Sacramento Homeless blog

"Disabilities and dysfunction process from having been shunned and denied access to needed opportunitites and networks of support." ~ the brothers Lysaker in Schizophrenia and the Fate of the Self What is schizophrenia? How many are homeless Sacramentans? Perhaps 15% of the Sacramento homeless population suffers from schizophrenia. The percentage is difficult to determine for many reasons that branch from both the fuzzy definition of the malady and that many people within the homeless community who have the illness (1) are in denial and are undiagnosed and (2) have the illness as a diagnosis only – the disability can be faked by people who are successful claimants of social security and other benefits. What is schizophrenia? One webspace gives us this definition : The most chronic and disabling of the severe mental disorders. Typically develops in the late teens or early twenties. The overt symptoms are hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing visions), delusions (false beliefs...

Yep. We people stuck in the Big Muddy Muddy of Homeless World Sacramento need the Wolf. That is, we need someone like Pulp Fiction 's Winston Wolfe who is a Fixer of any – and I do mean any – problem. You might recall the character The Wolf in Pulp Fiction, played by Harvey Keitel, who was called in to fix the fix that Jules and Vincent found themselves in. Seems the movie's principle characters had a bloody corpse in the backseat of their Dodge. The Wolf had been called to the scene by Marsellus Wallace, boss of our sociopathic protagonist heros, to clean up the incriminating mess, which he did lickitysplit – and in impressive fashion, otherwise. We need someone like The Wolf in Homeless World Sac. Not to clean up incriminating messes, but to straighten up to make fly right fallen lives. Damn it, the most frustrating thing about the world I'm in has to do with all the impressive men who have so much to offer the world and no means out of their mudhole to offer it. What...

"[T]hose who argued for or against the tent city relied on the sort of simplistic explanations and quick-fix remedies that trivialize the causes and minimize the consequences of homelessness." wrote Robert V. Tobin, the president and CEO of the transitional-housing organization Cottage Housing , in a opinion piece published two days ago in Inside Politics Daily . The title given the piece is " Sacramento's Homeless Camp: More Fiction Than Fact ." Fiction v. Fact counterpoints within his piece read thus: FICTION: Sacramento's tent city emerged in recent months as the economy declined. FACT: People have lived along the American River since the Gold Rush; homeless people have camped there for decades. FICTION: Parents and kids were driven from their homes and into shanties. FACT: There were no children living in the encampment. FICTION: Tent residents were recession refugees new to the homeless scene. FACT: The local homeless policy director said 90 perc...

Loaves & Fishes is distributing flyers to spur attendance at a hearing at U.S. 9th District Court at 501 "I" Street in downtown Sacramento, that will rule on a summary judgment motion with respect to the long-standing case of Anthony Lehr, et al v. City of Sacramento, et al . The flyer tells us that the hearing will be in Dept. 7 at 2PM on April 30 before Judge Morrison C. England, Jr. Information on the lawsuit , that was filed August 2, 2007, can be found at the Loaves & Fishes website. L&F, in addition to the homeless-aid organizations SHOC and Francis House, have joined the suit as as plaintiffs. Other information on the beginnings of the lawsuit can be found at the Homeward Street Journal wikispace. Per the L&F webspace, The lawsuit challenges the confiscation of personal property belonging to homeless people by the City and County and the practice of law enforcement agencies writing citations for illegal camping to homeless persons sleeping on public p...