Your sentence is... to live as a homeless person for a whole 24 hours!

Man Sentenced to Live as Homeless
United Press International, 1/26/2008

A judge in Ohio sentenced a man convicted of stealing a Salvation Army kettle to live 24 hours as a homeless person.

Painesville Municipal Judge Michael Cicconetti gave Nathen Smith a choice -- serve a 90-day jail sentence, or live 24 hours as a homeless man and serve only three days in jail, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported.

Personally, I think that this is completely ridiculous and degrading to those who do live on the streets. I understand that the judge is trying to give a sentence that applies to the crime but what does living as homeless for one night do? The man who is being sentenced knows that he's going back to his bed the next day. He doesn't have to deal with trying to figure out how he's going to get a job or how he's going to eat. Why not sentence him to volunteer with the salvation army or make a donation to the organization? Those options would connect the punishment to the crime and would actually give back to the community. I don't get what the whole frenzy is around "living as homeless," I don't think that doing this for 24 hours really teaches anyone anything except that homelessness is a joke and a game.

2008 Homeless Census

To Aid Homeless, First Count Them
Boston Globe, 1/27/2008

Despite a forecast of freezing rain, dozens of volunteers with the Plymouth County Housing Alliance plan to canvass the region Wednesday night to count the number of people who are homeless.

They will act on tips from police, churches, and social workers. Focusing largely on Brockton and Plymouth, the census takers will seek out the buildings, dumpsters, abandoned cars, and camp sites that have in the past provided shelter for people living on the streets.

Last year's count indicated 500 homeless people in Plymouth County - more than 100 living on the street, and the rest in homeless shelters. The most, 39, were in Brockton, followed by Plymouth with 23, Wareham with 21, and Hull with 19. Other area communities recorded six or fewer. Because some communities last year reported no homelessness or refused to participate, 500 is seen as a minimum number for the county.

Tomorrow night, across the country, advocates, shelter workers, and average joes will be going out into their communities to literally count the number of persons who are homeless. This includes persons staying in shelters and those sleeping on the street.

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Fred Berman, who does the homeless counts in Cambridge MA. In order to prepare for the census we hiked through some wooded areas looking for signs of activity and checked the streets for new ATM locations and other tucked away spots. On Wednesday, nine volunteer teams will use the "maps" that we updated to travel specific routes and systematically look for persons sleeping on the street. They will take down as much information as they can for the people that they find and will deliver services at their request. Shelters will also be providing lists of the people that they serve during the same time period.

There are a lot of methodological issues with the count; unduplicating clients who are found on the street and later go in for services, figuring out the best and most comprehensive ways to search for people, gathering sensitive information such as name and social security number, and figuring in the influences of weather and available services. The count does not necessarily give an accurate number of persons that are homeless in any given area, but it does give us a start.

Teens for Jeans

Teens, Jeans Team up to Help the Homeless
knoxnews.com 1/17/2008

Aeropostale wants to "Do Something" for homeless teens.

The youth-oriented clothing chain will sponsor the "Teens for Jeans" campaign with the not-for-profit organization Do Something, which encourages youth to become more involved in volunteer community work, Jan. 22-Feb. 10. The goal is to raise awareness of the rising number of homeless teens in the United States. According to statistics, a third of the nation's homeless are children under age 18.

I just wanted to male a note of Aeropostale's new campaign. It sounds like individuals who donate a pair of old jeans get 20% off a pair of new ones and that the jeans will be given to local homeless youth.

Homeless World Cup

An Inspirational Story
UEFA.com, 12/20/2007

A documentary about the UEFA-backed Homeless World Cup, an international football tournament which changes lives, will enjoy its world premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, in Park City, Utah, in January.

The Homeless World Cup was this past fall. When I first read about it I thought it was an analogy or a joke but after seeing it pop up in my news feed a half dozen time I realized that it was literal, and real. Homeless players from Afghanistan, Kenya, Dublin, the US, Spain, and Russia (maybe more?) had the opportunity to represent their respective countries in a "world cup" to raise awareness about homelessness. I'm excited to see how the documentary turns out, Sundance usually has really neat films!

Homeless Youth Awareness Month

November is Homeless Youth Awareness Month, and Virgin Mobile's re*generation campaign is turning out to be one of the big players in disseminating info about the month. The re*generation campaign is a campaign to get youth involved with helping other youth.

This month I'm going to focus on youth by sharing articles and statistics, hopefully on a daily basis.

Here's the link to an article about the campaign:

Stand Up For Kids is Calling for an End to Youth Homelessness
PR-USA, 11/06/2007

STANDUP FOR KIDS, a national volunteer organization whose work with homeless youth has been acknowledged by the White House, the Honorable U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg, and key Senators and House members, has teamed up with ReCelluar, Inc. - the world's largest recycler and reseller of used cellular phones and accessories - to create a nationwide fundraising campaign. The campaign, "Calling An End To Youth Homelessness," encourages individuals, schools, corporations, and organizations to collect old cell phones and cell phone accessories to raise money for STANDUP FOR KIDS' efforts in helping runaway, homeless and street-dependent youth.

Are Shelters the Newest Yelp Category?

Homeless need Information about Where to go for Help
Currant.com, 10/21/2007

Brenda sits on a street corner while her partner, Noel, is off convincing South Green shopkeepers to let him wash windows for money. If he's successful, they'll live large tonight, maybe get some beer (for him) or soda (for her).

Recently, some members of the American Bar Association in Washington listened to University of Connecticut law professor Robert Whitman talk about people like Brenda. Whitman has never met Brenda, but as an advocate for therapeutic homes for mental health and addiction recovery, Whitman wants to start a national database of services for people who are homeless. Someone like Brenda could go to her local library, type in her zip code, and get up-to-date information on services, including phone numbers and hours.

People who are experiencing homelessness know how to use the internts just like you and I. Some have laptops that they charge and use in public spaces while others use the library computers to check email and surf the web. This innovative idea of creating a national database could help some of these individuals find the services that they need but my question is how much of an impact will the website have on service delivery? I haven't read any research and don't have hard numbers but I imagine that many people know where the services are, and if they don't know their friendly local outreach worker would be happy to tell them. My guess is that many people who are not accessing services have had bad experiences and may be hesitant to trust them again. So, while I think that this is an awesome effort, I think that it will end up being more of a tool for outreach workers and shelter staff than for those actually living on the streets. I'm curious to see how things develop.

Keeping it Real

Chronilcing the Invisible: A Photo Essay about Ottawa's Homeless
The Charlatan, 10/25/2007What it's Like to be Homeless in Wrexham
Evening Leader, 10/25/2007

WHEN James Graves collected his degree in electrical engineering, he didn't imagine that 10 years later he would be homeless, living rough on Wrexham's streets and having to get himself arrested to get a bed for the night.

The place he calls his bed is fraught with danger. If it isn't the fear of who might be lurking, it is the needles that litter the ground around where he lays his blanket. At night it is pitch black and damp, cold and noisy.

Even as someone who thinks about homelessness on a daily basis, I have never once thought about where I would sleep if I found myself homeless. I once had a conversation with a couple outreach workers about what time of day is best to sleep. While I said that I'd be more likely to sleep during the day, because there are more people around. They said that there more people means you're more likely to get robbed or harassed. While my heart goes out to those who face this decision every night, I'm certainly glad that it's one that I may never need to face.