Oh, isn't she just a warmhearted soul!
Related: The Fighting Females of Camp Homeless
Yeah, the insults really are getting to me.
Here is someone who understands:
"I was reading an article about
Actually, that is true: Sunday Insult Series: The AmeriKan Worker
Also remember, the BANKS and WAR LOOTERS made BILLIONS!
"In their shoes; To better understand the plight of the homeless, Harvard student takes to the streets" by Jenna Russell, Globe Staff | August 9, 2009
CAMBRIDGE - As a student in Indianapolis, John Frame and his friends sometimes bought pizzas and passed them out to homeless people on the streets. One night Frame heard a homeless man say, “So you’re going home now, and we’re staying here.’’
The remark was simple, but full of implications. It lodged in Frame’s head and wouldn’t go away. Later, volunteering at a Cambridge shelter, he befriended homeless people but felt the same divide: the gulf between his life and their lives outside.
So last spring, as he wrapped up his courses at Harvard Divinity School and prepared to fulfill his last requirement, a Spanish class, this summer, the 30-year-old Ohio man had an idea. He moved out of his dorm on Oxford Street, stashed his laptop in a locker on campus, and packed a backpack with a blanket, a toothbrush, a black hooded sweatshirt, and $150 cash.
Then he started living on the streets of Harvard Square.
For as long as homeless people have been camping out in doorways, their presence has provoked a wide range of reactions, from fear to fascination. Plenty of people dismiss them as urban blight, but others - sociologists, clergy, journalists - have trained a microscope on society’s street dwellers, drawn to a way of life so foreign, so extreme in its detachment from norms and expectations, it seems almost incomprehensible.
There is an old guy I give money to for a meal now and then. Next time I see him I'm giving him a jacket because it's getting cold at night.
Many have studied the problem. Fewer have immersed themselves in it as Frame has, taking a street nickname (“Divinity John’’ or “DJ’’), letting go of personal hygiene (two weeks between showers), sleeping on Cambridge Common and panhandling by the Old Cambridge Burying Ground ($11.12 in four hours). His goal, he says, is to understand homelessness better, and share his experience with others, in the hopes that it might help them bridge the gap themselves.
“For some people it’s a mystery - how do I deal with the poverty, the other, in my face every day when I walk by
Frame has lived among the homeless for 45 days; he plans to keep it up for two more weeks, but may extend the experiment. He has befriended some of the neighborhood’s best-known street people; on a sweltering afternoon last week, he sat on a bench outside CVS on Massachusetts Avenue - a social hub for the homeless - catching up with his mentors.
When exactly was that, Globe? Sigh!
With their guidance, Frame has learned to stash his sleeping bag in a bed of lilies for safekeeping, to salvage snacks from dumpsters, and to sleep without a bedroom, drifting in and out to the chirp of crosswalk signals and the roar of buses.
Just as good as the dining hall: Sunday Insult Series: Amerikan Dining Hall
Still, for all the hours Frame has logged beside his homeless friends, the gulf persists: He knows his homelessness will end, and he knows when.... At work on his third master’s degree, with plans to pursue a doctorate and a career in writing and teaching, Frame is quick to admit his limitations....
Now the thing is just turning damn insulting.
Yet many homeless people appreciate his attempt to know their world - and not all of them see him as different. “He’s chosen [homelessness], and so have I,’’ said Neal, a fixture in the Square with his plaid cap, turquoise ring, and 40-ounce bottle of beer. At a church where a free meal was about to be served, another homeless man voiced respect for Frame.
Churches doing what government doesn't, hanh?
“I thought he was crazy at first,’’ said Richie, a muscular, tattoed 40-year-old who described himself as an addict and, like others interviewed, declined to give his last name because his family doesn’t know he’s homeless. “But he’s getting the picture. The textbook is nothing - you have to live it.’’
I've HEARD THAT: Some Things Are More Important Than School
Inside the dinner, where volunteers served plates of chicken, summer squash and corn, another friend cautioned Frame.
Gees, homelessness is great eats, huh?
“The risk is that [you] could be perceived as playing at being homeless, when homelessness isn’t a game,’’ said Elizabeth, who grew up wealthy but descended into homelessness because of her alcoholism.
Yeah, you see, it is ALWAYS YOUR FAULT if you are HOMELESS, American, because of some defect!
Well, I DON'T BELIEVE THAT Boston Globe INSULT at all!!
It seems like BEING a DRUNK was OKAY for the MASS-MURDERING, WAR CRIMINAL F*** that occupied the Oval Office between 2001 and 2009!!!!!!
He never ended up homeless, did he?
Across the table, a Harvard friend of Frame’s listened intently. Romana Manzoor, who is studying Arabic this summer, met Frame at orientation, and said he is already helping others forge unexpected relationships.
“I’ve fallen in love with his [homeless] friends,’’ she said.Pffft!
--more--"
Related: The Harvard Haven
I'm sorry, Mike, I can't take you home. I truly don't have the space.
Homeless ain't all that bad after all, huh, 'murkns?
"Man charged in attack on homeless
A former homeless man was charged with injuring two homeless people after he allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail into the large section of concrete pipe where the victims were staying, Lynn police and fire investigators said. Brian Bowman, 28, admitted throwing the device into the sewer pipe in a vacant lot at 229R Lynnway around 1:30 a.m. on June 26, according to a report. Bowman was arrested Friday after a joint effort by the Lynn arson investigation unit and police. Bowman was homeless at the time of the attack but living with a girlfriend when arrested, said Fire Lieutenant Dave Legere. Police said Bowman had argued with the 44-year-old man who was in the pipe and who suffered third-degree burns. A 43-year-old woman got second-degree burns. Bowman is expected to be arraigned tomorrow.
--more--"
Related: Who Remembers Timothy Finch?
"Residents of 1 RI tent city agree to relocate" by Eric Tucker, Associated Press Writer | August 7, 2009
PROVIDENCE, R.I. --A dozen homeless residents of a tent city agreed Friday to relocate later this month, while a court hearing on the fate of a larger homeless encampment was postponed by a week. About 40 homeless people have camped for months near an interstate highway overpass in Providence or under the Washington Bridge in East Providence.
State authorities on Thursday told the squatters they would have to leave because they were trespassing on land owned by the transportation department and living in unsanitary and dangerous conditions. They said the "unhygienic conditions" of the camps made them susceptible to rats and other vermin.
TRILLIONS for BANKS and WARS!
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Tent City
Residents of one camp, Hope City in Providence, struck an agreement with the state Friday to relocate to private property by Aug. 24, said Amy Kempe, a spokeswoman for Gov. Don Carcieri.
A Superior Court judge postponed arguments about the East Providence shelter until next Friday, allowing residents to remain there in the meantime....
Christopher D'Ambra, 32, who lives at the East Providence encampment and has been homeless for about 10 years, said he enjoys the freedom of the tent city. He chafes at the notion of living at a regimented shelter. "If living in a tent makes you happy, I think that's what you should be allowed to do," he said. "Living in that situation, it's a sense of freedom. You're sleeping in your own bed."
Well, I'd choose to live in a house first, given the choice.
Also see: Slow Saturday Special: Handing Away Affordable Housing Loot to Developers
Pffft!
Our system is fucked.
