Sacramento Homeless blog

From Iverson's Google profile. A longtime homeless man, Sonny Iverson, has posted a four-part narrative of his experience of being ‘on the street’ [and getting off of it] to SacPress : Experiences in Homelessness Part 1 Experiences in Homelessness Part 2 Experiences in Homelessness Part 3: Navigating Homeless Housing Services Experiences in Homelessness: Part 4: Transition to Independent Living It’s a splendidly well-written story that I am hopeful a good many will read. While every homelessness story is unique, there are many things about Sonny’s story that reflect upon what is similar to all who fall into the muddy pit of homelessness — that writer and sociologist John Irvin codified as “Warehousing the Rabble” in his book The Jail: Managing the Underclass in American society . Sonny was first homeless when he was 18, locked out of his father’s home for smoking marijuana. From there he began an extended period in unstable living circumstances as he tried to advance his ...

Nov 20  Sat Winter Coat Giveaway at the Salvation Army   Willow Clinic   Winter Coat Drive Time: 9:00am-2:00pm 1200 North B Street Willow Clinic is a UC Davis School of Medicine student-run health clinic. After a fine cornflakes and Starbuck’s day-old-pastry breakfast at the mission, I made a beeline to Salvation Army [aka, Sallies] to get a coat. The coat I have is in one sense terrible: it’s worn out, thin, and two-sizes too small for me. And in another sense excellent: in its day it can have been magnificent. In any case, I needed a good coat. Overnight temperatures on either side of Thanksgiving Day are forecast to drop to freezing. And very possibly I won’t have a bed on one or both of those nights. The coat giveaway at Sallies was organized by UC Davis Medical School students involved with Willow Clinic , an organization dedicated to volunteering time to improve others’ lives. When I got to Sallies, it was before 8am for an event advert...

John Kraintz John Kraintz, Sacramento's locally famous homeless person, was in the news, yet again.  But this time, SafeGround isn't the topic, it's the man's health. An inside story in this week's Sacramento News & Review , " State of emergency ," tells us that Kraintz was diagnosed as having a ruptured softball-sized cancerous tumor, that resulted in surgery that removed his gallbladder and part of his pancreas and colon.  A regime of chemotherapy is in the offing for him. It's a sad state of affairs, and I certainly root for John to beat back the cancer, and to feel healthy. But I post this news for another reason, too:  I am a little bummed by matters of health care expense that come up in the article. For starters, if anyone comes to be as ill as Kraintz, he is going to run up a very big hospital bill.  Kraintz's bill at Sutter General was $138,938 , we're told. Was Kraintz's bill exeptionally high because he is homel...

An article in the Bee today, somewhat badly titled " Health care would take huge hit, officials say ," tells us that the county of Sacramento will be fully tearing down the safety net for its citizens in the new fiscal year, which begins on July 1, because of the budget crisis. It was another afternoon of bad news and grim testimony Tuesday before the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, who are staring at a $122 million budget deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Department heads outlined dramatic cuts proposed for health and human services programs serving the county's most vulnerable citizens, including seriously mentally ill people, medically indigent residents and those at risk of abuse and neglect. Regarding homeless people, specifically, in the county, the article tells us this: • Homeless services: The proposed budget provides enough money from the general fund to support homeless programs for two months. After that, unless money is found else...

"According to the National Opinion Research Center, of all the negative events that can happen to Americans, only the death of a child is considered more painful than declaring bacnkruptcy or losing one's home and having to live on the street.  It would be surprising, then, if the threat of financial disaster―whether from inadequate retirement savings, crushing medical bills, layoffs, or simply excessive debt―did not take a toll on the well-being and peace of mind of millions of American families.  As a result, finding policies to minimize such risks offers an especially promising opportunity to help alleviate widespread anxiety and distress." ― from The Politics of Happiness by Derek Bok

WARNING:  READERS SHOULD NOTE THAT SUMMER HILLS AND RON E RUSSELL HAVE NO ASSOCIATION WITH THIS WEBSITE OR, VERY PROBABLY, HAVEN FOR HOPE.  IF YOU ARE COMING HERE VIA A LINK FROM http://summerhillsrealestate.com/ YOU SHOULD BE VERY VERY SUSPICIOUS OF THE CLAIMS OF THAT ORGANIZATION, PENDING CONFIRMATION FROM HAVEN FOR HOPE THAT THEY ARE INVOLVED IN BUSINESS DEALINGS WITH RON RUSSELL OR HIS BUSINESSES, AS THE SUMMER HILLS WEBSPACE CLAIMS. Following, is the conclusion to a a long article in My San Antonio News , titled " Haven for Hope: New home, life " by Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje and Brian Chasnoff.  These last few paragraphs describe what passing through Haven for Hope, the new $100 million homeless-aid campus in San Antonio, Texas, is like for homeless people, themselves. For most, the flow through Haven is marked in stages. First comes sleeping outdoors, then indoors next to Prospects Courtyard, then transitioning to “guest” status when moving onto the c...

"People in San Antonio got rid of their homeless by tellin' them what a great place Sacramento was!" -- From the script of South Park, season 11, episode 1107, " Night of the Living Homeless " [ video at IMDB ] Well.  Maybe.  The ever-green foliage in our City of Trees may well have been, and may be, a lure for a few rare homeless folk from south-central Texas ... and elsewhere ... to come here.  But the tide might turn, now.  Eastward, ho!  Sac'to homeless folk may be headed to Texas. San Antonio's new, massive [37 acres! 15 buildings!  Cost a hundred million smackers!] central homeless-help facility is a ginormous achievement, and is all the more impressive — beyond mere 'beyond belief' — because its opening happened a few days ago in this wretched economy.  Only, the wretched economy that those of us here in Sacramento are having ain't the economy in the thriving, better-governed state of Texas. But HOW did they ...

Hearings for the creation of a budget for the County of Sacramento for its fiscal year from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011 will begin in about six weeks. The coming year will be far worse than the current annus horribilis [7/1/09 to 6/30/10] because of the continuing effects of the Great Recession in California [a laggard state in feeling the effects of the Recovery, already in progress most elsewhere in the nation] and the inability of state government to find solutions to their problems. A tax increase of some sort in California would have helped, but it hasn't happened and won't happen because of Republican recalcitrance. A document, squirrelled away at the county website, dated April 14, and prepared as a starting position for discussion of the coming year budget tells us the County of Sacramento will likely abandon their obligations and hand over the door keys to homeless survival services to the Usual Suspects at the homeless-help agencies. There's no assurance that...

A letter that seems clearly legitimate, published in the Roseville Press-Tribune yesterday , tells us that psychiatrists at the Sutter facility in Roseville have been sending homeless patients to Sacramento during the past twenty years, by bus.  The practice is referred to as "Greyhound Therapy," and is clearly a means of "dumping" the patients here to relieve the Sutter facility and Placer County the expense of properly caring for and providing for the people. The letter was written by Roseville-resident Susan Lawson who tells us she used to work for Sutter in Roseville, but now works for Mercy in Sacramento.  The letter ends with this sentiment which demonstrates Ms. Lawson's frustration, observance of hypocrisy, and keen compassion: This is unethical, not to mention illegal. We are responsible for taking care of the homeless in our town. In probably the wealthiest area in greater Sacramento with more shopping centers and strip malls and of course, the al...

In his 1987 book, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace , M. Scott Peck [of The Road Less Traveled fame] described the Characteristics of True Community . Perhaps the broader Sacramento Homeless community or any fair-sized encampment of homeless people would find these elements useful. Inclusivity, commitment and consensus : Members accept and embrace each other, celebrating their individuality and transcending their differences. They commit themselves to the effort and the people involved. They make decisions and reconcile their differences through consensus. Realism : Members bring together multiple perspectives to better understand the whole context of the situation. Decisions are more well-rounded and humble, rather than one-sided and arrogant. Contemplation : Members examine themselves. They are individually and collectively self-aware of the world outside themselves, the world inside themselves, and the relationship between the two. A safe place : Members allow oth...

[I originally posted this to another blog in December 2007.  Except that the book A Farewell to Alms is no longer "recent," as I wrote, then, I couldn't find anything else I would change.] I would like to get into something very basic to Buddhism, that has certainly been explored, but to my admittedly-very-limited knowledge, hasn’t been pulled together very well. Why is it so damn hard to help people? One would think that it would be THE fundamental thing to do, of great help to the world at large. One would think that if you can give someone or some group or some nation that one simple, timely leg-up, he or they or it would go on to reach his/their/its full potential, and the benefits from that would ripple out into the world and there would be this cascade of goodness and good news. But it is hard to help people. They fall into their ruts and pour concrete around their feet ... or so it seems. The book  A Farewell to Alms looks into the issue on the macro-sca...

There was a very long and very glowing article on John Kraintz in the Sacramento Bee on Sunday, " Homeless man has key role in Sacramento debate ," that requires a response from SacHo . It is a core tenet of this blog that the truth about homelessness and homeless people get "out there" to the public. Unhappily, despite the enormous amount of coverage of homelessness in the popular local media, the public continually gets distortion. Cynthia Hubert is the reporter the local homeless-help industry thinks is the most friendly toward them, and, yep, her articles, with just an exception or two, have a distinct skewed quality. Make no mistake, John Kraintz deserves a lot of credit for his interest in and work for the homeless. He is a bright, amiable, thoughtful fellow. As a longtime chronic, intends-to-remain-homeless person he fits in with 10% of the community. Certainly, as a part of the enabled homeless population, weighing in in support of Loaves & Fishes...

An EXCELLENT blogpost over at SLO Homeless in San Louis Obispo provides what I think is the central unlearned lesson regarding what homelessness is like and what kind of help is most needed.  Read the whole post , y'all; for a sample, here's the core of what blogger michael has to say: …I am painfully aware that at the "end of the day" the homeless will still be homeless. They will have come no closer to escaping homelessness. It isn’t because they enjoy living life on the streets for the holidays. It’s just that they presently have no other alternative. They haven’t been provided with the types of assistance which might potentially help them rebuild their lives. Most folks are perhaps familiar with the adage that, "If you give a man a fish, you feed him for today. But, if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." The majority of the types of services offered to the homeless only feed (and shelter) them for today. The same holds true w...