Give US Your Poor BLOG

On Meddling (Part 2 of 2) by Lewis Thomas

2011-11-22T19:00:00.000-08:00

Lewis Thomas was a well known biologist and essayist who wrote the following piece on meddling with complex systems in 1974. This essay is divided into 2 blogs. To read part 1 click here.

These were the classical examples of medical intervention in the prescientific days, and there can be no doubt that most of them did more harm than good, excepting perhaps the incantations.

With syphilis, of course, the problem now turns out to be simple. All you have to do, armed with the sure knowledge that the spirochete is the intervener, is to reach in carefully and eliminate this microorganism. If you do this quickly enough, before the whole system has been shaken to pieces, it will put itself right and the problem solves itself.

Things are undoubtedly more complicated in pathological social systems. There may be more than one meddler involved, maybe a whole host of them, maybe even a system of meddlers infiltrating all parts of the system you're trying to fix. If this is so, then the problem is that much harder, but it is still approachable, and soluble, once you've identified the fact of intervention.

It will be protested that I am setting up a new sort of straw demonology, postulating external causes for pathological events that are intrinsic. It is not in the nature of complex social systems to go wrong, all by themselves, without external cause? Look at overpopulation. Look at Calhoun's famous model, those crowded colonies of rats and their malignant social pathology, all due to their own skewed behavior. Not at all, is my answer. All you have to do is find the meddler, in this case Professor Calhoun himself, and the system will put itself right. The trouble with those rats is not the innate tendency of crowded rats to go wrong, but the scientists who took them out of the world at large and put them into too small a box.

I do not know who the Calhouns of New York City may be, but it seems to me a modest enough proposal that they be looked for, identified, and then neatly lifted out. Without them and their intervening, the system will work nicely. Not perfectly, perhaps, but livably enough.

We have a roster of diseases which medicine calls "idiopathic" meaning that we do not know what causes them. The list is much shorter than it used to be; a century ago, common infections like typhus fever and tuberculous meningitis were classed as idiopathic illnesses. Originally, when it first came into the language of medicine, the term had a different, highly theoretical meaning. It was assumed that most human diseases were intrinsic, due to inbuilt failures of one sort or another, things gone wrong with various internal humors. The word "idiopathic" was intended to mean, literally, a disease having its own origin, a primary disease without any external cause. The list of such disorders has become progressively shorter as medical science has advanced, especially within this century, and the meaning of the term has lost its doctrinal flavor; we use "idiopathic" now to indicate simply that the cause of a particular disease is unknown. Very likely, before we are finished with medical science, and with luck, we will have found that all varieties of disease are the result of one or another sort of meddling, and there will be no more idiopathic illness.

With time, and a lot more luck, things could turn out this way for the social sciences as well.

To view part 1 of this 2 part essay from 1974 click here.

On Meddling (Part 1 of 2) by Lewis Thomas

2011-11-14T16:31:00.000-08:00

Lewis Thomas was a well known biologist and essayist who wrote the following piece in 1974. In this essay, he reflects on the unintended consequences of trying to affect (or "meddle" with) any part of a complex system without first understanding the whole (as best you can). It's a highly readable piece on systems thinking with indirect application to homelessness policy.

When you are confronted by any complex social system, such as an urban center or a hamster, with things about it that you're dissatisfied with and anxious to fix, you cannot just step in and set about fixing with much hope of helping. This realization is one of the sore discouragements of our century. Jay Forrester has demonstrated it mathematically, with his computer models of cities in which he makes clear that whatever you propose to do, based on common sense, will almost inevitably make matters worse rather than better. You cannot meddle with one part of a complex system from the outside without the almost certain risk of setting off disastrous events that you hadn't counted on in other, remote parts. If you want to fix something you are first obliged to understand, in detail the whole system, and for every large systems you can't do this without a very large computer. Even then, the safest course seems to be to stand by and wring hands, but not to touch.

Intervening is a way of causing trouble.

If this is true, it suggests a new approach to the problems of cities, from the point of view of experimental pathology: maybe some of the things that have gone wrong are the result of someone's efforts to be helpful.

It makes a much simpler kind of puzzle. Instead of trying to move in and change things around, try to reach in gingerly and simply extract the intervener.

The identification and extraction of isolated meddlers is the business of modern medicine, at least for the fixing of diseases caused by identifiable microorganisms. The analogy between a city undergoing disintegration and a diseased organism does not stretch the imagination too far. Take syphilis, for instance. In the old days of medicine, before the recognition of microbial disease mechanisms, a patient with advanced syphilis was a complex system gone wrong without any single, isolatable cause, and medicine's approach was, essentially, to meddle. The analogy becomes more spectacular if you begin imagining what would happen if we knew everything else about modern medicine with the single exception of microbial infection and the spirochete. We would be doing all sorts of things to intervene: new modifications of group psychotherapy to correct the flawed thinking of general paresis, transplanting hearts and aortas attached for cardiovascular lues, administering immunosuppressant drugs to reserve the autoimmune reactions in tabes, enucleating gummas from the liver, that sort of effort. We might even be wondering about the role of stress in this peculiar, "multifactorial," chronic disease, and there would be all kinds of suggestions for "holistic" approaches, ranging from their changes in the home environment to White House commissions on the role of air pollution. At an earlier time we would have been busy with bleeding, cupping, and purging, as indeed we once were. Or incantations, or shamanist fits of public ecstasy. Anything, in the hope of bringing about a change for the better in the whole body.

The "Meddling" image at top is by Mark Wilson. If interested in T-shirts or hoodies with this design click here.

Excerpt from How to Be a Homeless Frenchman (Part 2 of 2) by Paula Young Lee

2011-09-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

The following is an excerpt from the book How to Be a Homeless Frenchman (2011). Be aware there is some profanity in the excerpt.

Bob Dylan once said that a poem is a naked person. By that measure, there’s a lot of poetry in a homeless shelter. Every day, there were dozens of new arrivals, dredged in poverty and stinking of hopelessness, standing in the 6pm bed line hoping for a space. Per shelter rules, we had to strip down and take a shower before we could be processed for the evening. We were ordered to keep things “clean,” i.e. no drugs, no sex, and no staring. Get naked, and stop fidgeting! Grumbling yet pleased, we’d remove every stitch of clothing and hop across cold wet tiles in bare feet, swearing “fuck fuck fuckety fuck fuck! This fuckin’ water’s fuckin’ cold!”

“Yo’ mama!”

“Fuckety fuck fuck!”

In this place, it sounded like giggling.

Every day, it was a water ballet of homeless men raising their arms and twirling around, performing Nutcracker under the nozzles. As the clothes came off the usual social prejudices fell away, replaced by the quirky taxonomy of the despised. Young, old, short, fat, tall, bald, crippled, straight, bent, black, brown, and white. Nobody cared, except maybe the transvestites. Every man in the showers was butt-naked and frozen, shivering as flesh confronted water, cringing against the spray, delighting in the warmth, smiles spreading across faces, opening mouths the way that women open their mouths when putting on lipstick. A reflex. A kiss in the mirror. There was something sublime about the happy sounds we made once we started soaping up under the fizz and pop of hot water, singing “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream! Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream!”

And round and round it goes.

One day, good old Larry Chase, one of the unofficial regulars, stripped down to hairy pink, stuck his head under the spray, lathered up his beard, and started to sing. From behind the brouhaha of spittle and spray, his deep voice floated up, loud, confident and strong, an aboriginal calling to the mountaintops:

When I was just a little girrrrrl,

I asked my mother, What will I be?

Will I be pretty, will I be rich?

Here’s what she said to meeeee…”

Pause.

As if on cue, all the men joined in the chorus:

Queeeeeeeee, sera, sera,

Whatever will be, will be,

The future’s not ours to see,

Que sera, sera.

What will be, will beeeee!

Throatily we sang, with gusto and passion and glee, inner girls swishing invisible skirts, relishing the incomparable absurdity of being Doris for today. Naked men of every stripe and color, strangers stripped of every stitch -- bereft, barefoot, knowing nothing but the theme song to the Man Who Knew Too Much, recalling drowsy days of caramel when we were young and in love, asking our sweethearts, what lies ahead? Will we have rainbows and endless nights of bliss? Will we lie back, sighing, for another kiss? So many possibilities. Whatever will be, will be. Just not this.

But this is what we got. In four-part harmony.

Pure poetry.

How to Be a Homeless Frenchman by Paula Lee is now available to order online at www.harvardbooks.com, and a www.wellesleybooksmith.com via special order/phone only, 781-431-1160. An e-book Kindle version is currently available on www.amazon.com. A related Give US Your Poor blog entry by Paula Lee can be found by clicking here.

How to be a Homeless Frenchman (Part 1 of 2) by Paula Lee

2011-09-11T20:49:00.000-07:00

"…for Chinese acupuncturists, all sickness is home sickness. It is what happens to a healthy body when the soul feels alone. Seeking solace elsewhere, the soul abandons the heart, the bones, and the body becomes full of holes. Sickness moves in, gets comfortable, and decides to stay. Homelessness happens to the body when the soul forgets it’s free to go."

-From How to Be a Homeless Frenchman, 2011

Everybody has a story. Even boring people have tales to tell. In times of quiet, confessions spill. “I’m afraid of giraffes.” “My wedding dress was a rental.” “I hoard lentils.” “I used to be homeless.” Excuse me? Not ‘homeless’ in an angst-ridden teenager way, but actually out on your ass and living hard in the street? On the one hand, it’s extraordinary that so many Americans have homes to lose in the first place. A testimony to modern laws that make it possible for ordinary citizens to own real estate. On the other hand, the loss of a house to debt, foreclosure, or random acts of God prompts few to celebrate the end of feudalism. But this is silly, you say. Homelessness isn’t about losing a house. It’s really about having no place to live.

Indeed.

“I’m homeless” is a statement of individual loss. “I have no place to live” is a confession of a deep and terrible truth. For it is true of all of us, going straight to the heart of what we like to claim is the “human difference,” a difference insisted upon for hundreds of years as the bedrock concept of civilization. We are the opposite of nature. We conquer and subdue. For we are superior to nature, and here is the iPod as proof! When humans become homeless on this engineered earth, they are as holes poking through the lovely fictions that make electric dreams come true.

I hear the phrase, “I used to be homeless” a lot: pearls falling from the most unlikely mouths. The stock boy. The stock broker. The socialite and her son. Listen, and you will hear tales of troubles fallen upon your nice neighbor and, maybe, the pretty girl sitting next to you as you wait for your teeth to be cleaned. In my case, it was my brother-in-law who’d lived on the streets, and his story was so uncommon, so surprising that it turned itself into a book. How to Be a Homeless Frenchman hopes to change the dialogue on homelessness by insisting that joy is not a commodity, and that laughter is everywhere, even in a homeless shelter. Strange times call for stranger solutions. So let me tell you a story that begins once upon a time and ends the way all stories do – not with a happy ending, but when we close the book.

How to Be a Homeless Frenchman by Paula Lee is now available to order online at www.harvardbooks.com, and a www.wellesleybooksmith.com via special order/phone only, 781-431-1160. An e-book Kindle version is currently available on www.amazon.com. Part II of this blog entry by Paula will appear shortly.

Homelessness in History

2011-08-29T11:39:00.000-07:00

We’ve learned a lot about addressing the issue of homelessness with different audiences in the past 10 years. For one thing, the subject itself (whether for donors or public audiences) can be touchy. It’s not a happy subject (over a million homeless children, ever-increasing homeless veterans, overall numbers rising dramatically). And with increased unemployment, foreclosures, high health care costs and two prolonged wars, many people are peeking over the edge of homelessness that were not before. This has always been the case in poor economic times in the U.S. but more significantly when there has been economic transition.

I've been told there was not really a history of homelessness, that it is a modern phenomenon. But that is simply not true. Historian Ken Kusmer, author of Down And Out, on the Road: The Homeless in American History, reminds us that we have had periods of homelessness in the past besides the Great Depression. In the 1980s (the start of modern homelessness) we saw the shift from a manufacturing economy to a service/information economy. Kusmer describes a similar shift in the late 1880s when the nation moved from an agricultural economy to a manufacturing one. Both shifts meant upheaval for many workers that were left extremely vulnerable and, in the worst cases, without a home. Many people were left more vulnerable from the shift and when you added illness, injury or strained social networks, the combination became a type of homelessness cocktail.

The stigma of having no home in 1880s--true today as well--is evident in Stephen Crane’s, “An Experiment in Misery,” which first appeared as an article in the New York Press (1894) and was later released as a book (1896).

He was going forth to eat as the wanderer may eat, and sleep as the homeless sleep. By the time he had reached City Hall Park he was so completely plastered with yells of "bum" and "hobo," and with various unholy epithets that small boys had applied to him at intervals, that he was in a state of the most profound dejection.

War veterans have also been overrepresented among homeless people in American history. In the modern era, Vietnam veterans and veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars may return with psychological and physical scars that extend the war beyond the battlefield, can lead to drug addiction and/or isolation from others, and for many, homelessness. A number of Civil War veterans were also homeless. Many became accustomed to traveling, living on the road as soldiers, and once the war ended in 1865 continued living on the road either for economic reasons, afflictions from the war or because they had nothing to go back to.

Why is a historical lens on homelessness important? There is a belief that homelessness is tied to modern times and economic recession. When the economy declines, some people are left homeless. It seems logical enough. But history shows us that this is not always the case. Other forces are at play. In the early 1980s when Ronald Regan took office, the economy was horrible and homelessness was becoming visible in ways that was new, including the presence of homeless families. When the economy recovered and soared for many in that decade, rates of homelessness nonetheless continued to rise. It rose through the dot.com explosion of the Bill Clinton 1990s and it rose through the economic downturns following 9/11 and the Great Recession of George W. Bush’s presidency. Latest federal data indicates rates of homelessness are currently holding steady. We’ll see if that is accurate.

Today our challenge is not to get stuck with the same old models, not play the blame game across ideological sides and not to assume a rising tide will lift all boats. Instead we need to take a holistic, systemic look at homelessness. We need to collaborate across federal departments more than ever and across sectors while incorporating best practices that are proven effective. And in our collective work in this area we need to maintain a humanistic—especially historic—perspective.

When we think of ourselves as Americans at our best, we think of the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty: Emma Lazarus’s 1883 poem, “The New Colossus” (from which our organization derives its name). It’s a vision of America symbolically reaching out to those in need of comfort, offering welcome and, implied, a home.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

If you are concerned about homelessness in Massachusetts or elsewhere in the U.S. and would like to join our campaign, please visit our website at http://www.giveusyourpoor.org/ to (1) sign up for our newsletter, (2) make a donation, (3) engage your company, (4) host a house party, or (4) volunteer in other ways. Thanks!

This piece first appeared in a slightly different version as a blog entry for The Public Humanist in the Valley Advocate. The Public Humanist is the blog for the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities.

Photo by Lynn Blodgett, from his book, Amazing Grace: The Face of America's Homeless (Earth Aware Editions, 2007).

Why T3? Why Now? by Jeff Olivet

2011-06-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

Recently, the Center for Social Innovation partnered with the National Center on Family Homelessness to announce the launch of T3, an exciting new training institute dedicated to transforming the homeless services workforce. T3 stands for Think, Teach, Transform, and it is the most ambitious project of its kind.

T3 is more than a training institute. It is a center of connection for people to learn about best practices for ending homelessness in our nation. T3 allows people to connect with national experts, share what they are doing in their own communities, and learn from peers around the country doing the same work. We combine great content, adult learning theory, and beautiful design into packages of online and face-to-face learning that help homeless service providers enhance their knowledge and skills. Our hope is that they will become better equipped to sustain themselves in this very challenging and difficult work.

Why T3? Why now?

We know the homeless services workforce is spread thin. Workers are too often overworked, undertrained, and underpaid. They need and ask for training on how to do their jobs better.

Over our years of training service providers across the nation, we have learned that while many good training efforts exist, training is often haphazard or fragmented. Quality varies, and access to training is often limited by time constraints and travel budgets. To overcome these obstacles, we’ve created a flexible model that enables people to access a variety of learning opportunities on their own time, at their own pace, and in ways that are tailored to the needs of their workplace and community.

We offer training on basic knowledge about homelessness, subgroups within the homeless population, and evidence-based practices to address housing and service needs. We provide basic skills training to support all homeless service providers to better engage and connect with the people they serve. Then we go deeper with the advanced skills series that offer advanced training in areas such as Motivational Interviewing, Trauma-Informed Care, Critical Time Intervention, and other practices that have been proven to work.

Throughout the learning process, we support individual providers and their agencies to think differently about the work they do, teach each other how they have overcome challenges, and transform their communities.

If you are interested in learning more, find us on YouTube at or go to http://www.thinkt3.com/.

Jeff Olivet is the Executive Director of the Center for Social Innovation.

Give US Your Poor CD Hits Stage as Theatrical Performance by Donna Cotterell

2011-05-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

I want to express my heartfelt appreciation to Give US Your Poor and Appleseed Recordings for doing such a tremendous job putting the Give US Your Poor CD together.

I must admit, when I originally received the CD, I thought I was only going to like one or two songs. I had received a signed copy in the mail from my friend, Mighty Sam McClain. I love Sam’s music, therefore, I thought I was only going to like the songs that Sam appears on. Lo and behold, I fell in love with the entire CD. The opening song, “Land of 10,000 Homeless,” (Andrew Turpening) speaks to many of us, who but for the grace of God could be out on the street, especially in this economy. The vocals on “No Good Reason” (Natalie Merchant & Friends) are so craftily blended and the ending crescendo of voices sends chills up my spine. I love the spoken word pieces by Danny Glover and Tim Robbins; Glover transcends gender and race in his rendition of “My Name is Not Those People.” One of my favorites on the CD is “Stranger Blues” by Sweet Honey in the Rock. It is such a haunting melody and bears witness to many who may go home from time to time, but are not fully accepted for whatever reason. Another favorite is Mario Frangoulis singing “Feels Like Home.” He has a voice like an angel and I feel blessed to have seen him perform that and “Amazing Grace” along with Mighty Sam live at the Strand Theater back in 2007 at the Give US Your Poor Concert for Boston’s Homeless. What a treat! The icing on the cake is the closing song, “Here and Now,” by Mark Erelli. It challenges each and everyone of us to think about what we can do to bring about change and also think about what is holding us back.

It is a powerful CD and I am please to announce that I am bringing a theatrical performance based on the CD to the stage. Our pilot performance will be June 4, 2011 2-4 PM at Messiah Baptist Church at 80 Legion Parkway in Brockton, MA. The event will be a free performance with a panel discussion afterwards. I hope you can make it. There will be more information to follow.

Warm regards,

Donna Cotterell

Donna Cotterell is an educator at Smith Leadership Academy Charter Public School in the Fields Corner section of Dorchester, MA. She leads a theatrical company, Indaba Theatre of New England, that uses theater as therapy to help individuals overcome obstacles in their lives.

The Blame Game and Systems Thinking

2011-04-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

A March 2011 Huffington Post article began with this line: "Recent budget cuts to a New York City program that helps families get out of homeless shelters and into apartments have sparked controversy, starting a blame game between the city and the state, and leaving the fate of 15,000 families and their homes up in the air."

One of the benefits of applying Systems Thinking to any situation is that it reduces blame. Take the situation described in New York City. The visible facts are listed in the line above. Fifteen thousand families (or roughly 45,000 men, women and children) are now more likely to become homeless. The city blames the state. The state blames the city. Many people blame the 45,000 people themselves.

This could be any city in the U.S. There are unacceptable numbers of people of all ages living in cars, tents, sidewalks, abandoned buildings each year. "It's homeless people's fault for being lazy," "It's the liberal government's fault for trying to throw money at the problem," "It's the conservatives' fault for not caring," "It's housing builders fault for building McMansions," and on and on.

Systems Dynamics expert, PJ Lamberson, says, "the psychology literature suggests a bias towards blaming people rather than the system." Systems Thinking looks past blame at the forces at play in the system, not only at events (the actions and results that are most visible) but also the underlying patterns, structures, and beliefs that impact these results. So in the case of homelessness, the events which are most evident are homeless shelters at capacity, more people seen sleeping in parks, more unease by housed people, more frustration from business owners, etc.

By looking at the patterns and structures we see there are not enough unskilled jobs that supply a living wage as say a manufacturing economy did. We see that education prices have risen and many cannot afford the degrees required in a service/information economy. We see there is little incentive for developers to build housing for the lowest income bracket and regulations that make it difficult to do so. We see housing vouchers with an 8-10 year waiting lists because there are not enough vouchers to meet the demand and not enough units once a voucher is acquired. Or for the lucky ones that get housing support, other life issues may plague them affecting their ability to stay housed. Those are a mix of patterns and structures.

A systemic approach involves identifying (often mapping) the system to better see the interconnected forces at play, the effects of time delays, feedback loops, and unintended consequences. Stakeholders may then see the complex system more clearly. They see that structures within the system are causing the same results again and again. With that view it is easier to get to work changing those structures instead of blaming the people that are caught up in it.

Click here for a related article article by Marilyn Paul that appeared in the System Thinker: "Moving From Blame to Accountabillity."

The photo, "B is for Blame," by stephbeff is used with permission.

Housing is, Indeed, a Human Right by Whitney Gent (NLCHP)

2011-03-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

Whitney Gent
National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP)

Last week, the United States government officially acknowledged for the first time that reducing homelessness implicates its human rights obligations.

For nearly a decade now, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty has been using human rights language and strategies to advocate on behalf of people experiencing homelessness. We’re working to build a movement to help realize the human right to housing in the United States.

There’s a strong foundation to build on. The U.S. helped shape the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights – both of which recognize that housing is not a privilege, but a right. President Obama has said it is “simply unacceptable for individuals, children, families and our nation’s veterans to be faced with homelessness in our country.” And last June, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness released the first ever comprehensive Federal Plan to End Homelessness.

But despite our declarations and our international treaty ratifications, homelessness is rising dramatically, people are being punished for sleeping or sitting outside even when there’s no alternative, and the current federal budget proposals would cut funding for public housing and, in some cases, homelessness programs.

The federal government’s acknowledgment that homelessness reduction is a human rights obligation does not itself change any of these facts, but it does provide advocates with another powerful tool to use in holding the government accountable to its promises. It will help us fight budget cuts that would send more people to the streets. It will help us turn the Federal Plan into federal action. It will help us build the public will we need to end homelessness in this country.

Of course, the Law Center cannot – and should not – do all of this alone. We need YOU to be a part of this movement. This June 7-8, we invite advocates from across the country to Washington D.C. for the annual National Forum on the Human Right to Housing, where we will offer trainings on how to use the tools we have gained to make progress in the movement to realize the human right to housing here. We’ll also strategize to determine how to best build on the foundation we’re laying.

The forum will feature speakers from government, the media, and the advocacy community, including:

• Peter Edelman, Professor of Law and Director of the Center on Poverty, Inequality, Public Policy, Georgetown University School of Law, and Give US Your Poor Advisory Board Member
• Barbara Ehrenreich, best-selling author of Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
• Pam Fessler, poverty & philanthropy correspondent, National Public Radio
• Bryan Green, General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing at HUD
• Jonathan Harwitz, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy & Programs at HUD
• Gail Laster, Deputy Chief Counsel for the House Financial Services Committee
• Barbara Poppe, Executive Director, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

And many more! Click here for more information about the forum, and to register.

Also, watch for the release of the Law Center’s upcoming human rights report – a new tool to help advocates and government officials talk about the right to housing, this report applies the international rights framework to U.S. housing policy in the most comprehensive manner to date. Coming soon!

Whitney Gent is the Development & Communications Director for the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP). She also edits the Homelessness Law Blog.

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Building Better Bank Ons by Reid Cramer

2011-03-11T11:34:00.000-08:00

Reid Cramer, Director, Asset Development
Program, New America Foundation

In 2005 San Francisco city leaders were surprised by new research that estimated that one in five San Francisco adults-and half of the city's Blacks and Latinos-did not have bank accounts. These primarily working poor city residents faced a big disadvantage because they lacked this basic financial tool. In fact, many unbanked San Francisco residents reported paying 2 to 5 percent of their income just to cash their paychecks.
To address this problem, San Francisco public officials challenged financial institution leaders to join with the City and their non-profit partners to create and launch Bank On San Francisco, a first-in-the-nation effort to bring 10,000 of the City's estimated 50,000 unbanked households into the financial mainstream. City leaders wanted to offer low-income residents alternatives to check-cashing outlets by increasing the supply of starter bank accounts with easy, affordable ways to deposit paychecks, pay bills, and save.

Bank On is now being replicated in more than 70 cities and states nationwide. In 2010, the Obama Administration announced the creation of a national effort to bank the unbanked--Bank On USA.

What have been the successes and failures of the Bank On model? Anne Stuhldreher and Leigh Phillips have been with Bank On since the program's founding and together developed "Building Better Bank Ons: Top 10 Lessons from Bank On San Francisco." This paper furthers the discussion on what products and services need to be in place to best serve this market, and what roles the various partners at the local, state, and national levels can play to create a truly inclusive financial system.

To read the entire paper, please click here.

Reid Cramer is Director of the Asset Building Program at the New America Foundation, where he leads the program's policy research activities.

Sleeping On A Train by Susan Werner

2011-02-22T11:17:00.000-08:00

This blog entry by singer-songwriter, Susan Werner, describes some of the story behind her new song, "Sleeping On A Train," released March 1 on her new CD, Kicking The Beehive. A special, free download of that song is graciously made available by Susan in support of Give US Your Poor. Click here for Susan's link to free download.

BY SUSAN WERNER: This song, "Sleeping On A Train," came from two experiences - one is riding the blue line from O'Hare Airport here in Chicago to downtown, which is something I do routinely when travelling. There are often homeless people sleeping on that train line, and less often on the orange line I take to Midway Airport. Eventually I figured out why. It's because the blue line takes longer to complete its run from end to end, and therefore offers uninterrupted rest for a longer period of time.

The song also came about because of the homeless guys who stake out their position in front of my office building downtown every day. It's like a shift - someone's there by 10 a.m. and usually gone by 4:30 pm. There was Jerry from Louisiana - he has a great sense of humor, often referring to me and all the other women going by as "sugar puddin" - but evidently he got too chatty with the customers at the outdoor tables at the cafe out front, according to the the cafe owner, so she called the police and he got shooed away. He's staked out a new spot, about four blocks north on Michigan Avenue now. I see him every once in a while but Tony has been out front, by the subway entrance, for many years. And Tony filled me in on many of the details of his daily life - basically standing outside panhandling until he gets enough $ for a room at the men's hotel, which costs thirteen dollars a night (twelve sang better, so I made it twelve dollars a night - artistic license). Otherwise he's on the train, too. $2.25 can buy you a night's rest - not a good night's rest. They wake you up and chase you off every time the train hits the end of the line - but you can keep a roof of some sort over your head, and the heater works, and its a public place so you feel safer.

Tony has worked many odd jobs over the years - works a week at a time for the city cleaning up trash after grant park events like taste of Chicago and Lollapalooza.... the good news is now he's working in the violin shop on the fifth floor here, doing some handyman work. It's the most regular job he's had in a long time, he says. And I won't have to buy him handwarmers now - he's inside all day, and today's high temperature was 14 degrees. Tonight's low will be zero.

S. Werner

Chicago
Feb. 8th, 2011

Bill Janovitz and The House Where Nobody Lives

2011-02-08T16:03:00.000-08:00

Bill Janovitz, singer/songwriter and member of rock and roll band, Buffalo Tom (with Chris Colbourn and Tom Maginnis), has a cool blog that's called Part Time Man of Rock. (He also has been a good friend to Give US Your Poor, and for my money has the second greatest rock and roll voice ever after John Lennon.) On his blog, Bill does an acoustic cover song each week of whatever is inspiring him.
I mention it here on the Give US Your Poor blog because I came across a great piece he wrote along with a related cover song touching on the notion of home. Bill is also a real estate broker in Massachusetts and in the business of helping people get a home that meets their economic and emotional needs.

Check out what Bill writes on the subject and then listen to his rendition of the Tom Waits song, “The House Where Nobody Lives.”

You can find it by linking to his blog ("Part Time Man of Rock") and then on the right, under “Links,” click on “Cover of the Week 37 – The House Where Nobody Lives.” That will get you the blog entry, read it, love it, then at the bottom click on the sound file link, "House Where Nobody Lives Mp3," to hear the recording.

It’s a great read/listen on the power of home, and the idea that a house is not a home without love.

Thanks Bill!

Buffalo Tom performed at the Give US Your Poor Concert for Boston's Homeless in 2007 at the Strand Theatre. Click here to see a video of their performance. They also appear on the Give US Your Poor compilation CD (Appleseed Recordings).

Photo by Susan Young.

Major Findings in the State of Homelessness Report by Catherin An

2011-01-25T14:56:00.000-08:00

So here’s the headliner: the recession contributed to an increase in overall homelessness from 2008 to 2009, and family households experienced the largest percentage increase. The increases, coupled with worsening economic and demographic indicators of homelessness, paint an austere picture of The State of Homelessness in America (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2011).

Other Major Findings:

The nation’s homeless population increased by approximately 3 percent from 2008 to 2009. The largest percentage increase among subpopulations was in the number of family households experiencing homelessness, which increased by over 4 percent. In Mississippi, the number of people in homeless families increased by 260 percent.

The doubled up population increased by 12 percent to more than 6 million people from 2008 to 2009. In Rhode Island the number increased by 90 percent; in South Dakota the number more than doubled.

Nearly three-quarters of all U.S. households with incomes below the federal poverty line spent over 50 percent of monthly household income on rent. Forty states saw an increase in the number of poor households experiencing severe housing cost burden from 2008 to 2009.

California, Florida, and Nevada – states known to have been disproportionately impacted by the recent housing crisis – have high rates of homelessness and high rates of unemployment, foreclosure, housing cost burden, lack of insurance, and doubling up.

People in doubled up living situations, released from incarceration, and aged out of foster care are twice as likely to experience homelessness than the average poor person; these populations are twenty times as likely to experience homelessness as the average American.

So the verdict is: the state of homelessness isn’t great.

In fact, Nan Roman (President, NAEH) points out, “These findings project what depressed wages, stagnant unemployment, unrelenting housing cost burden, and the lagging pace of economic recovery really means: increases in homelessness and heightened risk of homelessness for more and more Americans.”

Which is why it’s time for us to renew our commitment to ending homelessness.

As the new Congress and the Administration work to revitalize the American economy, it’s our job to make it clear that must include homelessness interventions in the recovery strategy – clearly, as these data show, curbing and ending homelessness is a critical part of economic recovery.

Want more? Check out the report online.

Catherine An is the Media Relations and Communications Specialist at the Alliance. This blog first appeared on the National Alliance to End Homelessness Blog, About Homelessness.

The Gift (Part 2) by Madelaine Sayko

2010-12-28T08:26:00.000-08:00

Continued from previous blog...

I wonder too what will happen in January and February, in March or May or July - when the impetus of good cheer fades and the need does not. Homelessness is not seasonal; and in fact the summer months often see a rise in the number of families with no place to live. The reality is that we cannot gather enough clothes and food and toys and household items to really turn the tide; those things may sustain for a bit, but lives cannot really improve if there are no jobs, no health care and no places to live.

But even beyond that there is one aspect of homelessness and poverty that is usually overlooked, one aspect that may in many ways inform these other vital needs. What others often don’t realize is the simple fact of just how lonely a place poverty is.

Studies have shown that familiarity with others – be they of a different ethnicity, religious belief, race or economic status – is a key factor in reducing prejudice and improving collaboration and understanding. So long as the poor are ‘out there,’ so long as the giving is not face to face, it is hard to understand, support and enact the kind of underlying changes that are needed to make a lasting difference because one can remain apart, one can see this as an act of charity and not humanity.

Human interaction is an essential part of any life; it is precious, it is empowering, it gives us a sense of meaning, of worth. To be ignored, to be invisible is to be meaningless; yet this is what poverty does for it is brutally lonely.

The homeless cannot have you over to their house – they have no house. The poor cannot go out to dinner they do not have the money, they cannot meet their friends for coffee and chat about the struggles and joys of raising children for there is no place to meet, they cannot hang out to watch the game on TV with their pals for they have no TV and they have no pals. They do not go to museums or book clubs or the movies. They do not have a community for even when they try to form one it will change; these are the vicissitudes of their circumstance.

The poor lack the entryway to one of life’s most basic pleasures; that of camaraderie, of companionship. When you have no income and no place to live your life gets small and direct; every day is about surviving that day, about managing the crisis you are facing now, about shelter and food and holding on Not having an income doesn’t mean more leisure time; it means no leisure time.

To be poor means that your dreams are reduced to the smallest possible existence, that you learn to keep your own company, head low, barely noticed; its better that way. You keep your feelings to yourself even as you hunger not only for a meal but equally for something that you cannot find in the food pantry; a voice to answer yours, a conversation, a human touch. Relationships, time with others, the art of sharing, a hug to ease ones fears; these moments buoy the spirit and give hope, they heal and nurture but the truth is that they are absent for the poor. For them poverty is only heartbreakingly lonely.

So this is what I hope – I hope that after this holiday season passes by we do not give up, we do not think we are done, that the gap has been filled. I hope that we will keep our awareness alive, that we will keep making our material contributions, even if they don’t seem to fill the vast space of need.

But beyond that I also hope that we see people who are homeless, who are poor, who are in need as people, that we learn to cross our paths with them, to talk with them, to employ them, to break bread with them, to even make them our friends. I hope that we find a way to give of ourselves, to embrace those who are without so that we can truly recognize these folks as people and perhaps change the course of their lives and the course of our own.

Ms. Sayko is a senior manager in health care who also works to improve conditions for those who struggle with illness, injury, poverty and homelessness.

The photo, "Hope for the Holidays," by ewitsoe is used with permission.

The Gift (Part 1) by Madelaine Sayko

2010-12-26T08:33:00.000-08:00

The other day I was in my beloved NYC, walking down 5th Avenue. It was an intoxicating moment; NYC at Christmas time – the cacophony of visitors, fur-trimmed, leather adorned, polar fleeced and down puffy, the slightly frenzied madness of families with wandering glassy-eyed children, ingénues who insist no matter the weather on wearing spike heels, the ubiquitous hot dog vendors (with everything of course), the smoky scented chestnut roasters, carols swirling past in the air punctuated by ringing bells and voices laughing and talking in a zillion different tongues. The gleaming star up by 57th street…and then there is the tree, oh the tree with its glorious blanket of lights, surrounded by wooden soldiers and angels and ice-skaters, bursting with a sense of festivity. And the stores, recession? What recession, the stores glitter and gleam with bounty, silk and elegance, their windows filled with fantasy worlds.

Then I stopped in front of Harry Winston. In the window was a necklace of breathtaking beauty, the facets of diamonds literally danced with fire and light. But even as I admired the magnificence of its beauty a thought came to me: how many people could live in safe homes and have food to eat for the whole of next year for the price of that single object?

Now, I understand that there is not a scale here – a necklace or the lives of 50 people, and I don’t expect folks to deny themselves beauty or pleasure or even very expensive things. But I think its important to pay attention. In that same bit of holiday madness were a few folks on the street corners, dressed more soberly than the rest. They were selling a magazine written by the homeless, it was a struggle for them to make their voices heard. And on the home front I noticed that our local paper had a small announcement: 43 people died from homelessness this past year. Interestingly this was placed under a much larger article that spoke about a crime problem in another community. Three individuals had been attacked and the police commissioner was quoted as saying, “Three is a big number.” Well, 43 is a big number too – even if it’s “just” homeless people.

Yet I know that people do care, they do reach out. Indeed, upon reflection it seemed this year that there was an even greater multitude of groups and causes soliciting contributions, from high school food drives to replenish ravaged food banks, to corporate groups sponsoring families with no money for clothing or household goods, from collecting toys to simply raising funds. This holiday I have seen a growing league of individuals, all of whom are attempting, in various ways, to fill the expanding gap of need experienced by so many. And, despite the faltering economy, I have also seen an equally abundant number of folks responding, reaching into their pockets and trying to help.

Yet I have mixed feelings about all this goodwill. On one hand I am deeply moved by this grass roots enthusiasm, by the fierce determination and pervasive belief that “a small group of individuals can change the world,” that with enough cans and sweaters and teddy bears we can heal the heartbreak and overcome the struggle that grays out the joy in life for so many. I am also gratified and touched by the number of folks who give, who recognize their relative abundance, who are moved by compassion or a sense of injustice or by something. These acts, regardless of who is in what political office, regardless of individual beliefs, speak to an essential goodness in people. And in that I find hope.

But I am also saddened by these efforts, saddened because their very abundance speaks to how great the need is. Notwithstanding the insights of the economic pundits, the reality is there on the street, in the numbers of folks who need food, clothing, who cannot afford holiday presents or have no home in which to celebrate. The need is there in the empty food pantries and strapped agencies. And, unfortunately this mushrooming growth of helping agents is merely the representation of how the demand for help has outstripped the depth of available supports.

This piece is continued on the next blog entry.

Ms. Sayko is a senior manager in health care who also works to improve conditions for those who struggle with illness, injury, poverty and homelessness.

Community & Isolation at the Holidays

2010-12-22T12:28:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I had two remarkable and different experiences within 48 hours related to homelessness. The first brought a profound sense of community, the other, a profound sense of isolation.

My community experience took place in the Regent Theatre down the street from where I grew up. My rock and roll band had reunited (after 12 years, 7 collective children and, for some of us, serious hair loss) to play a benefit concert to help end homelessness. For me, it was a once in a lifetime experience: playing the music I love, with great friends, for a cause I believe deeply in, in a theater filled with family and old and new friends. My favorite teacher was even there in the front row! Throw in the connective power of music in the mix and, for me, the night became transcendent. It was a deep sense of connection in the warm theater, protected from the December winds outside, singing songs to welcome the holiday season.

Less than 48 hours later, I joined almost 300 people as part of the City of Boston’s Homeless Census run every year in December by Jim Greene of Mayor Menino’s Emergency Shelter Commission. It was very cold and late. We started at 9pm and many teams worked past midnight. The goal was to do an exhaustive count on one night and discover what services homeless people needed, whether they were veterans, and if they wanted to come in for the night (most refused) or maybe get an extra blanket.

I was part of the team that went with the State Police. The officers knew particular spots among the underbelly of the highways, amidst steel girders, cement overpasses, and carbon monoxide where homeless people stayed every night. Most people—like me—never dreamed of going to these spots, never mind sleeping and living there.

The first stop was under an overpass of Route 93, a major highway through the city of Boston. The police dropped us off, then stayed back as our team of 5 looked for people and called out, “Mayor’s Office for the Homeless Census, anyone here? We’re just counting folks and seeing if anyone needs services tonight.” Cars raced by on the highway near us. It was pitch black and cold. Seeing no one, I was ready to leave for the next spot when someone found Larry. Larry was up under the overpass tucked in an opening where no one could see him, in the dark, bundled up in two coats, a worn hat and gloves. When he realized he wasn’t in trouble, he opened up, told us some of his story. He didn’t like the shelters because they reminded him of prison. He had an ex-wife and kids who were doing fine but he hadn’t seen them in a while. We recorded some other details (no names on this census) and as we started to leave he stopped us. “How were your Thanksgivings?” “Fine,” one of us said. Larry said: “Mine was real good. I had 3 meals at St. Francis House, they even took my picture for the paper.” He was personable and articulate and eventually we had to go as our night was just starting. But what struck me was how isolated he was. Cut off from any social or physical nourishment.

I had been on such a high for 2 days – this sense of connection from the concert, a benefit for homelessness – and now I was reminded in the most direct way what the benefit was for.

We hear about mass foreclosures and layoffs and we wonder where people already on the edge go. Often they are so well hidden it’s easy to forget them, literally tucked away under the roads we speed over. In the dark. In the cold. Alone.

I realize too that despite some great strides in addressing homelessness, we have to do more and we have to do better.

Can you help Give US Your Poor in our efforts to do better with a donation, or host a house party with our help? You can make an online donation here.

Thank you for your support. Wishing you and your loved ones a happy and healthy New Year!

My best, John

Photo is "Highway" by lj lindhurst used with permission.

Thinking systemically about homelessness: What is our system's purpose?

2010-12-14T08:43:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about homelessness lately as a system, particularly studying systems dynamics, an approach to understanding complex systems. There are different ways to think about a system. Writer, teacher, Donella Meadows, says a system has three components: (1) parts, (2) interconnections, and (3) a purpose.

So if we are to examine all the forces, actions, structures, and attitudes that lead to high rates of homelessness as a "system," let's look first at the purpose of such a system in the ideal. I say the ideal, because I want to think here about the system of factors acting to prevent homelessness and create/support homes for all people in the U.S.*

For starters let's describe our purpose as something like, "to end homelessness in the U.S." That's a good start. But it's negative: ending not having a home. It's more inspiring to shoot for the creation of something, something positive. How do we put our purpose in positive terms? How about: "to create decent sustainable homes for all people in the United States." By sustainable I mean that people can live there for a very long time, not necessarily that it's green (although energy efficient would be great). How about, "decent homes all people can live in for a very long time." I specifically did not mention "home ownership" or "housing" or "American citizens." I want to keep it open to how people actually live in homes because I assume there will be some rental housing, some home ownership, some communal living, some boats, whatever. If people are happy in a community, have access to food, have good social networks and are sheltered from the weather, that is my hope - the type of home I'm less concerned with. And if someone is here illegally I still don't want them living in an alleyway...for their sake or mine.

Thinking systemically about any issue--and even determining a purpose--is a team sport. Because a system involves many people it takes collaboration to define the purpose, the vision for it, and even what the system is. I whipped the above purpose out alone on a laptop for this blog. Not the best process. There are hundreds of perspectives on this system I do not, could not, have. I need to share it with people that bring different perspectives of the system. No one person can have a view of the whole system at any one time, so collaboration is vital to capture those perspectives to get us closer to the truth of how it functions (or can function). Together we'll adjust, change, add, tweak, sleep on it, share, and adjust some more. We need to talk to homeless people, low income residents, market rate renters, teachers, housing developers, legislators, service providers, not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) folks, mainstream resource administrators, landlords, employers, public officials, health care providers/recipients, etc. I'd ask them, "What is the purpose you'd like to see for the system you're a part of that affects the creation of homes?"

We incorporate the wisdom of the group in the purpose statement. In a systemic process like this, getting the purpose statement right can take a day, a week, or longer. But it's vital and it's time well spent, like laying the foundation of a new house.

Next step (for next blog): identifying the parts of the system and their interconnections!

* My assumption here is that if we looked at the purpose of the actual system in place (as opposed to our ideal), it would not be to create homes for all people but rather to hide homelessness. Maybe it's unintended but that is the purpose of the system that's created. But, again, that's my assumption.

Photo is titled, "14 Purpose" by midoubleko and is used with permission.

National and state college scholarships available for HS students that are/were homeless (Deadline Oct 30!)

2010-10-26T13:41:00.000-07:00

One of the key factors in ending homelessness is education. This Saturday, October 30, is the deadline for homeless, formerly homeless, and at-risk high school students across the U.S., including Puerto Rico, to apply for a Horatio Alger Association college scholarship. Almost 1,000 scholarships are available this year.

Horatio Alger is a fantastic organization which exists to help students who have overcome hardship attend college. This year, through a partnership with Give US Your Poor: The Campaign to End Homelessness (part of UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies), they are targeting students that have experienced homelessness.

The relationship came about in 2007, when we were hosting, along with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, the Give US Your Poor Concert for Boston’s Homeless. The concert featured amazing artists that happened to have experienced homelessness performing with celebrity artists (Natalie Merchant, Mario Frangoulis, Mighty Sam McClain, Buffalo Tom). All artists that night were also on the Give US Your Poor CD (Appleseed Recordings) alongside many other homeless and celebrity artists.

During his performance, Greek tenor, Mario Frangoulis, welcomed 13-year-old Kyla Middleton on stage. Kyla is a top-notch student, articulate public speaker, sings beautifully on the CD (with Dan Zanes), and was homeless with her family for a year. Mario and Kyla sang a duet of John Lennon’s, “Imagine,” before the Dorchester audience. Tears. Applause. Standing ovation.

Then Mario had a special message for Kyla. She was being awarded a $20,000 college scholarship from The Horatio Alger Association. (See article.) That was a cool moment. So cool, that it inspired UMass Boston Chancellor, Dr. Keith Motley, to create a 4 year scholarship, given annually, to attend UMass Boston for a Mass. student that has experienced homelessness.

Which leads us to the scholarships offered this year: almost 1,000 total. Please encourage high school students you know that are graduating in the spring or summer of 2011 and have been, or are, homeless to apply for this scholarship. There are over 100 national scholarships worth $20,000 each as well as state-specific scholarships of $2,500-$10,000 depending on the state. For links to criteria and on-line application, click here. Deadline is Sat. October 30, 2010 and some paperwork (is collecting of supplementary materials is required, so make sure to allow time to assemble). If you can help get the word out in this final week to your network it is most appreciated.

Photo title is "College Graduation Smile" by portorikan via Creative Commons.

To give or not to give? by Abby Strunk

2010-09-09T05:58:00.000-07:00

A question I've been asked frequently since taking on the role of Executive Director of Street Sense is, "What should I do when I see a homeless person?" Many people reference a memory from their childhood when they were told by their mother or father not to give money because doing so enables the person. In other words giving a dollar might contribute to that individual remaining on the streets. I disagree. But, I also do not believe that giving money to a homeless person is the only action one can take.

While I've never been homeless myself, I don't know anyone who wants to or likes to feel invisible. But, that's how many of our homeless neighbors feel. I once heard a homeless man say, "I feel like a ghost, like people can see right through me."

One of my favorite yoga authors, Judith Lasater, suggests a mantra for daily living: I will do what I can in response to what is needed here. I recommend using this mantra as a guide when deciding how you can help someone who is struggling. Simply ask yourself, "What is it that I can do in response to what is needed here?" Can I carry granola bars in my bag to give out to someone who needs it? Can I ask a homeless person if I can buy them a cup of coffee or tea? Can I sacrifice a half-hour of my time to buy someone lunch?

Can I make a commitment to give my time, money or resources to an organization that is making a positive difference?

All of these are incredibly noble efforts. What is almost certain is that the next time you pass someone who is living on the streets, you can make eye contact, say "hello," ask how he/she is doing and wait to hear a response. Give someone who is homeless the gift of being seen and heard.

I draw inspiration from the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he spoke at the National Cathedral just before his death. He said: "We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be."

Please do what you can in response to what is needed.

Abby Strunk is the Executive Director of Washington, D.C.'s Street Sense, a 16-page biweekly street newspaper that offers economic opportunities for people experiencing homelessness through a newspaper that elevates voices and encourages debate on poverty and injustice.

At the base of the pyramid with Paul Polak (Part II of II)

2010-08-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

(Continued from previous blog.)

Some facts Paul shared:

(1) Of the 90% of the customer base in the world, 2.75 bil living on less than $2 a day,
(2) 1.2 bil living on less than $1 day,
(3) 800 million (maybe 850 m) live on small farms depending on agriculture,
(4) There are 525 million farms in world (85% are less than 5 acres)
(5) Avg size of farm in Africa is 4 acres.

Given the above, Paul argues that small farm prosperity is the key to ending rural poverty.

Marketing is a critical element. There is no mass media at the BOP; people cannot read or write. So at IDE they recruited troubadours to write songs and skits with marketing messages imbedded. Bollywood movies were produced every year, they hired a top director and a top male and female lead and adopted familiar Indian plots: boy meets girl, they want to get married, there is a near suicide, then... INTERMISSION!! The actors talk of the benefits of low cost, effective pumps for poor farmers. They put customers on treadle pumps and after intermission, the movie continues where the father tells the boy to buy a treadle pump and boy and girl get married.

Polak says there are three (3) great myths of poverty eradication that must be overcome:

1. We can donate people out of poverty.
2. We can end poverty through GDP economic growth.
3. Multinationals as they are now will end poverty.

He also suggests, instead, 12 Steps for Ending Poverty:

1. Go to where action is
2. Talk to the people who have the problem and actually listen to what they have to say (interview at least 25 people)
3. Learn everything about the specific context
4. Think and act big (minimally reach 1 million people)
5. Think like a child (children have no limit to their thinking but get to the heart)
6. See and do the obvious (rural farms)
7. If someone invested it you don’t have to
8. Design for critical price targets
9. Design for measurable improvement
10. Work off of a practical 3 year plan
11. Keep learning from your customers
12. Stay positive: don’t be distracted by what other people think.

Moving forward in his quest, Paul has left IDE (although still on their board). He has launched another non-profit (D-Rev) – fomenting a design revolution to reach the other 90% of the population not targeted by marketers, aka the BOP. He is also launching a for-profit (Windhorse International) that takes on projects and influences how big business designs prices and markets its products. Its mission is to earn remarkable profits by serving the world’s poorest customers.

Paul started his career in poverty alleviation by talking to homeless people in Colorado where he lives and at the time worked with a friend of mine. We talked of our mutual friend then I asked him if he felt his approach to ending poverty would also work in developed economies. "Absolutely!" he said. "All the rules apply here too." I'm not convinced of the latter (yet) but I was very convinced by his approach and results at the BOP.

Paul Polak has done 1000+ interviews (all of which he records himself) with poor people around the globe, mostly with poor farmers at the base of the pyramid. His very first interview was with a homeless man in Colorado.

At the base of the pyramid with Paul Polak (Part I of II)

2010-07-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

This entry is about global extreme poverty. It looks at solutions that may have implications about homelessness in the U.S. which is where Paul Polak's interest in poverty began.

Paul Polak is in his mid seventies, witty and funny, and has an old school charm that is engaging and even comforting as he throws his revolutionary ideas and stunning facts at you. If they made a Paul Polak doll I would buy one. A psychologist by training, Paul has spent the last 25+ years working at alleviating extreme poverty for those living at the "base of the pyramid (BOP)" and released a book in 2008 called, Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail. I heard him speak at a breakout session at Pop!Tech.

The Base (or bottom) of the Pyramid is an expression popularized in C.K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits (2005). The BOP is the 4 billion people, the majority of human beings, that together make up a huge potential market. Prahalad believes "if we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepeneurs and value-conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open up" for both poor people and businesses. He adds that serving the BOP will "demand innovations in technology, products/services, and business models, and require large firms to work collaboratively with NGOs and local government." This collabrative approach is a big part of IA's Accelerator Expedition.

Polak is all about the BOP. The NGO he founded, IDE, has helped 17 million people out of extreme poverty in 25 years. Its approach is to apply business models to help extremely poor entrepeneurs with innovative design of their products and to creatively and effectively bring those products to market.

He believes that there needs to be a revolution in how multinational corporations design and market to people at the BOP. In his Wed. presentation, after Bunker Roy showed the amazing work and ingenuity of poor, illiterate women, young and old, and others were doing at the Barefoot College, Polak asked, "What if we had a million amazing barefoot people, and designed a package that a multinational corporation develop as an offering to them as franchisees? What if you franchised these 1 million folks and had a product they could sell to poor people. There would be money to be made for investors, for the franchisees, and products that could help the poorest people out of poverty (e.g., efficient lighting, watering systems for small farmers, cheaper electricity, etc.)

"We need a revolution where you can create a revenue stream for the poor person and the parent company," Paul exclaimed. He talked about combining vital products with "the ruthless pursuit of affordability" for true sustainables solutions. So, embrace the profit model and we'll create a true revolution when big business enters the market place for poor people because it makes money. Once there exists a workable model, the marketplace responds and soon big corporations start tweaking products that have a real benefit to poor consumers. The world runs on bottom line process, he says.

For part II of II of this blog click here.

Identifying High-Cost High-Need Homeless People by Dan Flaming

2010-06-17T06:49:00.000-07:00

My colleagues and I at the Economic Roundtable in Los Angeles, along with the L.A. Co. Chief Executive Office, recently released a study titled, "Tools for Identifying High-Cost, High-Need Homeless Persons." This paper provides tools for identifying homeless individuals with acute needs, the highest public costs when homeless, and the greatest reduction in public costs when housed.

We analyzed 10,193 homeless, destitute single adults in Los Angeles County – 1,007 of whom exited homelessness by entering supportive housing and were able to link records for these individuals across multiple public agencies, providing crucial information about their characteristics and the public costs for health, mental health, justice system, and welfare services they used. Supportive housing is permanent, affordable housing with on-site case management and additional on-site, or readily available, services such as health, mental health and substance abuse rehabilitation.

When we rank the overall population of homeless single adults by their public costs and break them into ten groups of equal size (deciles), we find that most have comparatively low public costs (an average of $710 per month). But the most expensive ten percent is an average of $8,083 per month, because of extensive use of hospitals and medical and mental health jails in that group. This ten percent of accounts for 56 percent of all public costs for homeless single adults.

When information about a person’s recent history is available, it is possible to combine multiple characteristics of a homeless adult to estimate his or her likelihood of being in the highest decile. No single characteristic defines the tenth cost decile, but by using combinations of key characteristics it is possible to identify these individuals with reasonable certainty. That is useful information for both the homeless person and the public entity working to help him or her.

We developed two tools for combining multiple characteristics to identify high need individuals. The first is a look-up table that shows results from profiling groups within the study population based on seven characteristics and determining the proportion of each group that is in the tenth cost decile, as well as in the combined ninth and tenth deciles. The second is a calculating tool derived from statistical analysis that uses sixteen pieces of information to determine the probability that an individual is in the highest cost decile. You can access these Excel spreadsheet tool by clicking here.

There were some surprises that resulted from this study. I was most surprised by the range of variation in public costs for homeless individuals, with over half getting by with minimal subsistence-level help. Also surprising was the level and frequency of crises that engage the attention of hospitals and jails in the lives of the individuals with the highest public costs. Their lives are very precarious without housing and greatly stabilized with housing.

Our study also has seven major conclusions and recommended action steps. Please visit the Economic Roundtable website to download the full report as well as the tools we created.

Daniel Flaming is the President of the Economic Roundtable in Los Angeles.

Second photo by Ed Yourdon.

What, Me Homeless? by Delmark Goldfarb

2010-05-18T13:26:00.000-07:00

According to statistics, I am living way below the poverty line. I might not have known this without those good ol’ numbers. These statistics help me gain a reflection of myself in accordance to a standard of measure I might not have known otherwise.

Homeless? What does that mean? Is it the opposite of “homed?”

I thought I was just like everybody else...I tote around a laptop computer, and a cell phone and I have a taste for triple espressos. But I don’t have one of those roof-topped structures filled with furniture, gizmos, closets, windows and a doorway.

I’m portable.

My ancestors were nomads.

Nevertheless, I’m one of those persons who listens to such descriptive words and attempts to forge them into meaningful thought. When I think of “home,” I imagine a comfort zone wherein one feels most relaxed, at ease and in tune with the immediate environment. I believe that many people feel “at home” for the most part when they are partaking of their most rewarding activity, be it the workshop, the playing field, on stage or quite frequently a particular place of reflection such as a golf course or fishing hole.

If it weren’t for those statistics, I would never have applied the term “homeless” to myself. But a lot of us are getting snared by those numbers as of late. A wave of layoffs and foreclosures has introduced many hard-working people to study up on their couch-surfing skills. Even those with jobs are taking advantage of food banks and thrift stores.

One statistic that does come to mind when trying to get a handle on how times are changing is the fact that a majority of college attendees now return to their parents’ house upon graduation. Does camping out with Mom and Dad absolve the grown child of the negative sting carried by the term “homeless?”

I grew up under the influence of the ‘60s, in the era of “Route 66,” Kerouac’s “Dharma Bums,” and television shows such as “The Fugitive,” where the protagonist could ramble coast-to-coast picking up odd jobs here and there as they explored new vistas while mingling with people and cultures otherwise unknown to them.

We called it “day labor.” Show up in a town someplace, find the nearest factory, farm or warehouse and dig into some up-close-and-personal sweat equity. A day’s work earned a day’s pay, which would usually be enough to buy some food, rent a room and/or buy some gasoline if need be.

The secret was to simply keep going forward, keeping the momentum going and the wind in your sails. If you landed in some miserable sweat shop, then you made the best of it and got the heck out of there. In this manner you learned about those not so lucky, who’d be left behind in the life you’d only had a taste of.

Some would call this a way to learn to “count your blessings.” I just saw it as a reality-based standard of measure. Sort of like a politicians’ breezy “how am I doing?” quip. We can figure it out for ourselves if our eyes are open and our minds free.

“Homeless?” From what angle does it appear that way? Your perspective might not match mine. But that’s okay with me. I’m on the move.

Songwriter, bicyclist, movie extra, photographer, grandfather, deltiologist and coast-to-coast portable man, Delmark Goldfarb is known for his activism and good humor. He founded an annual food drive/music festival now in its twenty-third year (Waterfront Blues Festival), which has raised tons of donated items and millions of dollars for food banks. He is featured in the newly-released jug band documentary "Chasin' Gus' Ghost" and appears on the Give Us Your Poor compilation CD (Appleseed Recordings) accompanied on harmonica by John Sebastian.

Do the rights thing? by Keith Bender

2010-04-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

Do the right thing, I've heard people say this like some mantra that guarantee's the desired outcome. As if you can always know what that is? The right thing to do is based on what? Some spiritual connection threading its way through our reality helping those who ask? Or boring ethics we ignored in school? Maybe it’s a new form of wishing people good luck when we really don't know what else to say. More probably, I hope it's an indication that we are advocating for behavior that we all deem is acceptable. Like putting people and the planet first before profits and other things like that.

Doing the Human Rights thing takes a little more knowledge than the ever-pleasing but self-centered world renown sentence nearly everyone can blurt out..... that pursuit of happiness thing. The proper context allows us to reclaim and gather our strength away from the noise we live with in our heads, competing forces struggling for our attention. When was the last time you took time to review your rights and a little history surrounding their creation? A tour of Wikipedia may very well restore some hope in humanity if you are currently feeling disenfranchised or outcast by the Financial Racism this consumer oriented object addicted society has nurtured. You know the one I mean. The place where no place is okay if you don't have an address with legit sleeping quarters attached to it. Where you know something’s wrong but you just can't put your finger on it. The place where the Police enforce property rights as precedent over human needs.

"WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF EVIDENT. THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL,

THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS,

THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF SAFETY AND HAPPINESS."

George Mason in the Virginia Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1 uses "the pursuit of Safety and Happiness." Thomas Jefferson used the combined reference again in his Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence. Safety somehow gives way to Life and Liberty along the way and by the time it reaches Madison's desk we cover the uncovered expanse of human needs and rights in the line:

SHALL NOT BE CONSTRUED TO DENY OR DISPARAGE OTHERS RETAINED BY THE PEOPLE.

The "Others" is rights not spelled out for reasons obvious once the context of enumeration is understood. We pride ourselves in response to everyday crisis. Begin to falter when major catastrophe like Katrina or 9/11 come along and Chronic problems of safety like Homelessness seem to somehow provide a negative payback we can use to feel more fortunate about as we play the consumer game described at the Story of Stuff.

The American Dream needs its counterpart, The American NightMare? NOT!!! As polite as I can be I admit to being one of those Financial Racists I complained about earlier. A denial mechanism? A way to allow or permit this behavior to continue while I went about my life unaffected by and disengaged from feelings that would have told me something is really wrong here. Too caught up in the CAPITALISM game to realize that falling off the playing board had no real way back.

If Ending Homelessness is really our goal then like a Gold miner knowing that you have to clear a route by blasting away rock, our last 10 feet that stand in the way of the gold, the Safety clarification, is that rock needing blasting. This clarification of safety as a right must be seen as a mandate. It really is time we did the right thing for our homeless.

Keith Bender lives in West Springfield, VA where he is a writer, blogger, advocate, and "new wave old hippy." He previously was a realtor and owner of a homestaging business. Keith was recently homeless for over a year.

History and Homelessness by Howard Zinn

2010-02-16T12:40:00.000-08:00

Historian, teacher, author Howard Zinn died Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at the age of 87. Mr. Zinn was a scholar advisor to Give US Your Poor for the planning process of the documentary film by the same name about homelessness in the United States. Below is an excerpt of the statement he submitted to the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities in support of that project (we worked on sections together, any clunky stuff is clearly mine). We post now in remembrance and appreciation of his work and generosity. - JM

BY HOWARD ZINN: ...I have always been interested in examining history from the perspective of the rank and file. Most history books give the perspective from the top: from elected officials, industrialists, people of power and importance. Indeed, the sources are much more available for this approach: journals kept by educated men and women, documents, official biographies.

But there are also sources, though more difficult to find, which represent the conditions of life, and even the thinking, of those at the bottom end of society. It is the history of these people which needs very much to be told. And while important decisions are made by the authorities in any culture, the momentum for these decisions usually comes from below, from the movements of oppressed people.

The "homeless" are among the most neglected of this underclass, those left out of traditional histories of the United States. We get rare glimpses of these people in history through a folk song or a biographer's description of George Washington passing the homeless on a trip through Philadelphia. The impression is left that there were no "homeless" until the Great Depression, that this temporary condition of widespread poverty was remedied by the New Deal, and that it only reappeared in the 1980s. That view would lead us away from understanding the structural base of homelessness, as a permanent phenomenon in the nation's life. The result would be complacency and inaction.

The Declaration of Independence says we are all created equal, that we all have rights that cannot be taken from us - the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But these rights have never been applied to the homeless, and this film should lead people to think about that. The right to pursue happiness is meaningless if people do not have the resources for a happy life: food, a home, health care, satisfying work.

The Bill of Rights operates differently for rich and poor. The right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure is different for a family living in a mansion than for a family living in a housing project, or out on the street. We should look beyond the Bill of Rights to the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says that all people, everywhere in the world, are entitled to work and decent wages, to holidays and vacations, to food, clothing, housing and medical care, to education, to child care and maternal care.

There have been books, articles and films that examine homelessness. But they have not had a significant effect on the national consciousness. A film on homelessness in America would make an important contribution to the history of the underrepresented in American society.

My role as advisor is to help ensure that "Give Us Your Poor", as a historical work, presents the perspective of those Americans who have been struggling simply to have a place to live. My hope is that the film will raise consciousness about homelessness, thus leading viewers away from the notion that it is an acceptable part of American life. By looking at homelessness in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we may learn something about how to deal with it today.

This film is a humanities project because it is steeped in history. It is not simply the history of public policy, but the history of people struggling for a place to lay their head and fight for dignity. It is the history of the American people and their answers over time to the question: "How do we treat our fellow citizens when they are most vulnerable?" To answer this question is to get at the heart of a humanist approach to the problems of society.

For more information on Howard Zinn's career and life visit http://www.howardzinn.org.

Lynne Twist and the Opportunity within the Economic Crisis

2010-01-31T09:36:00.000-08:00

Lynne Twist is the author of The Soul of Money and the co-founder of the global NGO, The Pachamama Alliance. The Pachamama Alliance is a partnership between the indigenous Achuar Tribe of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest and people worldwide working to save the Ecuadorian rainforest and preserve the Achuar culture.

Lynne talks and writes often about the profound abundance in life that we often overlook as we instead focus on our scarcity. It is a monetary perspective as well as a spiritual one and impacts our actions and happiness.

She recently created a short video talking about this idea as it relates to the current global economic crisis. I encourage you to check it out (it's about 3 minutes long) by clicking on the link at the bottom of this blog entry.

In the video, Lynne says, “If we can see that what's happening is a truing, is a recalibration, it helps us see how to deal with it on a personal basis. It doesn't mean it's not going to be painful; it doesn't mean that there's not suffering; it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be paying close attention to how we use money."

“But if we look on a larger scale, if we step back from the personal trauma, the fear, that we're all caught in and that the media's caught in, and see that we're living at a time of enormous excess that has created financial structures and systems that are inappropriate and completely unsustainable and now they're falling apart, we’ll know that, at the end of this, we're all going to be better for it, because we're going to be in a truthful, more accurate, more integrous relationship with ourself, with money and with the resources on this planet. We can get through this.”

This has great implications for addressing epidemic homelessness, which has been for decades now the carnage of an unsustainable system. Click here to view the video

Lynne has been a great friend to Give US Your Poor.

The Gift of Music & Oneself at Christmas: Michael Severens at PIP Shelter

2010-01-13T08:37:00.000-08:00

The week before Christmas 2009, Give US Your Poor organized a performance by classical cellist Michael Severens of the l`Orquesta Sinfonica de la Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico at the PIP Shelter in Worcester, MA. Michael grew up in Worcester down the street from PIP and was home visiting from Mexico for the holidays. Attendance was sparse, the weather was bone chilling outside, but Severens was in fine form. He had played the night before at Worcester's Longest Night service and was moved to tears hearing about the people who lost their lives in 2009 due to homelessness, proof that homelessness is not only a moral tragedy for US all but a death sentence for too many. A number of PIP guests that evening thanked Severens for taking the time to come and perform and for thinking of them. Many talked of their own musical talent. They walked him to the door, thanking him again and again, and wishing him Merry Christmas. I was with him and struck deeply again that I was off to a warm home and these new friends were off to a crowded emergency shelter for the night, for the week, for the year.

Many thanks to the staff and guests at PIP shelter for welcoming Michael and his cello that cold night in Worcester, and many thanks to Mr. Severens for reminding me of the meaning of giving at Christmas. May we all carry that forth throughout the year! Peace out.

PIP Shelter is part of the South Middlesex Opportunity Council (S.M.O.C.)

My Name Is Sam McClain

2009-12-21T06:46:00.000-08:00

Hello Everybody,

My name is Sam McClain and I was born to a family of thirteen brothers and sisters (I’m, the fifth in line) in 1943 in Winnsboro, LA.

I am very humbled that I was asked to speak a little on this subject that has been with mankind since the beginning of time. The subject is HOMELESSNESS, but I think it is more than just homelessness. I think it is also about the whole person or family – the whole body, mind and spirit.

Before I get too deep into this, let me first say that I also believe that in some strange, painful and wonderful way, it all works together for Good. We must someday come to understand that we are all Human/Spiritual beings, made in the image of a Mighty, Mighty, Powerful and Loving God. He said two simple (well, it seems simple to me now :o) things. He said to love Him first, to love each other and everything else would be OK. If we just did these two, we would see a change in the world – like no other time in history. I believe that with all that I am or ever will be. I won’t preach, but just pause and think!!

As I am thinking on this I realize that there were thirteen children and that was the age I was (13) when I left that home. I had a step father whom I love (and still do) even though he was abusive. You see, I never knew my natural father and I was in need of a father so I picked him, but he didn’t, and couldn’t, know how to love me. I understand, looking back, that he did what he knew to do. Hi hit me a lot with his walking stick (he walked with a limp and used a cane) and plucked me in the head with his hammer if I wasn’t nailing right when I was working with him. He was a hard man, but the beautiful part of this story happened when I went to visit him before he died. That was a great moment for both of us. I could see in his eyes that he was glad to see me – I knew that he was seeing that in my eyes, too. I was no longer angry and I love this old man now more than then. :o) That’s why I love God.

Forgive me if I jump all over the place in my writing this. But, you know, my life has been quite painful from time to time and I still hurt from the pain and I’m sorry for what people go through today. I still have Great Hope. We have a Great God and we are a great people.

I found that when I was homeless, one of the most painful things was the way people treated me. One of the most uplifting things would be when someone would just speak to me.

Ladies, Gents, Boys and Girls, we have to learn how to love one another. We must help each other along he way, as we all know, we can’t depend on the government. So we must “Look in the mirror” and ask, “What can I do”?

Thank you and God Bless You,

Sam McClain

Mass. State Senator, Jamie Eldridge on Homelessness

2009-11-11T08:44:00.000-08:00

For me, homelessness is one of those issues that I’ve been aware of since before high school, but never really got into my head until the spring of 2001. That spring, I was working as a Legal Aid lawyer for Merrimack Valley Legal Services in Lowell. Most of my work as a lawyer was focused on representing poor people being evicted from their apartments. It was generally a satisfying job, as I was able to delay evictions so that the tenants had enough time to move to another apartment or move in with members of their families living elsewhere.

In April 2001, I received a call from the city of Lowell, indicating that a sewer pipe had broken in the middle of the night in the basement of an apartment complex, forcing the city to evacuate the entire building. The tenants were scattered all over the city, but many of them had been put up by the landlord at a nearby Motel 6. For the most part, the belongings of these families, mostly poor, were irretrievable due to the damage made by the broken sewer pipe. Given this overnight reality, these families needed legal assistance to determine what damages they might be owed.

I raced over to the Motel 6 with a colleague of mine, and we began interviewing each of the families, one by one. Each family had a small hotel room, and while the children considered the stay at the hotel quite an adventure, you could see the stress already rising on the faces of the mothers and fathers, thinking about their next steps.

Unfortunately, the landlord of the building was already thinking of his next step. While I began preparing the housing court cases for the families in order to compensate them for losing everything in the apartment accident, the landlord sent his associates to the different motels and hotels where his former tenants were staying, and offered to pay them anywhere between $1-3,000 to sign a disclaimer waiving their rights to go to court over their lost property. Half of the families, scared about where they would live once their hotel stays ended, took the payoffs, which would barely pay for a month’s rent in most apartments available in Lowell.

Focusing my energies on the families that held out for a fairer settlement, I began calculating the true losses of these families, to be ready for the trial. I thought we had a good case, and it was a real pleasure working with these families, all of them hard-working and just wanting to get a fair shake from a raw deal. Because the landlord rebuffed my initial offer of a settlement, after consulting with my clients, we went to trial.

The Lowell Housing Court, located inside the Lowell Superior Court, a tall, grey forbidding building, is always chaotic as attorneys, tenants and landlords meet to discuss their cases. Most housing cases go first to a Housing Mediator, to see if a settlement can be reached and avoid a potentially costly trial before a housing judge. Unfortunately, this often means that both landlords and tenants are pressured into giving up their day in court in exchange for a settlement.

That day was no different, and what it meant was my bringing an offer to the families that was less than my estimate of their actual losses. After all, these families had lost all of their belongings in just a few chaotic hours, had no apartment to return to, and were still dealing with how their lives had changed in just one week. I pulled up a chair to one of the long tables in the courthouse, explaining to one man, an immigrant from Central America, about what the offer was on the table.

The offer, while substantial, would not make up for the families’ losses, and the husband began to cry. The pressure was too much, as I envisioned him calculating how far he and his family could go with the money being offered. His children, still treating the past week as an adventure, suddenly grew quiet as they observed their father, so strong, trembling with uncertainty about his next steps.

That, for me, was when I finally realized what it meant to be homeless. No control over your life, with inadequate resources, and the unbearable trauma of thinking where your family would sleep that night. When I think about the different resources, programs, and budgets that Massachusetts provides to prevent homelessness throughout the Commonwealth, I think of that one family struggling to maintain their dignity in that courthouse, not knowing where they were going to live. -- Jamie Eldridge

Social Entrepeneurship and U.S. Homelessness

2008-07-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

There is a fast growing movement called social entrepeneurship taking place in the world today. Simply put, social entrepeneurship means applying business models to social problems and organizations that make a social impact. So, instead of getting a government grant to fund activities to, say, bring light to extremely poor people in Cambodia, they create a business plan to do it. The plan answers questions like, What is the need of poor people in Cambodia for light? What are the residual benefits of having that light? What are the costs to provide that light? Are there innovative technologies, or, innvoative uses of old technologies that can help provide light? What will the market bear (what can poor people afford to pay)? Sometimes the answers are surprising. The collective purchasing power of poor people collectively can be a substantial amount of money. If a business markets to them they can make a lot of money collectively while offering a very affordable product--in this example, light. Social entrepeneurs are often not in the business of making money--that is not their end goal, to maximize profit--rather to help people. They use a business model to make money to make their service sustainable.

There are different versions of the above model among social entrepeneurs. Some are purely a business models, some rely on subsidizing some part of the costs from either government or foundations.

Most of the models I have seen in this field address people living in extreme poverty, or if not extreme (living on $1 US a day or less) then in very poor countries in the developing world. Why hasn't this model been applied to homelessness in the United States to a wide degree? [It has been applied but on rare occasions.] Is it because in developing world the difference between the consumer (extremely poor peopel) and the entrepeneur is so great, that the differnence in scope makes applying the business model more easily doable? In the U.S. it is the descrepency is not as great. Housing doesn't cost $500 it costs more like $30,000 for very low income housing.

Give US Your Blog

2008-03-25T13:58:00.000-07:00

In 2005 I wrote Jim Musselman of Appleseed Recordings to see if he was interested in partnering on a benefit music CD about homelessness. Music has connected me to the world in profound ways particularly since I became addicted to a little known group called the Beatles. That led to love affairs with Bruce Springsteen, and eventually starting a band called the Wait with friensds (our mothers bought most of the Cds we created). I also became increasingly sucked into the issue of homelessness as I met more and more homeless people, and researched the issue through my work at UMass Boston. Marrying the two was unavoidable, but how? Little did I know that Musselman had also been profoundly affected by music, particularly folk music, people like Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger.

Give US Your Poor Concert - Celebrity and Homeless Artists

2007-12-19T13:59:00.001-08:00

In November 2007, a number of artists that appear on the Give US Your Poor CD joined together for a concert to benefit Give US Your Poor and 10 homeless service organizations. Headlining the show were Natalie Merchant, Buffalo Tom, Mario Frangoulis, and Mighty Sam McClain. Other artists that appeared included Julia Tripp, Cheryl Middleton, Michael Sullivan, Chris Holzer, Montreville Blakely, Julia Dinsmore, and Nichole Cooper. The show was put on in partnership with the Mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino, and sponsored by Ipswitch Co., Fannie Mae Foundation, and a number of co-sponsors. The show was proceeded by a photo exhibit of homeless portraits by photographer, Lynn Blodgett.