then do they have an obligation to provide a place inside to protect us from the elements? If government can sweep in and place us in an asylum for "observation" against our will, then why do we not have an obligation to provide a space inside for every citizen? It certainly would be attractive to the jury that he took up residence at the Diamond's Mens Store, and he was a man who wanted to look sharp.

Akron does not have an adequate supply of shelter, and regularly turns people away. They do not have a publicly funded shelter for men that does not push religion on the client. Akron was named by NEOCH as the Biggest Roadblock of the Year in 2006, because they do not take care of their homeless population. I am not saying Akron has an obligation to force people into shelter, but if the shelter is not even available then they should not be able to prosecute people for finding heated publicly funded spaces out of the weather. This would be a great trial that would generate a lot of media attention.

Brian

Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.